The Elephant In the Room

That's why we prioritize bugs. The numero uno problem right now is the cash shop issue, lost player progression due to crashes.

The game and cash shop integration is schizophrenic indeed. I don't see that as a bad thing - the real world market is far from rational as well.

Sharing unlocks is an often requested feature and is being looked into. Not a top priority I assume but it's above PvE and new hats.

Best weapons - aren't. The designers did an excellent job of balancing out the weapons. No single paid weapon is best, they're all unique, fit different playstyles and are marginally more or less effective overall. Each has their specialized niche. Pricing is based on cosmetics - a nice description, nice sound, nice model. Actual "power" isn't tied to market price except in cases where new weapons add function - eg. grounder, rocketpods.

This is a good middle-ground.

Last I checked rims, snowtires or whatnot had a preview. It was buggy, the model scale was too big to fit in the window and whole the preview module is a quick and dirty hack which will no doubt receive some work in the future. But it's there. Decals on the other hand aren't and it would be nice to see those added.

There's a trial option for weapons, but personally I think the timer was over-cautiously set way, way, way too high. Didn't nobody think that the trial mechanic is a great way to get players hooked on certain weapons? With short timers as a platoon leader I could ask everyone to get SKEP launchers, even if they're not available. As a single soldier I could try and try a single weapon over and over and eventually buy the gun.

With preview and trial working organically refunds wouldn't really be necessary. Again, the parts of the game retaining to smedbucks seem to be kind of schizophrenic and badly designed - this is an example.

And I'm perfectly fine with that. The devs are giving you the freedom to experiment and make mistakes. The trial system needs more love but having lots of weapons that actually feel different means there will always be the stat-wise worst "challenge gun" for those who enjoy playing the game on hard mode. That's a good thing.

I'm a free player and I'm satisfied with the cert gain right now. It's definitely geared towards hardcore players who play a LOT, however. Those of us who have jobs can pay smedbucks for weapons and cert buffs and unless you're living in a 3rd world country feceshole that'll be a good tradeoff.

Keep in mind this game is intended to have a life of 5-10 years. We've only been in beta a short period of time. I'm already seeing ****** out reavers, fully-spec'd infantry. The price of certs rises exponentially, power rises linearly which means you only have to spend a few certs to be more effective than someone who spent none.

Incorrect. This is a good deal for anyone who can grind the certs faster than earn the money for smedbucks. The economy is in decline, y'know. Assuming you actually have a job and earn, say, 2.5$ per hour you'd have to work 3 hours to get a 1000 cert gun. Or you could comfortably grind 10 hours. As I've said, it's a good deal.

For the moment I think it's fair.

So pay the £30 that would normally have spent on the game and get some stuff then (?). Not sure what you are saying.

Yeah spend the 60 bucks you would have spent on an entire game on 4 guns, a camo for your tank and rocket pods for your fighter plane.

And then spend 2000 hours of game time upgrading your character to do one thing ~15 percent better.

I don't get it. I've only played for 15hrs (roughly) and almost have my Vanu medic skilled up to a very high level in the specific medic areas.

The whole point of the cert system is that you specialise in one or maybe two different areas and stick to them.

I think it's sick that it costs £5.50 GBP to buy a weapon and since I played in the Beta, I know that weapon sucks and is only slightly better then my default weapon.

How many certs points have you gotten?

How much station cash have you spent?

...This is an FTPFPS. Check out the prices on blacklight and LoL. A champ in LoL is around 5-7 bucks and a gun in blacklight is the same. Don't like the prices? Tough ****.

PS you can trial a gun before yo ubuy it. If you don't do that, you're a goddamn fool.

I actually think the current Free-To-Play model is quite good. Is it perfect? No, but its improving!

We can now trial weapons.
We can now preview some items
Many items had cert costs reduced 30% just before launch.

Also people should be shopping smartly. There are Daily Deals, double/triple Station Cash offers, bundles and free station cash give-aways on an very regular basis. You don't need to pay top price for everything. Just buy your favourite gun then get the other stuff thats not needed but fun to have when its on offer.

Personally I set myself a budget. Something most people should do. A new PC game typically costs £30. I think thats a good number for a lot of people to spend on Planetside 2 to get a better idea how the market/game works then decide if they want to spend more.... or not, because they don't have to!

Free-to-play gives ridiculous power to the customer too. Throughout beta players demanded (in a nice way) certain changes. Sunderer AMS being a big one. SOE knew they had to implement this change or no one would spend station cash on the game or buy a membership. This has led to rapid development of many Community requested features/changes

The pricing may need some work and all. Its more improtant to catch the x2 or x3 station cash bonus days. Its makes things alot cheaper. In fact 7 bucks in really cheap compared to the boat load of money I made from Diablo 3. Alot of peopel are willing to pay over a 100 dollar for a piece of gear lol. If you consider the amount of entertainment value you get out of a video game vs say like going to dinner and a movie. Its absolutly no comparison. This game is cheap as hell. Honestly a 2 hour bar tab is more.

The issue lies in the way most MMOs are layed out with upgrades. Many players instead of looking to improve upon there skill use gear as a crutch to make them better. Its natural for a player who is getting owned to look to upgrades for a better chance but then feel insulted when they feel forced to pay. Even though, come on man, support the game. Its also human nature when someone gives you something for free to ask "Whats the catch?" Honestly there is no catch. If you approch this game like you would say an RTS and skill is all you have than this game will be alot of fun and really cheap entertainment.

The real skill in Planetside 2 wont be demonstarted until there is more maps and intercontinental warfar. There isn't much room for Metagame yet but there will be. Weapons are not really suppossed to be upgrades in this game, but if that sidegrade hits my skillset its a definatly an upgrade for me.

The OP brought up a really good point about refunds. This should be in place or at least a testing period after purchase. Blizzard learned there lesson after years of World of Warcraft about refunds for currency on gear. Even though its not real money in WOW it takes a long time to earn some gear and if you make a wrong decision it really sucks. Its a customer serveice nightmare.

So far I have earned over 2000 certs. I feel this is too fast. I can see myself sitting by the end of the games 1st year having 50k certs with nothing to spend them on. For some players the cert prices for weaps will be really cheap, even 1000 certs. I think it would ease alot of tension for new players if they were givin 700 to 1000 certs when they signed up for a new account.

Guarantee once that becomes popular and mainstream it will be dragged through the dirt and **** on to make as much $$ as possible. Probably right after the original dev sells the IP to a large developer with $$ on the mind.

Again the difference between a champion on League of Legends and a Gun in PS2 are staggering.

The fact that people even compare this game to LoL is scary. a champion is a full character.

And don't even mention blacklight. Lol THAT game is pay 2 wwin.

Yes agree with you entirely OP, and THIS (above) too. I'f i've bought alpha squad, I feel like I should have nearly a games worth of content. (yes i know the game will be supported for years, but the prices are still too high) What do I get? A few camos for only one of my characters because I have to apparently buy new ones for other characters I make. Some gun unlocks I didn't get to choose which I'm not even sure what's good about them because of the terrible stat bars and 'descriptions'. An aplha squad camo which looks completely different to the one advertised!

Now I still have what seems like 90% of the guns locked at 700 SC or more each, or up to 1000 certs. I want to pay a reasonable amount and have this game do well too, but that screams of money grabbing. Stuff like 1 time use perishable camos too.

What happened too gun prices apparently being close to where they wanted them at the end of beta. Rocket launchers going from 96 certs to 1000... that's a measured jump!

All that publicity about the grind being lowered for guns...30% cheaper. Not if you double/quad/gigrouple the cert price of the guns?

I still play with default weapons because I haven't decided where to spend my SC. And I have no problem..... I don't know why people are complaining....

Costs aside, I think my MAIN problem is the lack of respect for the customer concerning their purchases. No place to trial weapons, though I hear there is currently a short demo time for guns. No way of seeing what camo's/decals look like on your character before buying. Very poor and hazy descriptions of weapons. For example there are two VANU AI weapons, where the one described as more accurate, has a lower accuracy rating on the bars than the other!

Also refunds need to be available for a short time after, for cases of mis-clicks/mistakes/downright undeveloped weapons.

If all that was there and more respect was shown for peoples hard earned money going on virtual items, the 5 quid per slightly tweaked version of another gun pricing would be more bearable.

What OP said. Literally sums up the only SIGNIFICANT problems I have observed in this game. It has so much potential please please get it right.

I spent 10k station cash so far, and i'm not even close to having everything. Lets not forgot the ten of thousands of certs i still need to

I 1000% agree with all this. Especially the part you highlighted in red. I would be very worried if I were a dev that my publisher is going to ruin my vision and my hard work by being transparently and overtly manipulative and greedy, and then blame the game's failure on me.

This game is a BLAST to play. I never had the privilege to play PS1 since I was too young and my computer was too bad. I grew up on the Battlefield games, starting with 1942, and to me, PS2 captures the essence of the best Battlefield could have become, had it not got lost in a mire of console concessions. I really do love this game. I've already sunk at least 10 hours into it.

But I can't keep going forever. As fun as the game is, it's simply not worth my time to grind nonstop like a coal miner for DAYS or WEEKS (realistically) just to unlock ONE weapon. And the OP is right that you DID intentionally price the weapons out of reach of non-paying players. It's transparent and obvious to me and all of my friends who play the game.

I have no problem with allowing players to pay money for aesthetic ornamentation or to advance more quickly, or yes, even buy the weapons. But I do have a problem with effectively saying "Unless you pay us, you will never earn this ONE weapon unless you dedicate DOZENS of hours to playing." It's simply not realistic. It's not realistic for healthy people who get outside the house, who have commitments like school, jobs, or girlfriends. You're asking your playerbase to sacrifice everything else to play the game and GRIND like a slave just to earn ONE WEAPON. It's BS and you know it deep down. The sense of progression is not there, and it's what will turn away all your potential customers, because you are not showing them any goodwill. The Station Cash ends up not being a nice boost for people short on time; it ends up being a must-have for any serious player who wants to move beyond the most basic class setups in a reasonable amount of time, given that the player has a life outside of video games.

Whoever thought up this economic scheme is banking on players being mindless addicts who will all eventually break down from the tedium of the grind and open their wallets. Well newsflash, other good first person shooters exist, and players will simply log out of your game and log into an FPS that rewards their skill and dedication in a proportionate manner. Why? Because it's simply more rewarding. You're asking players to grind for 40+ hours for a single weapon, without any other reward. If they use the cert points for upgrades, they're just slowing down their progress toward a weapon, so in effect they get NO UPGRADES OR REWARDS for dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay. It's a DUMB, anti-consumer move and by FAR the biggest elephant in the room that will SINK this otherwise-fantastic game if adjustments are not made.

-ZR

Companies exist to make money. But part of the way that should work is to provide good value to customers so that they actually enjoy spending their money with your company. The way the certs/SC/unlocks work right now, we spend money because we (barely) enjoy the game enough not to quit, but we feel a bit ripped off every time we do it. Just letting us unlock an item once per server would go a long way to making us feel a lot better about this, thus enjoying the game more, thus spending more money with Sony.

I fully agree with you but here's the main problem:


People have been waiting on this game for so long they're willing to take it up the **** just to play.


As soon as the game becomes just a game to those people then we can get some progress, until then be prepared to pay 7$ for weapons that are EXACTLY the same as your current one, no skin difference, no sound difference, no feel difference, just a few numbers changed around.
It's a ripoff and everyone sane knows it, sadly this system is designed to exploit the excitable and the young...


And just as a closing word: it's much better to give your customers lots of things so they have fun (aka the valve way, just look at tf2 and dota2) rather than restrict the fun from them in hopes they pay up. People will pay more over the course of a longer period of time if they respect the company, rather than if they just want to remove annoyance from the game.

SOE is not a charity. The game is lots of fun and while it certainly would be better without imbalances, bugs AND real money induced differences, I am personally happy they made a game my friends can try and play without having to commit to a monthly fee or even a box purchase, cause I know they wouldn't and like it or not I enjoy playing with my friends, especially those who can't afford a 49$ box or a 14$ monthly fee.

I am not happy when I see anything, here or elsewhere, that rewards people with more money. Nor I particularly like SOE, it's just an expression of capitalism and as such definitely "heartless". But I don't buy games looking for ethics, and I don't expect any company to be particularly nice to my wallet. What they do, they do it for their profit.

But in this case, it works in favor of those who cannot afford too many games or those who just wouldn't be part of this if it weren't for the absolute lack of any entry barrier. Because despite what you are all saying the game is STILL fun even when you have zero certs and just the basic weapon, and those bullets hurt as any other bullet.

I'm tired of entitled people. You don't like their business plan, just stop playing. It's a game, not healthcare. They don't owe you anything, and you don't need them. So stop whining.