Let's Nip This In The Bud: Implants For SC Are No More P2W Than Boosts/Membership.

I thought having to buy horns on our vehicles was lame. I thought constantly having a weapon I purchased nerfed so a newer stonger version of that weapon could be sold was lame, but implants... a direct upgrade to our current system only being rentable and costing certs or cash... that just pisses me off.

Fully agree with that, until that point its just a lot of speculation and then it will become clear to what effect it may have.

On a personal note, i think implants are a terrible idea. Its making the game more like cod ( on ground battles ) and if I wonted to play CQC with perks I would do, like a game call COD. If and of course its a IF, if its a PTW ( which Higgy said in a interview that it would not be the case ) I really would be disgusted with SOE, but hey im sure they would really give a dam.

If it takes many many many many hours/days/weeks to reach what paying members get, then I would somewhat agree that it's towards p2w..
However, since we do not know the cost of any of it, no one can really say it is p2w since you can obtain both with money or certs.
From what logic states, since I am sure it shouldn't cost too much cert or SC, it will not be pay to win. at all.
P2W isn't what you're thinking.

Really? lol.

All would be fine and dandy, if implants had negative effects to become sidegrades, but they don't, that's an issue.

Well it actually is P2W if there is no alternative to match it in game (no matter what the cost). So if it does give an unfair advantage then SOE will realize it wasn't worth it when their population numbers tank.

Like stated above, implants and boosts are nothing alike.

The biggest worry I have about implants is that some of them do not give a MINOR buff, but effectively nullify effects of certain items or abilities. That's NOT cool. If I spent 200 certs on concussion grenade I would want it to work as intended.

Other than that, I dislike implants for being potential cert sinks. I've played for around 300 hours and there's still tons of stuff I'd really want, or need to on some of my classes.

Sure it does. When i'm a paying subscriber, I get faster access to certs to get stronger nanonweave then you, that helps me win the fight, also with bonus certs and SC, i can buy OP guns faster than you, which makes me more powerful than you, and win even more fights.

Now apply that to each other's vehicles or flying machines, and I have more powerful weaponry than you and kill you some more.
Yes, it is Pay2Win.

Or at least, as I've said before, Pay2Compete.

Its not unfair, if you haven't paid to play the game.

But once you pay that $60, you should have all access to all weapons, so that you can play the game. But since people bought into this micro-transaction razor cut ********, and don't understand the ramifications of a free-to-play system, they're going to be disappointed, because a new player won't catch up to a seasoned player.

EVE ONline is even worse. Players who have been there 2 years before you, are always in perpetual God mode over you, because you can never catch up, with the time-based skill system they have in place.

It's p2w if the cert cost to buy an implant is sufficiently high that your low-average player struggles to make enough certs to buy them every time their current one expires; or if it is prohibitively expensive so they cannot save enough certs after buying one to diversify their other classes.

With armour; it's a flat cost. You're at a disadvantage for maybe 5 hours of gaming ... i.e. until you can buy NW4 and a scope for your favourite class, but from then on until eternity you're on an even footing with everyone else in the game.


Clearly if implants come out at 1 cert for 2hrs, it won't be p2w. If they come out at 500 certs then it blatantly will.

I've never shot someone with my XP bonus.

I agree with your premiss but I have to with hold judgement until price/duration is revealed. If they are ~1 to ~5 certs an hour then I agree with you.

If they are ~50 certs an hour then I disagree.

This is, by far, the most interesting response I’ve read.

I agree that adding a straight upgrade that decays changes the dynamic of the value of certs, and thus changes the cert/SC dynamic. I don’t know that this makes them more P2W than boosts, but it’s certainly a complex effect that I hadn’t considered. I also think that this effect exists purely as a result of the decay mechanic, whether or not you can buy implants with SC. As such, it isn’t so much that the SC purchase of implants is P2W, but rather that the decay of implants increases the degree to which boosts/membership make the game P2W. The SC purchase of implants just adds another vector of P2W, which acts the the same as boosts/membership, though the magnitude of said vector might be different.

Congratulations, you’ve made the only logically sound argument I’ve seen thus far that implants actually increase how P2W the game is, as opposed to just adding another vector that is P2W in the exact same way as boosts/membership.

I can think of no valid counter-argument, so I must concede that implants which decay over time make the game more P2W, regardless of whether or not they can be purchased with SC.

Except for buying them with certs instead of SC? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by no other way.

Of two players who play for the same amount of time, the one with higher cert gain will always have more total certs proportional to how much higher his cert gain is, thus a person pulling in more certs already has an advantage proportional to their cert gain advantage. The argument given for why this is acceptable is that, eventually, both people will be “certed out”, and their power levels will be relatively even.

Here’s the thing: once they have both reached that point, unless the implants cost more certs/hour than the free-to-player typically earns, they won’t have anything meaningful besides implants to buy, so the free-to-player and the paying player will both have implants equipped 100% of the time. What this means is that implants only put free-to-players at a disadvantage during the period where they already have a disadvantage proportional to their lower cert gain. Thus, it doesn’t create a disadvantage that differs in any material way from not having boosts/membership: the disadvantage is based on not having straight upgrades like nanoweave 5, and exists during the exact same time period in a characters "life".

X+Y=Z is nothing but math with no numbers. It is entirely possible to illustrate mathematical relationships using only variables, so I’m not sure what you are laughing at, if you’ve ever taken basic algebra.

Would the ability to directly buy certs for SC be more P2W than boosts/membership? What if it cost 10, or even 100 SC per cert – it would still be more P2W because of the relationship, regardless of the cost, correct? A relationship can be defined as more or less P2W than another relationship without knowing the magnitude of effect.

Nobody is going to run those implants defensively over awareness or battle hardened or sensor shielding, they just aren’t worth it. The people running those implants will be the people using those weapons, so that they can use them with impunity, as far as effecting themselves goes, so I’m fairly sure that effect will be negligible.

As far as being a cert sinks goes, I agree entirely, and that goes back to my agreement with that first dude’s argument that, while SC purchase of the implants themselves is not more P2W than boosts/membership, the addition of something that grants a direct advantage and has cert decay does effectively increase the P2W aspect of boosts/membership by increasing the effective value of each cert, and thus the P2W power of boosts, membership, and saving certs by buying weapons or implants with SC.

Everything that costs any certs at all incentivizes buying things with SC, especially things that can only be purchased with certs, as those are the direct upgrades and incentivize people to buy sidegrade weapons with SC so they can buy upgrades with their certs. Thus, they don’t need to make them unaffordable, as even a small cert cost will create some additional pressure to buy boosts or buy implants with SC. In fact, making them unaffordable is probably much more likely to have a negative impact on sales for all but the players who will just throw money at the game and don’t care, and I’m fairly certain that they realize that, so I'd say it's you who doesn't understand how F2P monetizing works. You may understand the basics, but you are ignoring the 2nd order effects of high prices.

Well, I’m not making the argument that these aren’t P2W, just that they aren’t any more P2W than boosts/membership, so I don't see anything in your post that isn't compatible with my stance.

Well, dammit, you eventually changed your tune a little bit on the Magrider, but I can’t argue with you if this is all you give me to work with =P

I still think it would be easier to just make having an implant slow down your shield recharge by like a second or two. Then by not equipping one you would still be gaining something.

As long as you can buy them with certs the P2W cry babies can pound sand. All you are doing is using cash to expedite results. Don't want to spend the SC? Then spend that time go earn some certs to pay for it. Plenty of free-players out there can buy things faster than I can with certs because they put more time into the game and are generally better than me. Got no skill, got no time, and got no cash? *waves hand* You want to go home and rethink your life...

What dude? Seriously?
Pretty sure this is a troll post... but.... There is an infinate supply of Certs. It is NOTHING like real gold.

In which case maths/numbers/illustrations don't come into it. If an upfront payment for things is regarded as more P2W than a boost to xp gain then that is how it is.

I dunno, a scatmax with clearsight sounds more usefull than most of those other things.

I can't substantiate this with anything but the initial snippet from higby's post, but to me it sounded like implants will be implemented on a per loadout basis. Whenever a loadout is used, the clock ticks down. If this was the case and implants weren't freely swappable, the economics/overall assessment would change dramatically. Even at 50 certs for a 10 hour implant, the only way you could guarantee implants on all loadouts would be to pay sc or by being a very good/boosted player. This could essentially make cert gain a zero sum game for free to play/low cert income players, meaning that they'd have to choose between gaining certs, keeping all of their loadouts topped off with implants to be competitive, or limit themselves to only one class or so.

This, of course, would be an implementation that sits at the more extreme end of the spectrum, but it'd propel the p2w aspect of implants way beyond standard boosters. The primary issues are the decay and implants not having downsides, meaning that they're mandatory for everyone that wants a level playing field.

I'm laughing at the fact that you're asking for logical reasoned counter arguments to the one you just pulled out of your @ss. That's rich.

For me this will all come down to Cert verse Station Cash. Personaly I think that there should be 2 versions, one thats SC and one that is Cert, where the diffrence is the Time of use.

If you get a Implant with certs it should last longer then the SC bought one, perhaps even have it only count down when the player is actualy logged in, while the SC bought one would operate normaly like Boosters.

If they are both the same, and costs are not resonable (considering those who are F2P tend to have less certs to play with to begin with) then I agree that it could lean a bit too far into the P2W feel. That being said it also depends on just how powerful some of them really are (I don't think the Targeting one really is a boon for most players, though the Stealth one defently is one that could be a balance changer).

There is an infinite supply of paper money if you keep printing it. What happens if you stop printing it and start burning it? Do you know how the great depression came about? I believe the American dollar was still on the gold standard then. It was taken off the gold standard about the same time Saddam Hussein started an oil embargo in protest.