Extra Credits's Thoughts on Free to Play

Certification gap isn't THAT big for infantry combat.

In fact, it's largely negligible.

Of course the BR100 has a slight statistical advantage over a BR1... but if the BR1 is, somehow, better than the BR100, the BR1 can still easily win the firefight.

The Cert wall really only comes into play with vehicle combat IMO

The fact that it's a factor at all detracts from PVP quality and creates an unnecessary barrier to new players enjoying the game. I want to win only because I outplayed someone, not because I had more certs.

Lets say both guys are using Gauss Saw with 500 RPM. It takes 120ms to fire one bullet so max nanoweave essentially gives you 120ms of more survivability. Average reaction time is 240ms (time it takes mouse click after seeing the signal stimuli) and is probably about 400ms when you factor in aiming.

So as you can see max nanoweave only gives you advantage if two of you start shooting at the same time(or within 120ms interval). I would argue that happens in no more than 10% of 1v1 encounters. And this is not accounting for the fact that majority of encounters in this MMOFPS aren't 1v1.

Your point stands that one player is at advantage just for playing longer but I would argue that advantage this small is tolerable. Besides, how would you run F2P model without any progression?

Problem is that one imbalance creates another. So if enemy faction zergs the base I'm defending they will have less manpower to defend other bases and those other bases will get zerged by my faction in turn. I can choose where to fight but all choices include population imbalance - either my side has more numbers or the enemy have more numbers. I prefer when both sides are somewhat balanced and those don't come up as often as I would like.

That's sort of an issue for SOE though... PS2 needs something that makes players want to pay... I guess that's supposed to be cosmetics but I'm not sure how much they MAKE you WANT to pay for them.... And if you do, you might just make a one or two time purchase and that's it... Also, some of those cosmetics are player made so SOE doesn't even get all the money from it... I haven't thought about it that much so I have no suggestions on what they should/could do to make players want to pay for something... I guess the only thing that currently comes close to that is resource boost but they would have to up the resource cost or slow the rate at which you obtain them... Maybe the next phase of the resource revamp will help with that...

Should we take a count over how many modern FPS games have absolutely NO unlocks whatsoever and everything avail up front?

A BR100 rerolling has absolutely zero problem whatsoever continuing to play as they always do.

The difference is negligible honestly. Against 2 top tiered players, sure, it can make the difference...

How many new players, even if they're a pro at every other FPS, do you think would qualify for that statement??

I don't think you understand the impulse buy power cosmetics have over... some... players

It's easy to spend a small fortune in this game.

If I wasn't forced to budget as tight as I do, dropping 5-10/mo on PS2 would be easy.

As is, I've still put as much into this game as a AAA release + DLC. Totally worth it though.

Didn't need to buy any of it, but hell, I want them to be rewarded and supported for this game.

Yes, but does everyone do the same as you? Or is it just a small portion? And if so, the money stops after a while cause the ones who are gonna buy the cosmetics have done so already. It's not residual whereas the monthly fee model of yesteryear was...

Ive only got a couple hundred bucks in this game...

What, you want us to wear last months fashion?!????

Honey... you got a thing or 2 to learn about fashion, mmmmhmm.

/2SnapsAndAShake

I just want this game to be the same it is today, meaning that I, a F2Player, can still wreck payers

In my opinion, this game does F2P in nearly the best way possible. I don't know why this was posted here.

Funny because its true.

I rocked my Nightstriker helmet for a long time, then it went on sale. Had to move on to the Raptor Helmet after that.

PS2 got it pretty much right when they set this model up. Paying players progress faster but it doesnt matter when you're duking it out. Ive been killed by an absurd amount of base model players with zero cosmetics. The starter weapons are all fully functional and good, solid choices even after you buy/cert more weapons.

Its pretty well the same as TF2's model; pay to be sexy but you dont need to pay to play and have fun, as well as win. I did have TF2 pre-ordered but I like the new F2P model as it brought a huge influx of new players and toes to shoot off. .

I'd be more than happy to spend 5-10 bucks on PS2, if 5-10 bucks actually bought me something worthwhile. 5 dollars currently gets you 500 station cash which is... not enough for anything, really. Weapons cost 700. Helmets cost 1000. You're essentially forced to wait until something hopefully goes on sale to bring the price down.

I mean, if 10 bucks enabled me to buy a helmet and a pair of camos, I'd be more willing to drop money on the game. As is, it's just overpriced and SO not worth it.

Well... that is one way to look at it. And a very correct way. The "I pay money, so I should get goods that are worth the money" form of transaction.

On the other hand you're also paying money to support the game. Sort of like when you buy Girl Scout cookies. Sure you're getting a box of delicious cookies, but at the same time you know that you're also buying support for an organization that you'd like to keep running. As such you're not just getting a helmet or a weapon out of it, you're also getting the PS2 experience.

"But I can already get the PS2 experience without paying a cent!"

That's true, but someone has to man up and pay for all the development, distribution, maintenance, and bug-fixing that goes on behind the scenes. And if everyone just pitched in a little bit, we wouldn't have the whale-dependency problem that is the subject of this thread.

More importantly, by making PS2 a commercial success (or at least commercially viable), you're also sending a message to the game development community: "We like PS2, make more Planetside games that can exceed the current stale CoD/BF environment". In turn, as hopefully developers notice market demand for this sort of thing, you'll get more games of the type that you like to play. That way you're "voting" with your dollars.

I mean that's why we have so many CoD versions that I really can't tell them apart anymore (beyond WWII/modern themes). Or why BF3 is pretty indistinguishable from BF4. Devs saw that these made them a good deal of money, so they kept doing the same thing over and over and over and over again.

I mean to some, it will always just be a hat or a decal that they're buying. But really spending money in PS2 can impact the game and games in general in much broader ways!

I wouldn't need to 'support the game' out of the goodness of my own heart if they just priced things decently. That's a horrible business model. In fact, that's a horrible mentality in general. It teaches the developers that they can get away with bad business practices simply by preying on the fanboys' love of the game. If they actually lowered their prices to something more reasonable, this wouldn't even need to be a thing.

I'm already voting with my dollars. By not buying their over-priced items, I'm telling SOE. "Hey, guys, I like your game, but I'm not supporting your attempts to overcharge me for in-game items."

I'm not even going to get into the ways that that PS2 differs from PS1. (Hint, they added a lot of ideas from Battlefield). That's an entirely different argument for another thread. But back to the point, SOE aren't an Indie developer. They wear big boy pants. They aren't a 2-man team that rely on donations to keep themselves afloat. I'm all about supporting developers. I love Cardhunter, another f2p title, and spent $20 on their basic edition starter pack. I didn't need to, since I had already progressed quite far in that game, but I did it anyway cause I really enjoyed what they were doing. And I even got a good value for my money, considering they gave me a fair amount of stuff in that pack that I was quite happy with.

There's a keen difference between that and tossing away $10 on a single helmet to a large company that's attempting to milk its customers. I enjoy PS2, but as a consumer, I just can't justify buying anything from them at their current prices.

As I said before, that's a fair and legitimate way to look at things. You're entitled to do so.

But the result is that people who are okay with buying high-priced things (the whales) become the focus of the game and developers and we might run into the problems outlined by the OP's videos.

The impetus is on them, not me. They focus on whales, so the little fish don't want to buy stuff.

Not, the little fish don't want to buy stuff, so they focus on whales.

We wouldn't need to pitch in if they just lowered their prices to the point where everybody wanted to buy things.

But if they lowered the prices then they might not be making the game profitable, which in turn would cause them to turn to the whales again.

Or they might make more money due to more people buying their stuff, then they wouldn't have to worry about whales at all.

True... it's like how I explained it in my post here, which I'll quote:

I assume though that they've done marketing research on this and aren't just throwing out random numbers.