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The presence of microtransactions in a large video game can poison the player's experience, leaving him puzzled to wonder if things have been designed to push him to pay extra. So it's okay with Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a very good $ 60 game launched with at least $ 80 in microtransactions.
OdysseyOptional microtransactions, ranging from equipment that can be equipped, to time-saving XP boosters, to the bushel of game improvement materials, have left a bitter taste for some. But the people behind the game point out that some of the mechanisms in the game – and some that are hidden from players – mean that people do not have to pay anything to get what they want.
Over the past few days, we've looked at how OdysseyMicrotransactions are cumulative and how their presence has affected (or not) those of us who play. We also learned a few things about them from the people who created the game.
Yes, there is a lot to buy
Odyssey has an in-game store that is laid out in the same way as last year. origin. It includes more types of items than originThere are more types of things in the game. All are sold with Helix credits, which cost roughly one cent per piece, although the game offers better exchange rates if you buy wholesale. Pay $ 5 and you get 500 Helix, but pay $ 50 and you get 7400 Helix.
In the shop, players can find two sets of outfits (500 to 750 propellers each), eight melee weapons (250 propellers), one bow (250 propellers) and three variants for the player's horse (500 to 750 propellers). Players can purchase six aesthetic modifications for their ship (250 propellers each) and two ships' lieutenants (350 propellers each). There are also additional resource packs used to upgrade weapons or the ship (200-2000 Helix), two permanent improvements to accumulate experience points for the player (1,000 Helix each) and four maps showing the location of hidden objects (300 Helix). ). Some of these products can be purchased in batches at a lower combined price.
All buyable items overlap with things you can get just by playing the game. Players can find weapons and craft resources, get alternative looks for their horse or recruit ship lieutenants simply by playing normally. The products sold in the store are classified in the "legendary" category, which constitutes the type of product of the highest quality in the game. Odyssey distributes many legendary equipment throughout the game.
Yes origin and the first offers in OdysseyThere is nothing to buy at the store, the items that can be paid are not necessarily better than the best things that can be found in the game, but they will be part of the most creative and fun games. For example, you can get decent alternative pennies for your horse by playing normally, but if you want to turn your horse into winged Pegasus, you will have to pay. origin finally offered paid items like giant Q-Tip weapons and a mummy outfit. OdysseyHigh quality items also appear to be among the most exotic items designed for the game.
Most things in the store can be obtained for free
Although store items do not fall from chests or fallen enemies, like standard items in the game, you can get them without paying. As origin before that, Odyssey contains randomized surprise boxes that can only be obtained while playing the game and that have the option to give players an item from the store. In originthese were called Heka chests. In Odyssey, they are called Olympian gifts. They look like vases.
You can get all the outfits, weapons, appearance of horses and ship upgrades in the store from an Olympian Gift, said a representative from Ubisoft. Kotaku. XP / Money boosters and special cards can not be. And unlike origin, the Ubisoft representative stated that the items would be included in the random rotation of the Olympian gift as soon as they arrive in the store. In originthere was sometimes a delay of several weeks during which, if you liked a new premium item and wanted it right away, you had to pay it.
We must think of new players with a rare currency
originPresented his Heka chests in the form of prizes offered by a boy named Reda, who was spreading a carpet and encouraging players to participate in new daily quests. The reward for these quests was a Heka chest, although players could also buy chests with gold in play, which it was possible to obtain by playing normally.
Odyssey offers its Olympian gifts through a shopkeeper named Olympians Oikos, who also sells a varied selection of medium quality items. He sells all this material, including Gifts, not for gold in play that players get by searching for, killing and looting, but for turquoise rocks called orichalcum ore.. This ore is much rarer than gold in play. Players can collect 10 minerals by completing a daily quest (there are two of them per day), 40 to complete a week. There are also about 600 individual deposits of ore scattered in the world of the game (in 25 hours of play, I found three and I picked up ten by performing a daily quest.) The price of objects sold by Oikos varies of 20 to 100 pieces of ore. The Olympian gifts are worth 20, or the gain of two daily quests.
The new orichalcum economy, at least at the time of launch, slows the rate at which it is possible to get the loot boxes from the game. While one origin The player can get a Heka chest every day by doing a daily quest, a Odyssey player must do two dailies or obtain ore by additional means. origin players could splurge on more Heka chests by spending more gold in play, while Odyssey Players must work harder to collect additional ore. The character of the player even complains about this economic system and asks Oikos why he will not only win the gold.
A representative of Ubi acknowledged that "it might take a little longer to unlock Olympian gifts than for Heka in Origins", but he explained that the passage of the Using gold at stake at a special ore was "a great way to reward the most engaged players while encouraging others to return regularly to Assassin's Creed Odyssey to discover the most recent changes and additions that we have added to the experiment. "In other words, if OdysseyThe abundant newly added and scheduled bonus missions did not already indicate clearly that Ubisoft wanted to encourage players to activate this game. Assassin's Creed more often, orichalcum ore should be.
Ubisoft's public relations representative also said there will be more ways to get orichalcum ore in the "next few weeks," noting that these activities "will make collection faster and more challenging. to gain even more variety. " Opening one or more Olympian gifts per game session will, hopefully, become a lot easier.
When asked if the ore would be an object that players could simply pay, a representative from Ubisoft said, "We will not sell Orichalcum for real money. "
The maths behind OdysseyFree Lootboxes is more generous than origin"
It's nice to know that the randomized surprise boxes in origin and Odyssey may contain higher quality objects, but if the probabilities of doing so are low, it is not really an offer. Ubisoft has not provided specific figures on how often Olympian Gift Boxes pay for a premium item, but one representative said that "the basic chance of obtaining a premium item is greater than that of She was not there before. " Origins.Ubisoft also says that origin and OdysseySurprise boxes have increased the chances of a player getting a premium item each time they open.
One representative added that several other improvements have been made to Olympian Gifts in relation to originHeka Chests: The highest quality items found in Olympian gifts will never be repeated; they will be usable through several playthroughs; Any bundle in the store containing an item that a player has obtained via an Olympian gift will lose a bit of price to reflect the item that the player already has.
Helper Maps are more expensive, although we are apparently paid
Assassin's Creed The games have always offered maps indicating the location of treasure chests and other valuable collectibles. At the time, you could get these cards just by playing the game. (You can also skip cards and find information by exploring them.) origin made these first-class help cards, selling them $ 2. Odyssey sells his cards, which show separately the locations of the early civilization steles, ancient tablets, legendary chests and orichalcum ore coins, priced at $ 3 each.
A representative of Ubisoft said the $ 1 price increase was due to the fact that "every card saver in the game reveals more secrets and gives more rewards than any of the equivalent cards in Origins" . They pointed to the Orichalcum ore map, which indicates the location of more than 600 pieces of ore, and notes that "can be used for high quality objects that are worth more than the map itself" , starting from the idea that 60 players from Olympian Gifts could buy 600 pieces of ore would pay more than $ 3 in store items.
Ubisoft denies the difficulty of the game has been resolved to get people to buy statistics boosters
Game developers have long been fortunate enough to gain additional experience points to excite players. Online shooters will have double XP weekends, for example, and a $ 80 special version of Assassin's Creed Odyssey has been bundled with, among other things, a temporary bonus of XP and cash in the game.
OdysseyThe store also includes permanent improvements in XP and money. These are the most controversial offers of the store. Some players have noted that boosters could simply make the game more fun because earning XP faster allows players to unlock more skills faster, which allows them to engage in scenarios. more varied fighting. Raising the level faster also opens up more areas of the world to explore faster, as the hardness of high-level enemies is the primary factor limiting player movement in the early hours. And some have speculated that the unexpected difficulty of the game, including the fact that enemies level themselves at the same time as your own character, is a sign that Ubisoft has created some frustration in the game in order to push people to buy boosters.
Ubisoft denies it. "Time savings, such as the permanent XP Boost, are 100% optional for players who want to boost their progress and are not considered in the economy or the difficulty of balancing the game," said a representative of Ubisoft. "Players have the option of changing the difficulty setting at any time in the Main Menu Options to find the level of challenge that suits them."
Staff at Kotaku who played the game on Normal and Hard have found Odyssey difficult but not so difficult as needing permanent boosters to play or even have fun. Some of us have had more difficult times with naval battles, where your chances of survival depend not on your equipment and capabilities, but on upgrades purchased with resources that, yes, are sold in bundles. the game store for players who do not want to recover for them. Even here, we received enough upgrade materials during the games (and dismantling of many of the equipment found) to overcome the difficulty, without having to pay extra or even go to a farm for upgrade materials. .
The difficulty of the game, as well as the presence of paid boosters, nevertheless raised some suspicions among the players. These worries are particularly understandable for those who did not have the luxury of spending 20 hours with the game. We shared this concern with Ubisoft, who said this about the difficulty of the game:
"About the player's experience in itself, we decided to create an epic adventure in RPG, a real odyssey that lasts for many hours and is often not a trip directly from point A to point B We want the player to make a trip in the unexpected. involving many characters, stories, regions, choices and challenges.
"True to the nature of the game's full-featured role-playing game, we offer a huge amount of content to players at all levels of progression. Sometimes this content may be too high for the current state of the readers. Challenging the player with higher-level content at the end or beginning of a new region is an integral part of our design. This design is meant to give players a challenge in front of them that can be defeated with skill and perseverance, but we suggest and invite the player to take advantage of the content surrounding them to level up, prepare and improve with new content. abilities to overcome this challenge (for example, conducting character and character quests, participating in conquest battles, completing bonuses and contracts, fighting in the arena, or completing IPs). We believe that this type of challenge will encourage players to explore the vast world we have created and to find the best content the game can offer. We are convinced that by creating peaks in our challenge curve, we create more memorable moments, more player autonomy and more satisfaction in their overall experience than if we balance the experience of the game. player to make it completely smooth or too easy.
"Again, players who think the game is too demanding, even after trying to improve their level or prepare, can change their difficulty at any time in the main menu options of the game."
For some players, the presence of microtransactions in a $ 60 game is intolerable. For others, there is at least one good way to do things. Ubisoft's approach with Microtransactions from Assassin's Creed Odyssey seems especially aimed at players who want shortcuts and do not want to wait for their chances of getting top quality material for free.
Without knowing how fast store items fall into the Olympian Gift Boxes, players will continue to lack crucial information about the truth about "Get-the-Cool-Premium-stuff-without- pay-extra ". A handling smell will continue to accompany this generally excellent game. But the numbers behind the system will become clearer over time as people continue to play and share their experiences. After all, it may be a good deal, but it's impossible to say.
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