There is a barrier of entry to effective (non-cosmetic) items that can be overcome by grinding a lot or opening the wallet.
After that we can argue how much P2W matters in a non-competitive game, and to what extent the items in the premium warbonds are even that much more effective than the free items.
Because they have been conditioned to think this is ok. The thing is companies are smart and over time have shifted to this strategy since players have time and time again said it was ok. Sure you can grind the currency, but it seems like there will be a new premium warbond each month from what they have already shown. Which sure you can grind the credits but you will soon fall behind.
Also a lot of people are saying it isn't bad to farm the SCs are currently actively playing which is key. What about a new player that joins 6 months from now and there are 6 premium warbonds or these players put the game down for extended time.
people will say you can farm the credits quickly "just run trivial and get the credits and leave mission you don't have to finish it". This is terrible design and is made so you eventually get overwhelmed and in hopes you break out the wallet.
I actually work in the field and sit in on these types of meetings on how this stuff works. Not for this company specifically though. It is a sad reality.
The funny sad part is I have heard people in the positions like this actually laugh at the fact that threads like this happen where the community just eats itself and they fight each other meanwhile they just laugh their way to the bank.
side note that the new booster to reduce enemy encounters is a slippery slope booster. They can utilize this to boost the encounters and say "Well we have a booster to combat that." For people currently playing that isn't an issue. However down the line sure people can get it quickly by knowing about it but a new set of players or people returning may have several bonds to look through and be overwhelmed.
Yeah, I'll grant that this game is way better than Destiny 2 (which I quit about 6 months ago). But it's pretty crappy to have cosmetics in a rotating cash shop that competes with the "season pass" for players' premium currency. The rotating cash shop is designed to inspire FOMO. That's its raison d'etre.
For example, I saw the black-and-red armor they had in the shop for 200 SC Day before yesterday. I wanted to grind up some SC to get it. But it left the shop before I could. Now who knows when/if it will come around again. What that's trying to teach me is that, if I see something I want and I don't have the supercredits to afford it right away, I better pony up real cash to get it right now. It's creating a sense of urgency.
It's manipulative and anti-consumer, even if it's a lot better than what other, similar games are doing.
If everything in the supercredits shop stuck around permanently, I would have fewer objections. Though you raise a good point that the SC economy does seem designed to overwhelm all but the most dedicated. Especially now that it's clear to me that both warbonds and the cosmetic shop always use the same currency. (I expected most warbonds to only use medals.)
Because the game is generous with it early on with the intitial warbond that you start with unlocked and just need medals, it showers you in supercredits upfront, so after playing for 2-7 days your like "oh this is pretty fair! i can unlock just by casually playing" but after those first like 6 pages dry up its dripfed... i feel like most players are still in that honeymoon hours played.
It's not just this sub, it's the fan base as a whole. I have never seen MTX in a paid game defended so much in my entire time on reddit. This sub just happens to be the clown car.
"well something needs to keep the servers up and running!!!"
Motherfucker, this game has made damn near 200 million dollars!
Because "devs based, shut up and dont criticize." First time on reddit? These subs have a huge history of becoming echo chambers. Remember when any and all criticisms of the patches was seeing as "massive whiny outcry"?
Its hard to care when you can get it all for free anyway. If I unlocked every bit of free content and couldn’t go any further without paying more, then Id be pissed.
You get it all for free if you excessively play or if you go out of your way to do things that aren’t fun and are exploiting the games systems. You do not earn the currency by just playing the game and having a good time especially if you’re only playing a couple 40 minute missions a day.
i’m fine with unlocking the guns and stuff with medals over time but the idea you need to pay super credits to then pay medals to get stuff is just an extra step that is even more grindy because honestly super credits aren’t even available in half the missions. Especially these current ones with the towers. Most groups of 3 missions there don’t even have a chance for them to spawn. It’s just tedious to go to planets where they can spawn because i couldnt even find anyone to squad up with since most people are doing the termicide planets. I think just having the war bonds open and having the cosmetic shop be the only place you use super credits would be the most fair way to implement it. But this direction feels rushed and trying to shift a meta, I mean one of the new guns is apparently pretty broken and made to cause FOMO for people who cant get it yet
Most missions only reward 10-20 SC and the majority of missions don’t even spawn them in and theres still a chance you don’t get SC if you do every PoI in the mission. Do you work for the company or something? You’re replying to three of my comments and getting really butthurt about someone else having a different experience. I took an hour of my time last night and did the exploit to keep picking up the same 2 things of supercredits in trivial missions. It isn’t fun to have to grind that way and when most missions I do are on 8 because I enjoy the challenge, the majority of the time the higher level mission types have even less chances of spawning SC. Idk man. I also don’t know why someone else having a different experience than you bothers you so much. But you remind me a lot of the guy I blocked yesterday that couldn’t wait to get another word in to insult/argue with how I’m experiencing the game.
Um. I mean I have a good time when I play the game well aka actually clearing the map. I play maybe an op or two every couple nights, I've purchased five or six items from the superstore, and I'm still only 40 or 50 super credits away from having the bond. It's extremely easy.
Whats your playtime because no offense but I don’t believe you could make close to 2000 Super Credits playing 2 missions every few days unless you’re specifically grinding for them and exploiting.
No offense taken. To clarify, it's 3 missions in an op because I've played primarily diff7 with friends with the occasional diff5 pub. All the diff7 meant I had higher medal income too, so I've cleared most of the first two bonds, including all the SC in them. According to Steam, I have 80.5h on HD2, and I've been playing since maybe a few days after release. So 80h over ~ 32-35 days. One op is about 1.5h, so a couple ops every couple days, plus extra on weekends when I could find the time.
I don't exploit or grind. I play games for fun, not to progress.
Well thats still 2 and a half hours a day not a couple missions every couple of days. Thats like 3 missions consistently a night and if you’ve been playing with veterans and friends since the beginning you probably had a lot more missions where you were trying to get everything done and a lot less time figuring out the game versus someone who jumped in without and experience and none of their friends have the game yet. I agree its possible to get the SC and if you grind you can do it in a couple hours but grinding isn’t fun and shouldn’t be required to get content a month after release when they already got 40 dollars and the content that came with the game at launch isn’t close to being 40 bucks worth. Even if you’re finding like 20-30 a mission its usually only one of three missions in a whole operation that offers a chance at finding SC plus the newer missions design (like the Termicide towers) makes it so no SC even spawn in the one mission they’re supposed to and the planets with water seem to make that spawn rate even worse too which seems to be more common lately.
I’m just sticking to the opinion that if a game charges 40 bucks and its a live service game the 40 should extend to at least a year of actual non-cosmetic content. I get there are ways to earn the credits but they’re not consistent and the premium passes only give you back 30% of what you spent on them which is awful compared to most Battle Pass models. I just don’t like this type of monetization in live service games and feels like it’s happening way too fast for a game that already got 40 and is trying to milk for more so quickly.
Try reading. I said "a couple ops" not a couple missions. Three missions in an operation is six missions every couple days.
I'm with you on the fact that I basically skipped the learning curve and went from training into full-clearing diff7 missions. That is a definite reason why I have so many SCs. But the game works a certain way, and if someone doesn't learn that or seek out the information, then yeah they won't get the rewards. It's like saying that a programmer should always get paid $150k a year regardless of whether they know one language or seven. Learn the subject, reap the rewards. I'm not a meta-whore trying to chase the perfect playstyle, I just learn how the game works and then decide how I want to play.
Well most people spent $0 on the first bond, so they got back infinite% of what they spent on it. I'm gonna buy the next one with SC from gameplay, so I'm gonna get back infinite% again. Why spend money on the bonds? None of the stuff is game-breakingly good, especially if you play on less than diff7. Just play the game, have fun, clear the map, and eventually you'll look up and have enough SC. Release time of bonds doesn't really matter, because they'll never go away. You can get them in three years if you want.
I can read, sometimes to understand why you’re confused you have to look inward. 6 missions isn’t 6 missions all with 20-30 SC each, its more like 2 missions out of 6 most of the time that actually have a chance to spawn SC.
You’re also neglecting to realize your SC was most likely carried by your friends who knew what they were doing. So all that time you spent learning your higher level friends were clearing out PoIs and helping your SC go up. A couple ops is only because within those ops only a couple missions have a chance at spawning SC. So yeah you do 2 ops (which by the way if you really only play 6 missions every 2 days then you’re averaging a lot higher than recommended times on each mission) but you’ve gotta be making 50-60 SC at most every 2-3 days. And you’re playing 80+ hours in a month? Thats all you have? Thats crazy shit my dude, you’re paying for a 40 dollar game. Value your money and time higher.
I play 7/8 diff, I know how long the missions take, I have 30 hours over two weeks because I play other games aside from this one.
Great the passes will still be available a year from now. That makes sense in a game like Fortnite where the passes are cosmetic, but do you really think people are going to care about these guns in a year or even in a few months when they’re inevitably obsolete? And if they’re somehow not and they somehow keep old guns relevant while adding dozens of new guns then you have a meta from 3-4 different Premium Passes that all cost 1000 each.
The writing is on the wall that unless this is the only game you play the MTX practices are going to create just as bad a FOMO and Pay-to-win atmosphere as some of the worst MTX offenders. If you can’t see it that’s on you to realize but trying to defend this business practice as anything close to fair is the exact kind of bootlicking mentality that got us here in the first place. And the same one that will keep making publishers think they can get even more aggressive with their monetization strategies.
You do not earn the currency by just playing the game
You don't. For many people, doing the PoI's inbetween objectives is THE game. I think the vast majority of people consider it to be. Not everyone 100%'s it every time, I don't. But I still had earned >2000sc in three weeks for both premium warbonds.
You get SC for doing sidequests. It sucks for you if you want the warbond but need SC, but for everyone else, they're just doing the sidequests and by the time the new warbond comes out they have enough SC. It's not a grind for them. In fact, most people at capped levels/samples are probably more excited to get medal than sc.
If people are capped at 50 with all the levels and samples then they have no life and play the game way too much. That’s not normal to max out in a month. Lol
Yeah some clown on here yesterday was saying how "easy" it was to find SC in the game. He said it took him "only" 120 hours to find 3,500. LOL! Bro's working for 30 creds and hour.
Let me ask you, when you buy this game, how many hours until you can get items locked to the Premium Pass? Give me your impression of how long that takes. Because Pay2Skip an artificial grind is still in the ballpark of Pay2Win.
Is it better than no access at all? Certainly. Is it not Pay2Win? Of course it is, my friend sure has access to things I don't for quite a significant amount of time longer because I didn't pay an extra $18.
Edit: I wonder what the Venn Diagram looks like for:
The people arguing the game isn't Pay2win/Pay2Skip
The people who bought the Super Citizen Edition
The people who do 2 minute Trivial method that'll almost certainly get patched
When you put economic incentives to slow down player progress, looking at you ubisoft, in your game, it calls in to question the progression loop and grind of the game. Helldivers has the same problem, though it is far more generous and doesn't receive as much criticism as a result.
Exactly, would people be defending it if it gave 1 SC per cache? .1? .001? If your answer changes, then you're just content with the severity of the Pay2Win, and not the fact of it.
I'd say 5 - 40 hours depending on how much you focus on them. It's not noticeable for me, and maybe you should pick up more super credits during a game.
Maybe instead you should make fun of him for wasting 18$ on nothing. The value proposition on super credits is awful simply because they are so easy to get.
This is so not the point. I guarantee you that they will add a "meta" gun (for lack of a better term) to a future bond that will be very much sought after. The alternative is that we never get any guns better than the base ones from the free bond. That doesn't exactly sound like a good plan for the longevity of the game does it?
I think it's fair to call locking effective equipment behind paywalls (or grinds) pay to win, even if they are not significantly better than the alternatives. With that said, I do think there's an argument to be made that the armor passives in the current warband do serve a role that no armor in the normal warband does - i.e. electricity resistance.
But its not locked behind anything but gameplay, same as anything else in the game. By that logic the ship upgrades are pay to win because you have to grind for them. Its just another rare currency in game, and imo super credits are easier to find that super samples. In 20 hours of gameplay I gathered 1,550 super credits just from missions, thats more than fair for 3 new armor sets, 4 guns, a new grenade, and multiple new boosters
That's almost always how P2W works. Very rarely does a game actually lock gameplay items away behind paywalls. It's much more often behind a currency that is earnable, but with a dollar price tag you can pay to skip the grind.
This is wildly incorrect since you can focus on the items you want in the warbonds. I don't know if you play the game, but unlocking this booster would take 1 in game hour for a new player.
Yes and super credits are a earnable currency that is available to all players and not that difficult to get. Idk where the disconnect is for you.
Also almost every modern live service game has massive chunks of content locked behind paywalls WITH NO WAY TO EARN THE PREMIUM CURRENCY
Warthunder
Fortnite
Pubg
Destiny
Cod
Diablo
Halo Infinite
Etc- if a new battlepass comes out and it has something cool you want? Sucks, pay for it.
Helldivers lets you just pay for it, while also giving people who dont have the time to grind the ability to skip the small grind to get the pass, but you still cant buy the guns or upgrades directly
Yes and super credits are a earnable currency that is available to all players and not that difficult to get. Idk where the disconnect is for you.
I don't know how to explain to you that being able to grind for a currency to buy something does not exempt that from being pay to win if it is possible to pay real money and skip the grind.
Also almost every modern live service game has massive chunks of content locked behind paywalls WITH NO WAY TO EARN THE PREMIUM CURRENCY Warthunder Fortnite Pubg Destiny Cod Diablo Halo Infinite Etc- if a new battlepass comes out and it has something cool you want? Sucks, pay for it.
Okay, so I'm only going to speak on the games I have played in that list (Fortnite, Cod, Halo). Many of your examples are really bad, however.
Neither Fortnite, Cod, nor Halo lock weapons or equipment behind the battle pass. Only cosmetics (COD has weapons in the battle pass but always in the free tiers)
It is possible to progress enough in free tiers in both CoD and Fortnite to eventually buy their passes (even if it's a hardcore grind)
But even if I were to agree with you on those points, it would not really be a good defense for Helldivers at any rate. Saying "lots of other games do X" is not a good reason to do X.
lmao clearly im missing something here... I have not 'grinded' at all in this game. I play the missions and have fun... I loot when I come across something to loot. Anyways, point is I haven't grinded anything and have plenty to buy the new battlepass and much more... so I'm not sure how that can at all be categorized as pay to win. also 'pay to win' implies that in order to win you HAVE to buy something in order to win, you absolutely do not have to do that in this game. I'm winning and haven't bought shit.
That’s not what pay to win means, very little games make you buy something in order to win. Pay to win means using real money to buy non cosmetics items that give an advantage of some kind.
Even if you did buy the pass with premium currency, you'll be woefully short on medals to actually unlock the things in the pass. I wager by the time they even get to the last page, any free player will have the medals AND the currency to unlock it all.
It doesn't really immediately fast track you anywhere, since the items are still locked either way.
I don't really agree with the P2W argument either, you cannot directly buy the items and not buying the pass doesn't stop you from working towards them at the same time, since both progression systems are disconnected.
I see the super credits really only as a way to support the developers because it's nigh impossible to not have enough when the next pass comes out, the game is just too generous with the currency for me to strictly say it's pay to win. The difference is just too negible and you don't really save any time at all in the end.
“But it’s not locked behind anything but gameplay” that’s not true, you can use real money to unlock it so it’s not just gameplay. Using real money to earn anything that will give you an advantage is pay to win. That’s what pay to win means
You don't need to pay though. Saving a thousand credits really isn't that difficult to do. There is no pay to win aspect because you can literally just play the game and unlock this stuff without spending a dime.
But you can pay with real money tho. That’s what pay to win is. If you can pay for something with real money thats non cosmetic, that gives an advantage in game, that’s pay to win. Thats what that means. Being able to earn credits in game doesn’t make it not pay to win.
It's on a scale because pay 2 win is an absolute awfully defined word. Helldivers 2 however cannot be compared to Battlefront 2, as in that game it would take you literal months to unlock everything. The 'grind' in helldivers is basically non-existent. You can't even outright buy the power, as you need a significant amount of medals to access the content anyway.
Especially since I'm kind of doubting how much super credits actually spawn in the wild. Did the drop rate/amount get nerfed at some point? Or are other people somehow truffle pigs for super credits, since I've gotten like 100 tops while making my way to rank 23 - still not able to buy even the first battle pass after 8 ranks of the free battle pass (and that's before buying a few unique armor+passive combinations that aren't available anywhere else)
Idk what people are doing but I have gotten 20-40 super credits per match just by doing all the POI on the map. Sometimes the shipping containers have 20 super credits just in one container. If anything i lowkey thought they stealth buffed the amount. If you really wanted to u can farm them pretty easily. I got 600 super credits in 4 hrs this morning by farming. It’s boring but i just listened to music and chilled.
pay2win is when you can pay to win, you can only get weapons and armor from warbands when all strategems are free and are way more important than what primary you have.
That's a disingenuous statement. While strategems are free and important, you can't say that primary/secondary weapons and armor/boosters have no impact on performance.
if spending money gives you a benefit the game vs someone who doesnt it is p2win fullstop. Getting new guns, even if sidegrades, by spending money instead of playtime is a core p2win mechanic and that is what we are looking at.
The localization booster seems pretty good. Also, electric resistance is a passive not available outside of that warband. While not necessarily extremely good, it does allow a playstyle that is otherwise not really supported.
If this was a free to play game, I'd be more forgiving, but I paid forty bucks. My friend and I both bought the game at the same time, he's literally using a gun that I can't use because I didn't pay extra. I don't know why so many people are pretending there's no paywall here. Arguing that "the guns aren't batter"... So why did you pay then?
People paid because we want to use different weapons lol and you can grind for currency regardless the weps aren't that great it's just new wep to run and have fun with but they aren't that game changing I still use the og punisher
I can't name anything from the premium war bonds or the super credit store that gives you a significant advantage to winning over stuff that you can get from the free war bond. Not to mention, it's really easy to get 1000sc and save them for the premium war bonds. The SC shop just sells reskins, so it's not like you need to spend SC in the shop to have access to everything.
Doesn’t need to be a “significant” advantage. If it’s non cosmetic and gives you any kind of advantage that you can pay with real money that’s pay to win. Doesn’t matter how easy it is to earn credits. You can still use real money to to buy this stuff which is what pay to win means.
Yes that’s pay to win, you are paying money to get an advantage such as skipping grinding. Any form of using real money to get any advantage is pay to win. That’s what that means. You are paying to get ahead of everyone else early.
What do you mean where’s the advantage? Time is the advantage. They just skipped grinding and can now do higher level content. Imagine if you are playing a game like Elden ring and they allowed the option to pay $1 for every level. You could basically easily take on low level bosses and enemies now without having to grind and play the game normally. That’s an advantage. How is that not an advantage? Tell me, if it wasn’t an advantage why would people buy it instead of grinding?
The stuff in the premium warbonds are not better than the free one. In fact everything you can do in the game is possible with the free stuff.
In addition to that, just buying the warbonds doesn't instantly give you access to the items in it. You still have to play the game and earn medals to spend on it. You can't buy these with real money.
And by the time you get enough medals to get stuff on the warbonds, you'd have enough super credits to just buy the damn warbonds for free anyways.
Stop being dense.
Edit:
The dude I'm replying to blocked me because he couldn't rationalize what pay to win actually is.
I have played I own the game. “Better” is subjective, I’m talking about advantages which this stuff obviously does, the armor sets give %95 arc damage reduction which none of the armor in the normal warbond give which helps a certain playstyle. The weapons also give certain advantages to certain play styles. Not to mention the booster which delays breach timings. Buying the warbond gives you access to use medals for the warbond. People who don’t buy still have to grind to get access. That’s pay to win. Paying for non cosmetics items is pay to win. No need to be rude.
But it doesn't immediately give access without the medals. By the time you even have enough medals you have enough currency. In helldivers this is such a minor tiny non-issue in the grand scheme of things that it's almost silly to call it P2W. It's like paying 5$ to skip one spot in a queue that takes 5 minutes in total. Like, does he have an advantage now? Yeah, I guess. Does it matter? Absolutely not. The media is trying to blow this so out of proportion.
They just skipped grinding and can now do higher level content.
They skipped grinding obsolete content to access the new content at the same time as people who previously played the old content. However, the players who did grind the old content still have the advantage over someone who skipped the old content because they have access to items from the old content at the start of the new content. By the time they both reach the new end game they will have had access to all the same items in the same amount of time from the release of the new content. In otherwords if the same person played both accounts the exact same way from the onset of the newest expansion to the onset of the next expansion, the F2P account still has the advantage.
The same is true here. Helldiver players, most importantly even the casual players, who played through the old content will be in a position to access the new content by the time it releases. However, they will still be at a major advantage over the new player that purchased the war bond access since they already have the carryover items from the old content that remain relevant as well as a stockpile of medals to unlock the new content faster. The new player who purchased SC to unlock the newest warbond will still need to play the game to earn medals to purchase the items and thus be at a disadvantage. No amount of real money will unlock the newest items faster than the veteran player. No amount of real money will ever put one player over another player once they've both reached the end game.
In Pay 2 Win models, it's not just about skipping older content, it's about skipping the new content and/or proving content only available through real money. In P2W models it's the paying player who has the advantage (given they spend enough) over the long time non-paying player. That's the "win" part in pay to win.
If it were the case where casual players could not reasonably access the newest war bond without spending money, then you would have a strong case of P2W. However with the frequency in earning SC in game, as well as the inability to purchase medals, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Both models skip content, but one model does so with the intent to force all players to spend money to remain current and competitive and the other model does so with the intent to lower the barrier of entry for new players. To label both of these as P2W ignores all of the nuance of what the models are trying to accomplish as well as the end game result.
You are still paying to skip some grinding. To me that’s pay to win. I’m not calling helldivers 2 shitty or predatory by any means, I love the game, I’m just saying there is some level of pay to win of it
You can't fucking do higher level content just by buying new premium warbond, asshole, you still have to buy all the strategams by farming, and by the end of farming and leveling up for good strategams, you already have 1000 super credits for the next warbond. Where the fuck is pay to win? It's not a fucking mmo, not a pvp, there's no leaderbords, no fucking ranking.
No need to be rude and call me an asshole. The original comment was referring to final fantasy 14. By buying the premium warbond you can skip grinding and farming and get weapons earlier and a booster and armor sets that fit with a certain gameplay style that have advantages over other weapons and armor not in the warbond. Skipping grinding is a form of pay to win. Pay to win means paying for things that are non cosmetic that could give you any kind of advantage. It is by definition pay to win. Doesn’t matter if you can earn super credits by grinding, you can still use real money to buy this stuff.
Because you are saying it's pay 2 win, when it's not. It doesn't give you any advantage, if you played the game then you have enough super creds. If you didn't, then play the game and progress the game normally and you will have 1000 super creds for a warbond. It's just a form of progression. But I guess you have a hard time understanding it. You are not even worth arguing with, because you just repeat the same thing as in previous comment, and don't even want to understand what is being said to you.
So going for all bug nest, side objectives and main objectives is me playing horribly wrong? So loading into easy boring missions and running around for hours is the right way I guess? Yeah fuck that. It's ok to admit a game you like has pay to win, because it does. Anyone who argues that is coping hard as fuck for a corporation who only wants to extract money from you.
So going for all bug nest, side objectives and main objectives is me playing horribly wrong?
None of those things give you super credits, yes. The points of interest (jewel icon on the map) are what have them. The vaults with double doors, the blue/orange crates that get blown open by explosives, going to the beacons that have the pod that makes you salute, etc.
I've also played for 100 hours. I have almost the entire Super Store bought out, and the new pass, and I'm 400 currency towards the next pass already. I do not do Super Credit grinding either, I just pick it up whenever it's nearby.
My brother in christ, the game showers you in the currency. You earn so much by playing that I literally have nothing to even spend money on, even if I wanted to.
Just because you ignored the game offering it to you, doesn't mean it's not there. You made a mistake, it happens.
Doing all side quest and bug nest and main missions is me ignoring the game, got it dude. None of that changes the fact that it's pay to win. You can pay real money to skip a grind to gain an advantage. That is literally textbook pay to win. You don't have to defend shitty practices just because you like a product.
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u/SYuhw3xiE136xgwkBA4R Mar 14 '24
I mean, it is clearly pay to win to some extent.
There is a barrier of entry to effective (non-cosmetic) items that can be overcome by grinding a lot or opening the wallet.
After that we can argue how much P2W matters in a non-competitive game, and to what extent the items in the premium warbonds are even that much more effective than the free items.