Meh, makes sense to me that raid gear isn't usable by ftp accounts. Wouldn't be hard at all to farm up the plat to buy a krono and STILL have it be ftp because it cost you no real life money. Though it would be nice if they gave you a way, as Smokezz mentioned, to revert the gear back to conflagrant.
Couldn't truly be FTP and wear Phlogiston regardless. Still need to pay for the expansion. I don't see the point to it. I don't see the difference in tiers between current raid gear vs Phlogiston and the same gap of Flowing Etheric vs. Suppressed armor. Suppressed was noticeably worse, but still great and non-prestige. Saying no raid gear ever was non-prestige doesn't make sense, just need to try harder to find it is all and deal with the limitations. Adding limitations after 6 months of game play is a move any way you look at it.
I disagree that it's a " move" any more than when they take months to fix any other problem with the game. The push back is always "it's been this way for x amount of time, why change it now!" They can't always address things in the amount of time you think is appropriate.
Most likely was not high up on the priority list of things to fix. As mentioned by someone further back in the thread, they also probably didn't expect it would be a large issue as most main accounts that would have access to getting these items would not be free to play characters. I would be surprised if there that many who will be impacted by this change.
We're not talking one change, but a change affecting what, 150-200+ items? People buy those diamonds specifically to gear alts with. I consistently play 8 accounts, pay for 3-4 a month. No one that is fully FTP would have access to these diamonds anyways, that argument makes no sense. Not everyone wants to buy kronos for every account they have every month.
They could've released a statement saying they are going to address it, months in advance. They did for the anniversary mission, so I have little sympathy for those who went ahead and exploited it any way. But as far as I know, they never said they'd change phlogiston to be subscription only, so there was no warning for all the people who spent their DKP and money on them. Saying people should have seen it coming? How? What statements did they ever make to indicate that it was broken?
I want to know what the "problem" was, that justified scamming people out of their DKP, time, and non-upgraded items. They didn't fix anything by doing this. They just took stuff away without any justification. After selling it to you.
Actually, most people buy those diamonds to gear mains, a small number of people are in your situation. I understand that it is frustrating to you/those people, but it's very logical the reasoning behind the change. It's raid gear in current content. You can keep trying to deny the ftp aspect, but if your account isn't all access then it IS ftp and therefore going to be effected by any restrictions on that level of account.
"scamming" really... DB doesn't have anything to do with DKP. They didn't "sell you" the gear. They fixed a mistake that allowed current content raid gear to be used by ftp accounts. You may not have seen that as an issue, but they did. I do admit, they should have given notice further in advance, and it would be nice if they gave a way to revert the gear changes so people could at least get their conflagrant gear back.
The rationale behind the change is to make more money. Say you play on FV and paid kronos per diamond at 6ish per diamond, then x2. So roughly a years worth of kronos per piece (someone paid for those kronos, not this guy). Now the alt accounts suddenly need less gearing. Less gearing, less people buying kronos to gear alt accounts. Bit shortsighted in the rush to "we need every acct subbed at all times".
Returning conflagrant gear is next to worthless in comparison, there is no middle ground here. It's not like hey, take this Velazul's piece instead or something with actual value.
Or how about if they put a phlogiston flag on the marketplace? For just $10 your ftp character can wear phlogiston.
Returning to conflagrant gear is next to worthless? Ok then. The rationale behind all access is obviously about making more money, and having current content raid gear being behind that paywall makes 100% sense. On your "people buying a bunch of krono to gear alts".... that's still going to happen. People are still going to do that to buy gear. The number of people doing that to buy diamonds is most likely a small number of those sales, part of which would be made up by those who will now go all access to use the gear.
Last raid gear usable by (FTP) non prestige was CoF Suppressed gear. I was kind of hoping a bone would be given to ftp but a reasonable person could have assumed that would not happen with past practices.
Having T1 raid gear as non-prestige makes more financial sense. Nothing else even compares to the scale of kronos per item. The rest of it is just, like, your opinion, man. COTF did it, the game didn't end, people still bought subs.
How do you figure? by not allowing raid gear to be used by FTP they are also encouraging people to sub. Its an incentive to go beyond FTP.
Honestly, it's not logical just because it's raid gear in current content. We haven't had two tiers of raid gear for a few years but... COTF Tier 1: Suppressed Etheric Shadowscale Coat MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE INFUSIBLE ROF Tier 1: Gelid Shadowscale Coat MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE INFUSIBLE VoA Tier 1: Modest Carnifex Coat MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE INFUSIBLE HoT Tier 1: Enigmatic Coat of the Swift MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE INFUSIBLE I could keep going... This most certainly looked to many like a two tier gear expansion. All of the above, and going back a whole lot further than those expansions you would have gotten T1 gear in the current expansion.
