Urf, this is a tough one. Well, aight, so another war is brewing on the Internet and this time it’s Trion vs. the fans in the ultimate brawl over pay-to-win. Here is the deal, they made some cash shop modifications for this beta period and in it, they added “Archeum Chests.” Now Archeum Dust/Shard/Crystal/Essence is one of the premier crafting materials and is not only super rare but insanely valuable, to craft gear of all levels and the endgame set. It's super rare with a super low drop rate.

So here is where the headache is. They added these chests and in them, they contain well Archeum, and some other random materials not nearly worth as much as the Archeum. This set the community on fire, because since it's so rare, offering for sale just means players with the real life cash have an inherent advantage. They're angry, if nothing something even past that. Anger isn’t enough to justify these 50+ page forum threads with people typing in all caps and calling out Scapes, who by the way I’ve had the opportunity to talk to and is a really cool guy, but anyway they’re calling him out because he came out to explain the following concept.

Scapes stepped in and tried to explain some of this, at least whatever the company line is. See, the Archeum packs are named Archeum packs supposedly not because they contain Archeum, but because it was a nod to the founder packs of the same name, and the total intent wasn’t that they would contain pay-to-win items, but to just be well a lockbox with random items to make your life in the game better. According to Scapes anyway. Well the big issue here is that eh, it’s not. It’s literally a pay-to-win box with the only thing worth anything in it being Archeum.

But to counter-balance it, they increased the drop rate from nothing to nothing still, so Archeum is still hella rare and now that the lockbox is in, the community is frothing with rage because this super rare drop item is now for sale essentially in the shop, degrading its rarity and providing incentive for people to pay for something they need to craft the best gear in the game. So much rage the Reddit had to make a megathread and forums are trying their hardest to stop new posts from being made about it.

So it’s a pretty big deal with two sides. Trion, which states no tricks no traps, but just introduced a blatant pay-to-win item into the shop and the community that feels betrayed by these actions. Now there is a chasm here and what will anyone do about it?

Well, the major thing is to understand that Trion has sort of messed up here, but I don’t personally think that it’s exactly this Machiavellian we’re going to steal money from people’s pockets way that EA does. I also think the community is a bit too worked up over Archeum, which while rare, is pretty much also necessary to craft the end-game armor sets, which is fine that it’s rare in a way, but it’s rare in that super annoying RNG rare, not some skill based it’s got a super high drop rate off of monsters in some free for all small PvP area that you can be easily ganked in while the monsters are insanely tough. Know what I mean? So yeah I can see how they’re worked up.

Solution here is simple, Trion needs to make these lockboxes a bit more diverse and stuffed full of goodies so that the Archeum isn’t the main focus of everything. Then improve the drop rate in such a way that it’s farmable, but not “kill anything in the world and hope it drops” or make the crafted gear have some alternative that’s equally as difficult but still completable, or move to some of the 1.7 updates such as Archeum trees, etc. You can keep something rare, while at the same time, making it easier and have a higher quality of life impact to farm. Know what I mean? Raid gear is insanely hard to get in other MMOs, but the process in which you do is is based on your own gear and your skill.

Then, we all need to get together and just hug this out. Scapes is a great guy, Trion is a good company, and the community shouldn’t be given a game where you have to buy lockboxes to get your best crafted gear without having to farm the entire continent of monsters and hope you get some drops. It needs that respect between the line of prestige and paying-to-win, and I’m confident that Trion will take the feedback seriously, since they have to be well aware of how the community feels by now, and hopefully change it.

Now, to comment on labor potions. I just want to put this out here - I hope it changes. You can't make labor pretty much infinite if you keep buying potions. It got halved and that's fair it was only as high as it was for test purposes, but the almost-unlimited potions just, eh isn't right. Offer maybe regen potions or something to boost the old regen pots and have some cool labor generation things going on in the game. Don't just double the rate you can use potions.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Are you not going to play ArcheAge now over this? Think Trion will take the feedback seriously (like they have many times in the past)? Do you think Archeum should rain and not be rare or should it be confined to a higher drop rate but only found in the ocean or something like that? Let us know below.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our ArcheAge Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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