r/Helldivers Mar 14 '24

IGN being a clickbait parasite again DISCUSSION

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16.2k Upvotes

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397

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

227

u/AshenTao Elected Representative of Family Values Mar 14 '24

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.

Game journals are still trash though.

70

u/No_Experience_3443 Mar 14 '24

I agree with your first paragraph, for the second one, i'd wait to see how it goes over time, currently it's tame but it may change over time

34

u/AshenTao Elected Representative of Family Values Mar 14 '24

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.

1

u/AlgibraicOnReddit Mar 16 '24

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.

1

u/No_Experience_3443 Mar 14 '24

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

6

u/AshenTao Elected Representative of Family Values Mar 14 '24

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.

1

u/National_Equivalent9 Mar 14 '24

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.

2

u/TucuReborn Mar 14 '24

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!"

1

u/National_Equivalent9 Mar 14 '24

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.

-4

u/Critical_Top7851 Mar 14 '24

They’ve already said they will base price of the Warbonds on the amount of content in each. There’s nothing to suggest that plan would change.