So... New Implants Analysis - P2W Confirmed

Whelp..... I don't want to say I called it, but I TOTALLY CALLED IT!!!

Anyway, I'm not going to discuss the idiocy that is Catlike and the stupid new movement meta it's going to create. I'm not going to discuss the stupidity that is Minor Cloak and the watering down of class features it's a prelude to. I'm not going to discuss any of the implants specifically because - although I have my own opinions - we'll have to give it some time in actual gameplay to see how it works out. I'm not even going to discuss how the new implant system is P2W because it lets you purchase combat power with real cash.....

What I AM going to discuss is PRICES - because now we have the information to drag DBG over the coals. Exactly like I expected (and hoped not to have to) to.....

Let's start with the conversion of the old implants to ISO-4 (the new upgrade currency).

Conversions
Charger - 5 ISO
Super Chager - 60 ISO
Uber Charger - 300 ISO
L1 Implant - 10 ISO
L2 Implant - 50 ISO
L3 Implant - 250 ISO
L4 Implant - 1,250 ISO

Now, obviously everybody's in a different position regarding their previous implant inventory, so let's take a complete set of implants and 100 chargers as a baseline - i.e. all the toys and enough energy to run them for ages.

(5 x 100) + (7 x 10) + (8 x 50) + (11 x 250) + (8 x 1,250) = 13,720 ISO

That sounds like a lot, right? Let's see how it stacks up against the upgrade costs.

Upgrade costs
Upgrade from 1 -> 2 : 75 ISO
Upgrade from 2 -> 3 : 225 ISO
Upgrade from 3 -> 4 : 900 ISO
Upgrade from 4 -> 5 : 2,475 ISO

Suddenly that 13k ISO doesn't look so much when compared against an upgrade cost of 3,675 ISO per implant. Of which there are 10, so 36,750 ISO in total required. So our theoretical example of a full set with energy to spare converts into a total of 3.7 implants upgraded - out of the 10 released. Seems like a kick in the balls to me, I dunno about you.

OK, so how do we go about acquiring more ISO to upgrade the rest of our implants? Simple... pay up in certs or cash. Let's look at those prices.

Price analysis
Basic bundle - 3 implants - 300 certs - 199 DBC
Deluxe bundle - 9 implants - 750 certs - 449 DBC

Obviously, the deluxe bundle is a better deal in terms of certs / DBC per implant, so let's be generous and look at that one only.

Assuming you have all the new L1 implants and recycle everything you buy, a 9-pack will break down into 225 ISO. So, in order to upgrade just ONE more implant, it'll cost you 16.3 Deluxe packs - 12,225 certs or 7,319 DBC.

If you're an average-ish player you can probably earn around 100 certs per hour. That means, to unlock and upgrade ONE implant (of 10), will cost you 123 HOURS or, if you play 3 hours a day, every day, 1.3 MONTHS! In terms of cash, if we use the best cash->DBC conversion rate (assuming you don't buy DBC on sale somewhere), upgrading a single implant will cost you approximately $62. I'll leave currency conversions to you.

If you want to upgrade all 10 implants, it will be 122,250 certs (more than my BR 110 has earned in his entire CAREER of over 60 days gameplay) or $620. And this, apparently, is only the FIRST WAVE of implants!

I dunno about you, but that all seems MASSIVELY overpriced.

Now, I've seen people out there who had so much stuff saved up that they converted with TONS more ISO than they need to upgrade all the implants. But even THEY are going to have to buy implant packs because you can't upgrade the implant until you actually unlock the L1 version in one of your packs! And even if you ignore the "special" 0.05% drop-rate implants, 4 out of 10 of the new implants have a ~2% drop rate which means that even people who have all the ISO the need are probably going to have to buy ~6 Deluxe packs - costing 4,500 certs or $23.

And what about new members, while we're at it?! They're starting with ZERO ISO..... and facing massive cert/cash walls to purchase these implants (and let's be fair, some of them are pretty necessary to remain competitive).

Actually, I'm going to break my previous promise. Planetside has, with this update, crossed over into P2W territory in no uncertain terms.

I'm done. I'm going to cancel my subscription tonight and, if I EVER buy DBC again, I'm certainly not going to spend it on implants! I invite you to join me.

yeah it pisses me off more then anything that old implants we already had that are under the new system were not grandfathered in (counter intelligence and battle hardened for example, even if it only gave you level 1).

it wouldn't have been so bad to let people keep at least the level1 implants they had that are under this new system.

they do seem to be massively overpriced,
and the conversion of old currency to new currency was hilariously underwhelming,
my main was my only character to even get enough resources to get a max rank implant,
my other alts couldn't even max out a single one...

its odd that they'd spend such a large amount of effort on the new player experience last year,
and then this year decide to give higher level players a colossal advantage over anyone unwilling to spend a small fortune to max out implants.


i had 6k certs on one of my alts so i used it to buy 8 large implant crates (72 implants total), even after breaking down all of those duplicates (i know i had 17 of one implant...) i still didn't have enough resources to max out a single implant...)
the crates themselves contained almost entirely greens, with 2-3 blues in there.

Paying for random... Need I say any more? There's plenty of games out there with such practices and apart from CSGO with its embarrassing fanboy crowd it never works out with happy customers and more revenue.
Everyone understands the fact that this game needs to make money and to be honnest I'd consider paying subscription if it weren't for the miriad of unresolved issues with the game.
I bought some DBC in the past to get me going with some camo and whatnot and that is as much as this game will ever be worth for me by the looks of things.
In the end the bittervets will retire from gaming and the new generation won't know any different. It is almost like devs don't understand what makes games great anymore. And great things sell on their own.

Wasted 1500 certs on RNG, to get 13 duplicates of the common implants, which gave me some mere 500-ish ISO4. I don't understand how DBG manages to take out a terrible system to replace it with something even worse, that either requires some literally insane amount of grind to fight the RNG, or to pay insane amount of cash (which is literally gambling) for a side feature, which ultimately has an impact on combat. Haven't seen the action of catlike on live play, yet it is almost unchanged from PTS version. Once again, player feedback went out of the window.

In fact, it's more like of a pattern than anything else : instead of buffing the ARX guns as a whole (except LMGs), making change to directives, instead of pushing up the "why", the faction lore/differences and a less zergy gameplay, they give us some more lackluster NS weeb guns, nerf ARs, remove something people paid for without refunding it, and like the icing on the cake, they put up a P2W implant system that is based on complete RNG, with little to chance to get something worthy out of the hundred of certs invested.
I gave this game a lot of chances, but this was the red line. DBG is just obviously milking what's left of a game whose potential was wasted by pure incompetents. They can go bankrupt for all I care, I'll even celebrate this day.

There's a difference though. In CSGO the random crates have no effect on gameplay, they give you only cosmetic stuff but implants affect gameplay which is way worse.

I've been missing my Lib and have been on the fence thinking of getting some buddies together for some PS2, this changed my mind, sadly. I'll keep logging in once a month to collect my DBC till my subscription expires. I think just 3 months left, what a waste.

I kinda miss the old implants, but the new ones are different and will give them a try.
My only real gripe is that I seriously hate the new knife animations for the NC.
the Mag-Cutter and the Carver are TRENCH knives, not stabby stabby type knives.
If a dev or someone ends up reading this, please add select-able knife animations.
to me, the new ones don't look (or feel) as awesome as the old hack n' slash...

The price followed by RNG; Worse than a shotgun, and those aren't costing several hundred certs per RNG shot.
This is murderous as all ****.

What's funny is a certain outfit and a certain player "left" the game in a big ole' huff of melodrama claiming they were leaving because the game was boring and also that it was too hard to sit back and farm players like in the good ole' days and other factions had stuff that wasn't fair and...he claimed the implant system was pay2win...and he just came back...right before the new implant patch dropped. You gotta admit...that's a hoot.

That part is very telling. If you're farming, something is broken, if you don't want that something fixed, then your opinion has zero value. Getting people like that out is a good thing.

dont care bro. #delusionsofgrandeur #who? #I'llmurderhimtoo

I don't mind the new implants, and I don't mind the upgrade system. That's all fine. But you really expect me to pay cash or cert points for a random pack so I can MAYBE get the implant I want. And then if I don't get the one I want, and yes I was stupid enough to wast 750 cert points and didn't get what I wanted, I can't even trade them. It was fine when they were just given to us, but if we have to buy them, we should be able to buy the ones we want or trade for the ones we want. Come on guys, this is ridiculous.

RNG sucks but I somehow managed to get Catlike in my first implant package (bought with certs) along with other implants I wanted. Didn't get Minor Cloak but I never wanted it as Infil main

Also with little chargers/implants I had before patch it was more than enough to fully upgrade 4 implants. So far I am happy and cert broke

I do like most of he new mods and like that you don't have to charge them. Combining EOD with rangefinding was pretty cool. I just HATE the cost associated with them.

The price for upgrading a single one aside. You aren't supposed to unlock and upgrade all of them.
Just look at the amount of weapons available. You aren't supposed to unlock every single weapon and attachment in the game in short order. They added so much stuff that you always have something to strive for.

Also consider that you don't have to get the maximum level, and that with one or two levels below you can still be competitive. In fact, spreading your expenses can be far more effective, as your benefits will rise faster than if you throw it all in a single implant. It's like all the people who never used Nanoweave 5 because the advantage of Nanoweave 4 was good enough and a lot less costly.

And stop complaining about Minor Cloak, it's a useless super-niche ability.


Edit:
Also, you seem to have missed that Minor Cloak and Counter-Intelligence don't have levels to upgrade.

I agree with you that people are flipping out over minor cloak, and my own personal draw of implants wasn't satisfying, but I'm concerned that you are drastically under-estimating the obsessive compulsive tendencies of the modern gamer, and how that cross-links into NerdRage.

Again, I agree with you, because I really only care about one directive anyway, and even that is doomed to perpetual frustration because of rumble seat kills....

This. People freak out because they want everything (and have it maxed) right now. Most people also thinks that they are at a big disadvantage right away because they don't have everything. Personally, I would be happy with default implants, got a bit more - fine, not gonna cry about it. All of them will come in time. If I learnt anything in my many years of playing MMOs it is patience, planning and not raging about things I have not control of.

edit:

I do agree tho that for new player getting at lest 2 implants fully upgraded will be a very serious task. Meaning he will have to choose between upgrading/buing weapons or implants.

I like this new implant system better than the previous one. I burned through chargers so fast, that I didn't even power an implant 90% of the time. Now I have two turned on all the time.

I see that some people feel they are entitled to have everything unlocked Day 1, but that's not how most MMOs work. Just imagine if everything in this game was unlocked max rank and you earned no xp because there was nothing to unlock. How fun would that be?

It's not about "having everything on Day 1". If this were a totally new system, you MIGHT have a point - not much of one though, given the massive grind involved.

One of the major problems is that many of us had worked and grinded and some had even paid in certs or cash already and earned our way up the tree until we HAD everything, and plenty of energy to run it. Now they're taking it away and telling us to grind all over again, or (especially aggravating for those who've already paid for this once) to pay for it again.

**** that.