We quite liked Hi-Rez Studios' Paladins: Champions of the Realm when we played it in beta stage, but the latest addition to the game has made certain group of very vocal fans anything but happy.
Basically, the latest update (detailed here) adds a new currency, Essence, and Legendary Cards. You get Essence for duplicates in Radiant chests, and this can be used to buy good cards, including Legendary Cards, meaning you can't grind for gold to get these specific cards any more. Instead, you can only spend gold on random card chests, or invest in Essence to buy the cards directly instead.
Although Hi-Rez has said that it'll give new accounts a sum of 36,000 Essence, while adding 72,000 to the Founder Pack, many players have expressed great displeasure at the change, criticising it as a move to 'pay-to-win'. One particularly vehement critic on Reddit by the name of thecrazywizard had this to say:
"Joshino, Bubblekings, DefNotHanzo, pro players, Reddit users, Forum users, YouTube comments, TEN TON HAMMER. What do they all have in common. They all HATE the essence and rarity systems. Please understand that we are trying to help the game. We're not whining for the sake of whining. We are trying to stop you from f****** up like in your previous titles."
"The essence system is a cash-grabbing, RNG, P2W, stupid system that actively makes new players leave, old players protest and potential incoming players don't even f****** bother starting up the downloader (five of my friends and my brother included, side note the five friends don't even want to try Smite because they have zero belief that a company that makes decisions like this can create a good game)."
"The rarity system is a b******* excuse to not balance cards, and lower the champion diversity which you want to improve so much. Why can't you just admit that you f***** up. From the stupid PrettyHair stream, to PrettyHair's fake-a** excuse and to that smurf test that "never happened cause you deleted the tweet". You dug a hole for yourselves, jumped down, kept digging and still haven't stopped. Skins, avatars, emotes, poses, cursors, global emotes, skins for even more specific bodyparts (like For Honor), sprays, special emotes (furious, dance... like Smite), music, announcers... The list of things you can do for money is near endless so why are you using important game mechanics for the cashgrab."
"I can tell you 95 % that if he wasn't working with you, even f****** Raynday would be complaining. And that guy talks about release Sol with a laugh in his voice. Hear the voice of your fans, friends, cashgivers, testers, content creators, and players. Stop this before it's too late."
This is clearly a dramatic message to Hi-Rez Studios, one that many users seem to agree with on Reddit, with criticism coming at the fact that the Essence you receive from duplicates is small, and that existing players who already have a strong deck now hold a significant advantage over newbies.
Not all players disagree as strongly as this, however. One user commenting on the changes said that the line: "Grant new accounts created after OB44 a base 36,000 Essence after tutorial completion. Players who completed the tutorial prior to OB44 will be retroactively granted 36,000 Essence," pre-emptively addresses the biggest problem with Essence. Other players also claim to like the changes, and think that Hi-Rez Studios are listening to the fans.
Which side of the fence do you stand on with these new changes?