96 replies to this topic

[Requiemking]

So, with the recent Clan hero preorder, a lot of P2W accusation have been slung around. However, no one has managed to provide an actual, concrete definition of Pay to Win. (Before you start with the inflammatory comments about the new Heros, I couldn't care less) My personal definition, which I view as a fair definition of P2W, ties into my definition of Overpowered. They follow as such:

Overpowered: a state in which a piece of in-game gear(In this instance, mechs or weapons) is so powerful that it allows a player with minimal skill to consistently outperform and defeat players of a far greater skill level who do not possess said gear.

Pay to win: the same as Overpowered, but said gear cannot be obtained without paying real money.

I think these definitions are fair because it takes into account the fact that most if not all of the new heros are for chassis that are consistent underperformers(such as the Ice Fridge), and the few Meta-tier mechs that came with waves 2 and 3 are getting heros that add little value to the chassis as a whole(ACH hero am I right?).

[Lupis Volk]

I have been giving a "an actual, concrete definition of Pay to Win" The response has been people screeching at me, either i don't know what P2W means or that there's "no" defined meaning.

Edited by Lupis Volk, 08 April 2017 - 11:17 PM.

[El Bandito]

It is more of a pay to perform better. Which is still bad practice. I wouldn't be up in arms if only one or two of the new Clan heroes (for Wave 1 and 2) have such upgrades, but there were more than that. And there were already precendences with the Medusa, Pakhet, and Scorch.

Edited by El Bandito, 08 April 2017 - 11:27 PM.

[BurningDesire]

El Bandito, on 08 April 2017 - 11:24 PM, said:

It is more of a pay to perform better. Which is still bad practice. I wouldn't be up in arms if only one or two of the new Clan heroes (for Wave 1 and 2) have such upgrades, but there were more than that. And there were already precendences with the Medusa, Pakhet, and Scorch.

Medusa is pay to play better???? since when, i keep seeing this comment but playing with it is totally off the mark. sure you can run 10 C-er small vs 9 C-er small lasers on the C variant, maybe its the missile left torso on medusa. Hell if i could get the paint job and c bill bonus on the C variant medusa would gather dust

[Requiemking]

BurningDesire, on 08 April 2017 - 11:40 PM, said:

Medusa is pay to play better???? since when, i keep seeing this comment but playing with it is totally off the mark. sure you can run 10 C-er small vs 9 C-er small lasers on the C variant, maybe its the missile left torso on medusa. Hell if i could get the paint job and c bill bonus on the C variant medusa would gather dust

I also think that applies to Pakhet and quite possibly Scorch as well. Damn, I can't actually think of any of the newer Clan chassis where the Hero is a strict upgrade from that base variants.

[LordNothing]

i like to make a strong distinction between qualitative statements "this mech is superior" to quantitative statements "this mech is 5% stronger". because a lot of things are slightly better but are blown out of proportion by tryhards using imprecise language. this in turn gets parroted by tier 4 without understanding them, and then you get hordes of people crying on the forum because of a miniscule 5% difference in performance.

i dont think paying money significantly changes my experience from when i was still a freeloader. i get the same number of wins and losses. the same bad games, the same stomps (going both ways), the rare good games are also the same. paying money doesnt significantly reduce grind either. you would think buying mech packs would do that, nope. especially not any more now that they took out the premium block. buying heros for their omnis just lets you boat things better, and thats just diminishing returns.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 April 2017 - 12:42 AM.

[Tarogato]

Tarogato, on 08 April 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

... simply put, you must be able to achieve the absolute maximum potential for free, if you work hard for it*. Paying to skip grind is fine with me. Paying to get exclusive mechs with exclusive hardpoints is fine too, so long as they are not superior. But paying to get better equipment, no matter how minute a difference, is not fair in my opinion.

I define "pay-to-win" as any premium equipment that is more optimal than than free-earned equipment. Such as when the Oxide was the best light in the game for a long time, or the Dragon Slayer, or how the Jade Kite presently gives you an omnipod that turns the UAC2 dial up from 9 to 10 (and UAC2s are actually competitive right now), or how the Purifier is the best midrange light in the game right now, and can excel in 1v1s as well.


I define "overpowered" as mechs or equipment performing in the highest echelon, or significantly above average. For instance, the Night Gyr and HBK-IIC-A are presently overpowered - they are two of the strongest mechs in the game. I also consider the cERPPC overpowered, because it excels at long range, midrange, and even can quite readily defeat a brawl in organised play - it's a tier above every other weapon in the game, and certainly the most versatile.

El Bandito, on 08 April 2017 - 11:24 PM, said:

It is more of a pay to perform better. Which is still bad practice. I wouldn't be up in arms if only one or two of the new Clan heroes (for Wave 1 and 2) have such upgrades, but there were more than that. And there were already precendences with the Medusa, Pakhet, and Scorch.

BurningDesire, on 08 April 2017 - 11:40 PM, said:

Medusa is pay to play better???

Actually, the Medusa is one that turned out just fine. It's actually better to not take the Medusa arms, because they are large and fall off easily. The limit the chassis can actually run is 5 or 6 energy - any more than that it and doesn't really work on that particular mech, so tacking on extra hardpoints like the Medusa arms doesn't make it better. Unless somehow stacking micro lasers on it becomes meta in the future.

[Khobai]

pay2win is when people who spend money gain a clear advantage over people who dont spend money

Quote

I also think that applies to Pakhet and quite possibly Scorch as well. Damn, I can't actually think of any of the newer Clan chassis where the Hero is a strict upgrade from that base variants.

I dont think those are pay2win since you can buy a Kodiak3 with cbills and its better than Scorch. its not like Scorch is the ultimate assault mech. Far from it.

the only real pay2win example I can think of is the hellbringer hero getting an extra energy hardpoint over the cbill variants. it takes a top meta mech and makes it even better, and because its behind a paywall, its pay2win.

Edited by Khobai, 09 April 2017 - 12:21 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

To me "pay to win" literally means paying to have an advantage entirely unavailable to non paying players.

To this end it doesn't matter if it takes you a year to grind something, if it available to both paying and non paying parties in some way shape or form, it is not pay to win. The lengths of those grind times could be taken to the extent that it is virtually something non paying players would never achieve though, which is pretty close to making it p2w.

The only real examples of this I have seen in MWO are arguably the hardpoint locations of hero mechs/omnipods, but that depends if such things are available in a different capacity, and the more clear example (but less nefarious considering graphics etc), is camouflage paint loadouts that are only available for cash, if they actually worked to make it harder to detect mechs, which they in practice don't really, that would be a pay to win scenario as it would be a pretty large advantage only available to cash purchase.

[Shifty McSwift]

Overpowered to me is more a balance distinction. If you can compare two of what are supposed to be relatively the same things and one is clearly better in practice, it is over powered.

This comes up in MWO when you compare mechs of the same weight, class and even engine numbers, and one just performs better overall for no apparent reason at all, it is OP.

[Dogstar]

There's a lot of bogus tears with the pay to win accusations. Any game company that gives away all it's cool stuff to the people who spend the least amount of money and the most amount of resources (i.e. f2p grinders) is a company that will eventually crash and burn.

Crying about p2w is simply an attempt to get something for free, grinding for c-bills costs nothing but time, and for those with plenty of time the game is effectively free so anything offered for c-bills is also effectively free, this is one of the reasons PGI failed with the skill tree - they were offering huge refunds for players who did the most grinding and very little for those who paid real money.

So no, I don't think grind2win is a viable idea in f2p games and the people moaning about it need to pony up some actual cash and support the damn game rather than cruising along expecting to get everything for free.

[Snazzy Dragon]

The scorch and spirit bear are the best assault brawlers for solo and arguably group queue, and both are heroes

The atlas barely competes with structure quirks, but those only go so far and they don't contribute to firepower, but it does so with double weight SRMs, a bulky ac/20 that'll be critted out to hell every single game, and unfavorable speed profile when compared to the maraduer IIC's 85 tonner speed and the spirit bear's MASC

From another angle, at the other end of the spectrum, it's extremely difficult to do well in a kit fox without the purifier omni pods-- the straight up upgrade in the torso omni pods has always been considered a necessity for the chassis to do well, and now they have that, but it is paywalled behind the purifier hero

[LordNothing]

they really need a depreciation system though. some of these heroes arent worth the price they are asking, especially those at a lower position on the power creep hill. they actually gave away a free hero recently to anyone who completed an event. while i like the gridiron i didnt really see it as being any better than any other variant. i dont know if i approve of that kind of thing seeing how much ive spent on heroes (had i bought a gridiron prior id be pissed). but i dont mind old heros (and all old content) being made less expensive over time. as this game approaches shutdown those mechs are being reduced in value (the amount of time you have to enjoy them is finite). power creep reduces them as well, as do balance tweaks. they just end up getting neglected like all other mechs of similar release date.

more trickle mc sources would be nice. the only reliable infinite mc tree in the game seem to be available to people of a certain skill level and organizational ability. you do have the finite/unreliable sources like the ranking prizes and the events, but something that is always available would help a lot. it might be to the point where playing a month or two nets you a mech bay. perhaps even paying out 1mc victory pay on any game where you are running premium time. with these you can make the case that none of the heroes are pay to win beyond their cash only introductory period, you can always say "put in your grind, would you like to buy a mech pack premium time?".

Edited by LordNothing, 09 April 2017 - 02:11 AM.

[Mystere]

My MWO-centric definition is "paywalled mechs that take the 1st to 5th places in a 24-way or larger no-holds-barred last-player-standing winner-takes-all free-for-all championship Solaris VII event". As such, a Solaris VII mode cannot come soon enough.

Using team-based settings is not appropriate unless the dominating teams are entirely made up of paywalled mechs.

Edited by Mystere, 09 April 2017 - 04:55 AM.

[Pixel Hunter]

I would say there are two definitions of P2W:

One is a player who has bypassed said "grind" to acquire reasonably attainable yet powerful equipment in game by paying money

Or:

Powerful equipment that is unreasonably difficult to obtain via free skill based means

[Jay Leon Hart]

"Pay-2-Win"

"An item/perk/what-have-you that is only available for real £££ or a premium currency that you can not earn in game (via regular quests, dailies, trading etc.) and is better than the alternatives"

As an example case, the Hero Gargoyle's torsos with Missile hard points are Pay-2-Win, as weapons > no weapons.

They can not be "earned" in the sense that any MC prizes are entirely random and never guaranteed to be available when you are able to play. As such, any MC acquired this way should not be considered a way to negate the Pay-2-Win status of any item.

[Mystere]

Jay Leon Hart, on 09 April 2017 - 06:08 AM, said:

As an example case, the Hero Gargoyle's torsos with Missile hard points are Pay-2-Win, as weapons > no weapons.

And herein lies the rub. If the game only had Gargoyles, then I would agree with you. But, there are Mechs better than a Gargoyle.

Edited by Mystere, 09 April 2017 - 06:39 AM.

[Tribal556]

well, they have to make money somehow (offfer things worth buying), and a bit of powercreep is something too.
anyway, soloing can't do so much, it s a team game, so i guess it's ok,

perhaps p2w could be a problem at high level, but generally people loose more because of bad coordination than weak mechs

Edited by Tribal556, 09 April 2017 - 06:37 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Mystere, on 09 April 2017 - 06:17 AM, said:

And herein lies the rub. If the game only had Gargoyles, then I would agree with you. But, there are Mechs better than a Gargoyle.

Which is entirely besides the point, as there are also 'mechs worse than the Gargoyle and these new options only improve the Gargoyle.

[Mystere]

Jay Leon Hart, on 09 April 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

Which is entirely besides the point, as there are also 'mechs worse than the Gargoyle and these new options only improve the Gargoyle.

But that is my stand on the issue.