Slow Cert Gain != Pay 2 Win

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Diamond Sword, Jan 2, 2013.

  1. Diamond Sword

    Just because it will take a while to unlock something if you decide not to spend money on it doesn't make the game Pay 2 Win. Not even by a longshot.

    Keep in mind, it's free-to-play not free-to-have-everything-all-at-once. The pacing is part of the incentive to spend real money on things so the developers can actually keep the game going. And this is a massive game, they want you to stick around for a while.

    I don't even think this would need to be said if Free-to-Play games were not frequently played by children. It becomes obvious that most of the complaints about Pay 2 Win or slow cert gains for freebie players are coming from children who have no income of their own.

    Pay to Win only applies when paying is the only way to win. Nothing you can acquire only with cash for in this or many other F2P titles will give you a significant advantage in actual play.
    • Up x 2
  2. Fivetide

    With the slow cert gain you just quit before you get to a point where you can compete.
    F2p games are an abomination as it makes every game worse than it should be.
    I wish we could go back to buyto play or subscription games.
    • Up x 5
  3. Ashur

    That's bullsh and you know it.


    All vehicle weapons are mostly 1000 certs are are straight up upgrades (except the main tank cannon which is functional), everything else needs to be upgraded or you're completely ******. What's an ESF without the upgraded main cannon and rocketpods/aa, same with liberators.


    Tanks are **** without their special abilities and the secondary gun.


    Every single piece of AA in this game costs 7$ or 1000.



    So yeah, if that isn't pay 2 win then I don't know what is.
    • Up x 3
  4. AnnPerkins

    Pay2Win is when a paying player has an advantage that a nonpaying player does not have access to. It doesn't mean paying players always win. It means they have an increased chance of winning purely by purchasing it.

    Now, to the question of whether PS2 is Pay2Win. If certain weapons were accessible from the start I would say definitely not. A2A missiles, a second burster and/or skyguard to give nonpaying characters a decent chance at performing an AA role off the bat and to me is important for balance. Also missing for new players are decent anti-infantry weapons for maxes and the unlockable rocket launchers. The default is okay but the lock-on to air and the devastator rocket launchers are clearly better.

    Here's where you state that every player can unlock weapons given enough time. Completely true, but excessively lengthy times push the limit of whether a game is P2W. Allow me to give you an example:

    Players can buy a sword of fire +2 that has slightly better stats than the sword of fire +1. Players can also earn the sword of fire +2 but it takes thousands of hours of grinding to get. Technically a non-playing character can get the item but realistically it's impossible since no one has that amount of time to earn it.
  5. Diamond Sword

    This is an opinion not many share with you. The default, free items are the all-around favorites for most classes on Infantry. The items that help in vehicles are not unlocked with cash at all.

    Obviously, there are thousands of people enjoying the game and not quitting because they "can't compete." Just casuals who would have quit regardless.

    It's only a pay 2 win advantage if you can't earn those items for free. But you can earn them for free. Also, the WEAPONS, the only items you can pay for if you wish, are not what makes the vehicles godly; it's the CERT POINT ONLY upgrades that will take the guy who spent $7.00 on his rocket pods the same amount of time as a completely free to play player to get level 3 airframes or flak armor.
  6. EventideOne

    First off, the title's misleading, second, Thank you for making the point. You do not have to buy anything short of cosmetics. Everything else can be unlocked. It will take time, but its up to you to decide what items you save for. Unlocking something for 1000 certs with certs is like a badge of honor, and if you get it, you should be proud you could save up enough.
  7. Raidashi

    Not gana lie. I pay for faster cert gain. Paying = SC = XP boost = Faster cert gain = more certs = being better = winning more.

    In short, Paying = Winning. Its just not immediately noticable.

    And lets face it. I paid for a zepher the other day. You know how hard i won with that? Side grade my ***...
  8. cfnz

    I disagree with your definition. I believe it pay-to-win can apply in a game when items can be both paid for and obtained freely. It all hinges on how much of an advantage the item provides and how long it takes for a free player to obtain it. It's highly subjective though. Whether that applies to this game or not is another discussion.
  9. Ashur

    No one is going to grind 1000 certs to be a burster max, either way the same train of logic can be applied to "we're all millionaires, you just need to earn a bit more money and you're there".
  10. Hydragarium

    Oh sweet jesus not another one of the "Pay 2 Win" threads...

    The game does not have a P2W model.



    Guess I don't exist then. :(
  11. RayDrazon

  12. RayDrazon

    False statement is false. If you can prove it's true, you don't live in my world.
  13. FateJH

    I'm working up the certs to Double Burster MAX right now ... I was originally going to aim for the Trac-5S but now I'm too sick of Air to care how long it'll take.
  14. Diamond Sword

    I must be no one, then.

    Everything I have unlocked, I have unlocked for free. The only things I have spent money on are cosmetics. That's all I ever spend money on in F2P games; **** I can't get for free.

    "Grinding" is only hard, long and boring if you are doing it wrong. People complain about "grinding" levels in WoW, too, and those people are what is commonly referred to as STUPID. Just like with WoW, where "grinding levels" is as simple as DOING EVERY QUEST over KILLING RANDOM *****, grinding certs in PS2 is the same: It's not just about killing randomly and getting lots of them. It's about killing the right things, in the right place, at the right time.
  15. Frosty The Pyro

    anygame that lets you buy things that effect gameplay has some pay to win, as it creates a power disparance between those who pay and those who dont. the question is always how much.

    The worst offenders are ones that allow purchase of otherwise unobtainable and more powerfull items, actualy the worse offenders would be ones that let you RENT such items.

    then you have ones were there are distinctly superior items you can buy, but also get with ingame curency, the more difficult to get with ingame currency the greater the pay 2 win aspect, the easier the less.

    the bottom is ones were you can only buy accelerators aka gain money 50% faster sort of things, of course that also assumes the accelerator is not something excesive like 5x.

    And as a complete non-factor are visuals (well assuming they dont mess with your hitbox, or drasitcly change how easy you are to see/identify).



    Idealy the difference between free and paying players would be one of versitility. A free player would have one fully tricked out loadout (or load out per class as the case may be), and a paying character would have several.

    IMO a good solution would be to give players the option to exchange any given starter weapon with any other option in the same slot for free (such as HA tool for HA tool), any player would be able to have any one weapon config they want on a class, but if you want a second configuration you either pay the money or the certs. it would keep the difficulty and frustation of getting a new weapon that makes so many shell out their cash (as there are certainly times you want that versitility, sometimes you need a skyguard, othertimes it is pretty damn useless), but still have everything available (assuming it was out when you made your choice)
  16. Raidashi

    Oh... i forgot to mention... the thousands of certs you save by using SC... goes straight into making your character better at their job...
  17. bendplz

    P2W= the weapons you could buy are stronger than the default ones. its not the case in this game, in fact my 700 SC Anchor often gets outgunned by the basic CARV-9 which actually has more DPS. so the only thing i hear in this thread is that you want this game to be the way you want it.
  18. Fivetide

    All cert gain benefits from xp boosts etc that cost cash. To get one decently equipped class you need a crapton of certs. Then you need a crapton of certs to get AA weapons. Getting rockets for your aircraft is a massive boost to its effectiveness. Maxes are useless unless you spend at least 1k certs to get a dual setup. etc etc etc. Obviously there are thousands of players already quitting because of this and the many other problems with the game. The very same casuals you so despise are the main customers of any game, including this one. You really dont want them to quit as that results in the many empty servers we already have. This game needs a high pop more than other normal fps games.


    It wont take the same amount of time as the guy that bought rocket pods for 7 bucks will get more cp/time than someone that didnt, and he needs 1k less certs to get a maxed vehicle. Thats before you consider xp boosts. He cant even fight the aircraft properly as he needs a crapton of certs to get a decent aa weapon.

    You can pretend that the problem doesnt exist but the game is now about grinding instead of finding the good fights. In ps1 you got to BR20 rather quickly and then everyone was pretty much equals and you could focus on just having good fights. My good old burster max was actually effective as soon as i got it, and cost next to nothing in terms of certs. I really miss the good games we had before the moronic cash shops started ruining every game out there.
  19. Ashur

    Then let me tell you right now. Either you don't know, you're a masochist, or you're mad.


    Playing the burster max is about as boring of a task as it gets, it's fun on the nights where there's ton of air, but otherwise it's going to be you against one ESF who'll run when you shoot him, and then you can't switch to anything else, you're stuck in a max with nothing to shoot, because a plane might appear and butcher you all.


    And did I mention that you won't actually kill anything? Only assists for you with the 1/20 ESF giving a kill, so be prepared for a life of 5 certs/hour which make the grind even more fun.




    So honestly, without irony or anything, if you aren't the most friendly guy ever and want to just help people, DO NOT BUY A BURSTER MAX, it's boring, you barely have targets to shoot, if you're good you'll have even less targets to shoot and to top it all off, the engineer giving you ammo from time to time earns more certs than you.
    • Up x 1
  20. wrenched

    I have fins on my mosquito which you can't get without real life money #winning

    You can't buy anything that impacts a players performance that you can't get for free - therefore not pay to win. SOE is not a charity.