513 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

Atheus, on 26 June 2014 - 10:16 PM, said:

I don't really care that you feel my argument indicates that cockpit items are pay to win. It's an asinine distraction, but you're insisting contradicts the argument? Give me a break.

How does your argument not indicate that cockpit items are P2W?

According to your very own OP, anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - that can only be acquired via paid currency, without an identical in-game equivalent, which can - in any way, for any reason at all, provided it's plausible and not inherently contradictory - be posited to've provided someone, somewhere, at some point in time, at least once, an advantage he would not have otherwise had...then the thing is P2W. Degree doesn't matter, exclusivity doesn't matter, eventual free release doesn't matter. It was, once, at one singular point in time, a factor in someone winning a game, and thus it is P2W, now and forever.

This is why you don't throw out statistical relevancy when making an argument. Picking one, single data point on a graph comprising millions of data points and saying that this one, single data point clearly, unarguably, and inevitably invalidates the entire graph would get you laughed out of any other conversation you'd be inclined to have with anyone else anywhere. You're arguing that the white noise is all we should be paying attention to and to hell with the majority trend. THAT'S NOT HOW THIS STUFF WORKS, DOOD.

Edited by 1453 R, 26 June 2014 - 10:24 PM.

[Tesunie]

Decided to post anyway... Should be in bed...

Atheus, on 26 June 2014 - 09:32 PM, said:

I grasp, but it's not a biconditional relationship. Apple implies fruit, orange implies fruit. Not apple implies... we don't know. It may still be fruit, or it may not. Applying it to MWO: Joe's advantage implies P2W. Jon's advantage implies P2W. Not Jon's Advantage implies nothing. NOBODY's advantage implies not P2W. In other words, not all players need to benefit in order for one player to be able to purchase an advantage.

Regarding your colloquial weapons analysis...
From what I have seen attempting to debate the pros and cons of the weapons system is a total quagmire. I can point out factual errors occasionally, but everyone has to have their own feelings about what's important and what doesn't matter. I'll leave it to the individual to decide what they think the clan weapons have to offer, and just cross my fingers that they don't have too many of the facts wrong.


Like I said it's not a biconditional relationship, but let me draw another example for you just to be clear on this. If you want to say your analysis works, that means that if a mech is advantageous for every single player in the game except for one, even if that player can't benefit from it because he is actually deaf dumb and blind, and plays by sense of smell, thus can only use LRMs , then it is not pay to win.




Logic isn't a democracy, and all you're talking about is the definition of a term. If you want to hobble the definition of pay to win with some sort of time dimension in your own argument, fine, but it becomes far less functional by doing so. How do you describe a game that has pay to win stuff in the game that's early access? You have to find a new term to describe the advantageous stuff that would be pay to win if it weren't early access to try to differentiate it from the type of early access stuff that doesn't provide any sort of advantage.


You're basically trying to make me believe the time table isn't so bad while lying about what it says. This doesn't help your early access to pay to win content perspective much. It's 2 months of early access for the Kit Fox. 5 months for the Timberwolf, which many think is the best of the batch. It's 5 months before there is no longer exclusive content in the game that has a high potential to be pay to win.


The guy who was comparing his Dire Wolf with a Jenner didn't have speed tweak, and I'm guessing he didn't have many basics filled out either. Any 100 ton mech with no efficiencies and a 300 engine is going to get torn to bits by a Jenner. It was a totally meaningless anecdote.


I thought you said you read the first 17 pages >.>


Right, and at the end of the day, different is just about always going to be either better, or worse, even if the difference is small. It is almost never exactly equal, if ever.




I'm not sure what you want me to do with this anecdote. Does it prove anything? No. It's not worth thinking about in the context of this argument.


For the purpose of evaluating my argument, just accept that the working definition of pay to win is as I stated it - describing only the present. Besides, if you wanted a new term it would have to be P2GEAWUOGI (Pay to get early and win until other people get it), and that acronym sucks. It's just P2W. Worry about when the paywall comes down after your acronym.



I saw this little gem in the middle of the next section. You have to realize that I've responded to a gazillion posts in this thread, but I do actually have other things to do so a few fell through the cracks. If you said something smart I'm sorry I missed it. I occasionally skip things when I've just answered a similar concern in recent posts, or in a subsequent post directed at someone else hitting two nails with one head type of thing. If you had read the entire thread, you'd find my answers to most of your concerns, if not all.

We aren't calling an apple fruit and an orange fruit and trying to prove... We aren't trying to determine if a clan mech is a mech... You are making little sense here... Your example is going farther and farther into... I don't know anymore...

Colloquial.Where are you getting these words? You are also using them very much incorrectly as well...
The weapon systems have balances that actually make the WORSE than IS weapons in most ways, even though they are stronger/lighter/etc. I've actually been fairly punctual and not as informal as you seem to be implying here about my weapon analysis...

You fail to understand the point I was trying to present, but that is the essence of your logical path when presented in the opposite side of the argument. Even you seem to admit that your logic in this debate is incorrect with your own statement here...

Definition of the term... Read the post that I quoted for you... (or the links I posted about pay to win definition. Then again, you seem to be using a lot of words improperly within the last few pages that I read... (which was this page and pages ~14-17).

Nathan Bloodguard, on 26 June 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

Using this as a definition for Pay to Win, I would still say clans are not Pay to Win, for they do not give a significant advantage (reasons for this is stated above in my other post at the top of this page) over their Innersphere/ free to play counterparts.

To interject about the hero mechs. Some of them can seem like Pay to Win, but you can still do most everything in a similar mech (Misery would be a highlander/atlas or other similar hard point mechs as an example. It can only seem like it if you ONLY liked that mech chassis, otherwise it could still be duplicated by free to play means. using the above definition, does a hero mech really give the player of them a Significant Advantage over other players who do not have them? I would have to say no again. Just another different flavor for the same mech.

A commonly held belief of what a term means is important. As the common use of a word changes, so does it's definition. Ain't is a word now, when it once was not... However, the current standing definition of P2W as a phrase does not seem to fit or apply to your current view of the situation.

You are talking about people who paid $30-200+. Don't you think they deserve to get a little something extra, such as running around with the mechs they paid for first for a while? Seen as, without people like them, this game would not be able to continue to run. This is not P2W, this is a marketing mechanic and we will see these very same mechs shortly. As it is, I still have not seen the clan mechs as being overly powerful, and they seem to be well balanced to their IS counterparts.

I didn't have my elites filled out with my 4J, yet I have been doing well... Your point once again? I have been having his same issues in my stock Awesome (which moves about as fast as he does), and I've got basics filled out... You seem to call anything that places your "proof" (read as "opinion") into doubt as "inconsequential" or "irrelevant", or you seem to just not respond to it at all, like you seem to want it to just "disappear".

That guy posted the common mechs in a single match. Did he post why those pilots/teams picked those mechs? What was the reasons those mechs were used? Why did they choose them over other possible mech selections? I just saw a screen shot, which was also photoshopped, which (although I believe he didn't) invalidates it's credibility as someone could have easily have changed the mech names. (I know I could easily make such an alteration if I desired to.)

Can't something be different, but equal? Example: I drive a Metro car. Someone else brags about how great their car is. Who's car is really better? Well, that depends. I get 50 miles to a single gallon of gas. They get 15. They can tow a lot of stuff, I've got a tighter weight limit. Who's car is really "better"? My opinion, mine is. I save more money on gas, and seen as 99% of my driving I'm the only occupant and nothing else... for me my car is better. For that other person, maybe they do a lot of towing, or something, which makes their car more valuable and useful to them. They each preform similar tasks... Same thing for IS/C weapon comparisons. For the most part, they run different from each other, but seem to preform a very similar role in a manner that seem to make them two different flavors of the same thing. (Would you like french vanilla, or Vanilla bean?)

Brushing off another "anecdote" as "worthless and irrelevant" I see...

Changing what I'm saying to "better match what you want me to agree to" again. Still not working. It's still paying to get stuff sooner. It's not pay to win by any definition that I have seen so far... Mind presenting your EXACT definition of P2W? Oh, that's right. You did. And Nathan covered that.

Yup. I understand you've commented to a lot of posts. However, when I posted that, it was during a rather quiet moment of this thread's life. I also said I didn't expect you to respond to it at this point, as it's lost way back there... However, any time someone seems to present a post of a similar like, you seem to conveniently "ignore" it, for whatever reason, which may be (or may not be) very valid reasons...

As far as "reading the entire thread"... NOT GONNA HAPPEN. My time is worth more than that. Also, I've wasted enough time here. I agree with Sandpit. You like to argue in circles. You have a circular argument going on here, where you keep repeating yourself over and over again, and keep deflecting counter arguments with the same "quagmire" responses...


Now. I've done enough for tonight. I go to bed. (For real this time.)

CMetz, on 26 June 2014 - 10:06 PM, said:

I have a pretty interesting idea as to how this can be settled... Will start a new post... and hopefully it'll include some interesting information one way or another, as hopefully it will provide solid data... I'll get back to you all.

Will read.

Personally, I'd like to see people's clan mech stats, and compare them to the same players IS mech stats... Might help shed some light on the subject... (But stats can still only tell one only so much.)

[Atheus]

Nah, I showed you how you could use a small data set to

1453 R, on 26 June 2014 - 10:22 PM, said:

How does your argument not indicate that cockpit items are P2W?

According to your very own OP, anything - ANYTHING AT ALL - that can only be acquired via paid currency, without an identical in-game equivalent, which can - in any way, for any reason at all, provided it's plausible and not inherently contradictory - be posited to've provided someone, somewhere, at some point in time, at least once, an advantage he would not have otherwise had...then the thing is P2W. Degree doesn't matter, exclusivity doesn't matter, eventual free release doesn't matter. It was, once, at one singular point in time, a factor in someone winning a game, and thus it is P2W, now and forever.

This is why you don't throw out statistical relevancy when making an argument. Picking one, single data point on a graph comprising millions of data points and saying that this one, single data point clearly, unarguably, and inevitably invalidates the entire graph would get you laughed out of any other conversation you'd be inclined to have with anyone else anywhere. You're arguing that the white noise is all we should be paying attention to and to hell with the majority trend. THAT'S NOT HOW THIS STUFF WORKS, DOOD.

I didn't provide you any data. I provided you with a framework to analyze the status quo, and a number of principles you could use to work with both small and large data sets without coming up with garbage conclusions like "every single player isn't able to leverage the advantages of the VRT-DS, therefore it must not be P2W!". If you want to sit here and tell me that not a single person in the game is deriving any benefit from Clan tech, then while I'll still think you're crazy, I'll at least think you're logically consistent with your data when you insist that clan tech isn't pay to win. As larger data sets become more available, everyone will be able to come up with an even more reliable answer that can illuminate the extent of the problem, but determining in a true/false fashion whether clan's inherent potential as unique content only available for cash to be P2W has a positive result is simple.

[qki]

Atheus, on 26 June 2014 - 10:21 PM, said:

So... if you for some reason did deserve to play better then paying for an advantage wouldn't be pay to win? This is the remnant of your argument that since you have special skills, you deserve the advantage you got when you upgraded to clan tech, right? Sorry to see double-think is still crippling your ability to recognize what's going on with this game.

The efff is a "double-think"?

If you mean a "double standard", than you are the one having one.

You make up your own rules that do not exist within the game and expect players to follow them.

I could start using a ctf or a highlander pop tart with ac5/ppc to kill everything in sight. Instead, I'm using a uac5/4ML/4MG medium, which is more appealing, though ostensibly weaker.

And you get bent out of shape, trying to convince the world, that for some absurd reason, I should still be playing my ac20/2MPL yen lo wang.


Your whole argument is constructed around this idiotic notion. You have decided, in your own head, that we are cheating, because we shouldn't be using stronger tactics than before. Because we paid for them.

So why aren't you using an even stronger tactic, that is freely available to you? Because you don't want to?
That's your friggin problem, not mine. All the tools that you NEED to be on an equal footing with clan mechs are right at your disposal. Your unwillingness, or inability to use them, is your problem.

Your expectance that players will stick to their old, ineffective tactics "because they should" is your double standard.
Drop this mental block and you will become a better player for it.

Or not - I don't really care. We are clearly playing two different games.

I'm playing a game where every player has the right to use the strongest tactic if they so chose.

You are playing a game where your opponents must keep using weaker tactics, because it wouldn't be fair for those that don't want to improve.


Edit:
On a side note - your insistence, that clan tech is the strongest tech and therefore the strongest tactic in the game is only available for money just proves your total lack of understanding of the game, it's principles, and how it is played.

Edited by qki, 26 June 2014 - 10:41 PM.

[N0MAD]

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

Decided to post anyway... Should be in bed...

Spoiler

We aren't calling an apple fruit and an orange fruit and trying to prove... We aren't trying to determine if a clan mech is a mech... You are making little sense here... Your example is going farther and farther into... I don't know anymore...

Colloquial.Where are you getting these words? You are also using them very much incorrectly as well...
The weapon systems have balances that actually make the WORSE than IS weapons in most ways, even though they are stronger/lighter/etc. I've actually been fairly punctual and not as informal as you seem to be implying here about my weapon analysis...

You fail to understand the point I was trying to present, but that is the essence of your logical path when presented in the opposite side of the argument. Even you seem to admit that your logic in this debate is incorrect with your own statement here...

Definition of the term... Read the post that I quoted for you... (or the links I posted about pay to win definition. Then again, you seem to be using a lot of words improperly within the last few pages that I read... (which was this page and pages ~14-17).

A commonly held belief of what a term means is important. As the common use of a word changes, so does it's definition. Ain't is a word now, when it once was not... However, the current standing definition of P2W as a phrase does not seem to fit or apply to your current view of the situation.

You are talking about people who paid $30-200+. Don't you think they deserve to get a little something extra, such as running around with the mechs they paid for first for a while? Seen as, without people like them, this game would not be able to continue to run. This is not P2W, this is a marketing mechanic and we will see these very same mechs shortly. As it is, I still have not seen the clan mechs as being overly powerful, and they seem to be well balanced to their IS counterparts.

I didn't have my elites filled out with my 4J, yet I have been doing well... Your point once again? I have been having his same issues in my stock Awesome (which moves about as fast as he does), and I've got basics filled out... You seem to call anything that places your "proof" (read as "opinion") into doubt as "inconsequential" or "irrelevant", or you seem to just not respond to it at all, like you seem to want it to just "disappear".

That guy posted the common mechs in a single match. Did he post why those pilots/teams picked those mechs? What was the reasons those mechs were used? Why did they choose them over other possible mech selections? I just saw a screen shot, which was also photoshopped, which (although I believe he didn't) invalidates it's credibility as someone could have easily have changed the mech names. (I know I could easily make such an alteration if I desired to.)

Can't something be different, but equal? Example: I drive a Metro car. Someone else brags about how great their car is. Who's car is really better? Well, that depends. I get 50 miles to a single gallon of gas. They get 15. They can tow a lot of stuff, I've got a tighter weight limit. Who's car is really "better"? My opinion, mine is. I save more money on gas, and seen as 99% of my driving I'm the only occupant and nothing else... for me my car is better. For that other person, maybe they do a lot of towing, or something, which makes their car more valuable and useful to them. They each preform similar tasks... Same thing for IS/C weapon comparisons. For the most part, they run different from each other, but seem to preform a very similar role in a manner that seem to make them two different flavors of the same thing. (Would you like french vanilla, or Vanilla bean?)

Brushing off another "anecdote" as "worthless and irrelevant" I see...

Changing what I'm saying to "better match what you want me to agree to" again. Still not working. It's still paying to get stuff sooner. It's not pay to win by any definition that I have seen so far... Mind presenting your EXACT definition of P2W? Oh, that's right. You did. And Nathan covered that.

Yup. I understand you've commented to a lot of posts. However, when I posted that, it was during a rather quiet moment of this thread's life. I also said I didn't expect you to respond to it at this point, as it's lost way back there... However, any time someone seems to present a post of a similar like, you seem to conveniently "ignore" it, for whatever reason, which may be (or may not be) very valid reasons...

As far as "reading the entire thread"... NOT GONNA HAPPEN. My time is worth more than that. Also, I've wasted enough time here. I agree with Sandpit. You like to argue in circles. You have a circular argument going on here, where you keep repeating yourself over and over again, and keep deflecting counter arguments with the same "quagmire" responses...


Now. I've done enough for tonight. I go to bed. (For real this time.)



Will read.

Personally, I'd like to see people's clan mech stats, and compare them to the same players IS mech stats... Might help shed some light on the subject... (But stats can still only tell one only so much.)

Had to do it.

[xXBagheeraXx]

Koniving, on 26 June 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

Of all my Victors, I find the Dragon Slayer to have the worst hardpoints.

A torso mounted energy weapon is not particularly useful, if anything it's quite useless. The only true benefit is to have 3 PPCs instead of the typical limit of 2; but doing so comes at the cost of a valid and viable location for an actual heatsink. If I want that, I'd play a Highlander.

Much like the Heavy Metal I find to be superior to the Highlanders, because the arm-focused energy and ballistic hardpoints allow for incredible usability when it comes to hitting targets while twisted away as well as being anti-everything (Dragon Slayers have a lot of trouble with lights; ever seen the Victor cries? Only my Dragon Slayer has problems with them; every other Victor has every weapon handled via the arms from the Streaks to the lasers to the autocannons, giving the most amazing pinpoint control you can possibly get; superior to that of any Clan mech).

I barely use my Dragon Slayer because that energy hardpoint hurts it more than helps.
My other Victors? Those are my money makers.

This is what Ive been saying the whole time. My 9s is a wonderful brawler because i can slap some poor hapless ******* repeatedly in the same location with an ac20 and two large lasers. The only advantage the dragon slayer has over the cbill variants is the shield arm. Its energy/ballistics are accurate, but they are not as accurate as the 9b and 9s because the cbill victors mount everything in the arms. No aiming required, put the circle where you want it, and apply 35 points of damage. Or 40 if you are using the ac20 build.

Did I mention the lack of an ac20? Cause theres that....If Gauss were still a decent weapon the dragon slayer might be able to do something other than ac5's and PPC's...

Edited by xXBagheeraXx, 26 June 2014 - 10:47 PM.

[Atheus]

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

We aren't calling an apple fruit and an orange fruit and trying to prove... We aren't trying to determine if a clan mech is a mech... You are making little sense here... Your example is going farther and farther into... I don't know anymore...

What is your standard for determining whether a single mech is pay to win? Must every player benefit from its attributes? More than half? More than 20%? It's practically impossible for a single mech to have attributes that will be advantageous to every single player in the game, so figure out where you want to draw the line, and then get back to me.

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

Colloquial.Where are you getting these words? You are also using them very much incorrectly as well...

Colloquial, as in conversational. It was a nice way to say you were rambling about weapon comparisons, which I ignored because the weapons comparison debate is a quagmire. You need to stop pointing this stuff out. To demonstrate, I'll generously ignore your incredibly awkward usage of the word "punctual" in the following quote. Oops.

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

The weapon systems have balances that actually make the WORSE than IS weapons in most ways, even though they are stronger/lighter/etc. I've actually been fairly punctual and not as informal as you seem to be implying here about my weapon analysis...

You fail to understand the point I was trying to present, but that is the essence of your logical path when presented in the opposite side of the argument. Even you seem to admit that your logic in this debate is incorrect with your own statement here...

Definition of the term... Read the post that I quoted for you... (or the links I posted about pay to win definition. Then again, you seem to be using a lot of words improperly within the last few pages that I read... (which was this page and pages ~14-17).

A commonly held belief of what a term means is important. As the common use of a word changes, so does it's definition. Ain't is a word now, when it once was not... However, the current standing definition of P2W as a phrase does not seem to fit or apply to your current view of the situation.

I can't believe I'm being lectured to a bout word usage by a guy who used "punctual" like that. I tease .

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

You are talking about people who paid $30-200+. Don't you think they deserve to get a little something extra, such as running around with the mechs they paid for first for a while? Seen as, without people like them, this game would not be able to continue to run. This is not P2W, this is a marketing mechanic and we will see these very same mechs shortly. As it is, I still have not seen the clan mechs as being overly powerful, and they seem to be well balanced to their IS counterparts.

Absolutely. They paid for it, so they should get it. That does not mean that I shouldn't be able to point out the fact that they received an advantage over the people who didn't pay when that turns out to be the case.

Tesunie, on 26 June 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

I didn't have my elites filled out with my 4J, yet I have been doing well... Your point once again? I have been having his same issues in my stock Awesome (which moves about as fast as he does), and I've got basics filled out... You seem to call anything that places your "proof" (read as "opinion") into doubt as "inconsequential" or "irrelevant", or you seem to just not respond to it at all, like you seem to want it to just "disappear".

Whether you can do well in some crappy mech has absolutely nothing to do with the question of whether players can derive an advantage by switching from IS mechs to clan mechs. Yes, it is an irrelevant anecdote. Talk about what happens when you switch from IS to Clan, and I'll pay a little more attention to your anecdote, but if it's some silly story about how your bone stock dire wolf got separated from the team and then killed by a Jenner, then yes, I don't care.

Edited by Atheus, 26 June 2014 - 10:58 PM.

[Atheus]

qki, on 26 June 2014 - 10:38 PM, said:

The efff is a "double-think"?

Holy smokes man, first you're indignant that I won't define "bolsters" for you and now this? You're on the internet. Open a new tab and look it up.

[qki]

Never read 1984. I simply wasn't aware this had a fancy name is all. And It wasn't me that asked you to define bolsters.

[Atheus]

qki, on 27 June 2014 - 12:08 AM, said:

Never read 1984. I simply wasn't aware this had a fancy name is all. And It wasn't me that asked you to define bolsters.

Sorry about that. Long night.

[Jon Gotham]

cSand, on 24 June 2014 - 09:55 PM, said:

Yes but the ballin paintjob can distract some players more

hence PTW

They also earn 25% more cbills. that's 25% more cbills to pay for pay4extradamage strikes
So pay2win isn't just restricted to real life cash, pay your cbill tax each game to get an extra 300 damage! But I'll bet op doesn't have an issue with that........

[Turboferret]

Atheus, on 26 June 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

Game designers have no control over what kind of computer you run. They do have control over what sort of content they insert into their game, and how that content gets distributed.

If the devs don't limit everyone to an arbitrary FPS (say 30) and force everyone down to that FPS and make everyone else that can't run at that FPS unable to play, that would be supporting P2W, right?

Otherwise buying a better computer clearly gives you an advantage, paying money to be better > P2W.

Also, have you uninstalled yet? It's been like 3 days now since you promised me you would.

[Atheus]

Azrael1911, on 27 June 2014 - 12:36 AM, said:

If the devs don't limit everyone to an arbitrary FPS (say 30) and force everyone down to that FPS and make everyone else that can't run at that FPS unable to play, that would be supporting P2W, right?

Otherwise buying a better computer clearly gives you an advantage, paying money to be better > P2W.

Also, have you uninstalled yet? It's been like 3 days now since you promised me you would.

You know, you really make me think pretty hard.

Do I keep feeding the troll, inspiring you to continue spouting nonsense that further damages your credibility among rational observers, or just ignore you? The problem is that this thread is basically fated to attract people who have shown a real propensity to latch onto the kind of stuff you're saying and drag it around for a victory lap. I can't wait to see this new "according to Atheus, good computers are p2w!" idea picked up by my critics.

Edited by Atheus, 27 June 2014 - 01:02 AM.

[Kilo 40]

This thread is like Custer's Last Stand....of derp.

despite an overwhelming force of reason, logic, and facts, The OP went headlong into battle severally underestimating the enemy. And even when everyone else knew all hope was lost, the OP refuses to acknowledge it, and continued to derp harder harder...

one day this thread will be a memorial, and older mechwarriors will bring their children here and tell them what happened. Some lucky ones may even find a remnant of spittle poking out from some lines of text at their feet. upon seeing that they will envision the massacre that occurred years before. all because one man refused to listen to reason.

*plays taps*