Do you have to spend credits to get a new ship if you lose one in PvP or is a replacement free? Is there any cost to losing ships in PvP?
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
Hello! This is the poster calling the game pay to win. Could you refute that in a way aside from insisting that it's nonfactual over and over again? Typically if it's not factual you can use words and sentences to describe why that is. Just saying it's non factual over and over is a little meaningless you know?
<snip>
<snip>
TLDR;
Star Citizen probably is "Pay to Win" by some definition of the term, but not in any way that really matters. The whales flying around in their space yachts doesn't stop me from doing the things that I want to do.
I'm largely with you on this one. I think the massive price tags on these ships is enough to tip it towards pay to win enough for me to describe it as that, but ultimately we're allowed to disagree on the severity. It's a sliding scale at the end of the day, and you get put at at least the start of the scale when you charge $300 for a ship that would otherwise require in game currency to buy. I'll admit I'm more on the purist end of that debate. Pay as much as you want for a skin, that's not pay to win. Once you start letting people pay $$ for things that otherwise would need to be earned in game with time or in game currency, you've crossed the pay to win threshold.
Star Citizen is low on the actual "time saved" rating of the pay to win scale (20 or whatever let's say 10 hours to make everyone happy is a decent chunk but not hundreds like other pay to win games can be), but incredibly high on the amount paid in real $ for the advantages. It's certainly not a bargain pay to win game!
The double post is accidental, whoops messed up a quote.
We are pretty deep into theoretical debates about what makes P2W now which doesn't really have much to do with SC anymore. Do you differentiate between P2W and Pay to skip grind at all?
And if one uses a definition of P2W as purist as yours does a game being P2W by those strict criterea even say anything negative about it anymore? I mean Path of Exile is P2W by your definition (Stash Tabs) and you seem to have enjoyed it. What makes differentiates a "bad" P2W game from one you are willing to enjoy?
Do you have to spend credits to get a new ship if you lose one in PvP or is a replacement free? Is there any cost to losing ships in PvP?
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
So I could pay to have a vast hangar and just triumph over poorer players via attrition?
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Respawn times for starter/cheaper ships are currently instant, so not really.
That's a bit simplified, though. Are the bigger / better ships able to crush the smaller ones if flown competently and thus smote them indefinitely? Is there travel time for the starter / cheap ships to come back, etc?
i.e., yeah, you can come at me with infinite starter ships, but is that viable and super well-equipped / better ships that are also plentiful?
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Replacement is currently free in exchange for time, or you can pay to expedite the time. That's for all ship losses, not just PVP.
It's only that way for testing. Purchased ships have either multiple real-time months or unlimited lifetime insurance. Upon [theoretical] release, this allows a player that pays real money for ships to save in-game credits every time they lose a ship over a non-paying player.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
0
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I don't think there is an "I win" ship if the lesser ship is flown by a better pilot. Also, You may have a better ship but can the lesser ship accomplish their own personal objectives regardless? If your goal isn't destroying them in combat then it may not matter who is flying what.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Also as a reminder, pretty sure it's been brought up already during this but these infinite attrition ships are all gonna be stock fittings unless you shell out some aUEC for better parts each time.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I don't think there is an "I win" ship if the lesser ship is flown by a better pilot. Also, You may have a better ship but can the lesser ship accomplish their own personal objectives regardless? If your goal isn't destroying them in combat then it may not matter who is flying what.
We were discussing a specific PvP objective, i.e., "This area is mine you cannot come in".
Also as a reminder, pretty sure it's been brought up already during this but these infinite attrition ships are all gonna be stock fittings unless you shell out some aUEC for better parts each time.
So can you use real money to fit all of these ships?
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Respawn times for starter/cheaper ships are currently instant, so not really.
That's a bit simplified, though. Are the bigger / better ships able to crush the smaller ones if flown competently and thus smote them indefinitely? Is there travel time for the starter / cheap ships to come back, etc?
i.e., yeah, you can come at me with infinite starter ships, but is that viable and super well-equipped / better ships that are also plentiful?
No. You can't just smote someone indefinitely because even a starter ship can easily escape from the most expensive fighter in the game. Even if it couldn't, at some point that expensive ship is going to need to leave to refuel/repair/rearm, or to deal with the crimestat that they have gained from the space equivalent of spawncamping. Even if you decide you have a grudge against a specific player and you want to kill them, its basically impossible to track them down in the game currently (and we're limited to 50 players in a single server that only has one system in it).
Even if you could, there would be nothing stopping the player in the cheaper ship from putting a bounty on your head, or calling in friends/orgmates to destroy you, or pressing charges using the legal system (the first iteration of which already exists in the game).
"Star Citizen is p2w because of this intensely hypothetical situation I've devised where game systems that don't currently exist are exploited in a certain manner that may or may not be possible in a vacuum" doesn't really make sense.
We were discussing a specific PvP objective, i.e., "This area is mine you cannot come in".
Blockades currently exist where some players might band together and decide to try and stop people from entering/exiting a specific station unless they make a payment. This is an intended gameplay loop, but will not be possible in areas with a security presence. If you're in an area without a security presence and you run into a blockade, you have to make a gameplay decision - you can pay to get past it, you can fight, you can go somewhere else, you can try to sneak through the blockade, or you can call in a group of other players to help you blow them up. Technically the other option right now is to just hop servers, but that's not going to be a permanent solution once server meshing is implemented (coming soon™).
The current design philosophy is for there to be areas where pvp is normal (lawless territories), and places where it is very rare or next to impossible (monitored territories), with other places in between. They've mentioned that the level of danger in certain areas will be reflected in things like the cost to insure your ship or the payout from missions/deliveries in those areas, so it will be a risk vs reward gameplay decision. Even currently there are places where pvp is more prevalent (the area outside Port Olisar between it and Grim Hex is a very popular spot for people to dogfight each other, Kareah is popular for FPS pvp).
Also as a reminder, pretty sure it's been brought up already during this but these infinite attrition ships are all gonna be stock fittings unless you shell out some aUEC for better parts each time.
So can you use real money to fit all of these ships?
Not really. You can currently buy aUEC with actual money, but the conversion is laughable and purchases are very strictly limited to 25,000aUEC per day to avoid p2w mechanics (as an example, you can spend $25 to buy 25,000aUEC, or you can spend less than five minutes in the cheapest starter ship earning that amount in a single mission). The cost to pimp your (starter ship) ride depends on how far you want to go (just replacing your loadout with 4 S1 repeaters might run you 10k or less, fully replacing all of your components with high end gear could run you almost 100k, and this price escalates when you start looking at larger/higher end components for bigger ships. A lot of the upgrades are better described as sidegrades as well (do you buy the shield with more HP but a slower recharge rate than the one you already have? Do you want to replace your missile rack with one for larger missiles but carries half as many? Do you buy the power plant that outputs more power but has a much larger signature? That sort of thing), so even though some components are flat out better than a lot of stock ones, but there isn't really a flat "spend X amount of aUEC and get the objectively best loadout for a specific ship". Different stores in different areas also have different inventories (you're more likely to find a pair of high end coolers at a shop in a major city as opposed to the shop in some backwater refinery at the ass end of the system), which makes buying your way out of a problem even less feasible.
Chris Roberts has said that if they continue to allow players to purchase in-game money it will continue to be very limited. We'll see if that continues to be the case, but currently buying credits with cash is an very, very poor proposition. This is actually one of the stronger arguments against the game being p2w.
Do you have to spend credits to get a new ship if you lose one in PvP or is a replacement free? Is there any cost to losing ships in PvP?
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
So I could pay to have a vast hangar and just triumph over poorer players via attrition?
So infinite ships, basically zero cool down.
Conceivably, but I think you'd still need a team to accomplish anything tangible? I think the bottomless hangars advantage is mostly going to be tactical variety, because the big ships that take an hour+ aren't useful without crew.
If your goal is purely griefing, an optimal mischief scenario would be pad ramming at Grim Hex with the biggest currently playable ship, but anywhere else and you'd wake up in prison before your depth of hangar came into effect.
Drawn out confrontations would cut into your respawn advantage based on how far from your hangar they are taking place, and would then turn on how effectively you can induce losses by yourself. If you're flying something big enough to really noticeably leverage it, you aren't going to be particularly dangerous. Infinite Retaliators would inflict heavy losses, but I don't know if the reduced respawn time would be a factor, because you blew up the big ship and the big ship isn't coming back, and I don't know if it has a very long one itself.
Say you show up and harass some miners in a Warden, the locals send a Hammerhead to eat you, you send a Retaliator to kill it, immediately suicide to come back with the Warden. Maybe you saved 5 minutes on the Warden respawn? Maybe just the cost of expediting? Just having those torpedos in your back pocket is really what helped there.
Now if you have an org with access to that infinite hangar, then you could certainly be a lot more than a nuisance; but space is big, and organizing the humans to cover your empire is going to be the deciding factor.
Though, I will grant you that advertising an "Infinite ships" sign on bonus is going to be a hell of a recruiting tactic.
TBH the security/PVP options sound quite a bit like EVE, as do the "can pay X for Y" aspects. EVE you can't buy ships directly, but you can/could absolutely buy plex (subscription tokens basically) from CCP, and you can just sell plex on the in-game market for ISK; same deal in WoW. If I wanted to drop a few hundred bucks on a pile of plex, and become a megabillionaire, and then buy the most expensive shit in the game, it'd take... Eh, 20m. Maybe a day? Shipping times, you know.
Honestly, that would just make me a target; people love blowing up people who bought a thing but aren't great in it yet.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Lots of people spend money in this game, I had a buddy join us who had never played before. He spent like $20 and was flying navy battleships in like a week that were kitted decently. It was definitely bizarre as when I got back into I remember back in the day you couldn't bypass the time sink requirement for skill training.
I mean, SC is def somewhat pay-to-win, I can go in an purchase a high level ship and pay to fit with top gear?
It wouldn't be so bad, but I just tried the game again and it's still quite buggy.
The farming up aspect just isn't enjoyable for me yet. I even have a connie and still, there are just too many bugs for me to play this outside of acting like it's a tech demo.
I desperately want to play this game as well, you get glimmers of awesome but man it is painful.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
Basically yes? There are areas of the game where other players can shoot at you against your will, but its also pretty easy to avoid these areas and very hard to pin down a ship that doesn't want to fight; there are no jump gate chokepoints like with EVE for example. If you're say, mining, you're going to have to go into unprotected space to get those tasty rocks, and if you're flying a Prospector basically anything will beat you in a fight so its on you to watch your back and get ready to GTFO if necessary. There's also not really "alpha striking" like in EVE where you kit out a ship specifically for the purposes of killing a smaller ship in a single surprise volley; the Prospector is tough and can take a lot of hits, giving you time to get away.
Basically, there are no 100% safe activities, but you're very unlikely to be blown up flying between major points of interest.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Lots of people spend money in this game, I had a buddy join us who had never played before. He spent like $20 and was flying navy battleships in like a week that were kitted decently. It was definitely bizarre as when I got back into I remember back in the day you couldn't bypass the time sink requirement for skill training.
I mean, SC is def somewhat pay-to-win, I can go in an purchase a high level ship and pay to fit with top gear?
It wouldn't be so bad, but I just tried the game again and it's still quite buggy.
The farming up aspect just isn't enjoyable for me yet. I even have a connie and still, there are just too many bugs for me to play this outside of acting like it's a tech demo.
I desperately want to play this game as well, you get glimmers of awesome but man it is painful.
I mean yeah, you can buy a ship sure. Fit it. Can do in EVE as well, get yourself a kitted out T3* with all the trimmings, and it won't do you a shit-lick of good, because someone in the cheapest fuckin' frigate** out there with basic gear that all cost roughly pennies will dismantle your ass and you won't be able to do shit unless you yourself know what you're doing.
*Highly configurable, top tier subcapital that tends to cost billions of ISK for the hull alone, and another few or more for the gear you need to make it useful.
**Probably a Rifter, which is so ubiquitous I've seen them sold in 12-packs, and an average hull cost of eh. 100k? Cheap as, at any rate.
0
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited April 2022
Rifter pilots are so in demand that Most corps will reimburse you for flying them so that they are free.
As long as you are not selling them on the market some will just give you 12 packs of Rifters.
Just_Bri_Thanks on
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Mainly because you're simplifying it down to the basic one on one when, in general, the organized groups will have someone / pay people to pick off those basic fighters. If a single fighter can take out a big expensive ship, then that big expensive ship will make sure (one way or the other) that they have help to prevent that happening.
Will embarrassing killmails happen? Sure, definitely, but....
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Mainly because you're simplifying it down to the basic one on one when, in general, the organized groups will have someone / pay people to pick off those basic fighters. If a single fighter can take out a big expensive ship, then that big expensive ship will make sure (one way or the other) that they have help to prevent that happening.
Will embarrassing killmails happen? Sure, definitely, but....
Well yeah, but there's an infinite amount of variables you can put on this, right. If we're talking "Joe Shmoe has spent $$$ on a shiny ship and this lets him win over Bobby who hasn't spent money" then you kind of need to leave group dynamics aside for the moment I think.
Obv in any proper engagement in EVE you have like... Plans. Interdiction, tackle, possible range of ship classes, and so on, which all vastly outweighs any amount of individual spend on a ship; same will go in SC eventually, though there's an interesting lack of interdiction afaik. My point is that that spend is not actually necessarily an advantage, even in what would theoretically be the most advantageous situation (a 1:1 vs someone who is flying basically a beat-up Hyundai to your Bugatti.)
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Why are you assuming it can never provide an advantage and only incompetent newbs do it?
I don't care if you like it, hate it, don't care about it, or a full-bore participant in it. But people's various no true scottsman arguments attempting to reject the reality of its existence feel like they're driven by the bruised egos of "Pay2Win is bad. Therefore MY game would never have Pay2Win. But my game does have Pay2Win. Therefore my game is bad."
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Why are you assuming it can never provide an advantage and only incompetent newbs do it?
I don't care if you like it, hate it, don't care about it, or a full-bore participant in it. But people's various no true scottsman arguments attempting to reject the reality of its existence feel like they're driven by the bruised egos of "Pay2Win is bad. Therefore MY game would never have Pay2Win. But my game does have Pay2Win. Therefore my game is bad."
Because by definition you can't do it after the game launches, therefore the only people who can do it are either "people who play what exists right now", which is an incomplete slice therefore not representative of the full launch experience, or "people who bought in and don't play", which by definition would make them unpracticed/inexperienced.
I don't play this, and won't unless it hits Xbox, so I got no horse in the race other than "I really dig giant complex games with intricate systems that are doing something ambitious/unusual". I just dislike a definition of "pay to win" where any spending money of any kind equates to "win".
I mean if I can buy a DLC with "gems" say (IAP currency) and you can earn gems through gameplay as well as buy them, is someone who buys that DLC with cash money an example of "pay to win"? It had loot in it and stuff. Maybe a new level cap. I feel like we'd all be pretty comfortable saying "no that is not pay to win", but by a strict definition, you have paid money to acquire a gameplay element ahead of someone who did not, which above has been defined as "pay to win". And that makes no sense to me!
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
And immediately we have a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier; two very different personal definitions of "pay to win" resulting in an argument that ultimately boils down to "Uh huh" vs "Nuh uh".
Personally, I would put EVE a lot further down the P2W spectrum than Star Citizen; you can turn real money into ISK, and with ISK you can buy literally any item available on the market. You can buy a ship and kit it out and be at an objective advantage vs another player of the same skill level who didn't do that. Yes, its hilarious when someone puts down a bunch of real cash, buys a shiny ship and immediately loses it because they don't know what they're doing, but that's not an argument that they've not gained an advantage. There are expensive faction guns and ammo that are objectively better than other guns and ammo, and there are T2 and T3 ships and faction variants that are objectively better than the T1 versions. Having an infinite stack of isk lets you buy the good stuff.
Meanwhile in Star Citizen, when you pledge for a ship that's all you get; the ship, stock weapons and systems. And the stock weapons are generally kinda garbage compared to what's available on the market. As far as I'm aware, actual ship weapons and systems have never been available to pledge for, and the only personal weapon that has been pledge-ible was a literal nerf gun that fires foam darts. But most importantly, as dporowski has pointed out, this is only a thing that exists for the alpha/beta period. Which, you know, is going to be a significant period of time, because Chris Roberts is allergic to finishing projects, but you won't be able to buy any of these ships with real money once the game hits 1.0. Being able to play with these ships now is the whole incentive for your "donation". You get a head start, but everyone else is going to catch up eventually.
For me, ship acquisition is itself one of the major driving factors of the game. Play the game and earn cool spaceships.
What this means for me, personally, is that I don't want to buy a bunch of ships from the cash shop, because doing that means robbing myself of goals to work towards in the game. It's ok if other people don't feel that way. It's not a standard I'm gonna hold anyone to or judge anyone by.
On the broad subject of pay to win - as I see it there are really three high level categorizations:
Pay to Win - you are paying money to have an advantage over other players
Pay to Save Time - you are paying to shortcut progression and save time.
Pay to Look Cool - cosmetic upgrades only, no gameplay or time advantage associated with this tier
I'd put Star Citizen in the "pay to save time" category. You can definitely call time saving an advantage in a multiplayer game, because it can have a snowball effect. In any MMO (not just SC), having advanced gear or spaceships or whatever will allow you to be first to market for goods and services, and give you a starting momentum to keep you "ahead of the pack."
The thing is, Star Citizen isn't a race or a competitive game. If you are in competition with someone to achieve X in the fastest time, that's a social construction, not a game construction. The game doesn't care how fast you complete your goals and there's no pressure from the game to be first or to do everything fast. If anything, SC lends itself very well to casual play. You can log in, run a few missions, spend 30-60 minutes online, and feel like you got something accomplished. Any "race to the top" that exists is purely social, and not a real thing. You shouldn't be feeling any pressure to "keep up with the Joneses" because it doesn't matter. Play at your own pace.
So I'd definitely plant SC in the "pay to save time" category, but I also don't think it's a huge deal to save that time. It really doesn't matter how fast or slow you progress.
Does SC have non-consentual PvP or not? Seems that's the easiest way to answer this pay to win stuff. If it does, it is. Simple!
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Why are you assuming it can never provide an advantage and only incompetent newbs do it?
I don't care if you like it, hate it, don't care about it, or a full-bore participant in it. But people's various no true scottsman arguments attempting to reject the reality of its existence feel like they're driven by the bruised egos of "Pay2Win is bad. Therefore MY game would never have Pay2Win. But my game does have Pay2Win. Therefore my game is bad."
I can only speak for myself here, but I'm not trying to shift goal posts on what P2W means, because arguing about a label is unhelpful. I'm just discussing examples of what advantages pledge ships give to players, scenarios in which those advantages can be leveraged, and sharing why I do not feel that those advantages have been detrimental to my experience so far, and why I do not forsee that changing in the future.
The reality is, Star Citizen is still early in Alpha without a lot of clear definition of what the core game play is going to end up being. What Star Citizen really ends up being is going to ultimately drive this.
We don't even know for sure how Star Citizen is ultimately going to monetize itself. One can assume it's buy the game, play forever. But after making over $400 million dollars selling virtual spaceships, the temptation to keep that needle in the vein is going to be very real. I'd be very surprised if they didn't find a way to contort themselves into continuing to sell spaceships as a primary monetization model.
And let's not kid ourselves. In any game, any competitive aspect that can be influenced by spending money is within the grounds of Pay to Win. PvP is competitive. Hunting for resources is competitive. If people are allowed to owned spaces in the game, that's competitive. And it can all be influenced if someone's ability to use a credit card will give them an advantage. Let's also not kid ourselves with the argument that people who pay to win are no skill scrubs. That's rare. Most times, these people know what they're doing and care enough about the game to put down a credit card. They're more than competent enough players to utilize the advantages they're paying for.
But the second, and more dangerous aspect of monetization is "Pay to skip". If your game play loop is bumpy enough that paying to skip is a viable revenue stream, it points to fundamental flaws in your game. Paying to skip shouldn't be something inherently monetized for lots of reason. Chief of which is games should be designed to be fun, engaging, and something that people derive satisfaction from. If there's elements that people are willing to pay to skip in such numbers that it appears on your balance sheet, those elements are also turning off significant numbers of players.
Again, I'll point to Privateer as an example. There was grind in that game. That starter ship wasn't a lot of fun, but doing missions, trading, and earning credits was fun. Getting better at the game as you also improved your equipment was rewarding. Earning a more expensive ship better suited to what you really enjoyed doing was fun. That element has to be a part of Star Citizen.
Far more games are ruined by Pay to Skip than Pay to Win. Most people don't care so much about winning if they're having fun. But paying to skip points to elements of games that are inherently not fun. That's a really big problem I hope Star Citizen doesn't have.
+3
Options
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
They’re going to need something or other to keep the servers running, and I’m not sure that cosmetic items will get the job done. It’s kinda sorta worked for Elite so far, but im not sure how the operating costs between the two will compare.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
0
Options
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
We don't even know for sure how Star Citizen is ultimately going to monetize itself. One can assume it's buy the game, play forever. But after making over $400 million dollars selling virtual spaceships, the temptation to keep that needle in the vein is going to be very real. I'd be very surprised if they didn't find a way to contort themselves into continuing to sell spaceships as a primary monetization model.
While they have made a point to reiterate that these are only pledges to support development, I also have a very real concern that they aren't just going to turn that tap off once the time comes. I still don't think that will give people who buy ships any meaningful advantage, but I do think it will negatively affect the game overall.
Hello! This is the poster calling the game pay to win. Could you refute that in a way aside from insisting that it's nonfactual over and over again? Typically if it's not factual you can use words and sentences to describe why that is. Just saying it's non factual over and over is a little meaningless you know?
<snip>
<snip>
TLDR;
Star Citizen probably is "Pay to Win" by some definition of the term, but not in any way that really matters. The whales flying around in their space yachts doesn't stop me from doing the things that I want to do.
I'm largely with you on this one. I think the massive price tags on these ships is enough to tip it towards pay to win enough for me to describe it as that, but ultimately we're allowed to disagree on the severity. It's a sliding scale at the end of the day, and you get put at at least the start of the scale when you charge $300 for a ship that would otherwise require in game currency to buy. I'll admit I'm more on the purist end of that debate. Pay as much as you want for a skin, that's not pay to win. Once you start letting people pay $$ for things that otherwise would need to be earned in game with time or in game currency, you've crossed the pay to win threshold.
Star Citizen is low on the actual "time saved" rating of the pay to win scale (20 or whatever let's say 10 hours to make everyone happy is a decent chunk but not hundreds like other pay to win games can be), but incredibly high on the amount paid in real $ for the advantages. It's certainly not a bargain pay to win game!
The double post is accidental, whoops messed up a quote.
We are pretty deep into theoretical debates about what makes P2W now which doesn't really have much to do with SC anymore. Do you differentiate between P2W and Pay to skip grind at all?
And if one uses a definition of P2W as purist as yours does a game being P2W by those strict criterea even say anything negative about it anymore? I mean Path of Exile is P2W by your definition (Stash Tabs) and you seem to have enjoyed it. What makes differentiates a "bad" P2W game from one you are willing to enjoy?
Ooh nice, you brought up Path of Exile! I was hoping it would come up!
First though -- you're right! I said earlier in the thread that this thread often attracts traffic because people will shoot out really wacky explanations for things, and then people lurking will be like "Wait what the hell that's definitely not what X means", and the discussions wind up being more than just Star Citizen stuff. They then get mega amplified by people defending Star Citizen and perceiving any disagreement on terminology to be an attack on their game.
Since making that post, we've had someone essentially say no sandbox games can be pay to win (wow I really disagree with that!) and SmokeStacks threw out basically "I really like the grind, so it can't be pay to win!". Which, like, come on! Someone enjoying a grind has absolutely nothing to do with whether something is pay to win or not. I know people who love mega grindy old school Korean MMOs. So just because they love grinding 1000 hours killing the exact same mob over and over, that means that the game selling me a thing for $100 that saves 1000 hours of grinding isn't pay to win? That's clearly not a valid way to define the term.
I'm not trying to be tricky at all -- this thread is so defensive that people will read every ill intention into anything you say that may possibly be an attack on Star Citizen. I never said anything even adjacent to all of you being horrible for enjoying a game that has Pay to Win elements -- the Pay to Win in this game is absolutely not for me, but whatever man you're allowed to enjoy any game you want.
So Path of Exile -- yes, it is, very narrowly a pay to win game. That is to say, it has incredibly minor pay to win elements that I consider completely worth the price of admission. It rates so low on the scale it's hardly worth discussing! But since you asked, sure. We have numbers and context though. Path of Exile costs $0. You can beat the game and have a blast for zero dollars! I did that -- my first character made it to maps and level 80+ before I ever thought of spending a dime on that game. 50 hours, for free! Premium Stash tabs are by far the biggest "gameplay advantage" you can get for $$ in PoE (sinc they allow you to trade with players much more easily than not having one), and they cost........five dolllars! So total cost of admission is $5! That's amazing for a full fleshed out game. It's better than most $60 games without any after the fact purchases by an order of magnitude actually. There are other tabs, they save you oh maybe like 10 minutes of gameplay on a 60 hour run? Grabbing all of the important ones will run you $20-30. So for half the price of a retail game, you've got thousands of hours. If you're spending $50+, that's cosmetic items that have no gameplay impact.
Star Citizen, of course, doesn't have those benefits. You have to pay full price to start -- so we start off being just as costly as your standard AAA PC game. The microtransactions? Incredibly expensive. Like, chart topping, headline grabbing expensive. The benefits are solid, but holy crap not worth $300 to save 10 or 20 hours or whatever for most normal humans. The pricing is downright exploitative! Highway robbery by just about any definition. The reaction to mentioning that? There's no way my $300 ship that I purchased for $$ instead of credits is Pay to Win. Doesn't really match up with observable reality on my end.
Yes, I too have played some Pay to Win games. My value proposition is incredibly different than the one presented in Star Citizen. Pay to win elements can be reasonable, at which point you don't really talk about them much, or they can be several hundred dollars for digital ships, at which point you do. I grew up paying $15 a month to play MMOs -- they've got server costs. So if a free game I love has some premium tier for $10 or $15 a month, yeah let's do it. Once we start getting into hundreds of dollars for a single ship in addition to a retail cost? Holy shit get me out of there. That's before we get into the infinitely increasing scope, the selling you on future content that still hasn't manifested for years, and the questions as to what the monetization and grind is even going to look like at "full launch". That stuff makes it feel extra exploitative in a way a finished game doesn't, and the hundreds of dollars for ships thing just rockets it up to 11.
Fiatil on
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
If I were going to maintain the money spigot post launch without also setting up an alternate test universe for testing/adjusting stats of upcoming ships, I would frame it as getting access to prototype hulls from whichever company is making that particular ship. As a design goes through revisions, you don't delete or upgrade the existing hulls in the world, just cut off the supply of new ones in favor of the updated model. Sets up the opportunity for planning a heist on a rare pre-nerf superturbo megaavenger or some such.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
No need to make it complicated. Just sell ships. Be transparent about it. And move on.
The actual process would be plenty simple, it's a question of the window dressing.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Do you have to spend credits to get a new ship if you lose one in PvP or is a replacement free? Is there any cost to losing ships in PvP?
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
So I could pay to have a vast hangar and just triumph over poorer players via attrition?
Again I have not played star citizen but it seems like as it is... you'd have to respawn, spend five to ten minutes walking to the hangar, get your ship, fly your ship off the planet your on, fly ship through space, find said person. It seems like it'd take like a half hour to get back at least? So like... I'm assuming no unless they're just sitting there waiting?
As far as the idea of "being a crew member on another player's big ship", I mean it seems like yeah that's the idea behind the bigger ships. They seem like they're kind of useless for most things without multiple people on them. Like it seems like, for example, in terms of combats, big ships mostly rely on turrets? And said turrets have to be manned by other players. So, again, as someone who doesn't play Star Citizen, thinks the project is going to inevitably bottom out on funding and collapse, the complaints about "having to work on another person's big ship" seems, I dunno, misguided. Assuming rewards for quests or missions or stuff do the normal MMO thing of duplicating the rewards for each participant, having a crewed big ship seems basically like a weird sort of analog to your standard MMO party. There's a potential issue where a lot of jobs on a ship could be much less engaging than others, but that's also an issue with MMO class systems. On the flipside it seems like, let's say in some crazy hypothetical future where Star Citizen does somehow not implode under its own weight and becomes this huge successful MMO... playing with randos could really, really suck with easy it'd be to troll people by deliberately sabotaging things.
All that being said, yeah not gonna budge on the real currency ship pricing being insane and y'know, the whole project and game's monetization scheme seeming real murky and unsustainable as hell. And the games' development priorities and promises just being... nonsensical.
Do you have to spend credits to get a new ship if you lose one in PvP or is a replacement free? Is there any cost to losing ships in PvP?
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
So I could pay to have a vast hangar and just triumph over poorer players via attrition?
Again I have not played star citizen but it seems like as it is... you'd have to respawn, spend five to ten minutes walking to the hangar, get your ship, fly your ship off the planet your on, fly ship through space, find said person. It seems like it'd take like a half hour to get back at least? So like... I'm assuming no unless they're just sitting there waiting?
Oh I didn't think about planets. From a station respawn you could be in quantum in a minute or three, if you're jumping over railings and diving down the stairs. Back on site in 5 if it's local. Planets do take considerably longer; missing the tram can add a few minutes by itself.
Respawning on planets suuuucks if you've got somewhere to be.
Posts
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Bigger ships have longer respawn times, and higher fees to expedite (you can pay a one-time fee to cut a fixed percentage of total time off). Fighters are like 5 minutes, big boys are over an hour, I think.
We are pretty deep into theoretical debates about what makes P2W now which doesn't really have much to do with SC anymore. Do you differentiate between P2W and Pay to skip grind at all?
And if one uses a definition of P2W as purist as yours does a game being P2W by those strict criterea even say anything negative about it anymore? I mean Path of Exile is P2W by your definition (Stash Tabs) and you seem to have enjoyed it. What makes differentiates a "bad" P2W game from one you are willing to enjoy?
So I could pay to have a vast hangar and just triumph over poorer players via attrition?
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Respawn times for starter/cheaper ships are currently instant, so not really.
i.e., yeah, you can come at me with infinite starter ships, but is that viable and super well-equipped / better ships that are also plentiful?
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
It's only that way for testing. Purchased ships have either multiple real-time months or unlimited lifetime insurance. Upon [theoretical] release, this allows a player that pays real money for ships to save in-game credits every time they lose a ship over a non-paying player.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
We were discussing a specific PvP objective, i.e., "This area is mine you cannot come in".
So can you use real money to fit all of these ships?
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
No. You can't just smote someone indefinitely because even a starter ship can easily escape from the most expensive fighter in the game. Even if it couldn't, at some point that expensive ship is going to need to leave to refuel/repair/rearm, or to deal with the crimestat that they have gained from the space equivalent of spawncamping. Even if you decide you have a grudge against a specific player and you want to kill them, its basically impossible to track them down in the game currently (and we're limited to 50 players in a single server that only has one system in it).
Even if you could, there would be nothing stopping the player in the cheaper ship from putting a bounty on your head, or calling in friends/orgmates to destroy you, or pressing charges using the legal system (the first iteration of which already exists in the game).
"Star Citizen is p2w because of this intensely hypothetical situation I've devised where game systems that don't currently exist are exploited in a certain manner that may or may not be possible in a vacuum" doesn't really make sense.
Blockades currently exist where some players might band together and decide to try and stop people from entering/exiting a specific station unless they make a payment. This is an intended gameplay loop, but will not be possible in areas with a security presence. If you're in an area without a security presence and you run into a blockade, you have to make a gameplay decision - you can pay to get past it, you can fight, you can go somewhere else, you can try to sneak through the blockade, or you can call in a group of other players to help you blow them up. Technically the other option right now is to just hop servers, but that's not going to be a permanent solution once server meshing is implemented (coming soon™).
The current design philosophy is for there to be areas where pvp is normal (lawless territories), and places where it is very rare or next to impossible (monitored territories), with other places in between. They've mentioned that the level of danger in certain areas will be reflected in things like the cost to insure your ship or the payout from missions/deliveries in those areas, so it will be a risk vs reward gameplay decision. Even currently there are places where pvp is more prevalent (the area outside Port Olisar between it and Grim Hex is a very popular spot for people to dogfight each other, Kareah is popular for FPS pvp).
Not really. You can currently buy aUEC with actual money, but the conversion is laughable and purchases are very strictly limited to 25,000aUEC per day to avoid p2w mechanics (as an example, you can spend $25 to buy 25,000aUEC, or you can spend less than five minutes in the cheapest starter ship earning that amount in a single mission). The cost to pimp your (starter ship) ride depends on how far you want to go (just replacing your loadout with 4 S1 repeaters might run you 10k or less, fully replacing all of your components with high end gear could run you almost 100k, and this price escalates when you start looking at larger/higher end components for bigger ships. A lot of the upgrades are better described as sidegrades as well (do you buy the shield with more HP but a slower recharge rate than the one you already have? Do you want to replace your missile rack with one for larger missiles but carries half as many? Do you buy the power plant that outputs more power but has a much larger signature? That sort of thing), so even though some components are flat out better than a lot of stock ones, but there isn't really a flat "spend X amount of aUEC and get the objectively best loadout for a specific ship". Different stores in different areas also have different inventories (you're more likely to find a pair of high end coolers at a shop in a major city as opposed to the shop in some backwater refinery at the ass end of the system), which makes buying your way out of a problem even less feasible.
Chris Roberts has said that if they continue to allow players to purchase in-game money it will continue to be very limited. We'll see if that continues to be the case, but currently buying credits with cash is an very, very poor proposition. This is actually one of the stronger arguments against the game being p2w.
So infinite ships, basically zero cool down.
Conceivably, but I think you'd still need a team to accomplish anything tangible? I think the bottomless hangars advantage is mostly going to be tactical variety, because the big ships that take an hour+ aren't useful without crew.
If your goal is purely griefing, an optimal mischief scenario would be pad ramming at Grim Hex with the biggest currently playable ship, but anywhere else and you'd wake up in prison before your depth of hangar came into effect.
Drawn out confrontations would cut into your respawn advantage based on how far from your hangar they are taking place, and would then turn on how effectively you can induce losses by yourself. If you're flying something big enough to really noticeably leverage it, you aren't going to be particularly dangerous. Infinite Retaliators would inflict heavy losses, but I don't know if the reduced respawn time would be a factor, because you blew up the big ship and the big ship isn't coming back, and I don't know if it has a very long one itself.
Say you show up and harass some miners in a Warden, the locals send a Hammerhead to eat you, you send a Retaliator to kill it, immediately suicide to come back with the Warden. Maybe you saved 5 minutes on the Warden respawn? Maybe just the cost of expediting? Just having those torpedos in your back pocket is really what helped there.
Now if you have an org with access to that infinite hangar, then you could certainly be a lot more than a nuisance; but space is big, and organizing the humans to cover your empire is going to be the deciding factor.
Though, I will grant you that advertising an "Infinite ships" sign on bonus is going to be a hell of a recruiting tactic.
Honestly, that would just make me a target; people love blowing up people who bought a thing but aren't great in it yet.
I mean, not necessarily. Again, reference EVE. EVE has non-consensual PVP, EVE lets you (indirectly) turn real money into spaceships, and EVE is definitely not what I'd call pay to win in that sense. Matter of fact, if you spend $$$ on the best PVP fit in the game, people will find out, and make it their mission to blow up you and nothing but you. Forever.
Lots of people spend money in this game, I had a buddy join us who had never played before. He spent like $20 and was flying navy battleships in like a week that were kitted decently. It was definitely bizarre as when I got back into I remember back in the day you couldn't bypass the time sink requirement for skill training.
I mean, SC is def somewhat pay-to-win, I can go in an purchase a high level ship and pay to fit with top gear?
It wouldn't be so bad, but I just tried the game again and it's still quite buggy.
The farming up aspect just isn't enjoyable for me yet. I even have a connie and still, there are just too many bugs for me to play this outside of acting like it's a tech demo.
I desperately want to play this game as well, you get glimmers of awesome but man it is painful.
Basically yes? There are areas of the game where other players can shoot at you against your will, but its also pretty easy to avoid these areas and very hard to pin down a ship that doesn't want to fight; there are no jump gate chokepoints like with EVE for example. If you're say, mining, you're going to have to go into unprotected space to get those tasty rocks, and if you're flying a Prospector basically anything will beat you in a fight so its on you to watch your back and get ready to GTFO if necessary. There's also not really "alpha striking" like in EVE where you kit out a ship specifically for the purposes of killing a smaller ship in a single surprise volley; the Prospector is tough and can take a lot of hits, giving you time to get away.
Basically, there are no 100% safe activities, but you're very unlikely to be blown up flying between major points of interest.
I mean yeah, you can buy a ship sure. Fit it. Can do in EVE as well, get yourself a kitted out T3* with all the trimmings, and it won't do you a shit-lick of good, because someone in the cheapest fuckin' frigate** out there with basic gear that all cost roughly pennies will dismantle your ass and you won't be able to do shit unless you yourself know what you're doing.
*Highly configurable, top tier subcapital that tends to cost billions of ISK for the hull alone, and another few or more for the gear you need to make it useful.
**Probably a Rifter, which is so ubiquitous I've seen them sold in 12-packs, and an average hull cost of eh. 100k? Cheap as, at any rate.
As long as you are not selling them on the market some will just give you 12 packs of Rifters.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Yes, that is pay to win. Literally the only reason those players are engaged in that harassment is because they too consider it pay to win.
Your argument is akin to saying "Breaking into a place and stealing stuff is definitely not what I'd call burglary. Matter of fact, if you steal a lot of stuff, the police will find out and make it their mission to catch you." It's irrelevant to the definition of burglary.
How is it pay to win if doing it makes you less likely to win on every realistic metric? Even leaving aside "everyone will kill you because they think it's funny", if you don't actually have a measurable gameplay advantage by doing the thing, what did you win? You have a new shiny. Great?
Someone in the cheapest most basic fighter (frigate in EVE) will completely smoke you in your shiny expensive battleship that you paid billions for. Easily. Where's the "win" part?
Mainly because you're simplifying it down to the basic one on one when, in general, the organized groups will have someone / pay people to pick off those basic fighters. If a single fighter can take out a big expensive ship, then that big expensive ship will make sure (one way or the other) that they have help to prevent that happening.
Will embarrassing killmails happen? Sure, definitely, but....
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Well yeah, but there's an infinite amount of variables you can put on this, right. If we're talking "Joe Shmoe has spent $$$ on a shiny ship and this lets him win over Bobby who hasn't spent money" then you kind of need to leave group dynamics aside for the moment I think.
Obv in any proper engagement in EVE you have like... Plans. Interdiction, tackle, possible range of ship classes, and so on, which all vastly outweighs any amount of individual spend on a ship; same will go in SC eventually, though there's an interesting lack of interdiction afaik. My point is that that spend is not actually necessarily an advantage, even in what would theoretically be the most advantageous situation (a 1:1 vs someone who is flying basically a beat-up Hyundai to your Bugatti.)
Why are you assuming it can never provide an advantage and only incompetent newbs do it?
I don't care if you like it, hate it, don't care about it, or a full-bore participant in it. But people's various no true scottsman arguments attempting to reject the reality of its existence feel like they're driven by the bruised egos of "Pay2Win is bad. Therefore MY game would never have Pay2Win. But my game does have Pay2Win. Therefore my game is bad."
Because by definition you can't do it after the game launches, therefore the only people who can do it are either "people who play what exists right now", which is an incomplete slice therefore not representative of the full launch experience, or "people who bought in and don't play", which by definition would make them unpracticed/inexperienced.
I don't play this, and won't unless it hits Xbox, so I got no horse in the race other than "I really dig giant complex games with intricate systems that are doing something ambitious/unusual". I just dislike a definition of "pay to win" where any spending money of any kind equates to "win".
I mean if I can buy a DLC with "gems" say (IAP currency) and you can earn gems through gameplay as well as buy them, is someone who buys that DLC with cash money an example of "pay to win"? It had loot in it and stuff. Maybe a new level cap. I feel like we'd all be pretty comfortable saying "no that is not pay to win", but by a strict definition, you have paid money to acquire a gameplay element ahead of someone who did not, which above has been defined as "pay to win". And that makes no sense to me!
And immediately we have a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier; two very different personal definitions of "pay to win" resulting in an argument that ultimately boils down to "Uh huh" vs "Nuh uh".
Personally, I would put EVE a lot further down the P2W spectrum than Star Citizen; you can turn real money into ISK, and with ISK you can buy literally any item available on the market. You can buy a ship and kit it out and be at an objective advantage vs another player of the same skill level who didn't do that. Yes, its hilarious when someone puts down a bunch of real cash, buys a shiny ship and immediately loses it because they don't know what they're doing, but that's not an argument that they've not gained an advantage. There are expensive faction guns and ammo that are objectively better than other guns and ammo, and there are T2 and T3 ships and faction variants that are objectively better than the T1 versions. Having an infinite stack of isk lets you buy the good stuff.
Meanwhile in Star Citizen, when you pledge for a ship that's all you get; the ship, stock weapons and systems. And the stock weapons are generally kinda garbage compared to what's available on the market. As far as I'm aware, actual ship weapons and systems have never been available to pledge for, and the only personal weapon that has been pledge-ible was a literal nerf gun that fires foam darts. But most importantly, as dporowski has pointed out, this is only a thing that exists for the alpha/beta period. Which, you know, is going to be a significant period of time, because Chris Roberts is allergic to finishing projects, but you won't be able to buy any of these ships with real money once the game hits 1.0. Being able to play with these ships now is the whole incentive for your "donation". You get a head start, but everyone else is going to catch up eventually.
What this means for me, personally, is that I don't want to buy a bunch of ships from the cash shop, because doing that means robbing myself of goals to work towards in the game. It's ok if other people don't feel that way. It's not a standard I'm gonna hold anyone to or judge anyone by.
On the broad subject of pay to win - as I see it there are really three high level categorizations:
Pay to Win - you are paying money to have an advantage over other players
Pay to Save Time - you are paying to shortcut progression and save time.
Pay to Look Cool - cosmetic upgrades only, no gameplay or time advantage associated with this tier
I'd put Star Citizen in the "pay to save time" category. You can definitely call time saving an advantage in a multiplayer game, because it can have a snowball effect. In any MMO (not just SC), having advanced gear or spaceships or whatever will allow you to be first to market for goods and services, and give you a starting momentum to keep you "ahead of the pack."
The thing is, Star Citizen isn't a race or a competitive game. If you are in competition with someone to achieve X in the fastest time, that's a social construction, not a game construction. The game doesn't care how fast you complete your goals and there's no pressure from the game to be first or to do everything fast. If anything, SC lends itself very well to casual play. You can log in, run a few missions, spend 30-60 minutes online, and feel like you got something accomplished. Any "race to the top" that exists is purely social, and not a real thing. You shouldn't be feeling any pressure to "keep up with the Joneses" because it doesn't matter. Play at your own pace.
So I'd definitely plant SC in the "pay to save time" category, but I also don't think it's a huge deal to save that time. It really doesn't matter how fast or slow you progress.
I can only speak for myself here, but I'm not trying to shift goal posts on what P2W means, because arguing about a label is unhelpful. I'm just discussing examples of what advantages pledge ships give to players, scenarios in which those advantages can be leveraged, and sharing why I do not feel that those advantages have been detrimental to my experience so far, and why I do not forsee that changing in the future.
We don't even know for sure how Star Citizen is ultimately going to monetize itself. One can assume it's buy the game, play forever. But after making over $400 million dollars selling virtual spaceships, the temptation to keep that needle in the vein is going to be very real. I'd be very surprised if they didn't find a way to contort themselves into continuing to sell spaceships as a primary monetization model.
And let's not kid ourselves. In any game, any competitive aspect that can be influenced by spending money is within the grounds of Pay to Win. PvP is competitive. Hunting for resources is competitive. If people are allowed to owned spaces in the game, that's competitive. And it can all be influenced if someone's ability to use a credit card will give them an advantage. Let's also not kid ourselves with the argument that people who pay to win are no skill scrubs. That's rare. Most times, these people know what they're doing and care enough about the game to put down a credit card. They're more than competent enough players to utilize the advantages they're paying for.
But the second, and more dangerous aspect of monetization is "Pay to skip". If your game play loop is bumpy enough that paying to skip is a viable revenue stream, it points to fundamental flaws in your game. Paying to skip shouldn't be something inherently monetized for lots of reason. Chief of which is games should be designed to be fun, engaging, and something that people derive satisfaction from. If there's elements that people are willing to pay to skip in such numbers that it appears on your balance sheet, those elements are also turning off significant numbers of players.
Again, I'll point to Privateer as an example. There was grind in that game. That starter ship wasn't a lot of fun, but doing missions, trading, and earning credits was fun. Getting better at the game as you also improved your equipment was rewarding. Earning a more expensive ship better suited to what you really enjoyed doing was fun. That element has to be a part of Star Citizen.
Far more games are ruined by Pay to Skip than Pay to Win. Most people don't care so much about winning if they're having fun. But paying to skip points to elements of games that are inherently not fun. That's a really big problem I hope Star Citizen doesn't have.
While they have made a point to reiterate that these are only pledges to support development, I also have a very real concern that they aren't just going to turn that tap off once the time comes. I still don't think that will give people who buy ships any meaningful advantage, but I do think it will negatively affect the game overall.
Ooh nice, you brought up Path of Exile! I was hoping it would come up!
First though -- you're right! I said earlier in the thread that this thread often attracts traffic because people will shoot out really wacky explanations for things, and then people lurking will be like "Wait what the hell that's definitely not what X means", and the discussions wind up being more than just Star Citizen stuff. They then get mega amplified by people defending Star Citizen and perceiving any disagreement on terminology to be an attack on their game.
Since making that post, we've had someone essentially say no sandbox games can be pay to win (wow I really disagree with that!) and SmokeStacks threw out basically "I really like the grind, so it can't be pay to win!". Which, like, come on! Someone enjoying a grind has absolutely nothing to do with whether something is pay to win or not. I know people who love mega grindy old school Korean MMOs. So just because they love grinding 1000 hours killing the exact same mob over and over, that means that the game selling me a thing for $100 that saves 1000 hours of grinding isn't pay to win? That's clearly not a valid way to define the term.
I'm not trying to be tricky at all -- this thread is so defensive that people will read every ill intention into anything you say that may possibly be an attack on Star Citizen. I never said anything even adjacent to all of you being horrible for enjoying a game that has Pay to Win elements -- the Pay to Win in this game is absolutely not for me, but whatever man you're allowed to enjoy any game you want.
So Path of Exile -- yes, it is, very narrowly a pay to win game. That is to say, it has incredibly minor pay to win elements that I consider completely worth the price of admission. It rates so low on the scale it's hardly worth discussing! But since you asked, sure. We have numbers and context though. Path of Exile costs $0. You can beat the game and have a blast for zero dollars! I did that -- my first character made it to maps and level 80+ before I ever thought of spending a dime on that game. 50 hours, for free! Premium Stash tabs are by far the biggest "gameplay advantage" you can get for $$ in PoE (sinc they allow you to trade with players much more easily than not having one), and they cost........five dolllars! So total cost of admission is $5! That's amazing for a full fleshed out game. It's better than most $60 games without any after the fact purchases by an order of magnitude actually. There are other tabs, they save you oh maybe like 10 minutes of gameplay on a 60 hour run? Grabbing all of the important ones will run you $20-30. So for half the price of a retail game, you've got thousands of hours. If you're spending $50+, that's cosmetic items that have no gameplay impact.
Star Citizen, of course, doesn't have those benefits. You have to pay full price to start -- so we start off being just as costly as your standard AAA PC game. The microtransactions? Incredibly expensive. Like, chart topping, headline grabbing expensive. The benefits are solid, but holy crap not worth $300 to save 10 or 20 hours or whatever for most normal humans. The pricing is downright exploitative! Highway robbery by just about any definition. The reaction to mentioning that? There's no way my $300 ship that I purchased for $$ instead of credits is Pay to Win. Doesn't really match up with observable reality on my end.
Yes, I too have played some Pay to Win games. My value proposition is incredibly different than the one presented in Star Citizen. Pay to win elements can be reasonable, at which point you don't really talk about them much, or they can be several hundred dollars for digital ships, at which point you do. I grew up paying $15 a month to play MMOs -- they've got server costs. So if a free game I love has some premium tier for $10 or $15 a month, yeah let's do it. Once we start getting into hundreds of dollars for a single ship in addition to a retail cost? Holy shit get me out of there. That's before we get into the infinitely increasing scope, the selling you on future content that still hasn't manifested for years, and the questions as to what the monetization and grind is even going to look like at "full launch". That stuff makes it feel extra exploitative in a way a finished game doesn't, and the hundreds of dollars for ships thing just rockets it up to 11.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
As far as the idea of "being a crew member on another player's big ship", I mean it seems like yeah that's the idea behind the bigger ships. They seem like they're kind of useless for most things without multiple people on them. Like it seems like, for example, in terms of combats, big ships mostly rely on turrets? And said turrets have to be manned by other players. So, again, as someone who doesn't play Star Citizen, thinks the project is going to inevitably bottom out on funding and collapse, the complaints about "having to work on another person's big ship" seems, I dunno, misguided. Assuming rewards for quests or missions or stuff do the normal MMO thing of duplicating the rewards for each participant, having a crewed big ship seems basically like a weird sort of analog to your standard MMO party. There's a potential issue where a lot of jobs on a ship could be much less engaging than others, but that's also an issue with MMO class systems. On the flipside it seems like, let's say in some crazy hypothetical future where Star Citizen does somehow not implode under its own weight and becomes this huge successful MMO... playing with randos could really, really suck with easy it'd be to troll people by deliberately sabotaging things.
All that being said, yeah not gonna budge on the real currency ship pricing being insane and y'know, the whole project and game's monetization scheme seeming real murky and unsustainable as hell. And the games' development priorities and promises just being... nonsensical.
Oh I didn't think about planets. From a station respawn you could be in quantum in a minute or three, if you're jumping over railings and diving down the stairs. Back on site in 5 if it's local. Planets do take considerably longer; missing the tram can add a few minutes by itself.
Respawning on planets suuuucks if you've got somewhere to be.