Playing the game completely free

When I first head about this game I was expecting that I could play this for free, perhaps putting down £5 or £10 every now and again.

But no, the grind in this is too high and from what I can tell almost everyone is using xp boosts.

So I must ask, can you really play this game without spending anything, and still have fun. Or this is another case of freemium gamin?

I thought you quit. Please stop crying and just do what you said you were going to do and give up. Clearly you're not having fun and just trying to start something on the forums because you keep getting owned.

Paying gives advantages, but if you dont plan to play many hours a day you can play just for fun.. (free)

Just pick the empire with the class/weapon/vehicle you like
Example for best stuff out of the box: TR about any weapon, VS MBT and Scythe , NC is just targets

Come to Connery and say that.

my friends play for free, and they play more then I (premium) do, so yes.. you sure can.

There's no real functionality you're missing and all the basic weapons are fine. Just because you don't want to take the time to unlock this stuff doesn't mean it's automatically p2w. It may toe the line in places with vehicle weapons but it's not crossing it.

Of course you'll be under the impression that you're not having fun if all you do is compare yourself with your ideas about how other players got their certs
Just go for it - capture bases, shoot bad guys, have fun!

You're fine playing completely free. Unless you want a gameplay style that requires specific weapons, the stock weapons are effective in their own rights. Personally I don't use boosts or membership because I have a very low cert/hour, and so they wouldn't help much at all.

Furthermore, while high 'level' characters can be a bit tougher or more effective than starter characters, there really is not that much difference. The real difference is in the knowledge and experience of the player: give a new player a pile of certs, and they will still be at a disadvantage to the older player with none.
Fortunately you can learn quite fast.

ONLY liberator belly weapon and ESF 2nd weapon need to be upgraded, everything else is fine as it is

As far as infantry and most tanks you don't have to pay a cent. Only flying is expensive either cert wise or money wise. Anyway if you play the game you could easily unlock rocketpods and a zephyr in a month.

I've bought weapons for vehicles, but still only have the 10% xp boost from Alpha squad since any subsequent boost I would get would destroy it.

My friends have not really bought much in terms of weapons, for the most part. A MAX second burster cannon and Zephyr for the lib. Other than that they are "au natural" and we have a ton of fun together. It also helps that they can use my vehicles, too, which have more weapons. However I also have a lot of certs in my vehicles, and all that from the 10% boost (which is hardly anything) and the double xp time we all have right now. I missed the last double xp weekend.

Anyhow, doesn't seem very "pay to win" to me because my friends and I have roughly equal KD ratios!

A few of the guys in our outfit have still spend $0 and get on with the game perfectly fine and have no problem working with the rest of us as we do our squad/platoon activities, while they only have the "standard" guns the TTK is the same so they suffer nothing for it.

of come off it, if the basic weapons are good why am I always being killed by combat rifle armed soldiers and everyone on this forum seems to be using the 1000 certs weapons. And every single vechile that has killed me seems to be using the most powerful and expensive weapons around, the tanks are armed with heat shells and the aircraft spam rockets.

Meanwhile I'm stuck with a rocket launcher on my heavy that useless due against air targets and ineffictive against armour since you need more rockets than you carry to take down an heavy tank, assuming you hit with every single one, before the driver pops out and quickly repairs by the time you've reloaded.

Takes two rockets to kill a tank sunshine.

Really?

Not from my experience, it might do if you attack in from the rear, but of course you can't do that most of the time because your defending a base and need to keep close to the buildings to stop infantry cap the flag and avoid aircraft rockets.

Aww, poor snowflake.

im using the standard gun for engineer (solstice) the standard tank gun (which is HEAT) the standard dumbfire HA launcher and im doing just fine (i actually prefer those than the alternate one)

there's someone streaming himself playing with 0 upgrades at all - no certs at all and he is still doing good

you can easily waste a BR 50 with a stock gun, no upgrades just as easily as you can a BR1. You just need to be in the right position.

And nine times out of ten you won't be in the right postion and he kills you. Even if you do he will just role a heavy to come and revenge you.

You can. But it will takes ages to get effectiv.