For those who cry pay to win

[kaspen2012]

I would just love to hear one of you. Just one of you.. Make a valid point on how it is pay to win.... You keep crying "pay to win." So how is it pay to win?

When the cards don't really give you an advantage. They damn sure don't make you Godlike. Your play style really is the only thing that helps you live longer. Gambling only gives you the chance and ability to have to grind less. I am all for gambling for a chance to grind less.

But please explain how it is pay to win.

[chinnyreckon · Accepted solution]

I agree @kaspen2012 however if you read my above post on why an aproar around BF2 arose rather than any other game to date, it was because P2W had such (A) extreme effects on game play and ( B ) paying was not really a choice as everyone was being coerced into paying, and (C) the method of paying was by unregulated gambling. If it didnt have A, B, and C there would have not been an aproar.

Players were effectively being forced into gambling just to make the resuting gameplay between them unpleasurable to the extreme.

By the way i am one of those who doesnt have much time to comit and cant do the grind either. However I completely see why more dedicated players oppose P2W. You will see from my posts all over the forum that I personally have always promoted minimising the adverse effects of buying items that effect gameplay (comprimise). In addition if paid items were only cosmetic then the required grind to get items needed to level up etc could be reduced to something people like me could manage as EA would no longer need to push us into paying for them by making them such a heavy grind that even the dedicated players hated it. So I am very up for that. Rather than paying would not you prefer a little grind and the achievement of the reward. Paying is no fun in comparison. You need to see the big picture. The pay system designed for this game is not there to help people like you and me, that can be done in other ways, it is there ONLY to make money. If every one is forced to pay to unlock stuff, then as regards playing the game it is no different than if all items were already unlocked from the start except as a side effect your bank account would be empty.

As well as people that dont have time to grind so prefer to pay, there are those who dont have much money. They would have been excluded as the microtransaction system in this game was designed to take every cent from every player. That was the issue, not that there were microtransactions at all. The game could be designed to satisfy all player types and not take a cent in microtransactions, but that would upset EA. That is why I think we will need to comprimise. It is cos they will never completely let it go, they have ongoing costs too.

My post in this thread about P2W have purely been in order to explain to those like you who were unaware about the serious effect that such things can have on game play so that you understood clearly and did not believe as you did at the start of the thread that there were no effects

[chinnyreckon]

You asked this exact question on another thread and I answered it there. But as you are adament on pasting it all over the forum ill answer it again.
 
'Pay To Win' is an term used to cover any game in which you can pay money to get a competatve advantage no matter how big or small that advantage is. Like most expressions in the english language you should not confuse the term to be take literally. Hence it does not mean that you will LITERALLY WIN if you pay money. Just that your performance will improve. People are complaiing about this because players are no longer on an equal footing based purly on skill. If in such a game two equally skilled players faced off but one had paid for e.g. more health then they would have an advantage though that does not mean they would definitivly win the game.

So you are correct it does not mean you will WIN if you PAY it actally mean you can get an advantage. I am afraid you are not disputing what peoples objection to this mechanic is but have rather misunderstood the use of language.
 
 

[chinnyreckon]

As regards gamling that is a complegtely different issue. I would be ok with it even in games like this if it were regulated. There is a reason gamling is regulated by governments and that is so that players can not be tricked and take advantage of. Regulation ensures players choices are well informed. Regulation mean that:

A. Every one knows the odds. In this case we would all knows the odds of each item turning up in a loot box and hence know on average the true value of a loot box. It basically means that casinos can not use weighted dice.

B. Every players gets the same odds. At present the company can give different odds to different players for example ...depending on their level of progression. This mean cards that a certain person needs can be made harder to get JUST for that person in order that they pay more money. The company can theredore manipulate every one on an individual level to extract more money from them.

C. The odds can not be changed without the players knowing. I am sure no one would like it is they bet on a horse at 10 to 1 paying 1 dollar and expexting 10 dollar to win if then during the race the company changed your odds So that when you go collect your winnings they said the odd are now 2 to 1 and your winnings are 2 dollars.

These are jusy a few examples. As it stands all gamling in computer game with stuff like loot boxes is unregulated. So they can do really underhanded things to rip you if they like. Hence i want gamling removed although I would be more than happy to keep it if it were regulated. But that would also mean that kids who are not psychologically and emotionally mature enough to handle a mechanic that can be addictive could not play.

I understand that some people like gambling in games and find in fun. I would like you to have it and have your fun. What I and others dont want is for the companies running it to be able to use these things to manipilate you, lie to you and trick into giving them your money. At the moment thay can if they like and you would be unaware that they are doing that. I really dont understand why you want them to do that to you?

[chinnyreckon]

You may ask if companies would really use underhanded tricks with gamling and loot boxes like those mentioned above.

Activision/Blizzard are under a lot of suspicion. By law in China they had to declare the odd and mechanics of how item in loot boxes were given. They were so against doing this they spent a fortune reworking the game JUST for China so they would not have to disclose this information. They made loot boxes come as a side effect for paying for other stuff so that players did not directly pay for the loot boxes and hence they were not considered gamling (although paying and recieving random goods funtioned for all practical purposes).

You have to ask why they so badly did not want to disclose what the loot box odds mechanics were. What are they trying to hide?

[chinnyreckon]

Regarding grinding less. If EA provided a system in which you would see the price for a particular item you needed (e.g. in order to grind less) and could buy that item for the advertised price up front (basically a store) then you would also be able to grind less in exctly the same way. However, there would be no randon gambling invlolved. I would like them to do this. Basically replace the casino with a store.

However I think that a lot of other people have an objection regarding the amount of grinding coercing players into paying in order not to grind and believe that to be unbalanced. But I will leave them to answer that issue

[Grzesi0_o]

If you can't see how this game is "p2w" it means you are the perfect customer for EA

[BIack0utzZz]

Pay2Win doesn't mean, that you always win when you pay.

P2W means, that you get an advantage over the other guys, who don't pay.

And sorry, but if you get more cards/kredits/update items which make you stronger (more life, smaller Cooldown, bigger bomb circles etc.), if you PAY for it, it's pay to win, no matter if you are a noob or a pro.

 If it's just an style gear (like Kylo without helm) it doesn't have any influence on the game itself, because you don't get better/stronger/live longer.

You have to compare to guys on the same skill level. If the one pays RM and the other doesn't and the one who pays has an advantage over the one without paying, it's P2W.

So here I am. The one of us who made a valid point how it is pay to win. 

[chinnyreckon]

I have come to the realisation that along with @kaspen2012 many others do not fully understand why Battlefront 2, which they find fun, has caused such an uproar with gamers beyond what any game with microtransactions has done to date. Hence they find this whole debate seems unfounded and annoying. Given @kaspen2012 has started this thread in order to have such issues explained to them I thought id give a brief explanation. I hope as a result we can keep the discussion here and off of every other thread which it seem to infect.

A. Micro transactions have been in games for many years. Yes but these have until recent years only been free to buy games that made their money though in game purchases. Battlefront 2 and some other games charge you to buy the game and also in game. Some feel they are paying for the game twice. This is not in principle an issue as games companies have ongoing costs beyond the initial purchase such as DLC development and keeping servers up and running and they need to raise money for this some how. Hence this has not until now not caused a stink.

B. Micro transaction are used in a 'Pay to Win' mechanic. Yes this has happenend before and gamers have been complaining about it for a long time. It creates an unbalanced and therefore unfair playing field between players and the game is no longer based purly on practice and skill. This can be mitigated if the games company balance the system so that the advantages are not too extreme and some but not all players are content with this. However this issue has recently gained more momentum due to the problems below. Most would like microtrasaction not involve any pay to win but just be cosmetic. To be fair to EA,  LucasFilm keep control of any visual content and this severly limits thier ability to provide cosmetics, and as a result make enough money purly from cosmetic microtransaction in the way games like overwatch do.

C. The level of grind in the initial configuration of the game coerced players into using the 'Play to Win' mechanic. BF2 more than any game before initially had such an extreme level of grind that players felt that although they were not explicitly being told to pay money that they were being given no real option by EA other than to pay up cash to get out of it. This is when it all blew up on reddit. People didnt like effectivly feeling forced to pay in order to enjoy the game.

D. The 'pay' mechanim involves unregulated gambling. Feeling they are now being coerced into paying money to escape grind and also win, player also found that the method of paying is via unregulated gambling in which the company either could, does or may in the future manupulate them in a dishonst way in order to unfairly extract more money from them.

As you can see, microtransaction ( A )  can be ok if delt with correctly. Pay to Win ( B )  is a very tenuous subject. However by using coersion into paying ( C)  and having the unchecked ability to unfairly/dishonestly extract money from players ( D - unregulated gambling ), BF2 is the game that went way way too far. Hence the game has been viewed by many as using preditory tactics in order to extract more money from customers.

I hope that makes matter clearer for everyone. Even I would like to stop talking about this stuff now and instead concerntrate on how we can encourage EA to improve the game and help each other.

[Fred_vdp]

As was stated above, the term P2W shouldn't be interpreted literally. What people mean by pay-to-win is that you can pay real money to get an advantage over players who don't, which was absolutely the case before EA shut it down (albeit temporarily).

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@kaspen2012 wrote:
Your play style really is the only thing that helps you live longer.

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Taking reduced damage from explosions and toxins helps you live longer. Health increase for every defeated enemy helps you live longer. Reduced health generation delay helps you live longer.

Your playstyle is the most important factor, but that doesn't mean it's the only one. That's a logical fallacy.

[kaspen2012]

So you're telling me that because of the cards I have on at any given time and get 30 kills. That is the advantage I get from them. Well I would hate to blow holes in your theory. Because I have ran with no cards on and still ended up getting 30 kills roughly. Lmao the cards don't really mean much. It's the weapons you obtain from leveling and unlocking as you progress. Also that you obtain by completing challenges.

Now as far as the gambling. Yes they can rig it. It is no different then a casino. Odds are more favorable for the house. I get that aspect as well. I don't go to a casino and blow $1,000. Then turn around and blame the casino. Because I know the odds. Sometimes you win. Most times you lose. No one at any point says you have to buy this or you have to gamble. It's all by choice.

Over all from my perspective and the ways I have played. The cards really don't give you any kind of advantage. Main weapons and game play style on the other hand. That is where the advantage is found. But not just there. It also is an advantage from learning the maps you are playing.

Rephrase "cards are very minimal in any kind of advantage."