MeanWhile Free 2 Play are struggling, PAY 2 WIN Players are doing this with resources - Page 8

EvilNinjadude · 2013-07-11, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by kubacheski

1. Thanks man. I've always seen F2P as just that free to PLAY, not play at the same quality as someone who does microtransactions, not play at the same level as someone who subscribes.

2. F2P players only boost the populations so that the paying customers have more warm bodies to slay.

1. Yep, and it's up to the Publisher to decide how nice they're going to be to the non-paying community - how much they're gonna separate content for F2P and paying. And guess what, SOE's pretty frickin' nice about it, and people like OP are not appreciating it.

2. Yes. Higher overall population makes the game more fun for everyone, seeing as scale is one of the most important parts of this game. If people take their subs somewhere else, then it will snowball quickly. But if it's F2P? The only resource people will be sacrificing is their time, and if they're still having a moderately good time, they can just keep playing.
For examples of low effing population, see the PTS.

Maarvy · 2013-07-12, 03:18 AM

What a bunch of rampant fanboys

So what if another game is more or less pay to win than ps2 , the OP has a point .

8 pages of douchbaggery defending what's slapping every non paying member in the face .

The psu community is the kind that literaly dosent give 2 shits about ps2's new player experience or what a free player dosent have , so long as they do have .

Sure we can make a few tutorial videos ... invite a nube or 2 to our outfit . But hell dare to question why we paying members get it so easy compared to free players ... yeah fuck you buddy go die in a fire !

EvilNinjadude · 2013-07-12, 04:16 AM

Originally Posted by Maarvy

8 pages of douchbaggery defending what's slapping every non paying member in the face .

The psu community is the kind that literaly dosent give 2 shits about ps2's new player experience or what a free player dosent have , so long as they do have .

Sure we can make a few tutorial videos ... invite a nube or 2 to our outfit . But hell dare to question why we paying members get it so easy compared to free players ... yeah fuck you buddy go die in a fire !

Evidently both the impact resources have on the game AND the difference in the gain rate between paying and non-paying players is Debatable.

Meanwhile, I just want the resource revamp to get put onto the PTS.

SadlyJack · 2013-07-12, 07:02 AM

If you like to drive a tank you are clearly not welcome at the Higby household.

blashyrk · 2013-07-12, 08:27 AM

Originally Posted by Maarvy

What a bunch of rampant fanboys

So what if another game is more or less pay to win than ps2 , the OP has a point .

8 pages of douchbaggery defending what's slapping every non paying member in the face .

The psu community is the kind that literaly dosent give 2 shits about ps2's new player experience or what a free player dosent have , so long as they do have .

Sure we can make a few tutorial videos ... invite a nube or 2 to our outfit . But hell dare to question why we paying members get it so easy compared to free players ... yeah fuck you buddy go die in a fire !

I do believe that paying members have more of an advantage now than a couple of months ago (before the resource prices increased) but does it matter to a BR1?

I started on Miller (my first and so far only character) which is considered by many the harshest environment for a new player. I never played Planetside 1. I never payed for anything in the game, I am the F2P "scapegoat" as many here seem to call us non-paying users.

Now I have overall KDR > 1.5 and > 3 in the last month or so (not that I find that important anyway), lately I average about 1.7 certs per minute without any boost and most importantly, I find the game immensely fun.

In the beginning I was also frustrated about dying all the time and being terribly inefficient. I ranted about the game being pay to win, I mean that guy just killed me with 1 shot from a pump action shotgun!
1000 certs later I got a pump action shotgun myself and guess what, I found out firsthand that the starting carbines/LMGs etc are all generally more universal and extremely less situational than my shiny PA shotgun.

My point being, this game is huge, it's skill based and it takes time to acquire the skill needed to be efficient at it. No amount of money will circumvent that.

And while it's certainly more convenient to be able to spam ESFs and vehicles, being a F2P member also increased my skill as a pilot/tanker because I have to be efficient and do whatever I can to prolong the lifetime of my vehicle.

Also, for me it was way more interesting to earn certs for getting a certain weapon/upgrade that it would have ever been if I'd simply payed for them.

Originally Posted by SadlyJack

If you like to drive a tank you are clearly not welcome at the Higby household.

If, under normal circumstances, your tank doesn't survive for at least 20 minutes, you're doing something wrong. I'm talking about a MBT with a driver and gunner here, not so much for the Lightning but still.

EvilNinjadude · 2013-07-12, 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by blashyrk

If, under normal circumstances, your tank doesn't survive for at least 20 minutes, you're doing something wrong.

And if it doesn't last for 20 minutes, and you're not doing anything wrong, the abnormal circumstances usually involve being countered by the enemy with superior numbers and positioning, meaning that you can take out only a small fraction of them before you die UNLESS you coordinate properly to take out the enemy armor/air force.

If you ever played SC2 you'll know how it works. If you send 10 marines against two marines, all ten marines will survive. The larger force hsa won this engagement so decisively that it does not NEED to make more marines, just heal them up again and keep going.
If your tank dies too fast because you're outnumbered or outplayed, it doesn't matter how long it takes until you can pull a new tank... because you didn't kill enough enemy tanks, they'll be less resource dependent then you. (Because if there's 10 targets, what's the chance that it'll be you each time?)

And paying money didn't have anything to do with this situation.

blashyrk · 2013-07-12, 09:30 AM

Nicely said!

kubacheski · 2013-07-12, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Maarvy

What a bunch of rampant fanboys

So what if another game is more or less pay to win than ps2 , the OP has a point .

8 pages of douchbaggery defending what's slapping every non paying member in the face .

The psu community is the kind that literaly dosent give 2 shits about ps2's new player experience or what a free player dosent have , so long as they do have .

Sure we can make a few tutorial videos ... invite a nube or 2 to our outfit . But hell dare to question why we paying members get it so easy compared to free players ... yeah fuck you buddy go die in a fire !

You're damn right the OP has a point. That this game is P2W. Noone debates that. Whats debatable is wether or not it's a big enough difference to complain about. What's slapping every non-player in the face is the way SOE has promised a F2P game with the inability to buy upgraded, just sidegraded eq and a bunch of cosmetic crud, but fully implemented P2W with all of the boosts and their handling of resources and certs.

The PSU community is divided into 2 groups at the moment: one group being those that bought into SOE's bullcrap about making PS2 a much better game than PS1 and didn't come close to delivering, so we're a lil bitter, and the second being those that drank the Koolaid and decided that PS1 is dead so they have to get used to and love this large scale with beautiful graphics areana shooter. That's the tipping point when PSU didn't care about new players, when they decided PS2 was a "good enough" game, because SOE wasn't doing anything more with PS1.

Noone is quite defending the disparity between paying and non-paying members, more like pointing out that that's how F2P works, its a misnomer across the industry and SOE said they'd not make it so glaring a difference so you couldn't pay to win, just get things faster. Well it didn't quite happen like that and it never does. They gonna make money.

The douchebaggery come in that there are 100 threads about P2W in this and other forums concerning PS2, and we still are complaining about P2W. Things started out with no distinct advantage, then as more weapons came in, people started subbing as you get things faster, SOE sees this and creates more abilities/consumables, so more people sub, SOE then revamps the resource system and everything is free, it ruins the balance as it spams the battlefield with tanks and air with little room for infantry, SOE sees this and revamps resources again, much more infantry fighting as vehicles cost more and players see this and begin subscribing. SOE sees this as more money in their pocket so why would they change it? because F2P players are quitting? so what they're not investing in the game. Notice pops have gone down quite a bit since the first iteration of rebalancing the new weapons? Thats when the disparity between pay and free happened. Maybe a mass exodus to games where there's a more even playing field? Yea it will get sorted out, Higby describes it as a pendulum swinging too far one way (on purpose) and then swinging it too far the other way (again on purpose) to get a better feel for where it should be in the middle. But don't you think that should have been done before release?

Again noone questions why paying members get it so easy. SOE makes it that way to entice people to subscribe so they can reinvest that money in making more content to entice people to subscribe. It's the subscription model, it's not a "free" game, its "free to play". Go read wikipedia's description of a F2P game. You can get all content through play or you can get all content through subscription/microtransactions. You get to choose which route you take. Play takes a long time, Pay doesn't.

And i'm no fan of PS2. It sucks compared to what SOE hyped it up to be. It sucks compared to PS1.
1/4 of the world to play on,
class limitations on weaponry (not cert limited),
minimal hacking environment for infils,
arena style bases,
no friggin doors,
no planetary interconnection (only 3 instanced battlefields),
P2W (had to throw that in, I hate it's there, but it's not going away),
TTK is too short (promotes zerg in every fight, and inflates XP gain rates),
No metagame,
No hacking vehicles,
No Combat Engineering (spitfires, etc),
no inventory,
no looting dead opponents,
etc, etc.
The game is no PS1. Yea, SOE says oh, more content to come, well they're still in an extened alpha as far as I'm concerned. I mean they're not even certain about how resources are going to work and they've got issues now with how NDZ are affecting the game. Balance is one thing, tweaking fire/damage rates is one thing, but revamping the underlying mechanics is another (lattice, resources, etc) and it reaks of poor direction. Funny how all of the bigger gameplay issues are being solved by PS1 mechanics. But PS2 could just be a testbed for ForgeLight in preparation for EQ:Next, another F2P game by SOE. So look for mirotransactions and subscriptions on that one too if you intend to play it. The same rules apply.

Why does every infiltrator tutorial say to upgrade from base TR/VS semi-auto sniper rifle to the Bolt Action? Because it's better, but it costs money/certs. If SOE wanted an even playing field, you would all need 1 gun per class (or per firing distance) and that's all. You could only buy camos. But what a boring game that would be.

The point is: Dont' have any illusions. You pay one way or another. Some ways just benefit you more than others.

Kerrec · 2013-07-12, 01:12 PM

I personally don't buy into the premise of this thread. Here's my point of view.

When I started this game in December, I was a lone wolf. I played 75% LA and the rest Engineer. I unlocked C4, AV Mines pretty early on and loved going after tanks and sunderers. I burned thru those like candy, but back in those days it wasn't an issue, the resources were endless.

Then I joined an outfit and shifted to playing Medic mostly. My medic has 2X C4, and I use against vehicles or to kill NC maxes that chase me. Being a support class in a squad, I don't burn thru a whole lot C4 (or AV Mines on my engineer) because the squad(s) will take out vehicles or enemy maxes with their "free" weapons, ie: Rocket Launchers, AV Max, Engineer AV turrets, etc...

Before as a lone wolf, I used to get alot of vehicle kills, because I either got the kill or died trying. Now I get some kills and lots of assists because my squad shares in the task of taking vehicles down. And we do it with "free" weapons the majority of the time.

Lately I've taken to start playing VS (I'm on Waterson, and they are underpopulated, so if I'm going to solo, I do my part to even the teams). I don't want to join an outfit with my VS, so I join pugs. Right off the bat all of my stats were just plain better than my TR because I don't do the support role thing while VS. So I started these new characters and if score per minute and/or K/D means anything, I was performing BETTER. BETTER, without having AV mines, C4, non-standard grenades, medkits, etc... My infantry resources were maxed out because I had nothing I needed to buy once my grenade stock was full. This still applies post resource cost change. I just don't have an issue with resources even when I compare the vast diferences between a character with lots of resource upkeep or no resource upkeep.

So no. I call bullshit.

1) An organized squad/platoon/Outfit will reduce the demand on resources to the point it is a non-issue if you remember to stock up once you reach 750.

2) Comparing performance between a well certed character and a fairly new character (same player behind the wheel) that hasn't unlocked things requiring heavy resource use, doesn't show a huge advantage that would imply a "Pay To Win" game.

Climhazzard · 2013-07-12, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by Kerrec

My infantry resources were maxed out because I had nothing I needed to buy once my grenade stock was full. This still applies post resource cost change.

Not to defend the OP's point (because I do disagree with it), but it's no surprise you haven't noticed an effect; nothing you've mentioned using in your post has had its resource cost increased.

Kerrec · 2013-07-12, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by Climhazzard

Not to defend the OP's point (because I do disagree with it), but it's no surprise you haven't noticed an effect; nothing you've mentioned using in your post has had its resource cost increased.

See the OP's post, I quote below:

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

That guy has multiple infantry things maxed at 40.....no wonder he can just run around instakilling people with mines.

Their is absolutely zero risk if you have resource boost...Is Pay 2 win.

Meanwhile a free 2 play player like me has around 2-5 med kits or 2 -5 grenades.....

I loved this game but lately with the resources change, I had like no resources at all for infantry..

Sorry SOE, at one time the game's hidden P2W wasn't that obvious...

Now the game has Obvious Pay 2 Win.

That's the OP's post, with bits cut out. He's complaining about resource boosts giving people more grenades, mines, C4, etc... than someone without a resource boost.

So, my previous post makes perfect sense as a response to his "claim". I made new characters recently that didn't have the certs to unlock all that resource intensive ordinance. I did not notice any degradation in my performance for not having that.

Hence, being a member, or just buying a boost is not going to guarantee someone better combat performance. That premise is flawed.

AThreatToYou · 2013-07-12, 01:34 PM

I would like to add a voice to the fact that the entire concept of Free-to-Play games revolves around the theory that "players are content". The more players a game has, the more people will want to play it, and more people will be willing to pay for it.

Likewise, players who don't pay are economically there just to encourage others to play and pay for some kind of advantage or convenience.

maradine · 2013-07-12, 01:44 PM

This concept extends far beyond gaming. Generally speaking, if you're not paying for the service, you're the product.

AThreatToYou · 2013-07-12, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by maradine

This concept extends far beyond gaming. Generally speaking, if you're not paying for the service, you're the product.

That's new, and informative. Thanks.

EvilNinjadude · 2013-07-12, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Climhazzard

Not to defend the OP's point (because I do disagree with it), but it's no surprise you haven't noticed an effect; nothing you've mentioned using in your post has had its resource cost increased.

You're right, haha, I kept trying to make a point on vehicles, but it seems in the OP, the dude was complaining more about infantry resources than vehicle resources... Well, now we've disproven both of them (I agree with both of Kerrec's points), so there.

Well one last thing: New players will have more trouble with vehicle resources as their stock tanks keep getting blown up. However, this is because they haven't had a chance to cert into them yet. Dump enough certs into Harassers, and you can farm all day. Dump certs into MBT Armor and engineer repair tool, and you can become part of a decent armor column. Remember that you have access to all of this whether you pay real money or not.