well I refunded the cosmetic upgrade for GK because the cosmetics were locked behind challenges.
people buy cosmetics for the cosmetics and most other games have them ready to be equipped upon purchasing. I simply don’t have time to spend possibly hundreds of hours farming challenges to simply wear a recolored skin I paid for. I have a job, I have a life. I would love to have them but I just don’t have the time to grind for them.
I am curious: do you value the frames as well?
Cause as it stands, you get the upgraded frame from the start and the frame for all challenges done is straight up downgrade. It just seems completely perverse and backwards to me to do them all only to receive a lesser version of the one you got for buying the bundle.
Ah, this again. This argument makes me smile every time: “I feel guilty for playing a game because I’m supposed to be a responsible adult, so I’d rather pay to not play the game”. How is it even remotely logical?
Most other games are also crap. Should this game be obliged to be like other games? Is there a hidden implication I’m missing?
If I’m buying something literally called a “cosmetic upgrade”, it’s because I want the cosmetics, not an exercise in jumping through hoops. Again if you want the challenges themselves they’re there, nothing remotely logical about demanding the cosmetics be locked behind them.
Ah, TV shop mentality again. You know there is this candy literally called “Life Savers” - do you think people should expect it to save their lives too?
You can be dismissive and flippant all you like, I still haven’t seen an argument how locking cosmetics behind challenges improves things in any way whatsoever. If they had then removed challenges in turn, so actual gameplay was lost, there’d be an argument, but they’re still there just with shillings as reward.
If the challenges were actually good you wouldn’t need more significant rewards to be motivated to do them. Also, can’t really let this incredibly disingenuous point go:
It’s exactly the opposite. People want to play the actual game, not arbitrary side activities they feel forced into doing to get the nice cosmetics they paid for. The cosmetics unlocks were always by and large tedious detached grinds. Clearly you liked said grind, and you’re still free to do them. You’ve lost nothing at all. Meanwhile people who strongly dislike said grind are no longer strong armed into doing them. It’s a win win, stop complaining about other people getting to have fun.
Do you value the frame as high as the cosmetics?
Would you find an acceptable compromise that the better frames be awarded for the challenges?
Because right now the progression feels almost completely backwards. If you actually took the time to complete them, you get the lesser version.
Reorx said it best:
Of course the challenges are still there, of course we can still do them. But they are not providing meaningful progression anymore and are therefore less satisfying to do.
So less arbitrary/grindy challenges that are finished by just playing the game are okay for you? Like the “finish all helmgart missions” ones. I’d be happy if the cosmetics would unlock after challenges like that. And keep the shillings for the more eccentric ones.
Because it’s a win /win /lose,where people who don’t like doing the challenges (which are obviously more) and fatshark are winning and some people are losing meaningful rewards to challenges and a sense of progression while doing them.
And you are complaining right now that people are expressing how they are having less fun than with the gk/oe challenges.
How about name it Challenges Upgrade instead of Cosmetic Upgrade
People will still complain
I agree that sounds backwards. I generally don’t engage with/don’t care much for frames, so it’s hard for me to comment there. I think most of the community would consider them a negligible enough reward to put behind achievements. I have no issue with your suggestion there.
If I’m being completely honest I just see that as monkey brain want dopamine hit please. I accept it’s a big part of engagement and meaningful to a lot of people, but I draw the line at the point in impinges on actual gameplay, which is the more meaningful and long lasting aspect of the game. I understand that you’ve lost a sense of progression from this change. In turn the way it was before many players were losing many hours to play the game in a way that was tangential and fundamentally not enjoyable to them. These losses are not equivalent to one another. That leads me into your other point:
Yes those are generally better choices for rewards such as these, since they let you focus on actually playing the game rather than side questing looking for cheese. I’d personally be amenable to some cosmetics being locked behind more straightforward, less distracting challenges. Can’t speak for the wider playerbase there though obviously.
Oh I can, and I shall. Here’s an argument: why is it even supposed to improve things in the first place? There is an endless list if things FS has done to this game that doesn’t improve anything to say the least. Why cannot it be just one of those things?
I agree, but does anyone really have to do those challenges?
No I actually don’t, but thanks for projecting. As a matter of fact I don’t own any premium cosmetics and haven’t bought any of the cosmetic upgrades for the new careers. Hell, I haven’t even sprung up for SoTT at all. So no, you are wrong about my motivations in writing what I have.
I would really-really want to hear how FS ‘strong arms’ anyone to complete them. Maybe I just have a vivid imagination, but it draws me all kinds of hilarious images when I try to picture that sentence in my mind.
Oh yeah, I’m the one complaining, right.
The problem is that:
A) Having some reward to work towards as a motivator is a positive aspect of the gameplay loop to many people. People are disappointed that there seems to be no tangible reward for their efforts. Even if that reward amounts to nothing more than bragging rights.
B) If you have to lock anything as a reward, cosmetics are the only things that make sense in this game. What else are you going to lock away? Locking gameplay-affecting stuff would be infinitely worse.
C) It is an inconsistency that with the DLC-careers people somehow expect all the cosmetics to be freely available - because they paid for it, after all - while nobody would argue that all the cosmetics in the base game should be freely available, even though they paid for those just as much and in exactly the same way, essentially.
The root of the problem is how FS decided to sell the new classes. What FS’ intent is, is to offer a discount version of the DLC with just the barebones gameplay-affecting stuff for people that can’t / don’t want to spend much money so that they get to experience the gameplay still. And I think the idea of offering a cheaper version of the DLC is a great thing, and an example of FS’ positive business strategy. There just also needed to be way to upgrade from the “discount” to the “full” version somehow, and this lead to the creative “DLC to a DLC” sort of structure of selling this content. And that’s what got people confused.
I’m 100% sure that if there were two DLCs that were called “Warrior Priest of Sigmar” (with the career and cosmetics locked behind challenges) and “WPoS - discount version” (with just the career and weapon blueprints but no challenges and cosmetics) instead of the current construction where one is called “cosmetics pack”, there would be none of this discussion at all. Nobody would have posted here that the cosmetics should have been freely given out. Nobody would think it strange that the cosmetics were locked behind challenges at all. And the situation would effectively be exactly the same as it is now.
It’s just a paradigm shift, nothing more. If you really think of it, giving out all the cosmetics without effort and having to pay a bunch of red dust (that you needed to grind on unrelated weapons / careers) to get a fully functional version of the weapon you just bought is completely backwards.
By extension, why are there cosmetics in the Emporium that are locked behind shillings? I don’t want to earn shillings, and I have paid for the game - why cannot I get them all 'rite naow"?
Yes it was an assumption. To be honest though now I’m just confused why you’re posting here at all. Sounds like you have no horse in this race.
Fine, we’ll call it “coerce” instead. Better? Yes if you want those nice alternate cosmetics you needed to grind through challenges. For people who care about the cosmetics in the first place and want to obtain them, that was a necessary step. This is just semantics, to obtain the thing you want you needed to participate in tedious side activities. I’m sure you know what I’m trying to say.
Let’s be real. If you’re commenting on this thread you’re complaining one way or another. You’re complaining about people just wanting the cosmetics outright, I’m complaining about the complaining to this change in the first place. We’re all complainers here!
A lot of pointless grind is already present in this game for the sake of progression. So much so it can be a damn hard game to get friends into. I’m happy without more of that thanks.
I find this disingenuous. If the base game cosmetics were locked behind an additional paywall you would definitely see the same complaints. The extra DLC cosmetics and base game are not comparable here, especially if you look at the dollars spent vs content received. I could equally point to premium cosmetics in LE as an example of paying for cosmetics then getting them straight up. If you’re going to try to incentivise people to pay more money for cosmetics, locking them behind additional requirements is not wise, as can be seen by there being enough backlash to prompt FS to change this in the first place.
This is a wild assumption with little backing from what I can see. If the primary difference between the two packs is still the presence of extra cosmetics, you would see the exact same complaints. When people pay for the equivalent of microtransaction cosmetics, the majority will want them up front. This is a reality y’all progression lovers will have to come to accept.
Edit:
Simpsons I’m in danger meme
On the contrary, I have a couple. They are called Consistency and Common Sense. I mean you said it yourself - we have real gameplay elements that are locked behind stupid grind (what we call progression), but for some reason some people decide to complain about absolutely meaningless gameplay-wise cosmetics being locked behind similar stupid challenges. That boggles my mind. Please don’t start talking about improving the game or anything like that until you are equally vocally upset about the core game progression for one. Because unlike the cosmetics (that frankly look like crap in their majority) things like power level gating really affects gameplay and really affects the way new players view the game.
I mean you should know I do that plenty too. I agree those are bigger issues. I didn’t create this thread complaining about the new status quo, but I agree it’s ultimately not very important and am happy to drop this topic at this point TBH.
I mean, yeah? That’s basically what games are for: providing fun. I don’t know which animal’s brain is responsible for providing dopamine hits on buying stuff and immediatly equipping it, but it seems I’m closer to a monkey than that one.
Also we’re talking about cosmetics. Your gameplay is not impacted in any way by your skin/hat/weapon illusion (except for the Coruscation Staff that changes the lighting significantly).
And I gotta think about your other points a bit more but now it’s work time 
I despise pointless grind as much as anybody, but there is a clear difference between needing to pay 30 red dust to get a single fully functional version of all the new weapons I just bought with the career, and non-gameplay affecting stuff as a bragging-rights reward for playing / mastering the game.
If the game needed no / little character leveling and the crafting system were replaced by an Athanor-like one without RNG, this game would be significantly easier to get friends into, I’m 100% with you there. But from that point on, I do not believe that giving out all the cosmetics and frames and whatnot out for free and having no other rewards for doing higher difficulty content, will convince a lot of extra people. Maybe even to the contrary. And that is what we were talking about; not the grindy itemisation system.
And this is exactly my point, that I maybe not made clear enough: The DLC’s cosmetics shouldn’t be seen as being “locked behind a paywall”, but rather that the current “base” career DLC is a discount cheap version instead. At this point I’m convinced that if FS just wasn’t as nice to offer a discount version of their DLC and just only sold a full version of the career for the price of both current DLC versions instead, this entire discussion wouldn’t exist.
None of this stuff is even related to premium hats and outfits being sold through the Emporium. And no matter how you twist it, it is logically inconsistent to argue that the frames, weapon cosmetics, hats, and armor recolors of the DLC career need to be given out for free without also arguing that those same things need to be given out for free for the base game careers as well.
If you want to argue “they should as well, I don’t think any rewards should be given out for the challenges and doing the challenges is their own reward” or something, that is fine; Then we’d just have a different opinion. But I just don’t agree it’s logical that there is a discrepancy in the way cosmetics are handled between base and DLC careers.
I believe this is true.
The intention behind how premium careers were put on sale was exactly that : a discount version for people who don’t want/need cosmetics to still be able to play the champion without paying a “prohibiting” price.
When you’re buying the bundle, you’re not buying class + cosmetics, you’re buying the full intended experience of a new class being added to the game. I guess the mistake was indeed to call it “cosmetic upgrade”.
Edit : I’ll add this I just serendipitously stumbled upon (from the FAQ, dating back around game release I guess) :
No you explained it fine, I just think you’re projecting your own meaning onto the bundle and ignoring the market reality of it. And this next part is a response to you too @Saryk. FS aren’t dumb, it’s called a cosmetic upgrade for a reason, it wasn’t a mistake, because they’re aware that’s the primary commodity desired from it. When people buy the full package, the majority reason is that they want to look stylish while playing the new character. This is pretty well evidenced by the fact there was enough backlash for them to change it in the first place. Again the reality is that the cosmetics are what people are generally paying extra for, so no, it’s still not comparable to the base game.
Stop telling people they’re confused by names and don’t know what they want. We don’t want to do dull side activities for DLC cosmetics. They’re not fun and they detract more than they add. I applaud FS for actually listening to the criticism here and cutting the bloat. If just playing the new class isn’t enough to keep you invested in it, if you need obscure hoops to jump through to make fashiontide rewarding enough, I just don’t know what to say to you. What’s happened with the base game is done at this point anyway, so I’m not gonna bother arguing whether or not it would have been better to just give everyone all the cosmetics out the gate in the base game, it’s a pointless discussion at this point. The discussion is about what is best for the DLC career releases. I don’t think “progression” is any kind of argument for the way it was before, that’s just not what V2 is about at its core, all meaningful progression is entirely skill/difficulty based. Less fluff, yes please.
