My thoughts on F2P vs P2P. (Long and Detailed)

InternetSwag

Hey guys, I'm not as eloquent as Naecabon or Qeltar, but I have some thoughts I'd like to share regarding F2P vs P2P and its implementation in this game.

Traditionally in 'freemium' games you can pay for a number of things, whether it's a hero, cosmetic items, skins, in game currency, etc, there's a lot you can buy - but one thing that you generally can't buy, is an outright 'advantage' over your opponent. Yeah sure you can get stuff faster, you can have more, but you're never gonna see Hearthstone offer you an option to make your card better than someone elses. So why does this game?

Now in the past I was very satisfied with this game's implementation of P2P, but it seems that lately it is derailing into something different.

In the past you essentially had options to pay for;

• Character Shards
• Full Unlocks
• Credits
• Training Droids
• Occasional Bundles

Now all of these fall into what can be expected from a traditional, successful, well balanced freemium game. In league of legends you pay for RP, meaning your friends cry while you play the new hero, unless they grinded currency.
So a paying player has a bigger roster, they get characters faster and they generally have more fun. That in itself is already a big advantage in a game with such a fast evolving meta. The game is 6 months old? The meta has changed what, 5 times since then? I wasn't around at launch but I've been told it went like this; Bariss Meta, Sid Lead Meta, Poe Meta, Speed Meta, Dodge Meta, Current Meta.
That's a huge shift every time for all players. So being able to buy those characters and immediately adapt is a huge advantage - just ask anyone who is F2P how many meta characters they've just maxed or almost maxed just for the meta to shift leaving them with a subpar roster.

Now imo that is all fair and standard practice, but lately the lines are blurring.

Currently being a spender will grant you;

• Omega Mats (Refreshing the Omega Event)
• Reaching Level 80 weeks before anyone else. This is concerning because you get 1 Omega mat per day before anyone that is F2P can even attain one so it's entirely possible for someone at level 77 to be facing a full Omega team.
• Precrafted Gear (to an extent, but this has been discussed to death so I'm not going over it).
• Buying Gear. This is a big one, they've blocked all feasible paths to said precraftable gear, then opened it with a 'paywall'. This means that you can literally now take out your wallet and have a statistical advantage over your opponent.
• The Guild Shop Gear (?) This one is just terrible for everyone, but it naturally benefits large, powerful guilds in general as they attain more currency.

Let me ask you something, if this game had live PVP battles, would you be so accepting of the fact that your opponents toon has 4k more protection? How about 4k+ per character? In fact the only redeeming factor is the AI that is so terrible. That is the only reason you accept it, is because you can still win - and quite frankly that's a terrible mindset to have.

Can you imagine playing Dota and your enemy just outright has better stats and abilities than you? Would you put up with it? No. So why do it here?

Overall I feel like the long term goal for CG/EA is going to be damaging to both F2P and P2P. They're just going to find more ways to introduce paywalls and slow down the progression for the sake of profiting off of it when the players won't quit because they are already so invested in this game that they don't want to leave.

Well, those are just my scattered thoughts.

Disclaimer: I'm not hating on paying players at all and I never will. My issue is with the implementation of these advantages and what the future holds.

What I don't want as a response to this is, 'omg hurr OP I finish rank 1 and I'm f2p durr'. Yes, you can attain rank 1 as F2P, congratulations, I myself and many others have, that's not the point though.

Thanks for reading.

VeeDee

I agree with you.....

Kopfschuss

I appreciate your posts, so I read through this in its entirety. I think people are jumping the gun on the F2P vs P2P because the level cap was EXTREMELY extended the way they implemented the xp. Instead of letting the dust settle after a few weeks, we need to wait a few months for it to settle. It takes an extreme amount of time to go 70-80, and less than 1% have even done so already. The 70 cap was overall decent, and I was able to get around 6-7 characters maxed during that time. We will hit 80 and allow our characters to catch up. It seems like I'm getting to 6* on a new character every week. We only need to do it once!

Eventually our roster will fill up and we can bounce around with the meta. It's just too early and the dust hasn't settled from the big upgrade!

DelmonYoung

I agree entirely with this. Every move since the protection update has driven a wedge further and further between the F2P and P2W.

Al_Tiz

Yeah you just have to be grateful for the cap. The longer you've been playing this game the better off you will be and that's the best way to remain p2p and competitive. Just manage resources wisely, pick investments prudently, and make the best of what you've got.

I know when I hit 80 I'll be able to unlock and lv so many more characters because the rate at which you can gather resources increases with player level, the overall effect being a deepening of your roster. I find being f2p in this game very enjoyable and not overly challenging but that's mainly because I'm in a December shard, and most are f2p as well.

thecuriousocelot

Great post swag, you were v eloquent

I think you're spot on about how buying gear has essentially created the first paywall in the game - even if it is a poorly designed one based on rng. Qeltar posted something about this the other day - EA have put themselves in something of a bind. Starring and levelling toons functioned both as a major source of income and a way to slow progression, but it was/is too quick and easy. With those options no longer available, adding gear and charging for it is the only way forward. I'd love for them to change this as a ftp, but I doubt it'll be possible. I hope, at least, that they increase gear drop rates from raids to make the gap less noticeable.

I'm not convinced the omega abilities have opened up that noticeable a gap over ftp yet - lvl 8 abilities are great for some toons, but not all. Omega events and levelling up to 80 sooner will of course give ptp a slight edge in collecting more, but like you said, quicker progression is meant to be one of the advantages for ptp. I'm generally not too fussed about this...

One last thing about gear... I think the worst part of gear is that noone likes it. Gear has nothing to do with SW and is just a boring distraction from what people actually like doing - collecting characters. I mean, who ever walked out of a SW film thinking 'wow Leia's MK 5 droid caller was so cool!' Anyway, buying chromiums and buying gear is in some respects no different. Both confer an advantage. But starring and collecting toons is just so much more fun. A star is gold, shiny and positive! Gear is boring AF. In my mind, EA/CG missed a trick: I reckon people would have been happier splashing out more over a longer period to get toons to 10*, 12 *, etc... My 2 cents

pac0naut

Excellent thoughts swag. +1.

Baldo

InternetSwag wrote: »

Hey guys, I'm not as eloquent as Naecabon or Qeltar, but I have some thoughts I'd like to share regarding F2P vs P2P and its implementation in this game.

Traditionally in 'freemium' games you can pay for a number of things, whether it's a hero, cosmetic items, skins, in game currency, etc, there's a lot you can buy - but one thing that you generally can't buy, is an outright 'advantage' over your opponent. Yeah sure you can get stuff faster, you can have more, but you're never gonna see Hearthstone offer you an option to make your card better than someone elses. So why does this game?

Now in the past I was very satisfied with this game's implementation of P2P, but it seems that lately it is derailing into something different.

In the past you essentially had options to pay for;

• Character Shards
• Full Unlocks
• Credits
• Training Droids
• Occasional Bundles

Now all of these fall into what can be expected from a traditional, successful, well balanced freemium game. In league of legends you pay for RP, meaning your friends cry while you play the new hero, unless they grinded currency.
So a paying player has a bigger roster, they get characters faster and they generally have more fun. That in itself is already a big advantage in a game with such a fast evolving meta. The game is 6 months old? The meta has changed what, 5 times since then? I wasn't around at launch but I've been told it went like this; Bariss Meta, Sid Lead Meta, Poe Meta, Speed Meta, Dodge Meta, Current Meta.
That's a huge shift every time for all players. So being able to buy those characters and immediately adapt is a huge advantage - just ask anyone who is F2P how many meta characters they've just maxed or almost maxed just for the meta to shift leaving them with a subpar roster.

Now imo that is all fair and standard practice, but lately the lines are blurring.

Currently being a spender will grant you;

• Omega Mats (Refreshing the Omega Event)
• Reaching Level 80 weeks before anyone else. This is concerning because you get 1 Omega mat per day before anyone that is F2P can even attain one so it's entirely possible for someone at level 77 to be facing a full Omega team.
• Precrafted Gear (to an extent, but this has been discussed to death so I'm not going over it).
• Buying Gear. This is a big one, they've blocked all feasible paths to said precraftable gear, then opened it with a 'paywall'. This means that you can literally now take out your wallet and have a statistical advantage over your opponent.
• The Guild Shop Gear (?) This one is just terrible for everyone, but it naturally benefits large, powerful guilds in general as they attain more currency.

Let me ask you something, if this game had live PVP battles, would you be so accepting of the fact that your opponents toon has 4k more protection? How about 4k+ per character? In fact the only redeeming factor is the AI that is so terrible. That is the only reason you accept it, is because you can still win - and quite frankly that's a terrible mindset to have.

Can you imagine playing Dota and your enemy just outright has better stats and abilities than you? Would you put up with it? No. So why do it here?

Overall I feel like the long term goal for CG/EA is going to be damaging to both F2P and P2P. They're just going to find more ways to introduce paywalls and slow down the progression for the sake of profiting off of it when the players won't quit because they are already so invested in this game that they don't want to leave.

Well, those are just my scattered thoughts.

Disclaimer: I'm not hating on paying players at all and I never will. My issue is with the implementation of these advantages and what the future holds.

What I don't want as a response to this is, 'omg hurr OP I finish rank 1 and I'm f2p durr'. Yes, you can attain rank 1 as F2P, congratulations, I myself and many others have, that's not the point though.

Thanks for reading.

@InternetSwag +8,250=25 GREAT post!

Mithrawnuodo

Very well put @InternetSwag .
I'm pay to play, sort of. Lol. Not a whale, but willing and have dropped some money in, and I both see where you're coming from, and completely agree. I've also seen another Star Wars game basically make the same type of mistakes... and hope EA figures it out far quicker than their competitor has.

Greg1920

I compare to supercell like clash and clash royal. You can't even break into the top tier without paying. So this game even post unobtaniums has been very FTP friendly.

I'm not sure though that if you started today it would be the same. And the key change was furnaces being available in the shop. Now it takes an extra 50 days to get to the level cap which increases the gap between FTP and PTP. Without that pits stop to catch up at 70 I would have been restricted to top 50 maybe top 20. Being stuck outside the top 5 does not allow you to accumulate crystals to purchase furnaces. Also with the unfaarmable gear you need to be able to do heroic to accumulate it. Again without the pause FTP will be a long way off.

All that said the leader board and rewards of premium currency and shards are still far more FTP friendly then any other freemium phone game. I will be in a guild that will be doing heroic shortly and I've spent $5 to play this game. Just adding single nodes of gear with say 10% drop rate and get it out of shipments would be enough. I think people also mistake the precrafting being a whale thing. I had 3 droid callers and 1 of the Nubians pre crafted so it was an awareness thing not an PTW thing.

medetec

Strongly agree. There are tons of ways to make free to play games both player friendly AND profitable... it's not necessary to choose one. Extra Credits have done a few great episodes on F2P games and this is one of my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U

Nate_Puppy

thecuriousocelot wrote: »

Great post swag, you were v eloquent

I think you're spot on about how buying gear has essentially created the first paywall in the game - even if it is a poorly designed one based on rng. Qeltar posted something about this the other day - EA have put themselves in something of a bind. Starring and levelling toons functioned both as a major source of income and a way to slow progression, but it was/is too quick and easy. With those options no longer available, adding gear and charging for it is the only way forward. I'd love for them to change this as a ftp, but I doubt it'll be possible. I hope, at least, that they increase gear drop rates from raids to make the gap less noticeable.

I'm not convinced the omega abilities have opened up that noticeable a gap over ftp yet - lvl 8 abilities are great for some toons, but not all. Omega events and levelling up to 80 sooner will of course give ptp a slight edge in collecting more, but like you said, quicker progression is meant to be one of the advantages for ptp. I'm generally not too fussed about this...

One last thing about gear... I think the worst part of gear is that noone likes it. Gear has nothing to do with SW and is just a boring distraction from what people actually like doing - collecting characters. I mean, who ever walked out of a SW film thinking 'wow Leia's MK 5 droid caller was so cool!' Anyway, buying chromiums and buying gear is in some respects no different. Both confer an advantage. But starring and collecting toons is just so much more fun. A star is gold, shiny and positive! Gear is boring AF. In my mind, EA/CG missed a trick: I reckon people would have been happier splashing out more over a longer period to get toons to 10*, 12 *, etc... My 2 cents

I love the last part of this post. I've not been playing as long as most, but to me it seems like the power of toon's is too heavily weighted to the gear, and not enough on the number of stars and level. Since gear is SO much harder to come by, wouldn't it make more sense to make gear less of an advantage. That would even the playing field more, while still allowing P2P an reward for their money.

And I've already invested $150-$200 in this game, and I think that if you're willing to spend money and support the game you should have an advantage. Just not as much as it seems to be at the moment.

dvl009

well this game is light years away from reaching the level of blizzard's game 4Head

InternetSwag

Al_Tiz wrote: »

Yeah you just have to be grateful for the cap. The longer you've been playing this game the better off you will be and that's the best way to remain p2p and competitive. Just manage resources wisely, pick investments prudently, and make the best of what you've got.

I know when I hit 80 I'll be able to unlock and lv so many more characters because the rate at which you can gather resources increases with player level, the overall effect being a deepening of your roster. I find being f2p in this game very enjoyable and not overly challenging but that's mainly because I'm in a December shard, and most are f2p as well.

Kopfschuss wrote: »

I appreciate your posts, so I read through this in its entirety. I think people are jumping the gun on the F2P vs P2P because the level cap was EXTREMELY extended the way they implemented the xp. Instead of letting the dust settle after a few weeks, we need to wait a few months for it to settle. It takes an extreme amount of time to go 70-80, and less than 1% have even done so already. The 70 cap was overall decent, and I was able to get around 6-7 characters maxed during that time. We will hit 80 and allow our characters to catch up. It seems like I'm getting to 6* on a new character every week. We only need to do it once!

Eventually our roster will fill up and we can bounce around with the meta. It's just too early and the dust hasn't settled from the big upgrade!

Thank you, I appreciate it.
I think you're right, the cap was still 10 levels but in terms of XP it was probably more like 20+. I truly do hope that they keep the cap at 80 for at least 3 months, but I know they won't.

Shard population definitely seems to influence your level of enjoyment, personally I like my shard and everyone on it. But if I were on a shard full of 'whales' then I'd be very sad to miss out on crystals and characters like Ackbar and Sidious etc.

InternetSwag

thecuriousocelot wrote: »

Great post swag, you were v eloquent

I think you're spot on about how buying gear has essentially created the first paywall in the game - even if it is a poorly designed one based on rng. Qeltar posted something about this the other day - EA have put themselves in something of a bind. Starring and levelling toons functioned both as a major source of income and a way to slow progression, but it was/is too quick and easy. With those options no longer available, adding gear and charging for it is the only way forward. I'd love for them to change this as a ftp, but I doubt it'll be possible. I hope, at least, that they increase gear drop rates from raids to make the gap less noticeable.

I'm not convinced the omega abilities have opened up that noticeable a gap over ftp yet - lvl 8 abilities are great for some toons, but not all. Omega events and levelling up to 80 sooner will of course give ptp a slight edge in collecting more, but like you said, quicker progression is meant to be one of the advantages for ptp. I'm generally not too fussed about this...

One last thing about gear... I think the worst part of gear is that noone likes it. Gear has nothing to do with SW and is just a boring distraction from what people actually like doing - collecting characters. I mean, who ever walked out of a SW film thinking 'wow Leia's MK 5 droid caller was so cool!' Anyway, buying chromiums and buying gear is in some respects no different. Both confer an advantage. But starring and collecting toons is just so much more fun. A star is gold, shiny and positive! Gear is boring AF. In my mind, EA/CG missed a trick: I reckon people would have been happier splashing out more over a longer period to get toons to 10*, 12 *, etc... My 2 cents

Lmao Leia's droid caller Too funny
Heh, well yeah Omega abilities aren't necessarily that OP, I was simply using it as an example to illustrate a 'what if this were live pvp' scenario (where the enemy has 5x Omega and gear+) and I didn't wanna leave anything out. The only Omega ability's, some are pretty cool, some are way better than a pure +5% damage (stares at Fives).

Yeah, gear is a boring upgrade, but almost essential now since it offers such a large improvement in protection.

InternetSwag

Baldo wrote: »

InternetSwag wrote: »

Hey guys, I'm not as eloquent as Naecabon or Qeltar, but I have some thoughts I'd like to share regarding F2P vs P2P and its implementation in this game.

Traditionally in 'freemium' games you can pay for a number of things, whether it's a hero, cosmetic items, skins, in game currency, etc, there's a lot you can buy - but one thing that you generally can't buy, is an outright 'advantage' over your opponent. Yeah sure you can get stuff faster, you can have more, but you're never gonna see Hearthstone offer you an option to make your card better than someone elses. So why does this game?

Now in the past I was very satisfied with this game's implementation of P2P, but it seems that lately it is derailing into something different.

In the past you essentially had options to pay for;

• Character Shards
• Full Unlocks
• Credits
• Training Droids
• Occasional Bundles

Now all of these fall into what can be expected from a traditional, successful, well balanced freemium game. In league of legends you pay for RP, meaning your friends cry while you play the new hero, unless they grinded currency.
So a paying player has a bigger roster, they get characters faster and they generally have more fun. That in itself is already a big advantage in a game with such a fast evolving meta. The game is 6 months old? The meta has changed what, 5 times since then? I wasn't around at launch but I've been told it went like this; Bariss Meta, Sid Lead Meta, Poe Meta, Speed Meta, Dodge Meta, Current Meta.
That's a huge shift every time for all players. So being able to buy those characters and immediately adapt is a huge advantage - just ask anyone who is F2P how many meta characters they've just maxed or almost maxed just for the meta to shift leaving them with a subpar roster.

Now imo that is all fair and standard practice, but lately the lines are blurring.

Currently being a spender will grant you;

• Omega Mats (Refreshing the Omega Event)
• Reaching Level 80 weeks before anyone else. This is concerning because you get 1 Omega mat per day before anyone that is F2P can even attain one so it's entirely possible for someone at level 77 to be facing a full Omega team.
• Precrafted Gear (to an extent, but this has been discussed to death so I'm not going over it).
• Buying Gear. This is a big one, they've blocked all feasible paths to said precraftable gear, then opened it with a 'paywall'. This means that you can literally now take out your wallet and have a statistical advantage over your opponent.
• The Guild Shop Gear (?) This one is just terrible for everyone, but it naturally benefits large, powerful guilds in general as they attain more currency.

Let me ask you something, if this game had live PVP battles, would you be so accepting of the fact that your opponents toon has 4k more protection? How about 4k+ per character? In fact the only redeeming factor is the AI that is so terrible. That is the only reason you accept it, is because you can still win - and quite frankly that's a terrible mindset to have.

Can you imagine playing Dota and your enemy just outright has better stats and abilities than you? Would you put up with it? No. So why do it here?

Overall I feel like the long term goal for CG/EA is going to be damaging to both F2P and P2P. They're just going to find more ways to introduce paywalls and slow down the progression for the sake of profiting off of it when the players won't quit because they are already so invested in this game that they don't want to leave.

Well, those are just my scattered thoughts.

Disclaimer: I'm not hating on paying players at all and I never will. My issue is with the implementation of these advantages and what the future holds.

What I don't want as a response to this is, 'omg hurr OP I finish rank 1 and I'm f2p durr'. Yes, you can attain rank 1 as F2P, congratulations, I myself and many others have, that's not the point though.

Thanks for reading.

@InternetSwag +8,250=25 GREAT post!

I see what you did there!

Snake2

Good post. I'm f2p but I don't have concerns about the gap between the two groups. Another f2p game I play a lot of is war thunder. In that game whales can buy planes that I have zero access to. These planes are always better statistically than the planes they are matched against. At least in this game I have access to every possible competitive option. Sure a whale can get the stuff much quicker, but you only need a few super strong characters to compete.

This isn't to say everything is ideal, but I still think it's better than other games.

InternetSwag

Mithrawnuodo wrote: »

Very well put @InternetSwag .
I'm pay to play, sort of. Lol. Not a whale, but willing and have dropped some money in, and I both see where you're coming from, and completely agree. I've also seen another Star Wars game basically make the same type of mistakes... and hope EA figures it out far quicker than their competitor has.

I'm happy that you can see both sides of the fence It's good when the two sides basically are a family and unite to see the problems facing the game currently.

Greg1920 wrote: »

I compare to supercell like clash and clash royal. You can't even break into the top tier without paying. So this game even post unobtaniums has been very FTP friendly.

I'm not sure though that if you started today it would be the same. And the key change was furnaces being available in the shop. Now it takes an extra 50 days to get to the level cap which increases the gap between FTP and PTP. Without that pits stop to catch up at 70 I would have been restricted to top 50 maybe top 20. Being stuck outside the top 5 does not allow you to accumulate crystals to purchase furnaces. Also with the unfaarmable gear you need to be able to do heroic to accumulate it. Again without the pause FTP will be a long way off.

All that said the leader board and rewards of premium currency and shards are still far more FTP friendly then any other freemium phone game. I will be in a guild that will be doing heroic shortly and I've spent $5 to play this game. Just adding single nodes of gear with say 10% drop rate and get it out of shipments would be enough. I think people also mistake the precrafting being a whale thing. I had 3 droid callers and 1 of the Nubians pre crafted so it was an awareness thing not an PTW thing.

Well, I precrafted too heh. 4 Droid Callers and nothing else (due to not having enough time to farm). If I were a whale or if I had just spent more money in general there's a good chance I already had some of the items or would have been able to do last minute farming better. But that's not really what I wanna discuss, precrafting is done and dusted - no more can come of it now

I've not played Clash Royal, so I can't speak about that particularly. But if it's live PVP this game would probably be just like it if there was live PVP. In a 1v1 match you're gonna need every advantage you can get.

But yes, currently it is doable as F2P, but not because of the systems in place, rather the lack of true PVP.

Zathrack

+1,000
An incredible post, you say what most players are thinking. I'm totally agree.

DarthMasterShawn

First off great post.

Secondly, do not sell yourself short you wrote as good as the others.

I'm not really a whale as I did not drop my load on Chromiums as I grew sick of seeing nothing I wanted, and only do Arodiums if I like the return. However I have purchased 12-16 vaults since guilds are ouit, possibly more. I'm about 1 a day, some days 2 lately, for reasons you mentioned.


Currently being a spender will grant you;

Omega Mats (Refreshing the Omega Event) I refreshed the Max it helped a lot as Opress, 5's, QGJ, Daka all have em on basics and Rey has all 3.


Reaching Level 80 weeks before anyone else. This is concerning because you get 1 Omega mat per day before anyone that is F2P can even attain one so it's entirely possible for someone at level 77 to be facing a full Omega team.......I hit 80 2 resets ago the daily omegas are very nice.


Precrafted Gear (to an extent, but this has been discussed to death so I'm not going over it)....I lost some precraft due to a bug, it hurt, but I'm ok.


Buying Gear. This is a big one, they've blocked all feasible paths to said precraftable gear, then opened it with a 'paywall'. This means that you can literally now take out your wallet and have a statistical advantage over your opponent.....THIS right here is huge. I've bought 6 furnaces, several sensory arrays, cuffs, coms, hairdryers ect. I've used several vaults on gear alone. I have Rey and Phasma with every gear piece in the game. Sadly for me, lucky for non big spenders the design techs, droid callers, and scanners are not there, if they are I've yet to see and I refresh to 900 daily. This has been huge. I took my old Ben from gear 1-9 in a blink because of this new change. I love it, but if I were a non spender I'd hate it as it really does change the ball game.


The Guild Shop Gear (?) This one is just terrible for everyone, but it naturally benefits large, powerful guilds in general as they attain more currency.....My guild has a lot of low to F2P in it, we though tier 7 our dailies daily so earn good currency. You will not catch me buying gear there as the price is incredibly high.



I agree though with the post. A separation will soon really start to show. I noticed it in my arena lately. Nobody attacks me at 37k power and all gear 9-10 omega. At times they do, they lose, rare occasion I'll drop, but most avoid me for a more sure bet during payout times. I've finished top 4 the last 5 days, only fighting 1 of them in payout, so I get your point. I try to help those that are F2P by giving advice on whop to gear 1st, how to hit certain builds ect.

TheRedDeath

+1 to dota.

whales may have mythical courier or skins. but still lose me in laning.

dvl009

TheRedDeath wrote: »

+1 to dota.

whales may have mythical courier or skins. but still lose me in laning.

they bought 7k account, but they'll lose every single game and get back to 3k dumpster in no time.

FinalGreyJedi

This is a great post, Swag. I agree completely being a dolphin and such but still at a disparity due to not pre crafting. Look forward to reading more of your posts!

Alexone

Awesome post and i totally agree. Buying furnaces/cuffs etc from the shipments is something that can give a p2p a monstrous advantage over f2p. Literally any character he will unlock from now until the end of the time, the p2p can get it to gear 8/9 within a few days...But it's all good as long as they $$$$ keep pouring in right? Without using 'restraints' I wonder who will place first in Raids...f2p or the guy that buys gear?? Tough one...Maybe after reading 1000+ threads like yours they will finally realize and hopefully ask themselves 'what were we thinking' when they added tier rewards in raids. Pre-crafting is NOTHING compared to what this last update did!

P.S: I thought you said you weren't eloquent haha.

Alexone

^^ This can be fixed...they need to cut prices in shipments for all gear in half, then they need to increase the droprate for purple gear and finally the raid rewards be made equal (i am all for equality but if they really want to punish somebody, they need to do so against the person that doesn't even have 5 guys at 7*, because he doesn't need that gear much now anyways...as it is now every single one is punished with the 'middle' players being literally in the worst place possible). If things stay the same, things will progressively get worse and worse until every f2p decides to call it quits! It's not a question of IF he will quit but rather WHEN.

atDrammen

+ 1, great post that points out some key long term issues.

Most agree that paying to gain an advantage is acceptable but ideally f2p should have sufficient options to stay competitive. With the paywalls it becomes harder for f2p to compete because of a straight up difference in power. The concern is whether it has become too hard?

The game depends on a slow progression to incentivise RL money spending. However, this also means that catching up in that power gap will perhaps take too long. How long are people willing to fight with a large disadvantage? If I have to grind hard every day for months to only be able to catch up I will in all likelyhood loose interest and move on. It would be even worse if the cap is raised just as f2p manage to hit competitive levels, extending the slog even further.

My personal wish, make me pay for cosmetics rather than for being rank 1. I will happily give you money for Old Daka with a different colour scheme.

Sikho

Interesting post, though this kind of behavior was to be expected from EA.

I'm more concerned about the abundance of Chromium toons lately, and the fact that they seem extremely powerful (Rex is becoming the leader of the new whale meta)

They articulate the meta around a few characters and then release a Chromium toon to counter this meta (See Sun Fac, and his ability to counter RG, outclass QGJ, and be a taunter at the same time, or the Fives buffs followed by the counter changes to make Leia's stealth a counter to him.)

They also don't release the best Chromium toons for f2p. The last ones we got were Old Ben (who is irrelevant against Rex and Yoda, though they didn't expect him to be used as a leader instead of Dooku) and Tarkin, who's only good in Empire teams.

Still no sign of Aylaa or Leia, who are extremely powerful.

Sikho

Double post, my bad.

Alexone

atDrammen wrote: »

+ 1, great post that points out some key long term issues.

How long are people willing to fight with a large disadvantage? If I have to grind hard every day for months to only be able to catch up I will in all likelyhood loose interest and move on. It would be even worse if the cap is raised just as f2p manage to hit competitive levels, extending the slog even further.

'Catching up' to whales is a mirage, you will never do it. But if i slave away to relatively catch up in power to my current number 1 just to be able to beat him and then they introduce a new level cap + gear 12 in the same manner that this was introduced, i won't wait for anything anymore! So you make a very good point here. Nobody wants a new level cap sooner than 6 months.

InternetSwag

DarthMasterShawn wrote: »

First off great post.

Secondly, do not sell yourself short you wrote as good as the others.

I'm not really a whale as I did not drop my load on Chromiums as I grew sick of seeing nothing I wanted, and only do Arodiums if I like the return. However I have purchased 12-16 vaults since guilds are ouit, possibly more. I'm about 1 a day, some days 2 lately, for reasons you mentioned.


I've bought 6 furnaces, several sensory arrays, cuffs, coms, hairdryers ect. I've used several vaults on gear alone. I have Rey and Phasma with every gear piece in the game. Sadly for me, lucky for non big spenders the design techs, droid callers, and scanners are not there, if they are I've yet to see and I refresh to 900 daily. This has been huge. I took my old Ben from gear 1-9 in a blink because of this new change. I love it, but if I were a non spender I'd hate it as it really does change the ball game.

I agree though with the post. A separation will soon really start to show. I noticed it in my arena lately. Nobody attacks me at 37k power and all gear 9-10 omega. At times they do, they lose, rare occasion I'll drop, but most avoid me for a more sure bet during payout times. I've finished top 4 the last 5 days, only fighting 1 of them in payout, so I get your point. I try to help those that are F2P by giving advice on whop to gear 1st, how to hit certain builds ect.

Thank you!
Wow so this is basically an example of how far the gear shop can actually take a person. Yeah, heck I would never attack you unless I had free attempts and wanted to try for fun. Very interesting to see and I'm glad you agree with me. It's always nice to get a perspective from both sides. It really is incredible how much more powerful you can become if you have enough crystals/luck with the shard shop.


Thanks for sharing!

InternetSwag

Zathrack wrote: »

+1,000
An incredible post, you say what most players are thinking. I'm totally agree.

FinalGreyJedi wrote: »

This is a great post, Swag. I agree completely being a dolphin and such but still at a disparity due to not pre crafting. Look forward to reading more of your posts!

Woow I got better feedback than I ever thought I would.