VIP - Details?

Phial

Hello, newly registred couldn't find much info about it but what do we know about the VIP system?
Wondering due to permanent VIP rewards for Eternal Package.

Regards

Lohen

Hello and welcome @Phial

very good question^^
the devs promised very highly, but you dont get any pay to win and the vip status is cosmetic and convinience

if i remember correctly, you get the carpenter
someone who will care for your house while you are not there
houses seem to have a decay effect over longer time as well as animal attacks in the wild

Razvan

VIP membership is a monthly subscription planned to be priced around $10/month. It provides the following perks:

Discounts on Store items
Unique cosmetic rewards for accumulated VIP time
Other vanity rewards we might think of in the future
Additional study slots
Increased Knowledge Point gains

source

Phial

@Razvan said in VIP - Details?:

VIP membership is a monthly subscription planned to be priced around $10/month. It provides the following perks:

Discounts on Store items
Unique cosmetic rewards for accumulated VIP time
Other vanity rewards we might think of in the future
Additional study slots
Increased Knowledge Point gains

source

Wouldn't "increased knowledge point gains" be considered a pay 2 win since you'll have an advantage on the points you can attribute faster than others?

humerus

@Phial

"increased knowledge point gains"

This just means that you will be able to employ new skills faster, you will still be unlocking and grinding for them just like everyone else.
Think Albion: first you need to get the kill count requirement (not affected by VIP) and them unlock the ability by using knowledge points (affected by VIP). Or that's just the general consensus on how it works

Kralith

@Phial it is not a pay to win, since you get enough knowledgepoints to unlock your skills you need.
The increased knowledge points is promised to be very slightly and just made for people who are completionists in a long run.

I bet this plus will don't play a role in early game, it is more supposed to be like (imagined knowledge situation!) you can learn how to use a flower in a receipe to make a nice flower bouquet, it is all you need to know to get your love stucked on you, but with the extra Knowledgepoints you will be able to learn to use red, blue and purple flowers too.

PeachMcD

I'm thinking of VIP subscription as a player's way to say 'devs need to eat too'

I'm really happy to plonk down for a B2P where I get everything I need w/o having to be constantly dinged for microbuys to do a highly rewarded event or get a scarce but important crafting resource.

The VIP subscription won't change the odds in anyone's favor, but I'm happy that it will show on my toons that I am supporting the game and the staff needed to run it.

Tuoni

@Phial said in VIP - Details?:

@Razvan said in VIP - Details?:

VIP membership is a monthly subscription planned to be priced around $10/month. It provides the following perks:

Discounts on Store items
Unique cosmetic rewards for accumulated VIP time
Other vanity rewards we might think of in the future
Additional study slots
Increased Knowledge Point gains

source

Wouldn't "increased knowledge point gains" be considered a pay 2 win since you'll have an advantage on the points you can attribute faster than others?

It sure can be considered, depending of course how big is that advantage. It does not sound that bad but I would say it might be somewhere in the light grey area.

Tuoni

@humerus said in VIP - Details?:

@Phial

"increased knowledge point gains"

This just means that you will be able to employ new skills faster, you will still be unlocking and grinding for them just like everyone else.
Think Albion: first you need to get the kill count requirement (not affected by VIP) and them unlock the ability by using knowledge points (affected by VIP). Or that's just the general consensus on how it works

Well Albion Online is basically unplayable without the monthly Premium so it can be considered as P2W or in other hand it can be considered as a subscription game. However, if I compare Fractured's VIP to Albion's Premium, Fractured model looks so much better and tolerable.

humerus

@Tuoni We don't have enough information to really slap a tag on this VIP subscriprtion right now, so as with most things Fructured, waiting for more dev info bombs is our only way out unfortunately. ':(

Tuoni

@humerus said in VIP - Details?:

@Tuoni We don't have enough information to really slap a tag on this VIP subscriprtion right now, so as with most things Fructured, waiting for more dev info bombs is our only way out unfortunately. ':(

Well we have this what @Razvan posted, and on top of that there might be that carpenter to fix your house from decaying. What I remember from previous conversations the VIP package is planned generally to be quite calm what it comes to P2W or P2Advantage and really just focus on cosmetics and QoL features. I have managed to push the Albion's quite horrible system(*) out from my mind so I guess I can easily live with the Fractured model at least next 100 years.

(*) Those who do not know, in Albion premium package is a must because the benefits are so damn good. On top of that you benefit to have several characters and even several accounts and one premium is only for one character. And finally you can buy cash shop currency (Gold) with real money and you can trade Gold for ingame currency silver, with silver you can buy almost everything from progression to items.

@Razvan said in VIP - Details?:

VIP membership is a monthly subscription planned to be priced around $10/month. It provides the following perks:

Discounts on Store items
Unique cosmetic rewards for accumulated VIP time
Other vanity rewards we might think of in the future
Additional study slots
Increased Knowledge Point gains

source

humerus

@Tuoni Actually the fact that you can buy Albion silver for irl money may be considiered a good thing. The fact that you can buy Premium with silver (as far as I can remember) means that it's already tied to real currency and if the game didn't offer to buy silver itself, there would be a lot of RWT (Real World Trading) problems that are 100x times worse.
Not to say that Albion's monetization is good, it's just not $:\$

KairosVal

@Phial said in VIP - Details?:

@Razvan said in VIP - Details?:

VIP membership is a monthly subscription planned to be priced around $10/month. It provides the following perks:

Discounts on Store items
Unique cosmetic rewards for accumulated VIP time
Other vanity rewards we might think of in the future
Additional study slots
Increased Knowledge Point gains

source

Wouldn't "increased knowledge point gains" be considered a pay 2 win since you'll have an advantage on the points you can attribute faster than others?

The short version is: VIP does give an advantage in power level. But it's short lived and not massive. It'll give the VIP an edge, but not neccesarily an overwhelming advantage.

I wanted to give a little more detail on top of what other people have discussed.

Suppose four players: Alice, Bob, Charlotte, and Daniel. All three have the same race and attributes. For simiplicity, lets assume they have the same gear, and they are all pursuing the same "standard loadout" build of skills and talents that their characters will use in the game.

Alice has done enough in-world exploration to unlock many skills. She has earned just enough knowledge points to learn a full loadout of skills and talents that she wants for her "standard" character loadout, but no more. Let's assume this happens at 10,000 KP for the sake of the example. Alice has also unlocked more skills though exploration than she's got the knowledge points to learn.

Bob hasn't played the game as much as Alice. He's only explored enough to unlock a sub-set of the skills Alice has learned. He also only has 5,000 KP to learn the skills he has unlocked. He hasn't gotten to the point yet that he can complete a full loadout of abilities.

Charlotte has played the game just as much as Alice, but is also a VIP. Charlotte has unlocked all the same skills as Alice through exploration, but because of her VIP she has earned (again, just inventing the numbers) 15,000 KP. Charlotte can learn more skills and talents than Alice. However: Charlotte cannot equip more skills than Alice at any one time, because Charlotte and Alice have the same number of memory points, so they have the same ceiling for the number of skills and talents that can be memorized at any one time.

Daniel has played the game just as much as Bob has, but is also a VIP. Daniel has explored enough to unlock only a sub-set of the skills that Alice and Charlotte have unlocked. He has more KP that Bob at 7,500, and he can learn a few more skills and talents than Bob can. But still not enough to complete an entire character loadout.

In that scenario, the power levels regarding the "standard loadout" are:

Charlotte (VIP) and Alice (non-VIP) are equal in power for their "standard loadout".
Charlotte has a flexibility advantage over Alice in the form of an alternate loadout she can select if she chooses to do so.
Alice (non-VIP) is stronger than both Daniel (VIP) and Bob (non-VIP) for their "standard loadout".
Daniel (VIP) is a little stronger than Bob (non-VIP) for their "standard loadout".

Charlotte's only advantage over Alice is that Charlotte can, during rest, choose to memorize a "non-standard loadout" of skills and talents that may be more situationally useful. For example, the "standard loadout" may not have a fire resist spell - but when doing PvE against enemies that deal fire damage, it may be useful for Charlotte to run away, rest, then equip a different loadout that trades off a combat closer skill from the standard loadout for a fire resistance skill instead.

So it's not exactly true that VIP doesn't give a power advantage, because Charlotte does enjoy the power that comes from greater flexibility in her choices. But it doesn't give Charlotte a higher power ceiling than Alice - they each cap out at the same power level. So if the "standard build" is an optimal PvP build, Charlotte has no advantage over Alice in a PvP setting, but she may have an advantage in that she can optimize for a wider range of PvE settings.

It should be noted that Daniel (VIP) does have a raw power advantage over Bob (non-VIP) though. But that advantage will be short-lived. Once Daniel and Bob have each done the same amount of exploration as Alice, and once they have earned the same amount of base KP as Alice, then Daniel and Bob will be indistinguishable from Charlotte and Alice.

So if you got through that Huge Wall Of Text then congratulations! The takeaway here is that, yes, the VIP system does give an advantage, both in terms of flexibility and in terms of raw power comparisons. The flexibility advantage is real. A VIP will have access to more options than a non-VIP for the same investment of time and player skill, which will let them optimize loadouts for a wider range of scenarios. However, the raw power advantage is only in play for as long as it takes for a non-VIP player to complete their first loadout. Once that's done, the non-VIP is equivalent to a VIP with the same race, attributes, gear, and skill/talent loadouts.

Now: Even with all that in place? It needs to be acknowledged that VIPs may still get access to increased power level in the same loadout due to their greater flexibility. Skills will be upgradeable twice (so three levels of skill) through exploration. So if a VIP has an easier time exploring due to their flexibility, that could give them an easier time unlocking higher levels of the skills in the "standard loadout" being compared. That would translate to an increase in power level. But it's a very nonlinear form of power advantage, it only lasts as long as it takes for the non-VIP to unlock up to the same levels, and it still requires the exact same investment in terms of the actual exploration requirements themselves from all players. Again, that is an advantage, but not an overwhelming one.

Gothix

@Phial said in VIP - Details?:

Wouldn't "increased knowledge point gains" be considered a pay 2 win since you'll have an advantage on the points you can attribute faster than others?

It depends on how game is designed.

In a pure vertically progressed MMO, and especially one that is constantly adding new skills to the game with expansions, of course, that would be P2W.

However, in horizontal progression game, the power gap by learning new skills will be mild. And you can reach VIPs, with a little more play time.

So in this aspect this is just a convenience thing, that you can live without. Or optionally chose to take it.

Tuoni

@humerus said in VIP - Details?:

@Tuoni Actually the fact that you can buy Albion silver for irl money may be considiered a good thing. The fact that you can buy Premium with silver (as far as I can remember) means that it's already tied to real currency and if the game didn't offer to buy silver itself, there would be a lot of RWT (Real World Trading) problems that are 100x times worse.
Not to say that Albion's monetization is good, it's just not $:\$

It of course makes the system a little bit better when you can buy the premium also with silver, however, most of the players will not have enough money to do so in monthly basis (or ever) and they need to buy that premium with real money. I recently (month ago) bought 3 months premium with all the gold I had left and on top of that I used few millions of silver. Anyhow, even the possibility to buy ingame currency with real money offers some benefits it can be also considered as a P2W system or at least "pay to HUGE advantage".

humerus

@Tuoni While it is true and the system is fundamentaly broken and works agains player, as long as there is free trade in the game, there will be black markets that are selling in-game gold for irl currency, this is just how it goes unfortunately.

Tuoni

@Gothix said in VIP - Details?:

@Phial said in VIP - Details?:

Wouldn't "increased knowledge point gains" be considered a pay 2 win since you'll have an advantage on the points you can attribute faster than others?

It depends on how game is designed.

In a pure vertically progressed MMO, and especially one that is constantly adding new skills to the game with expansions, of course, that would be P2W.

However, in horizontal progression game, the power gap by learning new skills will be mild. And you can reach VIPs, with a little more play time.

So in this aspect this is just a convenience thing, that you can live without. Or optionally chose to take it.

That is a good point that the advantage is smaller in horizontal progression than in vertical because horizontal offers less power increase when compared to other players.

Tuoni

@humerus said in VIP - Details?:

@Tuoni While it is true and the system is fundamentaly broken and works agains player, as long as there is free trade in the game, there will be black markets that are selling in-game gold for irl currency, this is just how it goes unfortunately.

Yeah, gold sellers are typical problem in games and their procedures also adapts with the systems used in the games. In Albion developers are monitoring e.g. silver transactions between players and all higher level trades are examined very closely. Nowadays there is also a good amount of anti-cheat software available for gaming companies so they do not have to fight alone against the cheaters.

Phial

Thank you everyone for your replies and honest discussion about the matter, I've come from Eve Online so real money being able to buy premium currency like Albion is no news to me, I just felt that the double everything on albion kinda made it feel mandatory to not die of FOMO when people are double my pace.

We'll see with more information as time goes on.

klarens

As you become VIP and get access to have some cosmetic things, they will remain when you left vip status?