Let's Nip This In The Bud: Implants For SC Are No More P2W Than Boosts/Membership.

The argument is simple:

If an implant costs 5 certs/hour(8 hour implant for 40 certs), then buying that implant with SC instead simply nets you a gain of 5 certs per hour, by allowing you to not spend them. If you average 50 certs/hour, that's identical to having a 10% XP boost, which is already an accepted mechanic.

Feel free to provide reasonable counter-arguments, so long as they are based on actual math/logic and not just how the proposed system makes you feel about having to work for things that other people buy with SC.

Also, I recognize that the numbers are made up, and the actual magnitude of the effective experience boost might be larger depending on how they price the implants, and also the effective % of boost would be smaller for players who averaged more certs/hour.

Edit: The fact that a player with an implant has an advantage over one who doesn't does not change this relationship any more than the fact that the guy with membership can afford nanoweave 5 and I've only bought up to nanoweave 3 thus far because of my unboosted cert gain. That guy has a direct advantage over me, but only because I have chosen not to spend the certs in that capacity at this point.

The bonus that implants give is what is considered by many to make them 'pay to win'.

What?

That's only the case if the nonpaying player chooses not to take an implant, in which case it isn't any more P2W than if I chose not to take a suit slot upgrade.

Just stating what a lot of people seem to think. I really don't care, and don't believe that it will affect gameplay much.

>WARGLEBARGLE IMPLANTS ARE PAY TO WIN!!!11
>Implants can be bought with certs - which all players, paying or not, can receive
>Forum logic

Fair enough. Thanks for pointing that out, actually. I just addressed it with an edit in the OP, which will hopefully keep multiple posters from making the same argument.

I really dislike that we have to choose between permanent progression and a temporary and clear advantage.

Fully agree with that, consumable infantry items should be purchased with infantry resources.
I also dislike that you can pay to have a hard counter for other game items, like 'tired of getting conc'd, just pay us and now your enemies will think you are conc'd but you actually won't be so it will be easy to shoot them in the face!'

While I see where you are coming from, consider this:
The increases in XP from recent changes like the addition of extreme menace kills and increased vehicle kill XP will probably give you far more extra certs/hour than constantly using an implant will drain. Some updates increase the overall XP flow, this particular one will slightly decrease the effective overall cert gain, because it's a cert-sink, but that doesn't make it P2W.

Good point.

Btw : thank you for helping me with my tooth aches.

Just FYI, this is exactly the kind of response I was talking about when I said "Feel free to provide reasonable counter-arguments, so long as they are based on actual math/logic and not just how the proposed system makes you feel about having to work for things that other people buy with SC."

Also, how is your hard-counter example any different from buying an AA launcher with SC when an ESF shows up?

Depends at what cost and how it's implemented TBH ..

They could very well turn round an say its 50 certs and hour AND the implant is class locked , so you would need to buy 1 for each class you play ..
We also don't know (afaik) How many implant slots a person will get .. It soon add's up if you can have 2 or 3 implants running at the same time per class ..

The potential devil is in the details ... Which sadly we don't know atm

But my parents won't let me use their credit card!!

Oh...wait... I don't have to worry about that.

Good post mate.

Can't be much worse than TF2. I played that today for the first time in years and what a piece of trash. I'll be playing TF1 on an i7 16g ram machine because TF2 I payed money for the box went F2P and with it came all the trash.

Implants are important in my opinion because it lets you either suffer a cert decay if you want them with certs or you don't suffer a cert decay if you buy them with SC if what you are saying is correct. So cert decay = playing on a level playing field with a severe cut to cert gain and every reason to abandon what ever point this game might have deluded to and focus entirely on cert farming. Or buy the implants: not a DLC with implants you can unlock with gameplay: straight up implants that are subject to the End User, Terms of Service, Legal Agreement, Code of Conduct. I won't be buying implants and I'll still be owning whatever cyborg abomination is thrown at me.

Completely true, which is why I made sure to note that my theoretical numbers used for example are made up.

I don't think they will be class locked, in fact, I would be willing to make a wager to that effect, if such a thing were reasonable to do on an internet forum, but you are correct, we don't know for sure. The rate at which you expend them, however, would be the same even if they were class locked, as you'd only be eating through the currently equipped on, and buying your initial set would be no different from getting nanoweave etc. on each class. Likewise for having more than 1 at a time, I'd wager against it, but we don't know, and the effective rate of cert expenditure would triple/double.

I know I'm jumping ahead a bit by making this post before we have more details, but I feel it is somewhat necesarry because, by the time we have actual details, the community will have already developed very strong opinions, and will interpret the details through that lens.

While this is true, it's no different from playing without boosts vs playing with boosts. Thing is, all those things are, ultimately, P2W, I'm just making the argument that decaying implants for certs/SC is no more P2W than boosts/membership.

As a side note, I think that the game design should aim to make playing the strategic game that the fluff alludes to one of the top ways to gain certs, I don't think it should have to be a choice, though that certainly isn't the current state of things.

You can't directly buy an upgrade with real money in Planetside 2. You can buy sidegrade weapons, but no upgrades for weapons/vehicle/character.
That changes with implants.
The specifics of the cost don't matter as much as the principle involved.

The principle is slightly different, but I agree that money for certs in any form is somewhat P2W.
I don't want SOE to start selling -upgrades- directly and skipping the "you have to earn the certs" part. If they decide that's ok, things could get very ugly very quickly.

"Feel free to provide reasonable counter-arguments, so long as they are based on actual math/logic and not just how the proposed system makes you feel about having to work for things that other people buy with SC."

If you choose not to buy them, you are at a disadvantage, but that is on you, you can't blame it on the system being P2W.

If you choose to buy them, you are not at a disadvantage, and buying them with SC instead of certs is mechanically identical to boosts as far as its effect on cert gain.

The pay to win and pay to progress discussion is very much tied together. Just because you can get the same thing with currency earned in game does not mean buying it with cash cannot be considered pay to win. Math doesn't really apply as they have not released prices for them. The game is slightly pay to win in that items bought with station cash are often straight upgrades to the standard ones. It is marketted as all weapons being sidegrades which offer different specialisations, so not being P2W. Of course that is somewhat of a debateable point. What is not debateable is having something extra you can buy, there are no downsides to an implant, they give direct combat advantages (albeit specialised ones), and they can be bought by a BR1 with real world currency, I think by definition that is pay to win.

Because (from the description) it is a hard counter rendering an in game weapon completely ineffective against you. In the case of air there is at least some balance in that the aircraft has the hard counter of flares, which are again balanced by being effective only once in a while.

The main difference is boosts do not directly impact my right-now gameplay experience.

Boosts let me get resources/xp faster. It means I progress to being a 'more experienced' player in terms of what gear, etc. I have faster than someone who does not. However, in a single engagement the presence or absence of my boost will not in any way influence the outcome of that engagement.

If player A, who by boosting got 5000 certs and invested them wisely, fights player B - who grinded 5000 certs and invested them wisely - then the outcome is down to who is the better player. Probably player B, because he has spent more time playing the game.

Whether or not player A is running a boost in the engagement has zero impact on the engagement. It might have more impact when player A meets player B a week later.


Implants, on the flip side, give a clear this-combat-right-now advantage to the player using them - in some cases to a degree that completely nullifies investments made by the other player. This means that - unlike boosts - a person who is not using implants is at a very clear disadvantage in that fight.

As such, implants are very different to boosts - because they create a clear distinction between players who are paying for implants and players who are not. This very quickly translates to a clear classist distinction between the have's and the have-nots, which is far more P2W than boosts are or ever will be.