The game is Pay to Win in certain circumstances.

You have three people: Abel, Bob, and Charlie. Abel has been playing for 8 weeks, having spent no money. He decides to tell his friends Bob and Charlie to play. Bob decides to play and spend no money while Charlie spends 30 dollars on Aurum. Charlie gets 3 30 day Active and Passive Boosters. At the start, the SP looks like this:

Abel: 500,000 base + 1,334,000 Passive + 6,000,000 Active = 7,834,000 SP
Bob: 500,000 base
Charlie: 500,000 base

4 weeks later:
Abel: 7,834,000 + 672,000 Passive + 3,000,000 Active = 11,506,000 SP
Bob: 500,000 + + 672,000 Passive + 3,000,000 Active = 4,172,000 SP
Charlie: 500,000 + 672,000 (x2.5) + 3,000,000 (x2.5) = 9,680,000

Abel and Charlie are both using Prototype suits while Bob is using Advanced.

Simply stating "because you can't buy Officer gear, the game isn't Pay to Win" is missing the bigger points. SP is king. The difference between the 30 dollar spender and the free guy is huge in the early game. Yes, it does taper off greatly. Give the free guy 52 weeks of SP (47,7360,000 SP) and he won't care about such a minor difference. At the start, the person that spends money on Boosters is way, way ahead. Hell, I remember reading posts about how "Planetary Conquest is Pay to Win" because people didn't have enough SP to be fully Prototype with everything they needed so Aurum gear and SP boosters gave a superior team.

It is edge cases, yes, but I don't think you can so easily put DUST in with 'ethical' Free to Play games.

LOL, using urbandictionary.com as a reference source

LOL, using urbandictionary.com as a reference source

Wrong. A game is pay2win when you can buy, with moneys, something, an advantage, that you cant have if you dont spend moneys. A and B Will have the same things that C has. It ll just take them more time. If moneys save time It isnt pay2win. It is pay2win when you cant obtain the same things without spending moneys.

Really, just this.

If these items are not merely cosmetic, but confer an actual gameplay advantage in competition with others, the game is described as pay-to-win. Rich players can simply buy better weapons, armor, or other items than poorer players, and so they beat them by spending real-world money. In other words, they are altering the mechanics of the game in their favor. This design produces a lucrative (for the publisher) arms race among players who try to outspend each other to gain a competitive advantage, but it is bad sportsmanship and violates an essential rule of multiplayer competitive play: The game must be fair. Tiger Woods, no matter how rich he is, cannot simply buy a tee 50 yards closer to the hole that his competitors cannot use. It is essential to golf that ail golfers play on the same course. Video games can be asymmetric, with different players playing by different rules for one reason or another, but they still must be fair and give all the players an equal chance of winning (except for differences in talent or experience), regardless of how much money they have. Many players find pay-to-win designs highly objectionable.

Like I said, it is edge cases where a Pay to Win argument can be brought up easily enough. If it is between 50 and 40 million SP for the Paid Player and Free Player, it doesn't matter too much. The difference is that Free Player has 6 or so Protosuits while Paid Player has 8 or so. But when it is the early days and it is 4 million to 10.5 million for players that started playing the same day, it is a chasm of a difference. Imagine if you could buy Officer gear for Aurum and you could also find it at the same drop rates that they currently have. Would you consider Aurum Officer gear only giving you a fast track or would you see it as buying power? Honest question, meant with respect.

Being able to trade players for Aurum items doesn't really change the dynamic that much, at least as far as I can tell. Yes, it means that people will potentially not have to spend money to get all the benefits of having spent money but with that reasoning you would also come to the conclusion that EVE is a totally free game to play providing you can make like 700 million a month for PLEX. 'Someone' still had to buy it; being able to get it from that 'someone' doesn't change the fact that every Boosters oozes with power. Expand it out. If ISK becomes the predominate factor in the game, such as it is in EVE, than the literal millionaire can buy Boosters/Aurum items in order to get infinite ISK. In that limited sense of "Infinite ISK vs. Finite ISK", you are Paying to Win but that is ad absurdum and likely not on the table.

Is DUST an honest to god Pay to Win game? Ehh, probably not. However, you can buy a hell of a lot of power to the point that it is no way an 'ethical' Free to Play game. And we should never just assume that it isn't Pay to Win because, in the short term, it really is.

First: I am a PA: most people do not no what that is but its a physician assistant , and the pay salary affords me disposable income , actually a lot of disposable income that I can chose to allocate where I would like. I also have a wife and kids and what I do not have is time no matter how much I love dust , I could never play enough. Casual play once or twice a week for 2 or 3 hrs would mean that I will always be behind the curve. Buying boosters is what keeps some people in the game, especially the working population, such as myself. Buying boosters are situational in regards to P2W but , it is erroneous for me to say buying boosters does not afford people a win, but honestly its rarely the case. To be honest I have 45 million lifetime and my KDR is barely .84 , I have paid extensively and still I do not win. I do pay to " HAVE A CHANCE " that's what's really afforded to me.

Lets pretend that this game was/is pay to win. Dust is a game about war. Wars are not waged only between soldiers but there is politics and financial status. Yes he who has the biggest army and better equipment has a better chance of winning and a big army and better equipment requires money , isk , aurum , USD and Euros. In real life you do not see many examples of sticks and stones beating the AR and Glock, BUT IT DOES HAPPEN. In experienced hands a stick and a stone could beat a AR. How much does the AR cost in comparison to the rock? If you had to engage somebody and had to chose between a rock and and a AR what would you chose? Would cost be an issue? Would you pay more to have the AR? How about attachment's? Politically , I have seen PC matches won by a "lesser team " because they were sabotaged i.e AWOKERS!! Or Ive seen great teams get destroyed because a mutual arrangement resulted in them losing half their teams in battle. CCP is allowing me and my vast number of resources to 1.) stay caught up and 2.) Provide me a increased probability at winning and engagement. If you play this game as the MMO you'd know that some matches can be won before it even starts .



No aspect of this game should be untouchable from my the vast depths of my wallet , just saying. The word is that dust is profitable and I definitely paid somebodies salary and everyone that's playing free and unwilling to drop a dime , your welcome , because this game continues to be free to pay

Like I said, it is edge cases where a Pay to Win argument can be brought up easily enough. If it is between 50 and 40 million SP for the Paid Player and Free Player, it doesn't matter too much. The difference is that Free Player has 6 or so Protosuits while Paid Player has 8 or so. But when it is the early days and it is 4 million to 10.5 million for players that started playing the same day, it is a chasm of a difference. Imagine if you could buy Officer gear for Aurum and you could also find it at the same drop rates that they currently have. Would you consider Aurum Officer gear only giving you a fast track or would you see it as buying power? Honest question, meant with respect.

Being able to trade players for Aurum items doesn't really change the dynamic that much, at least as far as I can tell. Yes, it means that people will potentially not have to spend money to get all the benefits of having spent money but with that reasoning you would also come to the conclusion that EVE is a totally free game to play providing you can make like 700 million a month for PLEX. 'Someone' still had to buy it; being able to get it from that 'someone' doesn't change the fact that every Boosters oozes with power. Expand it out. If ISK becomes the predominate factor in the game, such as it is in EVE, than the literal millionaire can buy Boosters/Aurum items in order to get infinite ISK. In that limited sense of "Infinite ISK vs. Finite ISK", you are Paying to Win but that is ad absurdum and likely not on the table.

Is DUST an honest to god Pay to Win game? Ehh, probably not. However, you can buy a hell of a lot of power to the point that it is no way an 'ethical' Free to Play game. And we should never just assume that it isn't Pay to Win because, in the short term, it really is.

Example1: Player A and Player B start playing a new game.
2 hours of gaming later A has a gun that deals 10 dmg. B has spent moneys and so he has a gun that deal 7 dmg. 3 hours later A obtains the gun that deals 10 dmg. They both have the same gun Now.

This is not pay2win.

Example2:
Player A has a gun that deals 7 dmg. Player B spends moneys and have a gun that deals 10 dmg.
No Matter how muCh A Will play, he'll neve have the gun that deal 10 dmg un Less he spends real moneys.

This is pay2win.

Is Dust Example 1 or 2?

Speaking as someone with 65,000,000 SP

SP doesn't mean jack of **** after a while. You have more options but that doesn't really mean much when there's no end-game content beyond PC, which is just as frustrating as everyone makes it out to be.

You go into this game excited, you hit the brick wall that is the Newbro / Veteran disparity, you power through that and become a veteran, and then you realize that's all the game ever really amounted to. Once you get that Proto suit and have all the Dropsuit Upgrades/Equipment/Weapons to 5? Congrats - because that's the best it's ever going to get.

Trust me, I know. There's nothing else for me to unlock save for more Proto dropsuits. It gets boring real quick and you start to get frustrated because of all the other little things that you're just now noticing because you previously too blind to see it, focusing so much on your own progression, thinking: "Once I get 'x', I'll be able to 'y'."

Unfortunately, 2 on a short term. It is not pay to win on the long term, but that's a problem: you'll probably lose everyone who wanted instant satisfaction meanwhile. See, a "fair" fight is where initially you have the same chance of winning as your opponent: this is not Dust's case. Despite matchmaking, there are way too many things you can do to have an advantage over your opponent and this also include paying real money to gain a certain kind of advantage: after all, there is no cosmetic item in Dust514 so, everything you buy grants you some advantage.

Now, if the game should "restart" tomorrow, everyone with 0 SP etc. who will win most of the fights for at lest 4 months? Paying users or non paying users?

It might not be pay to win among vets, but it actually is among new players... A "more tolerable" pay to win if you want.

Example1: Player A and Player B start playing a new game.
2 hours of gaming later A has a gun that deals 10 dmg. B has spent moneys and so he has a gun that deal 7 dmg. 3 hours later A obtains the gun that deals 10 dmg. They both have the same gun Now.

This is not pay2win.

Example2:
Player A has a gun that deals 7 dmg. Player B spends moneys and have a gun that deals 10 dmg.
No Matter how muCh A Will play, he'll neve have the gun that deal 10 dmg un Less he spends real moneys.

This is pay2win.

Is Dust Example 1 or 2?

Speaking as someone with 65,000,000 SP

SP doesn't mean jack of **** after a while. You have more options but that doesn't really mean much when there's no end-game content beyond PC, which is just as frustrating as everyone makes it out to be.

You go into this game excited, you hit the brick wall that is the Newbro / Veteran disparity, you power through that and become a veteran, and then you realize that's all the game ever really amounted to. Once you get that Proto suit and have all the Dropsuit Upgrades/Equipment/Weapons to 5? Congrats - because that's the best it's ever going to get.

Trust me, I know. There's nothing else for me to unlock save for more Proto dropsuits. It gets boring real quick and you start to get frustrated because of all the other little things that you're just now noticing because you previously too blind to see it, focusing so much on your own progression, thinking: "Once I get 'x', I'll be able to 'y'."

Do you even Read the entire post? Is this your contribution to the Topic?

From the Urban dictionary:

Pay2win: Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.

Money Grabbing: Obtaining money from someone without returning anything of real value. Requiring someone to pay a fee out of purely greedy or opportunistic motives.

What does Dust offer for Aurum?

• SP At a faster rate
• Weapons, suits, equipments, vehicles and modules.
• Jara
• BPOs
• Keys
• Respec

Lets talk about pay2win first.
Everything in Dust (Weapons, suits, moduls, equipments...) can be bought with isks. The only things you can't buy with isks are officer gear.

Now...officer things are actually stronger that everything else and in you could buy them for Aurum the game would be pay2win...but you can't!

So you can't buy a straight advantage with moneys.

TLDR the game is not pay2win.

Now lets talk about CCP's so called money grabbing.

Lets start stating some facts that are clearly not known by some players:
CCP is a company. A Company needs and has to earn money.
CCP made Dust to try to earn money.
Il you make a free2play It is not because you feel generous, It is another way of earning moneys. If your free2play is profitable and is also not a pay2win you have done a good Job.

Dust is profitable and is not a pay2win so good job CCP.

Also if you love this game you'd want It to be profitable for CCP, and you should stop blaming everytime CCP introduce something new for Aurum.

Thank you.