How much of disadvantage should a Free Player be compared to a Paying Player?

[Timealude]

my thing is if they make it so you unlock alot of things right off the bat, then there wont be alot of incentive to continue playing, looking at it from an MMO perspective. you have to have some sort of balance between unlocking at a decent speed and not giving everything handed to you in the first month of the game...otherwise planetside 2 would be dead in the water after a month of playing it.

[Zekeen]

Max certs are going to take a long long long long LOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG time to reach. Higby has stated that even after playing a year, you might not reach max cert in a field. That was a while back, but it was stated, system might have changed.

Rather than basing free players on max certed players in terms of certs, why not look at combat efficiency?

it's 20%

100% vs 120%

That's what it is, what it should and what it will probably stay. A very low, very good number, but a minor difference none the less to keep the game active and fresh when you put the time into it.

So, if you pay and get a little boost to get more certs faster, who cares. 110% vs 120% if you have a free vs paying player with same time and effort spent. Boosters aren't even going to be bought as much as you think. More players will be going after the skins.

Also, you get certs from being offline too, so that "56 hours to max cert" comment is completely bogus and stupid. That'd be LITERALLY, 24 hours. That's one day. Yeah, you won't reach max certs by then.

All weapons and vehicles are unlocked from the get go. You cert up improvements and variety sidegrades. IE - drop pods for a Galaxy rather than a barrier drop. Different secondary weapon for you tank. Ect.

The reason for certs is so you can specialize in an area before certing in other areas. You can get better with the assault rifle, and another player certs in infiltrator. He's betting at cloaking, you're better at killing. You can both cert in the opposing field and you're both on level ground in both areas.

The current certing system is VERY VERY balanced. And basing it all on a mere 24 hours is completely unplaced. You can gain certs offline, more from being in active combat, and even more with a booster, which could boost either online or offline experience, we don't know yet. But either way, xp boosters won't be a gigantic leap in difference.

[kasiraghi]

Winfernal has the important point here, it CAN'T be pay-to-win.

HiRez fucked up (with Tribes: Ascend) imho by making it so that if you wanted to buy certain (fairly important) weapons you needed so much XP that either you had to play for a LONG time (to get ONE, and if you wanted to get the same type of weap for another armour it really became a grind), and by that I mean FAR TOO LONG, or you HAD to buy it.

Now, the problem here is that you NEED to buy stuff if you only play very casually, so the weapons/variants/attachments you're buying should (as someone else said) be reliant on trade-offs rather than absolute power (i.e. making something much better than something else).

EDIT: TL;DR - while I think everyone should pay something for the game to support the devs, there should be no disadvantage to non-paying players.

[SpcFarlen]

Considering i really only plan on playing two classes, medic and heavy assault (still cant decide what faction...), I dont really think boosters will really be needed for me. It rather get the skins i want, the weapon that looks cool or maybe even stick with default since usually they are the best all around weapon (meaning decent at everything, not excelling or bad at any).

Its like that way with Tribes Ascend. I bought a few things i wanted and just played to upgrade them. Didnt bother with XP boosters.

[Winfernal]

Originally Posted by SpcFarlen

Considering i really only plan on playing two classes, medic and heavy assault (still cant decide what faction...), I dont really think boosters will really be needed for me. It rather get the skins i want, the weapon that looks cool or maybe even stick with default since usually they are the best all around weapon (meaning decent at everything, not excelling or bad at any).

Its like that way with Tribes Ascend. I bought a few things i wanted and just played to upgrade them. Didnt bother with XP boosters.

I don't get it when people are buying "XP boosters"/"Experience boosters". Atleast not in a fresh game on their first character!

You gain XP, or experience points by doing things in the game, a.k.a experiencing the game! How can you "boost" that experience?!

[MrBloodworth]

XP boosters are good if you have limited time, or want to catch up with friends.

[Lamira]

To be honest, aslong as they stick to convenience items that's all that really matters; unlocking things faster just makes it more convenient to unlock the particular loadout you wan't, it doesn't make you more powerful.

If someones paying for you to play a game (which is what the paying side of the community will be doing for the f2p site of it) there shouldn't be any kind of uproar unless they're getting an actual tangible advantage in combat; the guns won't be better, the tank's won't be better, they'l just unlock a wider variety faster.

[Santiak]

I'd say as long as there is no difference in the performance the same player could achieve, whether they spend cash or not, how long it takes is irrelevant imo, from a balancing point of view.
Say you are a player that doesn't want to spend any cash, but you mainly want to faff about in MAX armour, while a friend of yours wants to be a jack-of-all-trades, and doesn't mind spending cash on the game. While the friend might arguably get everything he wants faster, the first player - knowing what he wants, and wants to specialize - will get to where he wants to be before the friend.

Now, if spending cash meant your friend would be able to get BFScattercannon, that fires faster, hits harder, and can fire rail-slugs as a 4th mode, but you can't - unless you fork out the money, I'll begin having a problem with the system.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

LoL feels fair so maybe it will be fair here too.

LoL is 5v5 with matchmaking based on levels and hidden ratings. You won't as a new player face a level 30 with full runes and masteries unless you do specific actions ie custom game or premades with your own level 30's.

Anyone being a new player will face a fully upgraded trooper in PS2 regardless of what they do.

It's going to be fun seeing them try and balance not only the different Empire weapons but then the specific upgrades each of those weapons get but of course it'll be fine... since they're not at a flexibility disadvantage like a BR1 vs BR40 was, just outright bested in each class by an older player.

[Dairian]

You have not thought this poll though...... Maxamize Certs in 24 hours is the highest option? It should take 6 months to a year to complete all the trees if not longer. If everything was unlocked in 24 hours then I'll have it done in the first day I play. Sleep? yeah right! Progression is what keeps people playing.

I am sure that boosters will not give a 50% increase. More around 10-20% so you feel like you are gaining something worth while, but you don't just rush through all the game play in half the time.

Higby said in one of the videos that just came out recently that you will gain a cert about every 10 minutes and some upgrades will take just a few certs to hundreds of certs as you progress up the tree. I am sure they will tweak everything in beta.

[Dreamcast]

Originally Posted by Dairian

You have not thought this poll though...... Maxamize Certs in 24 hours is the highest option? It should take 6 months to a year to complete all the trees if not longer. If everything was unlocked in 24 hours then I'll have it done in the first day I play. Sleep? yeah right! Progression is what keeps people playing.

I am sure that boosters will not give a 50% increase. More around 10-20% so you feel like you are gaining something worth while, but you don't just rush through all the game play in half the time.

Higby said in one of the videos that just came out recently that you will gain a cert about every 10 minutes and some upgrades will take just a few certs to hundreds of certs as you progress up the tree. I am sure they will tweak everything in beta.

I was talking about a Cert tree....For example only accuracy in 1 weapon.


Not all cert trees but maybe you are right, it was too little.

[Antivide]

Certs should not take so obscenely long to attain (As in, 100 hours or some shit, offenders being Tribes Ascend and multiple Korean MMOs) that you're better off buying stuff.

Money = Time

If you have lots of REASONABLE time you should be on equal cert level with someone who doesn't have a reasonable amount of time but does have spare cash to spend.

It's a fine line, and SOE will have a disaster on their hands if they don't balance this correctly.

[Raka Maru]

Don't think I will be buying any xp boosters. All my station cash will be going to skins and customizations.

If the xp gain is anything like EVE, I'll probably do jack of all trades with the lower certs until they start costing a whole lot of points. Then specialization with what I want.

It's so much easier to level all the first level stuff and have those options already available.