Smedly comments on Implant changes: "sorry but we are actually trying to make money"

**** delusional fanboy, you're the most ******** kind of players

They were apparently making some money (which is understandable they are a $0 cost item so almost any sale is pretty much pure profit), but you're absolutely right, almost anyway they try to monetize Implants (which basically is force players to buy them or more realistically their chargers) basically becomes a system few people (including the PS2 Devs and SOE management themselves) would actually WANT to play....... because it is a broken, horrible, basically P2Whatever system by design.

And it will only hurt the game and their bottom line in the long-term.

To be honest Clear Vision can do just that, effectively so can Sensor Shield 3 in a different way.

But you're right it is not "Pay to always win" - but that is because no game ever has and no game ever will have that form of P2W because it would be insane.

Semantics over the whether something is P2Win or P2Whatever is a canard, a strawman arguement, disingenous and plain silly.




The reality is Pay to Advantage (or whatever you wish to call it) is a horrible, horrible idea in games, and especially in PvP games.

The main issue I have with paying for anything in this game is value for money, nothing I have seen for nearly a year offers any value for money especially when you consider I could buy a complete game for the price of an in game weapon.

The last cash item I bought was the striker, which was almost immediately nerfed into oblivion and left broken beyond use in the doldrums for months. Why would I invest any more money in any in game items given the track record of destroying that item shortly after people have bought it. My account had been sat with 1000 odd station cash for months, everything I saw on sale I already had unlocked over the year with certs.

As for paying to hire implants, no its just not happening if the game gets to the point where you need to pay money to stay competitive for the 'hire' of items then ill just play another game where I just have to pay once. Or ill play games where my cash payments do not affect gameplay (ie cosmetic items).

If SOE want to make money they should concentrate on fixing the broken game, lag is unbelievable at the moment with people popping in and out of view every 15m or so.

Not quite so, they are indeed hard counters to otherwise uncontested mechanics, but wielder of Clear Vision is still just as kill-able as any other player, same goes for Sensor Shield 3. They are simply very hard counters to a game mechanic.

Pay to win? I doubt it.... Pay to remove an annoying part of the game? Maybe... Pay for some form of advantage (in a very nitch manner might I add)? Yes, I can agree with that.

This is why F2P is categorically bad. As long as decisions regarding game play are put at cross purposes with making money, the players will always be on the short end of the stick.

New rule everybody! Every time you would normally write something like: "pay 4 convenience" or "it doesn't make you untouchable!" please substitute "Just the tip, I promise". Look me in the forum eye. Tell me it changes the meaning.

If you throw a conc grenade into a room full of people without clear vision and follow it in quickly you will be full of win, no matter how rubbish you are.

Conversely if someone has it they will likely be full of win.

Sensor sheild on the other hand gives a smaller specific advantage, but gives it pretty much ALL the time, and you will win with it where you otherwise would not without it many, many times.




As I have said there never has been and never will be such a thing in ANY game as "pay to always win" - it would be insane as a concept, and no developer, accountant or manager would ever been that stupid (as they'd realise it would destory the game quicker than they could ever get any money out of it).

However that does not mean anything upto "pay to always win" is therefore "fine".

That's what the term pay to win means: selling advantages for real money that can't be acquired another way.

Premium cash only ammo that does +30% damage for instance. That's pay to win. I can still beat someone with that ammo if I catch him off guard, but he has an advantage over me that can't be matched without paying cash. That's the cardinal sin in F2P games.

In this case it isn't the implants themselves that are the problem, it's the fact that you can't run the higher tiers without paying for chargers. If someone asked me to explain to them how that isn't pay to win I wouldn't know how, and that's a problem for me. It's clearly a gameplay advantage behind a pay wall.

I'm a paying customer, full membership for over a year,bought nearly every weapon in the game for all 3 empires and also an Alpha squad owner. (still only use the default weapons)

I have never used an implant after the first day they released. Have hundreds of them stockpiled across seven characters. i actually hate i have to manually deselect them when i'm starting fresh.

If this is a reason for people to moan P2W in a F2P game then SOE are doing well.

As I swirl my cognac and take a puff on my cigar, I wish them all the money in the world. Especially since we can just print more.

What irks me is now even SOE is offically trying the old "it is not P2W because you don't always win when you pay" nonsense - which is a defination of P2W that has never occured in any game and never will.

And frankly just sounds like they think their customers are plain daft enough for fall for a bit of sematics.

Your example of +30% damage "wouldn't" be P2W by the current standards of implants and SOEs claims...... yet, of course, any remotely reasonable person would class that as P2W (because it would be).

You can buy chargers with certs. You can create chargers/ultra chargers with combining implants(it isn't rare to get T3 implant drops, and if you combine a T2+T3 = ultra charger...).

Also, welcome to F2P gaming. If you do not want to pay, you have to play to earn in-game currency. That is literally the point of it. You recieve currency through playing, you supply currency in the form of playing the game. That's the company to customer transaction.

Apparently, some of you won't be happy untill SOE is losing money on PS2(and in a recent post Smed said PS2 is finally turning a profit). Seriously, PS2 has one of the most forgiving F2P models I've seen, and now you whine over not being able to use the top tier implants ALL of the time? Gamer entitlement has gone to the point where we seem to expect games to be free, and if SOE, or any company, makes money they're money-grubbing suits.

If you classify PS2 as P2W because of this then you might as well just give up MMOs or competitive games altogether.

This is the bizarre thing, implants are effectively a $0 item for SOE, and they were making money...... just not "enough" money, apparently.

Now apparently more "features" will have this rentable method, so people will be renting boost, renting membership, renting implants, renting who knows what (weapons, damage upgrades etc.)............ and PS2 will be tanking with SOE wondering why.

Is that what stopped them from doing Gifting? I can't remember seeing that. That's a real shame if so.

Yes, if they screw it up it will chase people away. Then they would need to tweak their strategy. But I was never under the impression that PS2 was being run as a charity. They should make money off it. If they could start raking in RSI level dough then imagine what they could do to a game that actually exists?

I'm ok with paying for my entertaiment. But I remember Sony from days when company was a manufacturer of hi-quality goods, it costed me a lot, but it was worth it.

Now we have things other way around... WHAT THE HELL IS THIS MESS YOU TRYING TO SELL ME?! I wish old Sony back...

Implants are not P2W dude; not even close. You obviously have no idea how that works.

Go check out Start Citizen. Literally P2W because the ONLY way to acquire ANY upgrades is with real money. You can not earn ANYTHING in game. THAT'S P2W .

Implants can be acquired in game WITHOUT money... get it? See how that's not P2W?

Stop and think before you type next time.

See this is why Planetside 2 isn't making money. It's stupid ideas like "we can make money off implants!" Who the heck buys implants? A very small minority. It's a marginal revenue stream at the bottom of their monthly reporting I'm sure. Just look at the price of an Ultra Charger and then look at how stupid easy it is to make your own without paying for them. These items are a marginal upgrade at best in most cases; not worth a single cent of someone's hard earned money. Especially when they just come free, passively, by just playing the game.

I was insulted that the last Game Stop game card "unique" item was freak'n implants. Not even high tier ones! What a joke... a bad joke at that.

You should be the one who think before typing delusional fanboy.

I've been farming the game for one month every day before the update and kept my implants for the update. All I got is one ******* T4 implant for 1month of farming (5h+ a day). Now I should farm for maybe 6months to get another random one.
Moreover, YOU CANNOT MAINTAIN IMPLANTS ENERGY IG just by playing the freaking game with the update.
Hell I'm pretty sure I can't even sustain a T1 implant.
Therefore you cannot use implants without paying, how is that not P2W to you dumbt.a.r.d?

Screen shaking is horrible in the game and even got worsen, so that battle hardened is almost mandatory on every class. That's just pure P2W
Don't even talk about ******* citizen cause that money grab is not even out.

This was a silly move on SOE's part, offering any kind of advantage, no matter how minor, that requires money is going to be at best irritating to a large portion of the player base and worse outright tick people off up to the point where people will stop investing in the game in other areas (cancelled membership and so on).

It may take more effort but offering new models for existing weapons, unique looking vehicles that actually perform the same as existing ones etc all would entice players to spend more money without ticking off a large portion of the player base.

This move with the implants coupled by Smedly's comments well it's probably going to cost SOE more money in the end.