PS2 officially going P2W?

Constructive and specific: instead of adding a new way to get nanites, make the one that exists work. We need separate booster slots for XP and resources. The resource boosters need to be lowered in price to offer reasonable value so people will actually buy them. Give resource boosters a cert price. This way you meet your nanite monetization goals, the P2W whiners are appeased, you actually do something useful with already mostly finished systems that are otherwise rotting in obscurity, and there's another cert sink in game which is always good for SOE. This solution is air tight, where am I wrong?

Resource Revamp.



But seriously, though, after implants, how could anybody be surprised about this?

I have thrown a sizable chunk of money (for me anyways) at this game. If this is implemented I will be starting a petition and asking others to join with me in canceling all memberships and refrain from any SC purchases while this is active.

This is a blatant pay to win tactic and is nothing more than a cash grab. I can not support this and if it is implemented this will be the last Sony game I will ever purchase. Do not turn into EA games, they are the joke of the internet and have lost the business from cash grab attempts like this.

There is not a middle ground on this. If it is implemented then Planetside 2 has officially moved into a pay to win setup.

The amount of fear mongering over this is insane.

It takes 10 minutes for a paid sub to fill up there resources, I spend that time waiting for a base to flip if I'm in a vehicle.

Are there better way to generate income, absolutely but they have to make money.

If this game can't generate a revenue stream SONY will move the assets that works on PS2 to another project that can produce
the revenues that they want.

I guess I'll add in my thoughts on this. In short, as a paying subscriber that has invested $190 into Planetside 2, I am against having purchasable nanite refills.

First, it would help to go over what Nanites are and the purpose of the Resource Revamp, found here:
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/july-resource-revamp.170991/

Instead of having a super long post, I'll try to keep it short and to the point. Extra explanations will have a number in parentheses and will be located at the bottom of this post.

From what I understand, SoE is seeking more revenue streams. This is understandable, large games, especially Free to Play games, needs a source of income. Free to play games are not free to create and maintain, someone else has to pay for the privileges of the free to play players.

Nanite Refills is one experiment that exchanges 1 Station Cash for 10 Nanites. Thus, if the Roadmap is correct, 60 cents can grant the player instantly capped resources! (1) The problem with this is that it bypasses the entire point of the Resource Revamp which is supposed to reduce spam and introduce better resource management in Planetside 2.

There is a fine line between convenience and pay-to-win, and this line is even more dangerous when there is player versus player involved. Implants managed to squeeze on by because they can mostly be maintained by playing and act as a cert sink for maxed out BR players. Add-on purchases is more risky, especially for MAXes whose upgrades cost a lot of certs. An outfitted gun in Planetside 2 is superior to one that has no add-ons. (2)

I want to support Planetside 2 and have others enjoy the game. I know it needs funding, but there are certain ways to create revenue streams without resorting to these exploitative measures that results in ill will from the community. The Player Studio was a step in the right direction, people love to sink money into cosmetics. The different voices for the player character were also good additions. (3) What about the often requested server transfers, name changes, and cert resets? They may not be the top selling items of all time, but they should be easy to implement and provide some form of compensation for the effort.

I want Planetside 2 to be successful in the long term. I want to see more epic battles across varying terrain, whether it be on a volcanic landscape, paradise islands, or a metallic moon. I want to see a big Vanu Mothership warp in on a continent so I can shoot it down alongside my TR comrades, and dare I say, the NC traitors. I want the dream of Planetside 2 to become a reality.

Just don't screw us over with money schemes. Please.

* * *

(1): From the Roadmap, the player gains 60 Nanites a minute and ideally goes from zero to full in 10 minutes, making the max 600 Nanites.
(2): Optics make aiming easier across the board. // Rail attachments are basically directly upgrades with Forward Grips, Laser Sights, Extended Magazine, and so on as they lack any real downside. // Only Barrel Attachments and Ammo seems to be fine as there are benefits and downfalls to each.
(3): While I do enjoy the new voice acting, I do wonder about how much profit it actually brings. This is the downfall of the cosmetic dream many players have, if the new shiny product does not make money, it is a wasted investment. This is why some companies try to monetize "practical" things instead of taking risks, which results in the common debacle of the Pay-To-Win debate.

Btw guys, on the stream, Higby said that the refills won't be going in on the US/EU versions, no news about the other regions

HOORAY

Good post but I only wanted to make a comment about this part.
People like cosmetics. I like cosmetics. But I only bought ONE helmet because I hated the VS Infiltrator helmet and ONE decal because it was my country's flag (it's illegal in my country to put your flag on clothing or even on your house so I could not resist)

In Team Fortress 2 I have a crap load of cosmetics; I think I paid over 80 Euro for cosmetics alone.

Cosmetics, like weapons, are WAY to expensive in this game. I'm not buying a virtual helmet for 8 Euro's. **** that.

I rather not even buy a weapon for 8 Euro but to be competitive/get a weapon you can work with you have to since cert gain is sloooooow for a new player.

I'm not buying any more SC, I spend about 50 euro's on this game which granted is not much for all the hours I've played. But I do not like getting ripped off. If weapons and helmets and all the vehicle cosmetics were cheaper I would spend MORE money on this game.

Really? I spent over 1k on this game, I'm afraid to check my bank statements because that was 6 months ago. Do they really need more revenue streams? Granted there are few people that shell out as much as I have, it is going overboard (I won't bore you with excuses), but the point is that the ability to spend that much is already in game. You don't need to add to it. Instead focus on increasing and retaining your player base (like adding new features as example for retaining, going to PS4 and advertising overall is a good example of increasing).

Guys.. It's not going in for the majority of servers... Stop complaining

Not yet.

If this goes in for any servers Ill be uninstalling and Ill post pics after I do.

Slowly but surely this game will move into this direction (P2W). Hell, it's going to be another 2 years before meaningful content comes out for the game. Until then it will be a worse version of BF4...

SOE asked for our thoughts. It is sometimes difficult to tell when someone is giving a genuine reaction and how much they might have been swayed by popular opinion. Still, it doesn't take much to find plenty of negative comments that also present some reasoning. I think lots of people are just expressing strong views.


You envisage being happy with how often you, as an individual, could pull a vehicle. May I ask if you've given much thought to the wider impact that this would have on resources as a gameplay system?

The Resource Revamp involves carefully tuning the cost of consumables and vehicles to maximize a better quality experience. Less spam. More careful usage. A helping hand in outnumbered fights. More tactics. More strategy.

Never mind the proposed payments for a moment. The player-facing part of that system is the resource costs. If SOE were to do all that work on the system and then lazily pluck numbers from thin air people would, rightly, say they've messed up the one absolutely crucial detail (and not terribly difficult to do) that everything else hinged upon.

Let's take the example of making everything cost as much as a grenade. Well, that's a lot of tank spam and makes destroying vehicles almost meaningless. Obviously, not a healthy choice.

How about if they all had zero resource cost in order to satisfy all the players that want to play whatever they want, whenever they want? No restrictions to balance powerful vehicles and consumables but we've got total freedom! The RR would certainly fail to achieve anything it set out to do.


Finally, how about if the zero resource cost only applies to people who pay enough cash? They don't always pay, in fact they're most likely to do so when at a closely fought and strategically important fight (including before you can tell who's winning), when their faction is losing a battle, when your faction has strategically cut off their territory specifically so they shouldn't have resource gain, or when you - through some combination of skill, tactics and/or teamwork - kill them too often and they don't have enough for another tank, plane, MAX, C4, revive grenade etc. etc. That's when they'd care the most.

This would create two tiers of players. Those who are limited by the system and those who are not. Paying would be directly gaining an advantage over the opponent, or removing disadvantages the free players are subjected to, in order to have more influence on the battle.

Every time someone looks at a low resource pool and pays for a sudden nanite injection they would be avoiding some limitation that - for everyone else - exists because it improves gameplay. But these players are exceptions.

When free and paid players are not playing by the same, basic rules of gameplay you're deep into very murky water indeed.


Again, as myself and others have said, at least the resource boost is percentage based. It's not immediate so they sometimes still have to wait and may be too late to kill that important Sunderer spawn with C4/tank/aircraft. This means they can be punished by good play by the enemy team. It's limited to 50%-100%, so there's still an inherent maximum amount of vehicle and consumable spam. And it's completely dependent on the power of the base you're at - when a base is cut off, double an income of zero is still zero.

Good news, not that I expected we would be seeing it.

Although it's baffling that other places are fine with design decisions being undermined by monetization routes.

So this is a Briggs-only thing? what.

The other regions I refer to are china/russia/korea, where accounts are completely seperated. Briggs is included in the US/EU region.

The post on reddit rather suggest you don't want feed back, but you use the "we want feedback" shinny words to avoid a well deserved "threadnaught". Your team crossed the line several times now and somehow you have still managed to not free-fall like an anvil from the sky, just slower because hossin was there to save you. How long do you think will this "elasticity" last? How long, in an hypothetical drawn time line, until the anvil becomes real, 80% of your team gets fired while 20% moved to another project (probably the one being financed with the ps2 income, because none would seriously buy the "we need more income stream" otherwise, given the quality of the game itself) and we, people who wanted to keep enjoying your unique game, have to move on and hope that there will be something similar in a near future.

What about we get more serious and transparent? Even your die-hard-fanbois have ran out of resources in order to defend the direction your master plan is leading you into. And I... well I am having troubles at drawing the line between a random casual ipad macrotransaction game and ps2, after seeing what's coming.

Is it really so hard to have the slightest respect for your playerbase?

I do not support this at all. Totally Pay to Win. Even worse than paying for attachments and Implants (which is sort of Pay to Win). You're going to lose many players with this addition SOE. Instead, focus more on meaningful content (like Hossin like things). I came back briefly when Hossin was released. Why not do more of that? People would like that. Also, if this game was good, I might have payed for a Cert reset (hint, hint). Server transfers, name changes, Cert resets, etc. are all fine things to monetize and many others have suggested them. There's some suggestions, try them. Just not this blatant P2W stuff.

(If only PS1 wasn't almost dead. If only..... Maybe someday we can have the source code and assets.... might be worth paying for...... Oh, who am I kidding..... Still, I can imagine....... I'm a modder for other games anyways, I got them to advance and make better.)

Given how hot this topic is, I feel I should put my vote in.

This is no more P2W than the current boost and membership bonus methods that already exist in the game. As much as this game relies on core skill to actually "win", the extra resource boost to an individual doesn't really provide a bonus that is any more game breaking that the systems we are already faced with.

It still takes the same amount of bullets to kill an enemy. That enemy still has to shoot you the same amount of times. It's still competitive. Dust 514 and Firefall are not like this, you purchase something in these games, you are immediately more survivable and more powerful vs a free player. Can you name a F2P FPS that is as fair?

I don't understand why some people jump to this conclusion every time SOE finds a fair way to add development money in this game. Usually the people that are making this complaint, are also complaining about the lack of new content -- makes no sense, gotta have money to make new content. At it's core, this game is a business. No matter how fun it is, it will eventually be turned off if it doesn't turn a profit.

TL ; DR : This new method is just a quicker (cheaper) way to do what boosts and members already get. I don't feel it's pay to win.

This is bad and you should feel bad. Let me explain:

a). I vividly remember one session where the squad I was playing with was harassed by the same two ESF pilots over and over again. We shot both of them down at least four times in about ~20-25 minutes period, but they kept pulling their aircraft and seeking us out to mess with us again. And that's with the current timer + resource cost setup.

Now imagine how these folks would behave if the topic of this thread goes through. These chucklehigbies would not have a need to even try to dodge the shots because whatever worth their vehicle had would go down the drain completely. People pulling vehicles would not have an incentive to keep them from blowing up because they could just pull them again as soon as they respawn.

If you don't see how that might be a problem that could very well cause a severe drop in player population, then I don't know what to say.

b). P2W. People like to throw that around more than they should, true. But if that change were to go through, they would be right. Just because some MMOs of a so-called 'korean' model pulled much more brazen nanites than this doesn't mean that buying your tanks when the base you are on should not be able to spawn any thanks to resource deprivation is somehow not as bad.

Planetside 2 is quite horrendously new-player unfriendly. Its ad campaign is non-existent. Changing the rules so that players could not honestly say 'this is not a P2W' to newcomers will only hurt new player retention. Which I really shoudn't be explaining to you folks.

This game has more or less a monopoly on the kind of gameplay it offers. That however doesn't mean that players won't leave it regardless of the kind of nanites you pull.

Very interesting idea, sort of making using nanites (and buying them) have an in-game cost if I'm reading it right, although I'm not sure I'm clear what happens in a 0 resource situation when you buy them with SC? (which is when the biggest P2W aspect would occur)