GU04 Passive certification gain.

[Falcon_br]

Ok guys, am I the only one that think the game is now officially p2w?
From day one (really from the beta) I defend that this game is not pay to win, because of several factors we like to tell, like the default weapons are good enough an things like that.
My principal argument was, you can buy weapons, but you can't buy certifications! Don't matter if the guy got all weapons in the game if he doesn't play the same as you do to buy nano weaver armor and weapons attachments.
Now with GU 04 you can buy certifications! The passive certification gain has been already reduced a lot I don't know if it was reduced in GU 01 or GU 02, but I agreed with that because I think that certifications must be award, no received free.
Now with the GU the increased certification gain means in numbers:
48 certifications each day. Free members receives 12.
Doing the math this means in the end of the mouth(30 day): 1080 certification more them the free member!
The game was release in the end of November but I can be wrong. I got 9000 cents in 300+ hours of play (playing everyday), that guy would received 5780 certifications doing nothing, more them 50%!
You already received 500 SC with membership plus 1080 means the best way to unlock things it is with membership now, it isn't playing like there is no tomorrow.
I really think or I will stop playing tomorrow or I will get a 1 year subscription, after all the money I already spent on it I don't think I can stop playing it right now.
That's my point the following line hasn't anything with the subject.

Just one question for members, when do you more them a month, how does it shows on you credit card? 1/12 each month (9.99) or you must pay everything (120) at once?

I made some test today after the new patch, I am now a dedicated (from a pure heavy assault) liberator pilot (for fun) and my gunner got lots and lots of tanks and liberator kills, I received exp for that around 80 because of my alpha squad boost,bBut he received 10 times more because of the vehicles kills!
In the end I received 60 certifications for 2 hours of piloting, he received 90 without any boost! This need to be fixed ASAP!

[Varsam]

It's all at once per pay period of your choosing, not month by month.

As to the original topic.

The game MUST be pay to win on some level. Some would argue that the resource boost subbed players get means more vehicles, grenades, aircraft, which means more winning. Some would argue that the xp boost we got means more certs for the same amount of work, which is p2w. This is another example. While I'm not going to agrue that it's NOT p2w, it's certainly not ridiculous (we already got free certs before, and it's not enough of an increase now to radically tip the scales, even though it is significantly more than before). If there was no incentive to pay for the game, no one would do it, and then none of us could play.

I guess what I'm getting at is: yes it seems we're entitled to a different experience than f2p players, but that's because we pay money.

[Rothnang]

I think the new passive cert gain is great.

I do agree though that Liberator pilots get fucked over, I used to gain easily 1000 certs a week when I played Infantry, now if I play every day it's maybe 500 piloting Liberators, because you just don't get shit for XP in the pilot seat. With every AA buff it's gotten worse and worse too, because the more over the top ridiculous AA gets the less you can afford to go low and use the tankbuster and get some XP too.

[EVILPIG]

More like wont-pay-to-cry. Seriously, some won't ever give a dime and want the world. The game MUST make money. Not lose money. Not give away money. Not break even. Giving free certs is nothing like buying uber, cash only, OP weapons of mass destruction.

[Rothnang]

Yea, quicker cert gain is a pure convenience, it gives you no advantages that you can't get from free to play.

And also, Planetside 2 is an awesome game, people shouldn't get so stingy with it. Even just a little money into PS2 goes a long way, and unlike many Free to play MMOs it has no features that are only accessible to members, so you don't need to continuously pay them to keep all the stuff your character has.

[Falcon_br]

I don't think some of you understand my point.
The principal argument to defend that this game is not pay to win it was that you must play to win certifications.
That's not the case anymore, certifications now can be bought and in large quantity in a very continent way, if you are wiling to play.
You can't buy levels yet, but the point of leveling in this game is always (most of the time) to receive certifications.
I don't recall any free to play game where you can pay to level up your characters and crush everyone.
Yeah, it is not a weapon of mass destruction, but each month (more actually), without playing, but paying, you can max out a vehicle and have serious advantage against a dude that played a lot without paying.
You already got boosters like all free games, I can live with that, but a serious advantage without playing is a huge disappointment to me.
Planetside 2 already got lot of moves just to make you spend money each month, they make new sniper rifles and nerf the old ones, so you must spend nc, they make shotguns you buy them and they release a new one pump action, that it is instant kill, they release a smg and 2 weeks after another smg that it is a lot better them the first one! And next week they will release a new shotgun and I bet it will be much better them the pump action so you must buy it too! I just have 3 load outs, I can't use all that weapons!
And I already got most rocket launchers, with the new one I won't be using the old ones anymore!
The worst time for me it is when I must tell to my fellow outfit members that's the game is ok and we must continue to have fun without worrying that they don't give a F to this game, they just want profit. Metagame won't ever be their priority, just new ways to make you spend NC.

[Sturmhardt]

I think it's fine. If you don't pay a penny for a game you can be expected to put a little more work into your certs than paying subscribers.

.sent via phone.

[Emperor Newt]

There already were xp boosters, so by the op definition the game already was pay to win.
And the membership really needed something like this to make it attractive again.

Although, I agree, that something is wrong with cert gain balance in this game. But this has nothing to do with membership or boosters, but with differnt playstyles and farming (and not playing the game but farming).
At least shared experience in vehicles and (by choice) squads/platoons please.

If there was no incentive to pay for the game, no one would do it, and then none of us could play.
For many people "supporting the game" and some cosmetic stuff is enough. Luckily we now have Dota2 and can see how this turns out. If Dota2 is financially succesfull the "people need an incentive to pay" (like p2w is the only incentive) argument is moot.
We already have LoL but there one might argue that some of the heroes are released op and of course because of runes.

The game MUST make money
That's not an argument. Drug dealers must make money too. Not give it away or break even.
Not saying that SOE should not make money (or are drug dealers) but the "they mus make money" and "companies exist to make money" is simply no argument for any kind of business decision. It's a bit more complicated than that.

[Falcon_br]

Dude, a little it was before GU 04, do the math, now you don't have to play to be better them the free users!
I do 1000 certs each week because I play a lot and got the alpha squad boost, normal free member on my outfit make 1.500 each month!
People with auraxis membership do 1.500 certs without killing anyone. Much more if they play the game a bit.

[Falcon_br]

Angry Joe already complained that playing 70 hours to unlock a weapon it was bullshit, it was already forcing you to do that with 700 SC, now you can also pay a membership and don't have to play 70 hours to have the same benefit.
The difference it was that you had to play to get certs, now you don't.

[Falcon_br]

When Luperza told about the new certification gain from paying members, I just heard one guy complaining that was a subscriber, Luperza also commented that he was the only one against it, but he was clear that being better them the others without playing it was too much.
I think that the best solution it was to increase the SC given with membership to 1.000, so it would be just like the alpha squad, you buy SC and receive small bonuses with it. I am ok with that.
But when that guy complained it was already too late for Luperza do something about it, I also think this topic is useless, because they can't go back anymore with this, because it is already live and they won't give back the money to the people,that subscribed to receive all that bonus.
But the scat max topic is also useless, people already spent lots and lots of sc on scat max weapons, we already asked to change it to heavy gauss in beta, and they didn't, now they can't do that, the only viable solution it is giving shotguns to all maxes or create a new weapon like the flamethrower from the beta and make all the other weapons useless, like they did with the standard shotguns.

[Blynd]

Tbh the offline cert gain is a bit too high but with the xp increases and as its 250xp per cert then actual game play will balance out the offline certs

[Silent Thunder]

Im gonna say it before Hamma brings the Hammer. Please don't triple post, especially on your own thread. I keep coming back thinking people are contributing to the discussion, to instead learn you don't understand how to use the edit button.

[Falcon_br]

Sorry dude, I am using an iPad to access this forum, it is hard to awnser everyone in just one message in a small screen a different subjects, but from now I will just awnser from the PC so I don't need more the one message to replay to the points here.
From what I recall from planetside 1, Hamna was not that evil, but I don't know how all those years have affected him, so it is better for me to ready the rules again so I will be sure I am not giving him any reason for that.

[psijaka]

No problem with this at all.

Purists may argue that passive certs for members, XP boosts etc are P2W, and maybe they are, but only in a small way. It doesn't break the game, and is an acceptable way for SoE to make money.

[Koadster]

You pay $60 for a normal game, let's take aliens colonial marines. You get maybe 15 hours of gameplay if u REALLY milked that game.. Im sure uve played ps2 more then 15 hours and ps2 has a lot more content. Even more then bf3s 'premium' for $50. All I can say is don't whinge when u can play a good game FOR FREE. if you pay $ to support the game. U deserve to be thanked.

I've put $200+ in ps2, I've dumped 215 hours into this game and its only a few months out. The last game I bought at retail that I put over 200 hours into was battlefield 2142.

If the cert boost makes more people sub = more $ = more development = more content.

[Canaris]

is this P2W.... hmm no not my definition at least, this is just a really nice reward from Sony to those who pay to keep this game running. The more members that PS2 has the better off the game will be as whole and the more dev's SOE will be able to allocate to the game.
my three fiddy

[Gonefshn]

People used to pay $14 a month to play an MMO often with a $60 payment up front for the game itself.

The F2P model isn't about actually giving people things for free, it's about letting people try games and letting them purchase the things that THEY value. It should be totally reasonable to drop $15 a month on a game like this, that's how much you would have been paying for it a few years ago with a subscription model.

This way though you are paying for the things you want, nothing more.

Also the free player still has a perfectly playable game. Why spend money if there is no real reason too? Free players are offered the core experience with no limit on how much they can play. That sounds reasonable to me.

[ChipMHazard]

I agree with everyone else who don't see a problem with this. I don't see this as P2W but pay for convenience.

[Stanis]

I play an awful lot at work.
Means I don't get to do as much fun stuff as I'd like.

I think it's nice to can take some of my play time at work, and transfer it into the game.

On any basis : whether you spent 10 hrs in game grinding it out, or 1 hour in a real life job you had to invest your time getting it.


The game is a business : they make money from the trade in invested time and continue to provide a game experience we enjoy.


Very few people call Camoflage OP or P2W.
That 'cosmetic' item is one of very things you can only get with SC.

There are no SC only weapons. Vehicles. Upgrades or Certs.
In short - if you enjoy the game dig into your pocket and reward the artist and publisher so the game si developed and continued.

It seems like a fair trade.

(I'd be happy with accounts costing £10 a month. But then we'd have a hardcore playerbase of a few thousands players .. MMO have moved on from since then and I like the extra content as a paying member that the 'freeplay' crowd are .. )

[PredatorFour]

By adding the new XP buff on killing vehicles i dont see any issue whatsoever. Yeh they get a passive increase in certs, but we get more xp per hour than before so both 'paying' and 'freebies' win imo.

[Rolfski]

If you buy Premium you either do it because you play a lot and want to support the game/ get additional benefits or you don't have that much time to play and pay for convenience. From that perspective, Premium has actually decent value now although it would help convenience seeking players more if you had to log in less often for the passive cert gain.

It still doesn't make you over-powered to non-paying members by any chance though. It just gives paying members more options to play different roles.
The way I see it:
Play for free => specialize more in one role
SC/Premium => more freedom to specialize into different roles
On my server there's a guy called Mattiace (http://www.youtube.com/user/MattiAceGaming)who not only makes excellent (tutorial) video's but is also a living proof that playing for free can get you on top of your game as long as you are willing to specialize (in his case Engineer/ESF).

[Fishy]

I like the new passive cert buff, and I would like to have more elements of p2w available to me.
You see, as someone with a job and a family to take care of, I do not have too much time to play, and I am happy to pay to get a better game experience.

[Twasta]

is this P2W.... hmm no not my definition at least, this is just a really nice reward from Sony to those who pay to keep this game running. The more members that PS2 has the better off the game will be as whole and the more dev's SOE will be able to allocate to the game.
my three fiddy

This. I thank SOE for the additional certs.

Getting those, plus 500 SC does not make a subscriber a better player. In the end, skill still decides (or lack thereof in my case) who wins or looses.

[Ghoest9]

OP cries too much.

[joepaiii]

What's wrong with p2w - that's how the world works. If I have more cash I will likely win in the end.

But seriously of you like the game subscribe, the more who pay the longer we will get meaningful updates which will keep the game interesting.

[bpostal]

I'm just not seeing it. Passive cert gain is available for everyone. Not just members. Sure you don't get as much but it's better than nothing.

[Trakaas]

This forum thread has convinced me that subscribing and paying for Sc is actually a good idea.

Thank you OP for changing my mind.

[Silent Thunder]

One of the things that always gets me is when people compare a system like Planetside to DOTA2 or TF2. The fact is those games can survive on cosmetics because the servers are either seperatly hosted, or rely on peer to peer networking. Valve isn't running every TF2 server, so they don't need nearly as much of a player to payer ratio from the F2P market to run a profit.

[Falcon_br]

Let me make the math here:
Paid $110 bucks for bf3 plus bf3 premium, both on pre order.
The game got lots of updates and new features, weapons and maps, much more than the ps2 team has delivery in the same amount of time.
Played 350 hours, got maximum level, played a bit more and I am gone.

Planetside 2, paid $40 bucks on alpha squad plus $40 bucks on triple sc event.
Played 300 hours, knowing tha game is broken by poor designing choices, like scatter maxes and reaver auto aim assist that it is better don't having it.
After 6 months no real feature was added to the game, we got new snipers that doesn't add anything, a uber lockon launcher so the previous one we got are useless, and a new launcher that is simple much better them the standard one.
We can't use shotguns with inf because it is game breaking, but now we can use smgs that kills as near as fast the shotguns does, so they make a new shotgun that it is instant kill.

I am used to buy unfinished EA games, like all battlefields games, but they got fix in less them 6 months. The last update of planetside broke the game to almost everyone! I played all BF games and I don't recall a patch doing that.

More money = more development? I really don't know if this is the case with planetside 2, the team is still the same size it was from beta. I didn't see any job application to work with planetside 2 development team, maybe with costumer support, that still sucks, because it is already the third patch that broke my game, and the last one took almost 10 days to they give me an awnser about my problem that didn't fix anything, had to wait the following patch.

The truth is that planetside 2 got one of the worst f2p business model ever (tribes ascend was worst, so they changed it), League of legends got the best one. LoL already got servers all around the globe, planetside 2 doesn't have any plan of expanding their servers world wide.

In LoL you receive enought point to buy as much runes you need and a bit more so you can buy some heroes, but there isn't that nonsense of 2 currencies, everything can be bought by free users, and they do because the game is fair with everyone and cool, not because they will receive a more powerful game breaking hero each match, like planetside 2 is doing right now.

[Rolfski]

After 6 months no real feature was added to the game You're kidding right?

[Falcon_br]

No I am not, tell me something that changed the gameplay like all expations did with battlefield 3.
New weapons that does the same the old ones did, but better?
Lots and lots of base layouts fixes that should have been fixed on beta?
Nerfed air three times and tanks twice?

The only new thing we got was a Horn to the sunderer and flash, and it should be default, you should pay for the music horns, not for the stock one, and now with GU 04, people keep the horn on all the time just to grieve everyone that it is playing, because you can mute players, but can't mute horns.

[maradine]

You're kidding right?

He lost me pages ago. Not sure who he's trying to convince at this point.

[Falcon_br]

Ok I must admit, the game receive lots of features, the galaxie, the esf and the liberator all received new guns and certifications!
We also got original decals back!
Sorry, I forgot the new anti air weapon to land vehicles that I never saw someone using it.

Ok, the VR training was nice but it should be there before the game gone live!

[Bunk]

This game needs to make money, deal with it

[wasdie]

Best classification for this game is "pay to not grind".

Buying weapons and certs doesn't guarantee victory at all. However it does make you far more flexible.

New players can dish out plenty of damage to people who are BR 50. However those who are BR 50 are going to know this game much better and will probably out perform the newbies anyways.

[Emperor Newt]

Buying weapons and certs doesn't guarantee victory at all. However it does make you far more flexible.
For most items, yes. But some shop items and certs are just flat-out upgrades.

[basti]

I don't think some of you understand my point.


Actually, you dont understand F2P and P2W.


A good, not P2W F2P game is like Planetside: Free players can access everything gameplay related like weapons, for free. They never need to drop a dime, even if they actually completly suck at the game.
Paying players get access to the same stuff, but faster. They may also get access to vanity items (camos, decals, the whole comsetic package).

This is exactly whats happening.


On the other hand, a P2W would not allow free players access to every gameplay affecting weapon. Imaigne a Planetside 2 where a free player would not be able to get ANY other gun than the ones he has at the start.
That would be Pay 2 Win.




Just to give another example: World of Tanks. Its a Pay 2 Win.

You can play it for free, and get access to a lot of stuff without paying money, BUT:
1. At a certain rank of tanks, fuel/ammo/repairs for those tanks cost almost as much as the money you get from winning a game. If you loose a game, you get far less money, means if you dont win enough games, you will eventually run out of money, making it unable to play at all with that tank. There is a subscription that gives you more cash per win/loose, boosting it up to the level that you can break even with the costs even if you loose a game.

2. There is Payed for Ammo for tanks. That AMmo is expensive, but extremly lethal. In a game, you notice someone using that ammo rather fast, because they literally rape you.

3. There are payed for Tanks as well. Those tanks are a lot more durable than the free tanks, and often simply OP.



Planetside 2 isnt the best example for the Free to play model, as it requiresyou to grind quite a bit. But it is clearly not a P2W, because even if i drop 3205732582375230765239856235 Smedbucks on the game, a free player with better aim will kill me. A free player in a better position than me (me infantary, he tank/air) will kill me. In world of Tanks, thats actually not possible. I remember clearly how i shot one of those payed for tanks right in the pooper, usually a heavy it due to low armor in the back, often causing tanks to die instantly. He noticed me, turned around slowly (allowing me another shot for almost no damage), and shot me once into my heavy armored part (the front of a tank), blowing me up instantly. Free Heavy tank against paid heavy tank, and the free tank had no chance to being with.

[Pella]

This thread...

If the OP used his nose gun to shoot at a tank or that other Lib. He would of been better in overall cert gains.

The new XP changes provide huge gains for certs.

As for offline ones. They compensate for the -150 Per Auraxium Medal.

------------------

And Basti, If you choose not to listen to Total Biscuit on the shit he feeds people. the subject of Pay2win in WoTs with "Gold Ammo" Is stupid.

Look at the top/clans players in that game. None of them use Gold Ammo. Its there simply to feed lower skilled players in lower skilled arenas. Once you get to a higher level. That Ammo becomes pointless.

[Thunderhawk]

Im gonna say it before Hamma brings the Hammer. Please don't triple post, especially on your own thread. I keep coming back thinking people are contributing to the discussion, to instead learn you don't understand how to use the edit button.

Ok this made me laugh