Good points. The biggest argument against pay to win that I never hear is the fact that the smaller and cheaper fighters almost always have the ability to control the terms of the engagement - they can usually avoid a fight if they want to. When that's the case, I have a hard time accepting any pay to win argument...
As much as people seem to hate the word, this is why the game needs to have skill at it's core. If you can buy the best ship but can't fly with any skill then the game can't really be p2w. In current tunings that is an issue because just never push and you can just move the nose to win. Hopefully they get there.
My hope, is that when the game is in a 'releasable' state and SQ42 has been released, which will hopefully alleviate the insatiable need for funding, they offer Special edition powerful 'Meta's' you can buy and at the same time an equal and equivalent variant that can only be unlocked through 'grinding' or completing difficult, skill based, in-game tasks. I think that if they were to try that now, the in-game task wouldn't be possible to complete due to the game being very unstable. Thats my rose tinted hope anyway. A perfect game gives room for both 'Pay to win' and 'achieve to win'.
Tbh I would adore some skill based ships to unlock, or rep grinds (but these are dull AF). Once the game is more solid, give me x amount of missions to complete specific tasks, that would be very fun!
@exodus2oo not saying it will end, like any modern game they will always have a store. I just think it won't be such a big focus as it is now and they could offer more in-game reward options as there won't be such a large need for development funding.
All donations are for the games creation. CIG can make the game with no pledge ships and just insurance once you earn it. Make no mistake, they can remake the way we play however works best for the game. Read the agreement, they can make any changes.
I think that yes, patch to patch there is a pay to 'win' element to the ship sales. That's just good business tbf. As others have said, it gets patched and problem solved till the next latest and greatest is out. But long term (and I only ever try to think that way with SC) is that anyone that wants to get involved with the bigger ships just has to join a crew/org and they can be a part of everything that a whale can do. You know what it's like in an org, how many extra seats on capital ships are there out there? In my own we cannot crew all of the important ships and have ships to spare, I have a guy that has purchased an entire carrier strike group to supply whoever he is with. So to sum up it's probably pay to win if you insist on being solo and if part of an org probably not. Good video chief!
You have, intentionally or otherwise, made a realy good case for not pledging for PvP purposes. Some will cry heresy and call for me to be found floating face down but your own remarks about the F8 and the subsequent nerft, seeing the Gladius being ther Sq42 hero ship menaing it will always get the love does suggest to me that looking for thge meta combat ship is a mug's game that CIG can play very well indeed.
It was somewhat intentional xD my background in star citizen it all PVP combat based, and I'm sure it's shown in my opinions. Pay to win is also in other areas, but I wanted to talk about the bits that I know. Buying PvP ships is like entering a roulette wheel every patch. Buy a ship for it's looks, nothing else is set in stone.
TBF - With just a little critical thinking, it was quite obvious that the F8 was insanely OP by just looking at the paper stats. I think that issue is more of a "Stop releasing over tuned ships" than "the game is P2W". As far as the Gladius goes - I don't think its fair to say its P2W because they update that ship first - as we are still in an alpha game, and those type of changes are expected. FWIW - They have mentioned multiple times that buying ships for real world cash is not going to be a thing in full release.
@jeffrbake that "little critical thinking" is the kicker though. The (cynic mode on) marketing folk rely on an "ooh shiny" factor and a similar "all other numbers are rookie numbers" element, and it clearly works 😀
You may be able to buy a capital ship for real money. But the real kicker is realizing that life is the king of P2W. Because you could in fact pay people to be your friend and crew the ship with you.
This is the best rational video about this I've seen so far. It's a fair view in the subject. I will ask people one question when it comes to trying to call SC P2W... what's the difference to somebody who comes into this game new and you fight somebody else in a fancy fighter in your starter ship? To them the other person has the advantage and they would probably be right. However this new player has no idea if you paid for that ship in game or with real money. Does that even matter to them? If they bought it with in game money is that not p2w then? You might be quick to say no.. but then why is it p2w if they did? This new guy still is at the same disadvantage as before. The argument is irrelevant because it's the same temporary disadvantage either way. Now if they are like, damn, I need that ship that person has to even the playing field! Then they find out they cannot buy that ship in game... like ever. That is where you might consider that p2w. Yes I'm agreeing with the video creator about that. It's a valid well thought out opinion to have. I dunno if that truly p2w or not at this point because with ships like the F8C you can get other ships in game that are just as powerful in that category. Plus you will be able to earn it in sq42 to have it in SC down the road. So that's up for debate. The F7A on the other hand is harder for me to argue that it's not P2W. Not sure why CIG ever made this available to us at all. Originally it was only suppose to be a skin and it would otherwise just be the same F7C wex always had. But they changed that. If they just decided to sell the "look" of the newer F7A mk2 to people so everyone could get that it would of been fine. The fact they sold the actual F7A mk2 with all the weapons upgraded and have zero way to get it in game, well that's a different story.
Everything that gives you a mechanical or a stat advantage is p2w. The fact that a ship bought in game can’t be LTI or with an X months amount of insurance this is a mechanical advantage, then it’s ptw. If both got destroyed at the same time and have to reclaim the ship to get as soon as possible back in combat the cash ship will be in an advantage position over the in game earned one
@GUNJOEXD disagree. A temporary advantage, I.E. one you can over come with time, is not p2w. There's no difference between somebody having it in game because they bought the ship in game vs with money. It's the exact same advantage. To the other person there's no difference. So then what's the real difference between those two ways of getting that advantage? Time. That's pay for convenience. Not p2w. You want to start talking about the F7A being p2w i would be inclined to agree with you. All the other regular ships that you can buy in game? NOT p2w. Also insurance has nothing to do with it. You don't get it back any faster if your paid real money or not. You both still have to pay for it to expedite it. The only difference is LTI won't have to pay the very inexpensive fee for insurance. This fee isn't even in the game yet. Everyone right now effectively has LTI until the game releases. There is zero advantage. Not every ship comes with LTI. If you really feel like you need LTI (which in the long term won't even help much) you can easily get a ship with LTI and upgrade it into another ship and it keeps the LTI. LTI is mostly a gimmick from CIG to sell ships.
I personally don't think PvP is pay to win. A good pilot in a starter ship (aurora or mustang) can easily outfly and beat a lower skill level player in a dogfight even if the lower skill player is in a top of the line "meta" fighter, as PvP requires balancing ship power distribution, decoupled mode and a host of other things in the fight that just having a good ship won't allow someone to do. Now yes if you put two equally skilled pilots in the same scenario, starter ship vs meta fighter, the meta fighter would win. But to me in order for something to be pay to win the thing you spend money on needs to severely blur or fully erase skill gap, and I feel at most fighters like the F7A mkII only slightly blur that line and in the end skill, practice and understanding game mechanics still trump how much someone spends on a ship. (also a side note, the two "meta" PvP fighters I see most PvP pilots use, the arrow and the gladius, are two of the cheapest ships on the store)
The F-8 and F7A are good examples. Moreso the F-8 because I think you will be able to kit out an F-7C to be basically the same thing if they have the turrets available somewhere. I guess I would also counter, though debatable of course given the time to build this game, that this isn't "the game". This is alpha and after launch the F-8 is supposed to be available to anyone that completes SQ-42 and likely the F-7A will have a similar gate. CIG has said some ships, armor and weapons will be gated in game behind rep so the shit combat player who mostly hauls cargo will never have that shiny fighter to look at in their hangar because they can't complete the mission chain. Or the coolest armor in game might be tied to a criminal organization and some player's morals and rep with other orgs prevent them from earning it. I guess I have less problem with P2W who apparently live in their parents basement and play 12 hours a day with much bigger fleets than my purchased one. Should we limit the progression of grinders to let the underpaid and overworked space dads catch up? Nobody ever talks about that one. I guess I have less problem with this game than like world of tanks where simply fielding a competitive vehicle in a competitive game takes either massive amounts of grinding or cash.
P2W is not about the game: Its about the hardware. With my 1500Eur Laptop, I'll never win against a cheap AvengerTitan on a 4000Eur desktop PC. P2W is about the hardware... For PvP, there is always P2W. Play chess to avoid that.
Yeah its toally pay to win. *nukes a hammerhead with 7 people on board with my stealth bomber that costs less than half the hammerhead.* Or *buys a $300 heavy fighter but gets dunked on by a pvp chad in a razor like 1/3rd the cost of an F8* Star citizen is seemingly or is a rock, paper, scissors combat set up. If you bring a Mirai Fury to fight a hammerhead and you get pooped on. Yeah, you deserved it. I hate that the games flight model isnt solid yet because things will keep changing and just eh....
Pretty much. Imo the balance is off in favor of the cheaper stuff... big time off. I like the idea of all ships having a weakness that can be exploited and poor match-ups, but at the end of the day, if a ship always gets roasted by ships 1/4 the price with 1/6 the crew.... why bother?
Lol id want to pay only 300 euros for that freakin F8C It Is still overpowered but now only Way to get it is to pay 10 000 euros xD scammy AF its Way not worth that much
This is a real moronic take. Every ship is OP in its first introduction to the verse, just because balancing ain't easy. Right the next patch it is nerfed, like every other ship. Is your argument really it's pay to win for one patch? Furthermore, I would argue the FS9 is and has been OP all the time. Even with nerf now it's still arguably better than any shotgun. You can argue p2w in regards to single game loops as in salvage, mining, general fighting or cargo trading and upcoming hauling, cause for each buying a higher priced ship skipped your grind to while the ship itself provides a real advantage for the specific loop. But other than this point I can't see it.
Considering all you need is $45 to get in and have a chance at either stealing or crewing the "pay to win" ships i would only say its something on pay to skip not win. You talk as though everything you do will be solo, that YOU need to own said ships, as though it would be any kind of difficult to find an org with a few good ships that they will either let you borrow or crew up in. Yes the f8c was powerful but you know what beat it? Just about anything more agile than it. The only option it had was to scoot away at 1337 speed and that was about it
Win what. Skip a grind then sure. Win a salvage or mining? There are no PvP contests to win or PvE raids/dungeons. Seen people in the cheapest ships dominate bigger ships and when engineering comes in? Good luck soloing anything
Simply saying that tells me one of two things. You either are ignorant or you're a troll. This has nothing to do with your opinion of it being P2W but that you are still calling it scam citizen. You can have the opinion that it's P2W but it's very very obvious that it is not a scam. If you are going to try and say it's a scam because of buying ships well that's where you would be mistaken. You can buy nearly all ships in game. You do not need to spend a lot of money whatsoever. You can call it P2W if you want to think that sure but that does not make it a scam. You don't actually develop a game to this extent to scam people. Taking people's money then turning around and spending the money to develop said game is just called making a game and selling it to people.
The short answer is no. It’s not pay to win. It’s pay to rush. Much like warframe
Good points. The biggest argument against pay to win that I never hear is the fact that the smaller and cheaper fighters almost always have the ability to control the terms of the engagement - they can usually avoid a fight if they want to. When that's the case, I have a hard time accepting any pay to win argument...
As much as people seem to hate the word, this is why the game needs to have skill at it's core. If you can buy the best ship but can't fly with any skill then the game can't really be p2w. In current tunings that is an issue because just never push and you can just move the nose to win. Hopefully they get there.
Amen...you can't buy skill and experience.
My hope, is that when the game is in a 'releasable' state and SQ42 has been released, which will hopefully alleviate the insatiable need for funding, they offer Special edition powerful 'Meta's' you can buy and at the same time an equal and equivalent variant that can only be unlocked through 'grinding' or completing difficult, skill based, in-game tasks. I think that if they were to try that now, the in-game task wouldn't be possible to complete due to the game being very unstable. Thats my rose tinted hope anyway. A perfect game gives room for both 'Pay to win' and 'achieve to win'.
Tbh I would adore some skill based ships to unlock, or rep grinds (but these are dull AF).
Once the game is more solid, give me x amount of missions to complete specific tasks, that would be very fun!
The selling of ships with real cash will never end mate
@exodus2oo not saying it will end, like any modern game they will always have a store. I just think it won't be such a big focus as it is now and they could offer more in-game reward options as there won't be such a large need for development funding.
non sequitur ....you die in the tram ride together rich and poor, then respawn and fall through the planet together
All donations are for the games creation. CIG can make the game with no pledge ships and just insurance once you earn it.
Make no mistake, they can remake the way we play however works best for the game. Read the agreement, they can make any changes.
I think that yes, patch to patch there is a pay to 'win' element to the ship sales. That's just good business tbf. As others have said, it gets patched and problem solved till the next latest and greatest is out. But long term (and I only ever try to think that way with SC) is that anyone that wants to get involved with the bigger ships just has to join a crew/org and they can be a part of everything that a whale can do. You know what it's like in an org, how many extra seats on capital ships are there out there? In my own we cannot crew all of the important ships and have ships to spare, I have a guy that has purchased an entire carrier strike group to supply whoever he is with. So to sum up it's probably pay to win if you insist on being solo and if part of an org probably not. Good video chief!
You have, intentionally or otherwise, made a realy good case for not pledging for PvP purposes. Some will cry heresy and call for me to be found floating face down but your own remarks about the F8 and the subsequent nerft, seeing the Gladius being ther Sq42 hero ship menaing it will always get the love does suggest to me that looking for thge meta combat ship is a mug's game that CIG can play very well indeed.
It was somewhat intentional xD my background in star citizen it all PVP combat based, and I'm sure it's shown in my opinions. Pay to win is also in other areas, but I wanted to talk about the bits that I know.
Buying PvP ships is like entering a roulette wheel every patch. Buy a ship for it's looks, nothing else is set in stone.
TBF - With just a little critical thinking, it was quite obvious that the F8 was insanely OP by just looking at the paper stats.
I think that issue is more of a "Stop releasing over tuned ships" than "the game is P2W".
As far as the Gladius goes - I don't think its fair to say its P2W because they update that ship first - as we are still in an alpha game, and those type of changes are expected.
FWIW - They have mentioned multiple times that buying ships for real world cash is not going to be a thing in full release.
@jeffrbake that "little critical thinking" is the kicker though. The (cynic mode on) marketing folk rely on an "ooh shiny" factor and a similar "all other numbers are rookie numbers" element, and it clearly works 😀
@@andrewfanner2245 but that isn't pay to win. That's just shady marketing I would think.
@jeffrbake but the punters think its ptw...
You may be able to buy a capital ship for real money. But the real kicker is realizing that life is the king of P2W.
Because you could in fact pay people to be your friend and crew the ship with you.
This is the best rational video about this I've seen so far. It's a fair view in the subject.
I will ask people one question when it comes to trying to call SC P2W... what's the difference to somebody who comes into this game new and you fight somebody else in a fancy fighter in your starter ship? To them the other person has the advantage and they would probably be right. However this new player has no idea if you paid for that ship in game or with real money. Does that even matter to them? If they bought it with in game money is that not p2w then? You might be quick to say no.. but then why is it p2w if they did? This new guy still is at the same disadvantage as before. The argument is irrelevant because it's the same temporary disadvantage either way.
Now if they are like, damn, I need that ship that person has to even the playing field! Then they find out they cannot buy that ship in game... like ever. That is where you might consider that p2w.
Yes I'm agreeing with the video creator about that. It's a valid well thought out opinion to have. I dunno if that truly p2w or not at this point because with ships like the F8C you can get other ships in game that are just as powerful in that category. Plus you will be able to earn it in sq42 to have it in SC down the road. So that's up for debate.
The F7A on the other hand is harder for me to argue that it's not P2W. Not sure why CIG ever made this available to us at all. Originally it was only suppose to be a skin and it would otherwise just be the same F7C wex always had. But they changed that. If they just decided to sell the "look" of the newer F7A mk2 to people so everyone could get that it would of been fine. The fact they sold the actual F7A mk2 with all the weapons upgraded and have zero way to get it in game, well that's a different story.
Everything that gives you a mechanical or a stat advantage is p2w. The fact that a ship bought in game can’t be LTI or with an X months amount of insurance this is a mechanical advantage, then it’s ptw. If both got destroyed at the same time and have to reclaim the ship to get as soon as possible back in combat the cash ship will be in an advantage position over the in game earned one
@GUNJOEXD disagree. A temporary advantage, I.E. one you can over come with time, is not p2w. There's no difference between somebody having it in game because they bought the ship in game vs with money. It's the exact same advantage. To the other person there's no difference.
So then what's the real difference between those two ways of getting that advantage? Time. That's pay for convenience. Not p2w.
You want to start talking about the F7A being p2w i would be inclined to agree with you. All the other regular ships that you can buy in game? NOT p2w.
Also insurance has nothing to do with it. You don't get it back any faster if your paid real money or not. You both still have to pay for it to expedite it. The only difference is LTI won't have to pay the very inexpensive fee for insurance. This fee isn't even in the game yet. Everyone right now effectively has LTI until the game releases. There is zero advantage. Not every ship comes with LTI. If you really feel like you need LTI (which in the long term won't even help much) you can easily get a ship with LTI and upgrade it into another ship and it keeps the LTI. LTI is mostly a gimmick from CIG to sell ships.
I personally don't think PvP is pay to win. A good pilot in a starter ship (aurora or mustang) can easily outfly and beat a lower skill level player in a dogfight even if the lower skill player is in a top of the line "meta" fighter, as PvP requires balancing ship power distribution, decoupled mode and a host of other things in the fight that just having a good ship won't allow someone to do.
Now yes if you put two equally skilled pilots in the same scenario, starter ship vs meta fighter, the meta fighter would win. But to me in order for something to be pay to win the thing you spend money on needs to severely blur or fully erase skill gap, and I feel at most fighters like the F7A mkII only slightly blur that line and in the end skill, practice and understanding game mechanics still trump how much someone spends on a ship.
(also a side note, the two "meta" PvP fighters I see most PvP pilots use, the arrow and the gladius, are two of the cheapest ships on the store)
Great content
The F-8 and F7A are good examples. Moreso the F-8 because I think you will be able to kit out an F-7C to be basically the same thing if they have the turrets available somewhere. I guess I would also counter, though debatable of course given the time to build this game, that this isn't "the game". This is alpha and after launch the F-8 is supposed to be available to anyone that completes SQ-42 and likely the F-7A will have a similar gate. CIG has said some ships, armor and weapons will be gated in game behind rep so the shit combat player who mostly hauls cargo will never have that shiny fighter to look at in their hangar because they can't complete the mission chain. Or the coolest armor in game might be tied to a criminal organization and some player's morals and rep with other orgs prevent them from earning it. I guess I have less problem with P2W who apparently live in their parents basement and play 12 hours a day with much bigger fleets than my purchased one. Should we limit the progression of grinders to let the underpaid and overworked space dads catch up? Nobody ever talks about that one. I guess I have less problem with this game than like world of tanks where simply fielding a competitive vehicle in a competitive game takes either massive amounts of grinding or cash.
if you had to make a video about it and discuss, make tradeoffs then its pay to win
Best youtuber ❤
Its certainly pay to ben! Or uhm... Something... Dunno where i am going with this to be fair.
Haha it's a really tricky area, but I think there are certainly some clear PTW areas.
P2W is not about the game: Its about the hardware. With my 1500Eur Laptop, I'll never win against a cheap AvengerTitan on a 4000Eur desktop PC. P2W is about the hardware... For PvP, there is always P2W. Play chess to avoid that.
Yeah its toally pay to win.
*nukes a hammerhead with 7 people on board with my stealth bomber that costs less than half the hammerhead.*
Or
*buys a $300 heavy fighter but gets dunked on by a pvp chad in a razor like 1/3rd the cost of an F8*
Star citizen is seemingly or is a rock, paper, scissors combat set up.
If you bring a Mirai Fury to fight a hammerhead and you get pooped on.
Yeah, you deserved it.
I hate that the games flight model isnt solid yet because things will keep changing and just eh....
Pretty much. Imo the balance is off in favor of the cheaper stuff... big time off. I like the idea of all ships having a weakness that can be exploited and poor match-ups, but at the end of the day, if a ship always gets roasted by ships 1/4 the price with 1/6 the crew.... why bother?
@@Hokie2k11 Like I said, that Ship A, that gets countered by ship B, Ship A will counter ship C.
So yeah Rock/paper/scissors.
Lol id want to pay only 300 euros for that freakin F8C It Is still overpowered but now only Way to get it is to pay 10 000 euros xD scammy AF its Way not worth that much
This is a real moronic take.
Every ship is OP in its first introduction to the verse, just because balancing ain't easy. Right the next patch it is nerfed, like every other ship.
Is your argument really it's pay to win for one patch?
Furthermore, I would argue the FS9 is and has been OP all the time. Even with nerf now it's still arguably better than any shotgun.
You can argue p2w in regards to single game loops as in salvage, mining, general fighting or cargo trading and upcoming hauling, cause for each buying a higher priced ship skipped your grind to while the ship itself provides a real advantage for the specific loop.
But other than this point I can't see it.
Considering all you need is $45 to get in and have a chance at either stealing or crewing the "pay to win" ships i would only say its something on pay to skip not win.
You talk as though everything you do will be solo, that YOU need to own said ships, as though it would be any kind of difficult to find an org with a few good ships that they will either let you borrow or crew up in.
Yes the f8c was powerful but you know what beat it? Just about anything more agile than it. The only option it had was to scoot away at 1337 speed and that was about it
There is no pay to win. LOL. What is there to win??? It is pay to save a person time.
Win what. Skip a grind then sure. Win a salvage or mining? There are no PvP contests to win or PvE raids/dungeons. Seen people in the cheapest ships dominate bigger ships and when engineering comes in? Good luck soloing anything
yes scam zitizen is p2w.
Simply saying that tells me one of two things. You either are ignorant or you're a troll. This has nothing to do with your opinion of it being P2W but that you are still calling it scam citizen. You can have the opinion that it's P2W but it's very very obvious that it is not a scam. If you are going to try and say it's a scam because of buying ships well that's where you would be mistaken.
You can buy nearly all ships in game. You do not need to spend a lot of money whatsoever. You can call it P2W if you want to think that sure but that does not make it a scam. You don't actually develop a game to this extent to scam people. Taking people's money then turning around and spending the money to develop said game is just called making a game and selling it to people.