SOE Punishing High Pay, but Non Members

It's an improvement I admit (though I hate the whole giving away free shotguns but that's me), but it's mostly a new weapon reward, which really isn't that big a deal, with one exception all the default weapons are good for starting players. The inclusion of a secondary Max arm is better, course then again I hate encouraging new players to use Max Units right away.

What I really think they should do is have a better in game tutorial that will give you an actual cert reward when you complete it for the first time, just to help you kit out a class a bit put a few points in your basic armor and med gun, or shield or whatever.

The game is definitely a lot better from when I first started and literally just dropped me down in the middle of a fire fight once I logged in, but the game is still a pita for new players, especially for those with no real FPS experience.

Seems like a bad idea to me. When I started all I did was Medic or Eng.
and getting those tools up asap was important,
and I logged in every day to get those certs because every single one mattered.
It wasn't until later, maybe a few months where the 12 certs weren't enough
so I became a member, which really helped build up my other classes.

You got to give new players something!

I too cannot afford membership, every so often I can afford to throw £10 at SOE to help fund the game, but the benefits of 1 month of membership is far outweighed by the amount of goodies I can get from the store for £10 worth of SC. It would be nice to get some recognition for these payments. I mean, I'm trying my best to help fund the game, but I also have other things I have to pay for (food, rent, etc) and I only have a minimum wage job with variable hours.

I suggest that they do something like bring back Loyal Soldier, but keep it active. If you have spent money on SC or membership, or if you spend money in the future on either of them, then you get the Loyal Soldier pack. Alternatively, they could reward your first purchase of SC by giving you a free character slot (similar to DDO).

I'm an All Access subscriber despite not playing the game too much anymore. I keep the sub running to support the game especially now that it is going in a good direction (less nerfing random things, more focus on gameplay). However, I do feel bad for those who pay for SC getting slapped in the face a little.

So, I am not new to MMO's, I played my fair share of F2P a P2P MMO's (and for reasons I care not to mention in this thread, I vastly prefer P2P models). And I've always wondered why PS2, as a primarily F2P game, does not offer something almost every other F2P game provides: A Loyalty system.

Essentially, Loyalty systems work fairly straight forward: For every store credit you purchase, and for every month you subscribe, you earn a special "Loyalty" experience/credit that can be used to either unlock or purchase special items, systems, or perks. For PS2 this could, amongst many things, be off-line cert gains with various tiers that unlock at different Loyalty 'levels'.

Although I don't play the game actively, Trion's MMORPG Rift has a very interesting Loyalty system which I regularly refer back to as an example to look at on this subject. I hope SOE is considering something like this for PS2 as well as their other games.

As a member of All Access whose membership is expiring soon with no plan to renew (January 2nd), I'm not bothered by this much. Passive cert gain is little to nothing as it is anyways.

The "recognition" you get is the item you purchased. Goods and services in exchange for currency: it's the foundation of capitalism. If you feel an item alone isn't worth the money you've spent on it, you shouldn't have bought it in the first place.

The only mistake SOE has made here is giving passive certs to non-members in the first place.

If a new player is having a hard time getting on their feet, the best thing they can do is [spoiler]UPGRADE NOW![/spoiler]

Or, they could take a page from PS1, and offer cert/exp incentives for trying out things in the VR, so as players learn how to use different equipment they get a bunch of certs to get started. It makes learning about the game a rewarding experience for a new, lost player.

With the exception of cosmetics, everything in this game is purchasable with CERT. I could just farm up for things, but I want to help support the game as far as I can. A little bit of recognition for my payments would be nice. The item being recognition is ********, as there is no way for others to know whether I purchased it with SC or cert, so it's not recognition it's just an item I paid for. The Loyal Soldier reward showed people that you had spent money on the game, and were helping to support it.

The whole passive cert thing doesn't actually bother me at all.

All I know is when it happened in EQ1 and whatever other MMOs it happened in (might have been UO, DAoC or AO) it happened to people that had open credit cards on their accounts, it couldn't (and didn't) happen to me, because I did not.

Yeah it seems pretty sensible, and many do it (didn't know DCUO did though).

Am I the only the few that thinks this game is very biased against new players? Other than being farm crop to higher battle ranks with fully certed nanoweave, etc. Look at the ingame store (the ad showing the Amerish tree with the "remain calm and buy these starter bundles"), they're already asking new players to throw their money for a lame bundle with a weapon and attachments unlocked as if it would even benefit them in any way when stock weapons do just fine at it. I can go on but will leave it as is...

When I got into this game as new player, grinding for certs was tough as a newbie until reaching a mid rank level with partially full certed classes and vehicles. Passive certs gain was one of the few things that allowed me to continue playing this game. Take that away, new players are less motivated to continue playing.

One thing I wanted to suggest for development to new starting players is to give them a starting pool of certs (at least 1000) to initially invest in their starting class, especially now that they removed passive cert gain that benefited them most in the past.

Oh and I won't be renewing my membership. Now that I'm close to BR100 long before the time of my 12 month membership expires.
Really liked the design and concept of this game and supported it until the constant nerfs and gameplay screw ups we've seen as of late.

And what shall SOE add to members then? If you still get your 12certs then SOE need to add something else to members because now you can pay for 1 month and get araxium 50%xp. So then SOE should have added more nanites? or 100%xp for members.

You can spend $400 over 18-ish months, but can't or won't do $15 a month or whatever is is?

Well if it makes you feel any better, i got my membership XP bonus reduced to 0%

Every time I fly with my airline of preference I get credit towards free flights and discounts. Every time I shop at a certain store I get credit towards discounts and free items. These are loyalty rewards, a system similar to this would probably net more money from SC sales than taking away features of F2Ps to get memberships.

Some time ago, everyone who had purchased station cash, received a month (I think) of free membership. They also permenantly received the loyal soldier camo and in game title, as well as three extra character slots.

People who spent money on the game received this regardless of whether or not they paid a subscription. I have not once paid for membership (student budget ), but have bought station cash several times. I am happy with the loyalty reward that was given to me.

Ah alright np, you can always buy in 500 increments and then wave them in a fan fassion at rich parties though

Well your reply was polite but still you original was a bit rude or perhaps I just see it as that because it was blunt. To all your problems and wanting the game to achieve what it can I'd say to that I hope the PS4 version comes out soon and generally be great because no matter what you think of it there is no denying it will help the game a ton.

That's the crux of it. Most of us old timers are fine without any passive cert gain, but I remember when I first started, it was just a HUGE deal being able to get some gun sights or IRNV (back when it wasn't mostly useless) on your vehicle.

And the passive cert gain for membership is already huge - why take away from the poor guys who have little to begin with? Who are the members gonna kill if there's no one else playing the game?

GG SOE, GG!