Sigh....P2W is here

How do you get pay 2 win?

I thought that you can unlock everything with in game certs, as well as SC?

Do you mean that for the first couple days, people who actually supported SoE by giving them money, will have a small advantage?

i wouldn't call it pay2win. That would be nonsense. It's pay-or-grind. It's on SOE' part for making the 'grind' part as much as fun as possible to not feel like a grind.

buy during 3x smedbux events

then everything is 1/3 the price, that's what i did.

P2W = items you cannot obtain with ingame currency.

Almost every new FPS game including Halo 4 has that "buy <this> and get xp faster than other players!", in this case get certs and weapons faster than the rest of us, but it evens out in the end. Not so sure about resource pool though.

Now correct me if I'm wrong.. But say for instance you buy a gun/a boost that'll get you the gun quickly, and then you go out and fight a bunch of guys that won't have that gun until in a month or so, and you win the fight because of your awesome gun.. then.. you've paid to win.. no?

Not to mention that by the time the freebies eventually catch up, there'll likely be released a bunch of even nicer and equally expensive guns.
So yeah, on paper it's not pay2win, but in reality I would argue it is, to some extent at least.. seeing as not all things you buy are definite upgrades, there is "sidegrades" too and generally things for different playstyles.

Rocketpods = Less afterburner so not as good against ESF and missle dodging
Flares = you don't fire fighting so if you take damage to red you will just explode
Skygaurd = Cant kill infantry/tank as effectivly
HE = Cant kill tanks or air as effectivly
AP = Cant kill infantry or Air as effectivly
AA rockets = Less damage to ground targets

So yes all your points are sidegrades try again....

most of the guns are sidegrades were as the basic ones are very well rounded. So yes if you run into a guy with a shottie in CQB with base weapon you are at a disadvantage but if he runs into you in open terrain you win.

Oh how naive you are...

"herp derp! its not p2w because you can buy it for 1,000,000,000 certs ingame!11!1!1!1"

Its launch pricing, first adopters always get gouged

Wait until the initial burst is over and look for the price balances and deals (and ofc the x3 SC sales)

But people switch their weapons based on in what kind of situation they are so someone bought a long range gun and a shotgun and he comes across a player that just started the game and has all stock weapons he has a advantage in any situation, same goes with MBTs and lightnings. Not to mention of having the abilitys like better jetpack, various explosives, spawnbeacons etc. are also just straight up upgrades.

ok let me see you do a base assault and switch your weapon every time you enter or leave a building..... and the jetpacks all have + and - actually read them some move veritically faster but last half as long others have no vertical but almost never go away. you tade C4 for gernades which means you ahve to be ontop of someone to use. now Squad beacons yes those are upgrades that can only be used by the SL and are GIANT BEAMS OF LIGHT THAT CAN BE SEEN AND SHOT ANYWERE......

Go play Need for Speed: World, that's the definition of P2W.

I see everyone defending this trying to define P2W and everyone arguing falling into the trap of arguing the P2W terminology.

Fine, PS2 is not P2W by whatever definition you defenders have, no matter what I say, it won't change your opinion on the definition. What I will say is that the grind currently is far too unforgiving. The expect us to split our cert spendings between skills to increase the effectiveness of a class, or on a single weapon. The vast majority of the weapons are sidegrades, for infantry. But for vehicles, those weapons ARE game changers and in quite a few cases, game WINNERS. A magrider NEEDS a Saron or similar secondary weapon to survive better in tank battles, relying solely on the driver's gun is near suicidal as trying to reliably aim and fire makes you loose the mobility advantage the mag has. ESFs need rocket pods and/or the AA guns, just try killing infantry or any kind of vehicle with that machine gun, you will be shot down long before you can do too much.

You may say 'it's free stop complaining' but as a potential customer I WILL complain. I WAS planning on paying and supporting this game by getting a big selection of cosmetics within the first week. But now I am upset and I am going to be saving that money instead to see if it is even WORTH to use that money to get weapons instead! I have to first see just how far away from any legit progression i will be in a week from now. I shouldn't have to be bending over backwards to decide purchases, to decide if I will even be PLAYING long enough to warrent it.

PS2 may be the only real competive MMOFPS period, with only the original and maybe WW2O as very minor competition, but by going F2P it has competition in the form of other F2Ps. F2P gamers are less likely to be willing to shell out huge amounts of money to game either because they are cheap, they don't have the finances or even they may not have the time to dedicate to games. In most cases, making them feel like they have to exert massive effort to enjoy a game the way they want to, will loose that potential customer. They will loose interest and go to some other F2P.

I seen many other F2Ps with this same level of 'time investment vs price' strategy, and they all tend to loose playerbase FAST. In their cases they might struggle to get by with few players but that is IMPOSSIBLE for a game like planetside2 where fewer players means the ENTIRE selling point of the game being the massive battles is lost and the people who would have remained end up leaving too.

Look at TF2, it's been F2P for several years now and it just keeps getting huge amounts of players. TF2 is THROWING items at players, they literally get 7-9 dropped items on a weekly basis. The ONLY item they sell on the store that does not drop are the keys to unlock a crate, and crate drops do NOT affect your item gain rate.

Now one may think that the store purchases for items are dismal. That is wrong. Valve won't share the exact profits, HOWEVER they did share some info regarding possible profits. You see a huge amount of the items in store are contributed by community members who model a item and submit it to valve, they aren't hired to do this. Originally before the store, this was all done just to get an item one made in the game, no one ever realized they would get paid. Once the store was released, it was revealed EVERY person who contributed an item would have a portion of the sales of that item. We recently found out that several of the people who contibuted three to four items are EASILY making $100-$150K A YEAR. That is off a SMALL PORTION of the sales of just a couple items in the store! That is the salary of a dev, and that was just a SMALL PORTION of sales of just a COUPLE items. If the contributers are getting a 10%-20% deal, then the full profits for Valve for those same items could easily be over $700K.

Now IMAGINE how much cash they are raking in WITH EVERY SINGLE ITEM. They have a LOT of items. Now imagine how much money they make on the KEYS.

Yes I know TF2's item system won't work for PS2, but it shows that the philosophy of trying to force big purchases is far riskier then HUNDREDS of tiny purchases. You make the player happy by throwing free stuff at them, they will be willing to play more often, and if they play more often it is only a matter of time before they get addicted to spending money on the game.

@fallenvash Finnaly someone who understands, 100% agree with you.

I concur!

Nothing like turning $15 into 6000 SC ($60). Instead of two $7 weapons I can get 8 and have spare change. Thanks walmart and triple SC days

havent spent a dime in game and i been killing elmos and smurfs left and right lol^^ i dont see it being p2w in my opinion

I'm going to drop $71 on a 6 month subscription when I get home. How does that make you feel?

LOL
Sucked in burster maxes! This could make air more viable ^^.

Shoot a tank with an ESF equipped with cert-funded rocket pods and then try again with one equipped with station coin-funded rocket pods.

The result is the same. The person who paid does not hane an advantage over the person who grinded (ground?) certs, except for time invested.

This is a short term situation because no one has earned many certs yet. It will soon sort itself out.

Pay2Win is when there are advantages which are only acquirable if you purchase currency.