New Paladins patch draws backlash for new pay-to-win mechanics

More microtransaction controversy abounds, as Paladins, the popular Overwatch-alternative, has now found itself in the crosshairs of players in the wake of a new patch announcement that could spell trouble for the title’s free-to-play pedigree.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

If they're smart, they'll back-pedal on this faster than Sonic.

[CyberSentinel]

Paladins is free to play, so no.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

That's a real shame for them, then.
The current landscape in the gaming community is firmly against MTX's on full-priced retail games, so this is going to be a hard knock against them even if the game turns out to play wonderfully.

[CyberSentinel]

If “the gaming community” doesn’t understand microtransactions in F2P games, then “the gaming community” needs to grow up and stop acting like entitled children. F2P games are like demos, if you want to play the whole game, it’s only fair you pay for it.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

No, demos are demos; short bits of the full game.
FTP games are games that are just that; full games that are free to play, with some extra transactions that you can sometimes choose to buy, usually small or cosmetic in nature.
The sad fact, though, is that many of them use pay-to-win models to any extra transactions you could make, that make normal progression all but irrelevant compared to consumers that are richer than you.

[TKJack]

The thing is, most f2p games rely on an enormous community in order to operate—that's often their core feature. Huge battles, short matchmaking times, etc etc. When you start introducing MTXs that alienate the vast majority of the non-paying playerbase, you lose players, and thus diminish one of your primary 'features'.

It doesn't make much business sense in my eyes: Even whales stop playing, and paying, if they've got no one to use their OP stuff on.

[TKJack]

I've always quite liked how Planetside II dealt with this. Sure, the implants are a teeny tiny bit pay to win, but nearly every single weapon was situational. Sidegrades are the reasonable way forward.

[Interloper]

The U.S.S Paladins is about to go down faster than Trump's approval ratings!

[Activemessiah]

it's a F2P game... just like any other mobile game. Nothing new here.

[Prince_TFK]

Yes but it wasn’t always pay to win for this game. There wasn’t even any need for that in the past. So why add it now? For what exact reason?

[Activemessiah]

Attention... only explanation. they probably feel that as a F2P game they can get away with the BS EA tried to pull whichh technically they can, it's just up to those playing it to to be mindful. Nobody spent a penny on playing the game so people can just stop playing it I guess. That happened with me an GITS on PC, they changed things and I jumped ship.

[Thunder_G0d_Bane]

The obvious answer is they need more revenue. So by putting something that gives the paying player an edge it will provide more turnover for the company.

It’s a free to play game so they have every right to do this if they want.

I don’t play free to play games mainly cause of these type of micros.