Free to play or pay to win? Video inside

Players who have obtained certs don't have that much more of an advantage over newer players. They are more versatile which means they can put themselves in more different situations then the new player. But that doesn't mean the new players can't outsmart anyone and get kills.

Sometimes people misspeak or say something that isn't interpreted correctly. Sorry, when did he say this? (Time in video)

I understand the upgrades thing for some of the weapons. They should be side-grades (Take away something in stats/capability and give it something else).

What people are annoyed is that an extrem amount of "heroes"
are all spending their stuff in the lightairvehicle, groundmissles and seem to cert these rockets in any way possible. Dominating the ground wherever is not a crazy amount of Antiair nearby.

Of course you can still kill other people with inferior weaponry, not denying that.
The fact is the gameplay is right now dominated by payers in a very noticable way.
Not to the point that its unplayable but its still annoying.

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Can a free player outsmart a paying player? Of course he can. But that doesn't change that the paying player has a huge advantage, especially in air combat and that if the free player doesn't outsmart him the paying player will likely win because the paying player will have a better weapon and upgrades while the free player will have non of that or just some upgrades or a weapon, not both.

It will still take a lot of time till the free players will the same equipment as paying ones which in the meantime have a advantage. And while a lot of other F2P games allow faster progression for paying players, those games usually don't let people with low and high progress fight against each other (see for example World of Tanks)

I agree with this actually. Simple fix. Give all players a free unlock (anything) when they first start.

Words that are thrown about which only makes me think the person who said it absolutely SUCKS!

"Huge Advantage"

Here is an idea. Spend the amount you would of on a CoD PLOP game and you two with have this MASSIVE, HUUUUUUGGGEEEE, INVINCIBLE Advantage.

Until then you are playing for free so every single argument you have is invalid.

And what would that change? Only that new players will likely unlock something they don't really need while experiences players go for something that is essential (air). And after that its back to P2W.

They currently have trial period for weapons (FREE). They are planning on adding a VR training area where you can test all the weapons/vehicles (FREE). Really man, you can play the game for absolutely free, right now. What is the problem?

The people who insist that despite all the advantages paying players have the game is not P2W.

But somehow this seems to have devolved into "Its free so shut up".

Technically, it isn't pay-to-win. At least not in the traditional sense of the term. It seems most here have redefined this term. I'm not degrading the issue of time investment for reward. They still need to tweak cert rate gains imo to be more inline with what players expect. No argument there. That's still doesn't mean it's pay-to-win though. I really do think they will increase cert rate gain a bit in the future.

Buying guns is FPS is not P2W...now I heard everything .Yeah,yeah they are all sidegrades ,just like the AK is sidegrade in CS,you can still kill people with the starting pistol.

I agree.

You have to keep in mind though that this is a F2P game and everyone from the 10 year olds to the hardcore Activision fans are on these forums presenting their opinions to the world.

My biggest problem with the F2P system is that it has opened up the game to the entire gaming market. A market that is now bigger than the movie industry, and as anyone who has a brain on their shoulders knows, human society, at large, is akin to a bunch of apes throwing s*** at each other.

Having put over 100 hours into the beta and just under 1 day into the release I can safely say that if you think that the game is P2W then the moment you get any new guns you'll think that the game is unbalanced because your guns are not as good as the enemies guns. It's not a problem of what weapon you're using. It's a problem of how you use that weapon.

I used the default guns in beta and I had an average K/D ratio between 3 to 4. I use a shotgun now and my average kill death ratio is still between 3 to 4. My K/D would be higher if I seriously cared about it but I don't and I goof around plenty, when I'm playing to win having a k/d of 14 to 1 is not that rare. This comes to show that for one of me there are roughly 3 players out there that are far less skilled, and that's the low-end estimate. Thus, no matter what weapon you get I will still likely have no problem killing you.

If everyone had to pay for this game people without any inherent skill would get deterred very quickly and would stop paying. Alas, that is not the case and I'm stuck being forced to knife half-afk cannon fodder having spent all my ammo without dying miles behind enemy lines.

Because there really isnt except for the first few weeks. There are only a few things that provide a notable advantage which is mainly rocket pods and AA rocket Launchers. Everytime i hear the arguement about why it is P2W its rocketpods that are brought up which would lead someone to believe its more of an issue with rocketpods not coming in some form stock like in PS1 with reavers.

Looking past the few oddball cases its really not, and its definetly not by traditional meaning of P2W(see world of tanks gold ammo). What people forget is the advantage beyond those few odd cases is minimal and more based in finding weapons that you yourself are better at. There is also the fact that there is a plateau for how far one class or vehicle can go due to limited amount of slots that can can be can be changed / upgraded , you may max out heavy assault but someone with just a few points or not points in engi can still kill you with a turret. You may have a maxed out prowler but you still can get killed just as easy with a stock one or even a rocket launcher.

My point is that at best you can create a small advantage in certain situations.

But it will take more than a few weeks as the time to get 1000 cert is really high, I think it's at least 1 month.

Highly dependent on your amount you can play and with or with out any sort of boosts, and of course how you play. People already have several hundred without boosts if you look at one of the other threads listing the amount of certs people have.

And after a few weeks the free players spend everything their earned on rocked pods and AA launcher. The paying players will have those too and flares, nanoweave etc. which they bought with all the certs they didn't have to blow on an AA launcher (which is a lot considering they could rocked pod people without AA defenses for a week).

yeah and if you take it to the logical conclusion there is a end point , there is only so much you can do. As i said before there is a plateau with how much you can do /get. Flares dont do anything against flak or enemy aircraft(dogfights).

The key is balance between paying players vs. time investment for non-paying players. They must make the purchase look attractive while at the same time allowing for non-paying players to accept the time investment if they so choose. It gives an option to a player that might have more time to play to not spend anything while giving someone else who doesn't have that much time to simply skip the time investment. Yes, it also give players who want to do both a larger advantage. For this reason I've always said they should make some unlocks tied to BR. However, if someone is willing to throw money at my game like that I wouldn't want to make it so bad for them. They spent a lot of money on it. They deserve it!

A lot of interesting thoughts I must say, seems like this is going to be an ongoing debate for a while

Pay to play?
Pay to win?

How about play or es t ef you?

I have one question: what is your flight control setup