Is planetside pay to win

You can pay to skip some grind on weapon unlocks, which you can get through normal gameplay anyway. Even then, said weapons are only situation-ally better. In that it'll be something like a weapon that does better at close range, but much worse at mid and/or long range or a long range gun that get shredded by close or mid range weapons. The ONLY weapons you cannot buy with ingame currency are basically special reskinned weapons with identical stats to free ones. Just in shiny gold, platinum, or matte black. (if you really need proof, I can show you the stats of them for you to compare)

As for the default weapons for any faction, they're arguably the best balanced and useful in most situations. Some actually swear by them and give them pet names, like the NC's "God Saw" (default LMG) and aside from weapons, you cannot buy other "upgrades" to your character with SC. Said "other upgrades" applies to over 90% of the upgrades in the game.

The ONLY thing you absolutely can't get with ingame currency or "certs" is most cosmetics. Like camos, a couple of armor skins, decals, Xp boosts, and cosmetic attachments for vehicles. So this game is definitely Pay2lookfabulous and even Pay2grindless. But no, someone can pay all they want and still get wrecked by someone who has never spent a dime. I get my face wrecked all the time by better players and I've thrown down hundreds of dollars into this game over the years.

--------------------------

The only real problem with this game is that it's facemeltingly harsh on newbies. You are bombarded with a massive amount of information that the in-game tutorial does not prepare you for. Many of which are unique to Planetside 2 alone. If you plan on playing, I highly suggest asking for help and looking for videos from guys like Wrel to help you get a handle on the basic mechanics.

PlanetSide 2 is pay to win to some people, it's not to others. If you think paying to get things faster then you can in-game is pay to win, then yes, it is. If you think that being able to earn it in-game means it's not pay to win then it's not.

If the game has any P2W elements those would in in resource and experience boosts, not weapons from the cash shop.

As a brief example the best TR LMG in the game (with some debate) is the default T9 Carv, the one you get for free. The worst TR LMG is the T32 Bull, a weapon that costs 1000certs/750 sc, purchasing it would be an example of paying to lose. However in the long run what weapon your using doesn't matter too much, a good player will still do good with a bad weapon, and a bad player will still do poorly with a good weapon.

Weapons in planetside are not p2w at all, as what weapon you're using does not matter nearly as much as how many certs you have. Having abilities certed like maxed out HA shield, advanced shield capacitor, nanoweave or medic tool make a much bigger difference in how well you preform.

So if you're hell bent on making a P2W argument, instead turn your gaze towards subscriptions and exp boosts. In the most extreme example, where a player is playing with a squad of subscribers who all have squad boosts, while the player has an auraxium level subscription, a 100% exp boost and in player on a members only double exp weekend, that player will earn certs 476% faster then a player without boosts, a single kill would be worth 47,600 experience, 190.4 certs.

Now obviously this is an extreme example and would require a great deal of spending, as well as 11 friends to spend money with you, but the point stands that exp boosts are the only thing "p2w" in this game.

It is too much P2W
Plox nurf giraffe camo

I can't find an actual video of anybody using giraffe camo, but this video of an actual giraffe hunting down NC and TR should give you an idea of what it's like.

Though the black majics camo is also super op

Planetside isn't even a pay to skip the grind game. If you want to, then yeah, go ahead and put in some hours to get a 1000 cert gun. But, the default weapons are pretty darn good. The Gauss Rifle is, in fact my favorite weapon in the game.

Planetside 2 is not pay to win

People who claim that have either never played actual pay to win games, or are using that phrase as an excuse for something else.
Everything that gives you an edge in combat can be aquired with game time. The times required to do so are fine, too. A good player can earn a new 1000 cert weapon in 10 hours, which is longer then most games I've played, but I've also seen games where this is not even close to the needed playtimes for a new item.

I don't consider the resource boosts P2W either, because you run out of ressources so rarely. I know several people playing completely F2P, and none of them ever run out of stockpiled consumeables or lack the resources for a vehicle. (Sometimes it happens, but very very rarely.)

The XP boosts could be seen as a mild form of P2W, but only if you're trying to be a generalist. Certing out a class or two doesn't cost that much, a single vehicle is also not that expensive. If you've found something you like to do and concentrate your certs on that you can build it up in a week or two.

It is pay to win. You pay either in money or time, but it's definitely pay to win.

A stock Viper lightning will stand little chance against a racer nano-repair AP lightning. Likewise, a stock ESF will almost certainly lose to a kitted out ESF. An afterburn nosegun ESF without a chassis doesn't beat a hover airframe nano-repair ESF with Coyotes and a rotary.

Certed characters are simply better and stronger than their vanilla counterparts. Not overwhelmingly so, but significantly, and you need to pay for those advantages one way or another.

P2W implies purchasing an item only obtainable through real currency that gives you a distinct advantage over those who do not also purchase said item.

Let's say there was a 'free revive stim' you could buy with only SC that you'd inject after spawning, then if you died would give you the option to rez within a minute. This can alter your playstyle by giving you more incentive to do a risk because the consequence (dying) is lessened, and it'd let you come back up and gank someone who just killed you and turned around.

Planetside 2 does not have this. Planetside 2 has:

• purchasable XP boosts (these are not unique to PS2, I'd argue they're in nearly every F2P MMO and probably most P2P games)
• the ability to skip cert grinding for various guns (it's already been stated enough that none of the guns are unobtainable with certs, so this is a convenience)
• character customization ('camo being P2W' is the weakest argument I've heard since Bill Clinton denied sexual allegations. If you seriously think a camo is OP, spend 5 bucks. 5 bucks isn't a lot, and the camo lasts forever)

/whew

No, it's not pay2win. Not yet, anyhow.

What it is, is a game where new players are started at a mechanical disadvantage over older players and left to choose between being flat-out weaker (much more obviously so with Vehicles than Infantry) until they go through fairly long process of grinding out certs to move towards mechanical parity or throw cash at the game to reduced significantly the time to get there.

This strictly mechanical difference in starting abilities-vs-fully certed out abilities is the primary reason most competitively-oriented players I've talked to won't have anything to do with the game. Pointedly, Wrel's video RE: QoL improvements for new players is spot on in that making upgrades side-grades rather than just flatout superior* over previous levels of the same piece of equipment.

EX: Unlock Proxy mines, get 2. Then branch to unlock ones that have a bigger and weaker blast radius, or ones that only detonate when stepped on, but are instantly and reliably lethal.

*Most upgrades don't have massive difference variance from level to level, but a few ranks difference can be a huge deal. With tools, often a fully upgrade tool is an extremely more capable than the previous ranks. Medic Applicator and Engineer Repair Tools both see massive improvements in usefulness/capabilities once they buy their final upgrades. Armor slot equipment tends to be hit and miss in this regard, with some (like Ammo Belt) being rather underwhelming much of the time, with things like Utility Pouch and Grenade Bandolier (lookin' at you Medics and Heavy Assaults) seeing massive increases in capabilities as they're upgraded (4 Rez 'nades / AV 'nades / Conc 'nades are a huge step up in personal ability over just the one). This also goes for C4, really, from can blow up non-Flak Armored MAX's and the odd Infantry or two, to credible threat to unupgraded Sunderers (and Galaxies?) and potentially instant death to every other vehicle in the game. JM2c based on a couple months of playing.

None of these things are purchasable with SC. In fact, you could buy an A2A lockon on an empty ESF and still get beaten by an experienced pilot. The issue is that experienced players have spent plenty of time grinding certs and learning how to play the game. They should be rewarded for this, and they are.

Newer players should not come into the vehicle/air race with expectations that they will win everything outright- if they did win all the time, how much retention would that keep? The player has to be willing to experience and learn everything for themselves, otherwise there's no point giving them "I win" tools.Yes, the playing field is not perfect and there are many issues for new pilots/drivers, but that doesn't change the fact that they should not try to learn everything on their own- MMO = community, whether they like it or not.

Remember, that's how these experienced guys started too. Players have to be willing to put time and effort into a game; give them everything at the start, and it might as well be a generic FPS.

Its "Pay to Grind Less".

I never suggested a new player should be able to win everything, or even win at all. I simply said that you can pay for advantages in this game with money or time, and that this makes it pay to win.

Consider Quake 3 Arena, Counterstrike, StarCraft, CoH, League, etc. All games that are not pay to win. A new player starts with the same advantages that the top ranked player in the world does. In none of these games would that new player stand a chance in hell against anyone moderately experienced.

Planetside leans more to the MMO character progression system wherein you can grind or pay directly for improved attributes and abilities.

Guild wars chose to split the two paradigms, with tournament player being able to start a character at the maximum level with all skills and abilities unlocked.

All are good games in their own right.

Pay to win isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just another way of structuring a game environment. It puts emphasis on dedication and loyalty to the game over player skill, and in doing so fosters a different mentality in the gameworld and in the community. Planetside is meant to be a community driven game, where the importance of individual skill is diminished and cooperation and cohesion is more important.

It seemed pay to win for me at first because I mean, unlocking a new gun with certs takes forever, and I assumed the default guns must suck, else they wouldn't be default. So it was like the games trying to push you to spend like 7 dollars on a gun. that sounds RIDICULOUS to anyone from the outside looking in. It's still utterly ridiculous to me.

But when I learned how sidegradey the guns all were, and that they were more specialist than versatile for the most part, I realized it didn't matter if I was using the default gun, it's just as good if not better than the others, they just all cater to different playstyles. When I learned that I stopped thinking the game was at least kinda pay to win.

But then there are things that are awful by default and need to be heavily certed into in order to function semi well. Mostly vehicles, and those still feel a bit too heavy on the pay to win side.

It's a horrible grind if you want to be able to play all roles, enjoy all vehicles, have some reasonable variety and not have to rely too much on others and what they can field. But P2W? Nope.

1. Pay to win? no

2. Cheat to win? yes

3. Pay to cheat? don't know, if so I answered 1 wrong.

pay2honk mtfka

It's going to depend on how you want to define pay to win.

Most define pay to win as providing an advantage to cash paying players over no paying players that can't be duplicated.

So as an example if PS2 was a true pay to win, cash players could access special guns with superior stats to other players, or even more extreme example paying players could use MBTs and others could only use Lightnings etc.

In this sense PS2 is most certainly not pay to win, as none of those are true.

However paying cash does confer an advantage, though as most mentioned it's primarily in how long it takes to unlock various skills and items, ultimately it all evens out, but in the early game it does give a slight advantage to paying customer.

But what you're describing isn't pay to win, it is games with RPG/leveling mechanics. (Of which about 90% today offer boosts in one version or another)

Pay to win is a Pandora Saga or any similar (often asian) MMORPG with cash-shop-only equipment that far overpowers everything you can get ingame.
Pay to win is a World of Tanks that allows you to purchase gold ammo that lets your vehicle hit like something from a tier higher. (I read somewhere that they toned it down, but it used to be crazy back when I still played)
Pay to win is a F2P shooter that allows you to buy gold/platinium/whatever weapons, that are carbon copies of their normal versions except that they deal damage one or two tiers higher.
Pay to win could even be a MechWarrior Online, that lets you buy versions of mechs that offer (often) far superior customisation options.

None of which Planetside 2 has, so it is not pay to win.

camoflage is a little P2W.