Would you sub/unsub if resource boosts were removed from membership?

Well obviously example 2 would result in it being slightly more difficult for the freemium player to compete on equal terms, if "success" is only measured by how quickly one can deplete the other player's resources.

But I think the cases are neglecting to take into account the fact, that a premium player through increased resource gain at most would have half again more MBTs than then the freemium player. That's only a 2 : 3 ratio in terms of the time difference between how long the two players would at most be without their respective MBTs.

For the above examples that means that any one of the two players would have to consecutively destroy minimum 2 MBTs without losing their own to bring the other player to a state, where they are forced to fight for a period without an MBT. Considering that resources are earned periodically as well, the time difference between how long each player would be without a vehicle would likely be even less than 2 : 3 "time units spent" in practical terms.

It would be difficult for the side without resources to compete on equal terms with the side that does have resources - but that holds true regardless of whether either side is entirely comprised out of paying customers or both sides belonged to the same group of players.

Imagine a situation where both sides are entirely comprised out of freemium players. One side has 100% resources stocked, the other 0%. While neither party is engaged in the benefits of the P2W model, the side without resources would still be likely to come out short.

I suppose one could always come up with hypothetical examples in which a given set of circumstances would make the deciding difference, however without taking the probability of that happening into account, the case becomes largely irrelevant if it is too far removed from the actual context it is supposed to be a case of.

Naturally it cannot be refuted that a scenario where P2W was the deciding factor for the outcome of the encounter will eventually occur (having a small probability of happening does not exclude it from happening), however this situation is highly unlikely from a pragmatic point of view given the circumstance of the context it has to occur in.

While the likelihood/probability of something happening does not disprove the existence of P2W , probability does say something about how often the P2W aspect becomes relevant.

If the probability of P2W being the decisive factor in a given encounter is so small as to be almost non-existent, the "dilation" of the P2W effect would be converging towards a 100% and as such would be largely irrelevant for deciding the outcome of any practical encounter.

I mean, discussing P2W's effect on PS2 is a bit like discussing Shark attacks and what should be done about them, when the probability of it actually happening is really low to a point where almost nobody are affected - that doesn't mean it won't happen and it sucks when it does, but it does make for a poor excuse for hunting the Sharks to extinction.

I would be pretty bummed by it, but I wouldn't unsub.

Agreed, though again this is a dilution argument. Keep in mind that you can have the 50% membership buff, but also pay for a resource boost giving +100%. It is possible to have a 2:1 advantage in this case, which is a harder case to argue. Many people seem to be forgetting that those boosts exist. x2 is nothing to scoff at.

Agreed, but when gauging an advantage we'd have to control for other factors. Proving P2W is actually pretty simple: if there is an advantage case, there is P2W. It doesn't matter if there are cases where the P2W mechanic does not affect the outcome. P2W is paying for an advantage, and only extreme cases are where P2W is an ensured victory every time.

This is true and also much more difficult, as the amount that you need to dilute P2W is very subjective. Look through most threads here on P2W, and you'll see people saying yes and no…and what they really mean, is that the level of P2W is acceptable or unacceptable to them. And in both cases, they are right. I want SOE to make money, but P2W can make short-term money grabs that hurt the player base size…possibly killing the game further down the line.

Once someone decides it is too much, they leave. This weakens the game, hence why on principle I would like them to remove the resource buff. Each P2W element will tip a player toward leaving the game, so in general the more we can avoid it the better.

These boosts also make SOE money, and may help sell membership too. If the game does not make money, it ends and I don't get to play it at all. So I don't clamor for it being removed either, as the dilution of P2W is acceptable to me, personally.



Edit: Summarized the blocks of your post to save space. Should also be a good indication if I'm following your discussion as well.

True, though I don't really know how many people actually run a 50% resource boost on top of their membership. It's my impression that boosts generally aren't used by a lot of people and those that do u8se them, typically use the 6 month Heroic boosts due to having saved up SC from being a member in the first place.

But I'll concede the point, that it is possible, by spending an unusual amount of money on the game compared to even the average paying customer, to gain a big advantage in terms of the frequency where a player can affect the outcome of a situation through the exclusive expenditure of in-game resources.

The possibility of it happening exists, however improbable it might be.

Mind, I'm not arguing whether P2W exists in the game or not. The moment it's possible to pay for a service, that gives an advantage however slight is or improbable to actually affect the game experience it is, is a kind of P2W.

What my argumentation primarily revolves around is trying to show, that paying for a service in a game does not necessarily mean it will consistently confer an advantage which significantly alters the game experience for both the payee of said service and those that choose not to use it.

If the effect of said payment is not consistent or the effect is negligible, then I think that begs the question "Is it really P2W at the end of the day".

The resource boosts are probably the biggest game experience altering buff, so I can see why you'd want to get rid of it to reduce the probability of players complaining about imbalances caused by it.

Typically players aren't complaining about the resource disparity though. Even if the resource boosts were removed (both items and membership benefits), I don't think it'd have a great impact on the general perception of P2W in the game.

It definitely won't do away with the "Oh, he must have paid for that gun, so that's why he beat me" mentality, which, at least from my experience, by far the most prevalent complaint you'll see coming from the "pure" freemium playerbase.

In all likeliness all the removal would do, would be reducing the incentive to becoming a subscriber as a lot of people after a while just don't need the other benefits a membership would confer.

My 2 cents...

I have always been a sub even had alpha squad, the only thing that would make me un-sub is if they keep going with this slow content release and adding gimmicks to charge money for...

I would happily give up my member resource boost if the revamp made resources worth something... however I get he feeling it will be another implant situation where people will be able to purchase resources some how.

1 small nit-pick about people saying a low skill player with a boost gets more resources than a high skill player without... resources are tied to exp and a high skill player makes far more than 50% more exp than a noob

Overall I feel like the dev team have deserted this game and just trying to cash in as it slowly goes down the pan these days, it breaks my heart as I loved ps1 and have supported this game in every way I could, the potential is huge for this game and it is being wasted

The initial reason I paid for membership was the simple fact that I couldn't put in the same amount of hours playing and therefore felt like I was at a disadvantage playing against those that could. I was trading a bit of money to keep up with those that could sink 3-4 times as much playtime into the game that I could. In the same way a free-to-play player feels at a disadvantage because he can't buy something, I felt the same disadvantage because I couldn't put enough time into it.

The F2P player will still have better skills due to practice than an equivalent BR paying member, btw.

This is the whole idea of time = money and being able to trade one for the other.

Well, up till now... with the gaining of resources based on XP gained in a certain hex system... the Heroic boost essentially was a resource boost (and the initial alpha squad boost, and first generation heroic boost was a combo resource/XP boost as well)

So, until the resource revamp... you are still gaining a resource advantage by using them.


Nowadays, since I'm way above BR100... have all the certs I "need" and am just gaining certs to really fill out the cert trees and play around with niche playstyles. I keep the membership around because i want to support the game and the actual cost of the game is tiny compared to the amount of entertainment hours it gives me.
If I could shift some of my bonus % XP to my squadmates (IE, only have a 45% boost and add 5% to squadmates, etc) I would in a heartbeat.
So, if they pulled the resource portion off the membership, I would miss it, but it probably wouldn't affect my paying for a membership right now. It would be considered in the decision down the road though as its one of the value-add to the package that helps justify the membership to me. I'd hope they figured out something else to exchange it with (Higher resource pool, or gaining resources while offline, etc) of equivalent value.

I would still stay subscribed if they took away my resource boost. Hell I would probably stay subscribed if they took away the EXP gain as well. Just avoiding the line ups to switch locations is enough for me.

Personally if I were running things I would adopt a new model to increase excitement of being a member. I would task a few developers to release a "monthly" item that you could only get for that one time. Something very rare and fun. Like how certain sites offer monthly collectibles. So maybe October they create a Ghostly Crossbow with little spirit themed projectiles, and to make that even more rare, members also choose between a Pumpkin Themed rocket launcher, that has orange tracers shots. Members choose which one they want for free. Even if its just a reskinned NS weapon with some fancy swag that would be interesting. Alternatively it doesn't have to be a weapon. It could be a camo, vehicle gears, rims, or knives. Even lumifbers for characters would be really cool. If SOE really want to get people interested offer 2 or even 3 choices to pick from. One item is free for paying members, but if they want all the collectibles they have to buy the others. This generates more money. This also allows the free players the ability to support the game when they desire, for the exclusive rewards they really would enjoy. Essentially it rewards good design too since people will buy the nicely created items. I wager for some things they could even use player studio for stuff like this if they truly wanted to. I would also really like to see "gifting" become a thing. So members could actually give someone else their reward for the month if they wanted to. Some of us have nearly everything and would like to help out a friend. The exclusive ability to transfer our monthly SC reward to another player would be nice. If money and fraud is an issue allow us to provide them a weapon then.