How do you justify the pay-to-win?

But again, they are just gaining time. In theory, a character with 5,000 certs (who paid for a shotgun with 1,000 of those certs) and a character with 4,000 certs and a bought shotgun are EXACTLY the same. They have the same equipment, can purchase the same upgrades, etc. The only difference is in the amount of time it took to get to that exact same point.

(resources,however, are the actual pay to play aspect of this and i'm not really happy with the current system anyway)

The problem with the Dota 2 comparison is the difference between a FPS and RPG. RPG's have a larger pool of long-time players... who tend to purchase more cosmetic items. Whereas there are more casual FPS players and the turnover is greater. I don't think PS2 would be able to survive on a purely cosmetic only system.

As a working person who has to devote 11 hours per day to work (commute included), I have limited play time. I really like the ability to put a little money in and get to the same place as the person who can devote 11 hours per day in the game. In essence, I am paying to not have to put that amount of time into the game. However, If I fought that person in head to head fighting... he'd probably still win because he has 11 hours per day more practice in playing than I do.


There is no guarantee'd win there, our characters would be the same... just the skill would be different.

It absolutely is.

It is made worse when things like resources and rentable implants come into play, because those that PAY(to win) have them with no trouble, those that don't pay (to win) end up either not having them or not being able to afford other weapons or upgrades.

Basically it is funnel into making people pay.......... the subscription model already did that, only without the P2W.

There's never been a game made where only those that pay can win, and there never will be.

That is a purely silly defination of "P2W" that can basically never be met.

I'm very sorry of your situation, but you are simply bringing in arguments that have nothing to do with this topic. You are assuming things about me that are not true, but I won't hold that against you since this is the internet and people tend to do that frequently.

I'll stop replying to you because I can't tell if you are serious or a troll (sorry, no way to confirm), but I will say that if you are serious, you should consider that other people live their lives in ways that you will never understand, for reasons you will never understand, and that is just a fact you have to cope with. Drawing conclusions based on your own experiences just leaves you with... well, your post.

Have a good day.

Well said.

Tell me,

what's the difference between
a free player that has everything unlocked that's free
and
a paying player that has bought every possible thing that can bought

Nothing? Does the paying member have better weapons? No. Does the paying member have better armor? No. Does the paying member have any advantage in a 1v1 situation? No. Well, then it's not pay2win

Resources are still in the time=money (just more annoyingly so, 4-5x worse). You can either choose to wait around for the resources to accumulate or pay for a boost to get them quicker.

Implants, however, scare me. That is a slipperly slope. I'm afraid that those will be way too much advantage for those with vs without them. At that point, you are forcing players to spend certs in order to keep competitive in the FPS aspect of the game, not just in the number of options you can field, etc.

If you can purchase an implant that gives you an advantage in combat, but lasts less time than it takes to get the number of certs it costs... you are pricing them out of the range of free players. At that point, it becomes a huge pay2win issue.

There is no one in the game who has unlocked everything. (right?...) That is a bad example, since the systems in PS2 are designed so that you are literally never supposed to have everything. Paying to be much closer to unlocking everything than someone who hasn't paid is the advantage being outlined here.

You only get advantages you earn based on the time you've put into the game.

Unless you want to buy a new weapon or EXP boost, and then that model is destroyed.

Whether you are saving on time or not, it is still an advantage.

My feeling has always been that the connotation of p2w is that any advantage is a bad advantage. People tend to want to put that label on the game not to say: "Well it's paying to get something rather than earning it" but because people want to say: "Your not paying, your playing with a handicap, and it devalues things as a whole." I don't think that the game having the ability to buy guns rather than earn them is making people play with a sizable handicap.

And yeah, that final statement was poorly worded, I noticed that upon review...

To be honest I've always had trouble expressing my point here, so I'm going to limit it to short, declarative statements devoid of implication or subtlety: The guns at the start are as good as the guns you buy. The purchase of guns is purely optional. If you prefer a CQC weapon, and you don't want to play Engineer or LA, you should buy a gun. You should probably buy something anyway if you like the game, because the people making it have families and crap. The primary means of advancing your characters survivability in a meaningful way, is such that you can only boost it by investing certs into your char. Certs can be earned faster by boosts. Boosts don't grant you anything special, they just grant you xp quicker. You will still have to grind certs to get the things you need for your character to make him greater in the end. Saving time isn't an advantage IMO unless you are pressed for time. If you like the game and intend to keep playing, saving time is not an advantage.

What you're basically saying there is you want P2W, but you don't want to call it that.

Your reasons are sound, I completely agree. However it's a bit like cheat mode in a game, once you remove the achievement required to get something (by simply allowing people to directly buy it) it cheapens the whole game experience.




Now having said that PS2 is never going to be P2W free, it simply can't be without going back to the subscription model (which these days seems to be viewed a hideously unfashionable by game companies - whether it still will be in 5 to 10 years time I'm not so sure), but the PS2 that was released was about as innocuous a P2W game as you'll ever likely see.

It also largely did the things you are wanting without doing too much to ruin the game.




The resources change and now the rentable implants addition are seriously changing that however.
Those that pay (2W) are going to be at a significant advantage over those that don't.

Now there can be an endless semantic argument over whether that is P2W or not (as anyone can define P2W as almost anything)........ but it cannot be good for the game, nor a sustainable direction in which to take the game.

Well I suppose if you redefine the term to fit your opinion then yes you might be correct. However, Pay-To-Win is defined as an item or skill that is superior to any other comparable skill or item available in game and is ONLY available with real life money or with an overly excessive amount of in game currency.

So the answer is no this game is not pay to win.

I don't think that's the area where most people who argue PS2 is P2W is actually complaining about.

My issue is with resources. A paying customer is getting more consumables, can pull more vehicles and MAX units. It isn't a deal breaker for me but I am not sure if I'm accepting this because I find it acceptable or because I've put a fair share of money into the game already. I know this for certain though, you're going to have a lot more resources available to you as a paying customer. The difference is quite significant.

It absolutely isn't. They're technical terms that mean different things. You interpreting them creatively does not change their meaning.

I dunno with resources, especially infantry resources there are definate gameplay drawbacks, you simply cannot use C5, mines, MAX and even simple grenades in the same way as someone with maxed out resource regeneration.

Rentable implants though do just do away with the whole sham, they brazenly and openly display what they are and what they will do to get your money.





Price-wise I can't see how they can price them low enough cert-wise for genuine "free" player (who may well in fact have spent quite a lot of $$$'s on the game) and have them worth buying with SC.

They are bound to price them so that they are tempting to buy with SC, because they are largely unsustainable with certs.

And yet, oddly enough, I use the base weapons on all 3 factions, and do fine.
If you do a lot of 'compare' in the marketplace, you'd realize just how stupid buying new weapons can be sometimes..
Sometimes the increases are minimal over the stock.

But yes.. if the guy loads up some weaponry on his Flash or tank, that you didn't have.. he WILL win. it is PAY 2 WIN right there, assuming both players are at similar skill level

Again you can define P2W as whatever you want, it is utterly irrelevent.

But again at the end of the day resources and rental implants are going to (and do give) a genuine and significant gameplay advantage to those that pay............. you can call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter.

Of course it is, but at the same time it's hard to say it's pay to win when a low level character is not a complete and utter disadvantage of a much higher level character.

In many other games, its items and level all but guarantee victory, I'm not saying skill isn't a part of it (especially when facing someone of equal level and gear), but if you have someone with great gear (and or higher level) and someone with poor gear, it would be near impossible for the lower geared person to win, in group fights they would contribute very little in most circumstances(yes yes I know there are special snowflakes out there who will say this doesn't refer to them).

In PS2 (FPS in general for the most part) the higher leveled person does have an advantage, but it's no where near as great as it would be in most other games, the low level player actually has a fighting chance.

The weapons in PS2 are, for the most part, within spitting distance of one another, stock weapons kill just as fast as 1000 cert ones, and armor etc provide only so much extra protection, and no one is locked out from any of it.

Having said that the resource thing is dangerous territory, and even worse these new implants I keep hearing about even more so, but even then unless they provide an huge advantage (ie you are all but guaranteed to loose if you don't have them) it's hard to become too upset by the fact that SOE is trying to make money (though I will say I really dislike the idea of these pay for boost implants from what I hear about them and they do seem the start of what could be a very dangerous trend).

As mentioned earlier it's unlikely SoE would enough money with cosmetics only in the cash shop for this type of game (and that would have to include no camo as that to can be seen as giving an advantage), there only other option would be switch to a full subscription based game with little to no free options, and I'm betting most really don't want that, and have a much more negative impact on this games overall finances.

So far, SC just buys you what you could earn easily over tine, so it's not pay-to-win. If they ever offer any power/ability that can only be purchased with SC (e.g. SC-only implants), then you can claim that the game is pay-to-win.

The problem is the "pay-to-WIN" statement. You have to define winning. Is being BR100 with enough certs to have everything in the game winning? There is no win condition in this game, no endpoint... the point of the game is to have fun while combating others. To test your FPS skills.

Look, A heavy assault with 10k certs can fully outfit himself, add maybe a weapon or two and your talking 12k certs. What do more certs gain you? What do the BR100's have that this BR30-40 doesn't have? Other playstyles open to them.

A fully outfitted HA BR40 user will have the exact same character as a fully outfitted HA BR100 player. When they meet on the field, they can have the exact same equipment, stats and skills.


Is the game experience for you leveling and gaining certs... or is it the actual combat within the game? Personally... Gaining BR100 is giving me the ability to experience multiple playstyles, Tanks, Infantry, Max, ESF.... not winning the game. I still get the same "game experience" the great combat moments, etc.


The problem I have is that anything that gives someone an "advantage" ie, they get it faster, is called pay-to-win. Even if in the game, they have the exact same character.

At release what you're saying was relatively true, personally I was very, VERY impressed at how good a F2P model PS2 had.


Since the resource change and now rentable implants changes though things have significantly changed, for the worse.






Looking into the future, it seems that PS2 is heading for the EA Games MMO "F2P" model.

Which if you've never played one of theirs is basically = you subscribe as you would in an old subscription based game [like PS1], but on top of that you have to buy other stuff off the cashshop to remain competative, and still have to buy any cosmetic stuff off the cashshop as well.

Which basically if you think about it IS the old subscription model, only you now have to pay seperately for everything that used to be included for "free".

We are all biased. I'm not disputing there is an advantage if you pay for this game. I'm simply stating the advantage is not that big of an issue. I could start the game today as a new player with nothing and still be effective in combat. Once I learned the ropes of the game, I would be able to join in all battles and compete reasonably well. The people who are BR100 with everything certed are more effective in combat than I am, but not to the point of ruining my fun. My personal ability has more to do with my effectiveness in combat than anything else. As a great example, I may get more kills with my maxed out Prowler compared to my stock Prowler, but both are viable in combat.

You clearly feel SOE lied to you with "deceptive marketing". I feel they have done a pretty good job of trying to make it so that everyone can compete in the game regardless of their financial situation. In my RL, the world isn't fair and we don't all get a participation award for showing up, so the efforts SOE has made to open this game up to masses seems extremely fair to me. You certainly should strive for positive changes. I just don't know how you ever make it completely fair since "fair" is a very subjective word. You could make the game so that everyone has the exact same equipment and resources. The game would be fair up until the game launched. At that point the causal players start falling behind and they are forever at a disadvantage. You could make the same argument about a top of the line computer vs someone playing on a commodore 64. What if my internet connection is slower than yours? How unfair. The list goes on and on.

Online games like this are going to be unbalanced and unfair. It is the nature of the beast. I want SOE to strive to make the game as fair and balanced as possible, but I accept that this is never truly going to happen.

I'm not being lazy when I say "stop complaining". I don't think people who receive something for free have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about the free item. To me SOE has made considerable effort to ensure the game is competitive and fun for all players. To expect SOE to cater further to non-paying players doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Chubain