association with free to play

shortbushero · 2012-06-09, 11:48 AM

when most people see free to play they automatically associate it with games like tribes ascend. tribes ascend is not pay to win but some will argue that it is, with the amount of time that is needed to unlock something. so this message goes out to devs, please don't make it a huge grind, like SWG 2003 jedi grind, to unlock something and make it fair. this would probably be more relevent during beta etc.. but i'm just voicing my concern.

EDIT: PS 1 vet here. i've been following ps2 since the beginning of it's announcement, i'm not new to this lol i know how everything is gonna work i'm just asking devs to not force the store on us as the only way of development

Verruna · 2012-06-09, 11:51 AM

Ascend's grind was way too long and is why i only played that game for a short time. Theres a good balance that can be reached though, i just hope the devs hit it right.

meiam · 2012-06-09, 11:54 AM

Yeah 100 000 exp for a new gun when you get 500 exp on a winning match of 20 minute, plus you need to spend more exp on the gun itself to make it good is pretty much pay to win in my book.

Hopefully the fact that there's a lot more stuff to unlock will make it so that they don't have to make everything ridiculously pricey.

bullet · 2012-06-09, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by shortbushero

when most people see free to play they automatically associate it with games like tribes ascend. tribes ascend is not pay to win but some will argue that it is, with the amount of time that is needed to unlock something. so this message goes out to devs, please don't make it a huge grind, like SWG 2003 jedi grind, to unlock something and make it fair. this would probably be more relevent during beta etc.. but i'm just voicing my concern.

I don't know about most people but I certainly don't think of Tribes Ascend when I hear F2P. I think of old F2P games that sell power and thats the main thing people are thinking of with the F2P, its come up numerous times and the team is definitely trying to swat that idea quickly.

I think it depends on whats being unlocked and more to be more specific, this game has certs, add-ons, attachments, new weapons, etc. that should have different levels of difficulty to unlock. Aside from that, if the game is fun to play and you enjoy it, then there is no grind.

shortbushero · 2012-06-09, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by bullet

I don't know about most people but I certainly don't think of Tribes Ascend when I hear F2P. I think of old F2P games that sell power and thats the main thing people are thinking of with the F2P, its come up numerous times and the team is definitely trying to swat that idea quickly.

I think it depends on whats being unlocked and more to be more specific, this game has certs, add-ons, attachments, new weapons, etc. that should have different levels of difficulty to unlock. Aside from that, if the game is fun to play and you enjoy it, then there is no grind.

yeah that's true, but i did enjoy tribes ascend a lot actually, and my friends too but the grind turned me off and stopped playing after a week or two

Immigrant · 2012-06-09, 11:58 AM

PS2 new weapons won't be stronger (or at least that was promised) than default starting ones so you can't compare this game with Tribes in that matter. They will just be different and any improvement will require a tradeoff. Also Tribes released OP weapons like that Plasma rifle on purpose to milk the rich customers in exchange for too much power what was horrible.

Gandhi · 2012-06-09, 12:12 PM

I look at it a bit differently. The problem with Tribes isn't so much that the XP gain is slow, it's that the gold price for weapons is too high. People who never spend a dime in the store can and do complain about the XP gain, but what do they expect? They complain that's it's not fair, but do they really think it's fair to play the game entirely for free?

Ask yourself this, would you have spent $40 on the box to play the game if it didn't have a cash shop? If so, what's the difference between that and spending $40 in the cash shop to unlock weapons or pick up boosters? If not, then why are you complaining? You wouldn't have played the game at all without the F2P system.

If you can't be bothered to spend even $8 for a booster and lifetime VIP bonus then you really have no right to complain about unfair grinding. With just that VIP bonus I get 1000-1500 XP per match, still not much but it's not like I can't play the game without having everything unlocked. I'm not grinding, I'm just playing the game, and every now and then I'll find myself with enough XP to unlock a new weapon, which makes the game interesting again for a while.

So IMO it's the gold prices. In a game like Tribes I think $50 is a fair price to unlock everything that's available on launch, and that's the problem with it. To unlock everything you'd have to spend far more than that, which is unfair. Having to pay more for content released later, that's fine, it's no different than DLC for a box game. But the $50 I would have spent on the box should unlock everything available at launch. For Planetside 2 I don't know, unlike Tribes it's an MMO, different rules apply.

Pay to win is a term reserved for those terrible Korean MMOs, where you pay real money to rent (no, really. Rent.) superior PVP gear or buy premium ammunition that can't be acquired anywhere else.

shortbushero · 2012-06-09, 12:17 PM

no of course not. i allready plan on spending like 50 well deserved dollars on station cash and buying stuff and what not. but the thing is some people can't spend 50 dollars every month for it. and including continued development. new content will be released and some people can't buy all the new stuff. i have to pay rent and such and support my living. but during that month i want to still be able to progress in my character. without it turning boring into just a grind fest.

GuyFawkes · 2012-06-09, 12:19 PM

hopefully after ps2 is launched the industry and playerbase as a whole start to think outside the box and realise that you can break the mold. Not every mmo has to be a dumb wow clone , not every fps has to be confined to 16v16 map, and not every ftp game sucks just because its ftp.

Gonefshn · 2012-06-09, 12:20 PM

I don't think the Pay 2 win side of this arguement is very important because in Tribes: Ascend there are honestly weapons you can unlock that are just REALLY good (cloaked Spin fusor).

However it is important to make a good balance of time spent in game vs acquiring reward. Someone who isn't paying for a boost might take a long time to advance a cert tree but if you allow small incremental rewards to be earned fairly quickly that will still let you feel like your actively growing as you play.

Shade Millith · 2012-06-09, 12:23 PM

While it does take some grinding to get new guns, Tribes Ascend is not P2W.

The starting three classes/loadouts are very solid, and the pathfinder (One of the starter's) only needs a single unlocked item (The Thrust pack) to immediately put you into the best flag capper/chaser class. Even without the thrust pack, it's still excellent.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to look at P2W, look at World Of Tanks.

shortbushero · 2012-06-09, 12:26 PM

guys the discussion is not pay to win, the discussion is that some people can't drop money every month and will get left behind every time new content comes out (if the grinding vs payment is unbalanced)

Vetto · 2012-06-09, 12:29 PM

Hopefully SOE has watched what Valve done with TF2 when it comes to F2P, While the initial changes of TF2 left a lot of people bitter I must admit, it the best F2P model I Have seen, Were most the time you are buying cosmetic items, and any item that a weapon is obtainable threw in game means and not to much extra work.

It boiled down if you wanted to be one of the first with it, or wait a few days and craft it.

And in the end no weapon was better per say.. just some effect were less desirable on cretin classes, but you could still kill some one with any gun just as easily.

Gandhi · 2012-06-09, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by shortbushero

no of course not. i allready plan on spending like 50 well deserved dollars on station cash and buying stuff and what not. but the thing is some people can't spend 50 dollars every month for it. and including continued development. new content will be released and some people can't buy all the new stuff. i have to pay rent and such and support my living. but during that month i want to still be able to progress in my character. without it turning boring into just a grind fest.

That's true, but I'm not talking about spending $50 a month on it. I'm just saying if you want a particular weapon so bad that you feel like you're only playing the game to grind for it you should probably just buy it instead. Unless you have OCD and play the game for the sole purpose of unlocking everything, in that case a F2P model might not be the right thing for you.

As long as I can play the game properly without unlocking things it doesn't bother me. Tribes can be played just fine with the default classes, and I imagine it'll be the same for Planetside too.

Envenom · 2012-06-09, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by shortbushero

when most people see free to play they automatically associate it with games like tribes ascend. tribes ascend is not pay to win but some will argue that it is, with the amount of time that is needed to unlock something. so this message goes out to devs, please don't make it a huge grind, like SWG 2003 jedi grind, to unlock something and make it fair. this would probably be more relevent during beta etc.. but i'm just voicing my concern.

EDIT: PS 1 vet here. i've been following ps2 since the beginning of it's announcement, i'm not new to this lol i know how everything is gonna work i'm just asking devs to not force the store on us as the only way of development

While I see and acknowledge your point, I feel no sympathy for people who want a free ride. SOE has worked their ass off for this game. You need to be fair to them too.

Nothing in life is free. While the EXP system should be 'balanced' to some degree, don't even think for a second that without dropping a cent you will cake walk through the game. It should be a grind. These guys need to eat too!

Buck up!