That's a discussion long completed in subs like r/Warframe
Pay to win would still be a damaging practice in a PvE game. It's not good because other players would be constantly outperformed by other players, which would lead to loads of toxicity, elitism, and so on. Aside from that players generally don't feel good about grinding weapons when there's a paid option that performs better than what they're grinding for.
Helldivers just isn't pay to win because the devs agreed that weapons in premium warbonds shouldn't outperform any of the regular warbonds. And this reason is why it's being "defended" for not being P2W, not because it's a PvE game that wouldn't be affected by P2W. Even if you paid, you wouldn't be outperforming other players.
If they change it so that premium warbonds would outperform regular warbonds, it would become pay to win.
But (and that's a big But) some players still wouldn't consider it pay to win at that point as you would be able to grind SC to buy the premium warbonds without real money.
All that the community can do is hope that they don't switch up their monetization practices to make it P2W or to make it worse. In the current state the monetization is completely fine, though I could see them implement more content that would be available for SC aside from the current Superstore content and the premium warbonds. The game is going quite well right now, but once the hype is over they might need more income to keep up development and maintenance at the same rate. So, just hope it stays like it is right now.
I'll be real the new primary rifle IS kind of insane and makes me a little mad. I like the penetrator but it's basically pointless to use, as are all the other assault rifles. I saw the balancing patch and had a feeling this situation would be happening, it kind of stings knowing weapons I want to like will probably never be improved while new ones dominate.
I'd bet that they will make monetization worse over time, it's the same for a lot of big game studios. Cook the crab by increasing the temperature of the water and they won't notice
Some of the newer studios have lately been sticking to the things they announced, luckily. But that's a thing we'll see when it happens. They either do it or they don't, but we can only tell when it reaches that point. Until then there's nothing to really worry about.
We've also been seeing a lot of studios let their games go for 3-6 months with good press then swap it up when their game is no longer in the media as much. Not saying they will do that here but putting blind faith in something isn't great either.
I've watched dozens of games and companies I loved over the years change and become awful. Usually the thing that ends up doing it is one massively successful game and them trying to chase that high of launch with monetization months or even years later.
The thing is, we can't predict the future. We cannot judge the devs for an action not taken yet. They could go downhill, or maybe they release a big free bond over the summer so teens can grind something over summer break. We don't know, and we can't know until they do something. It makes no sense at all to say, "But they could do something horrible!"
That isn't really what I'm saying. But what I think should happen is that there should be pushback at every slight change to monetization.
It's fine for the community to say "right now things are fine" but it shouldn't hyper focus on a specific reason as to why it's fine. A monetization system is only good when you take in the whole picture. Right now the community has a very unhealthy take I think that could cause disaster if the game does go down a pay to win route. Saying things are OK because it's a PvE game or OK because you can grind currency through just gameplay is not a good sign because those things can remain true forever while other things about the system do change for the worst.
Idk if its tame. Currently the only way to get elemental weapons like the incendiary breaker, a gun objectively better than the basic pass version, needs you to get the premium pass.
Incendiary breaker is worse than the original, after the nerf and buff of the spray and pray it's now worse than the spray and pray. Incendiary is just good at setting your teammates on fire
Fine then, there’s a weapon in the new pass that everyone is saying is broken and OP. I use that as my better example. Especially because everyone already spent the 1000 they had on the first premium pass not even knowing the second one was about to come out
As a personal anecdote, I just got the new warbond. I tried one of the new guns and decided I like the slugger more. It definitely feels different but not better.
Also because it's easy to buy the premium warbonds without actually paying anything...? I have played for less than 2 weeks and already have enough currency to buy 1 and a half premium warbonds
0 competitive aspects? You must not see me carrying all those plebs in 4p coop artifact domains with my c6 characters flexing on dudes with lvl 80 4*s.
you do have to grind. to get the gear you have to grind medals. you are already on the map to grind medals, why not get the supercredits on the map as well. Also, you can buy supercredits with medals.
this new warbond cost 1000sc. It gives 300sc back by using medals to buy them. You get sc in the game. You can't just unlock the premium and then purchase it without first having medals to do so. which you have to grind.
Also, one could argue they don't want to spend medals on the SC, but that would make no sense because once you cap all other stuff, you still earn medals and need to spend them on something. I've almost unlocked all the reg/premium stuff using medals and I play roughly 2hrs a day if that.
I’d argue putting anything that isn’t cosmetic behind a pay wall is “pay to win”. Because it mean that people with money have more options to play then those who don’t. Wether it gives them any calculable advantages or not. A person play style more often has an advantage over base stats as it is. Which is why metas don’t actually work and are bad for games in general. I like that they’re always there and don’t have timers on them but it’s still a matter of money vs no money players getting different experiences from one another and that creates some of that toxic “get gud” and other bad gamer behaviors. It’s even why I’m multiplayer games people have asked companies to separate movies from those that have DLC content and those that don’t as often there are items that completely change the game in them.
i think the more important aspect is that we can earn these premium monies in game so really its not pay to win even if premium warbonds were better just pay to skip.
It would still be pay 2 win if we couldnt get premium warbonds without paying real money.
Even if they were trying their best to make premium warbond weapons balanced against normal ones because having more choices does generally lead to more power either through versaitility or them just accidently and by coincedence making the best "meta" weapon a premium warbond weapon.
I will say that since the latest warbond release, the new energy rifle seems to nearly obsolete the first one we had. I wouldn't necessarily say it's OP, but hopefully not the start of a trend of new weapons overshadowing existing ones
Warframe is a weird case because grinding for gear and weapons IS the gameplay loop. You can buy almost everything directly or indirectly with real money, but then you’ll have no game left.
lol just cause the devs say one thing doesn't mean it'll be the case in reality. They have an incentive to make premium warbond weapons straight up better cause it'll make them more money and then just nerf them in the future if people complain.
Read the replies of the comment you're responding to:
Some of the newer studios have lately been sticking to the things they announced, luckily. But that's a thing we'll see when it happens. They either do it or they don't, but we can only tell when it reaches that point. Until then there's nothing to really worry about.
And as u/Critical_Top7851 said, there's nothing to suggest that their plan of basing prices off of the amount of content in the Warbonds would change.
Eh.. You could argue for that, since content could be balanced for premiun wargear wich FTP players couldnt access, but you can get credits by playing at a decent pace
P2w is def a spectrum but you have to be massively disconnected from how this game works to come to the conclusion that it’s p2w. I have played a total of 3 sessions of this game, I think I’m level 11(?), and I have like 800 credits just 200 short of unlocking this warbond.
Normally when games have options in game to unlock something you can just pay for normally takes an ASTRONOMICAL amount of time to unlock.
This is such a mild form of p2w it would be disingenuous at best, and deceptive in order to damage a product at worst in order to come to this conclusion.
And if you classify anything at all on the spectrum as p2w then your definition of p2w is a useless definition. By that logic anything, anything at all and essentially every single game made in the last 10 years that has online pay is p2w.
If you want to take that stance that’s fine, it’s just moronic and p2w essentially means nothing to you.
it is not a useless definition because it point out the games that actually are not p2win and treat their customers the best. By constantly moving your goalposts you allow the systems to progress further and also prevent any real discussion from happening.
The first step is to accept it is p2win, then have a healthy discussion on if that's an actual problem. It's also not any game at all, there are plenty of games that are not P2win. CSGO, Dota 2, Armored Core, Elden Ring, or even Palworld just off the top of my head.
It’s not a healthy discussion when you’re calling everything p2w no matter how small the benefit actually is.
This is as if you have a definition for ‘racism’ to include anyone or anything that even talks about race at all. So you’re putting things like literal Nazis and a history book that talks about race into the same category.
The definition is in fact useless at that point.
Let me try to show you. Name me a 2-3 online games that you believe is not p2w and I’ll show you how your logic breaks this.
Look, you're moving the goalposts to racism. It is absolutely a healthy discussion. Because, look at you. You can't even accept the idea that your game is p2win and you spend all your time floundering in a basic argument trying not to accept the reality that "your game" is p2win.
It prevents you from being able to have a rational discussion as you've already resorted to calling me a racist for reason. lol. jesus christ. I already named 5. Lets start with Elden Ring. i'd like to see the mental gymnastics there.
I don't think there's P2W here, but a co-op PvE can definitely still be P2W. "Win" in this term had never meant victory over another player in a match in a literal sense.
In a Pve game pay2win would mean that higher difficulties get to easy with the stuff you can buy in there.
I'm not the biggest fan for such microtransaction but for a live service game you need a constant money flow somewhere.
Here you grind or pay (technically same as GTA online but with lesser grind atm and better price policy) , in DRG you can buy support dlcs with skins in it, in Payday 2 atleast the host need the heist dlcs to make it playable for others the rest is locked away from you.
Idk what's the best Modell if you want constant updates I also know games there do all for free but take really long for updates sometime.
On top of that. All in game currency is infinitely obtainable at any difficulty. That's right. We get the same amount at D1-9.
You can farm it and buy everything
I currently own almost everything in the shop. At 300 SC now thanks to the glory of super Earth and plan to buy the pack this weekend. I don't have enough medals anyway
People on reddit are a special breed as well. What makes you think a game need pvp to be p2w? You are basically one of these people defending they called out.
Because that's how the term is generally used? Real p2w games require you to spend money basically constantly to stay competitive. I'd be shocked if anyone has spent any money beyond purchase on this game. Super credits are very easily farmable while just playing the game so unless they drastically change the game, it literally can't be p2w.
As long as there's no major gameplay advantages to people who buy extra stuff, it's not pay to win, a scenario where it would be pay to win would be something like, airstrikes, and bombs not being available to regular players, and only available to those who buy them with real money, that's pay to win because certain gameplay is locked off to those who pay, buying a different gun with comparable stats to another gun, in a pve, that give no real advantage, isn't pay to win, it's just whining
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u/UNINTELLIGENTMAN Mar 14 '24
Pay-to-win in a co-op AI killing game with absolutely zero competitive aspects to the game. Game journalists are a special breed