When open market finally arrives, we will hop in excitement on it just to find the game funded and ran by Russian oligarchs from that point onwards.

Paying cash for gear makes it impossible to create an economy parallel to that of EVE online. How would that game play, if nullsec pilots could just replace their battleship with NPC injected aurum ones? Dust PC at its core is no different. It's a game of isk ultimately. Using p2w gear will buy your alliance clone packs and infrastructure upgrades. That gear is not player made; it just pops out of thin air.

I conclude thus, that due to this choise, dust economy will remain limited and shallow. Economic warfare will be largely aurum based. To simplify it and make the ground even, I suggest bringing out the last word in PC: Genolution 'P-2W' clone pack, at 40000 AUR (25% discount).

The problem is that CCP has explicitly stated that they will be relying on the player market as part of their efforts to avoid P2W. Trading IRL cash for ISK poses a massive P2W problem when people can then buy clone packs with it.

Basically, unless PC is up and running to the point where Genolution can be shut down before the player market comes in then the highest level of the game will be broken. Preponderance is an essential strategic element of PC, allowing people to pay to circumvent it makes this game P2W.

sounds about right. IMO, it's one thing to have "early access" aurum items like the neo suits and the modules that perform at next-tier levels, but only require this-tier skills to use. there isn't really anything wrong with this, because it's basically like a paid prevew. sure you can buy 100 or so suits and the modules to fit them, all neo, or their equivalent, of course, and Dust makes about $20 off each customer that does this...but there is no definitive advantage afforded by this. It's simply the ability to see what next level's gear is like, to decide if that's really the direction you want to move toward.

What I do take offence to, however, are the aurum variants of "this tier" weapons, such as the 'Genesis NT-511, or the 'Killswitch' GEK-36, that perform better than their isk-paid counterparts. THIS is where the p2w environment comes from...the idea that, by giving the devs more money than anyone else, you should be entitled to a battlefield advantage over everyone else. The "supercharged" versions of weapons and the like that cost aurum to purchase, but aren't early access i.e. you only need sniper rifle operation lv 3 to use the NT-511, but for aurum instead, you can buy the 'genesis' nt-511, which does more damage, with the same skill level requirements, and is the same meta level, meaning it isn't "early access" equipment.

The clear decision here, if CCP wants to have a rich, thriving player-based market in Dust, the same way they do as EVE, then they need to remove the aurum weapon variants.

1 - All this is subject to change and improvement
2 - Right now, items are not built by anyone, they-¦re just bought out of thin air. Be it by isk, be it by aurum.
3 - Those who buy thing with aurum will sell them for isk, we-¦ll have a "Lords of War" group that will supply all sides, as long as they pay the price (The expensive one).
4 - They have a guy with PhD in Economy, i think they have a little knowledge on what they-¦re doing.
5 - All this is subject to change and improvment.

What i do want to see is the items being made by players and a functional market. But cmon, we know it-¦s going to take a while to polish things.

EDIT:

Please name 5 aurum items that doesn-¦t have an ISK variant. with similar/superior stats.

There are more than 5 , all you need is to go to market and compare them.

NO SANE person would exchange AURUM items for ISK that he has from abundance 90% of them AURUM users because AURUM items are always better that ISK ones otherwise you wouldnt bought them with $$$.

Please name 5 aurum items that doesn-¦t have an ISK variant. with similar/superior stats.

I-¦m not familiar with all the snipers stats, but is the "Genesis" NT-511 outperformed by another Sniper rifle (any one) or is it the top one?

The Codewish Duvolle TAR
The Schizm repair tool
The Spitfire SMG
The Tether Shield regulator
My personal fave - The Abyss drop uplink (seriously, check out the stat difference on that one)

And let us not forget the the 3 Proto damage mods

Proof lies with the claimer.

Unless of course, it-¦s classical misdirection, and the whole purpose is to create confusion and spread misinformation, then it would be better not to use factual data.

for it's tier, it is the top one, i do believe. the only way to get a better isk one would be to boost your skills to where you can use proto gear. as far as raw damage per shot output, however, the charge sniper rifle takes the cake

Personally, I know there are two AUR damage mods (Sidearm and Heavy) which have better PG/CPU stats than the ISK equivalents - they're identical in every way except that they cost less to fit, meaning you can create a better suit by using them than you could without spending Aurum.

There are also the two Aurum HAVs, which have better PG/CPU capacity than their ISK equivalents on top of their reduced skill prerequisites. This, as with the damage mods, results in the potential for better fitting than you can achieve with the ISK version of the same vehicle.

While not AUR purchases, the same applies for the tanks in the "Tank Merc Pack" (I forgot the proper name, and am about to head to bed), which makes 6 items that I can confirm as P2W.

But there's a HUGE list of items that have previously had similar P2W implications, and those items have either been removed from the game or brought back in line with their ISK equivalents to be valid and fair, only allowing players early access to the next tier of gear.

CPP way of doing things is "give here, take there", so i always look at the whole picture instead of a few specific points. For example, a default vehicle, one with better speed but less armor/shiled/ehp, one with plenty of cpu/pg but slow as hell, and other variations.

An example

As i said, i-¦ll take a look later at the stats of the items mentioned to form an opinion, but usualy when people say an item is "unfair", there-¦s a better isk variant one that can outperform it, but need better skills. And that is not "unfair" nor p2w.

And again, CCP is compromised to review any unbalanced items, so if those items mentioned are in need of attention, send a mail to CCP informing the why-¦s of it in a informative way.

When you consider the differences between the AUR HAVs and Marauders, those can be argued as not P2W, but they're closer to it than most Dropsuit AUR gear.

You're getting a half-way point between the Gunnlogi/Madrugar and the Sagaris/Surya, but with Militia-level fitting requirements.

The damage mods though - they're flat broken. They literally have identical statlines to the best ISK damage mods, and also have lower fitting requirements with it. Those are the only items I'm 100% sure of being directly better than any gear you can buy with ISK, but I'm pretty sure there are others.

I'm also, as mentioned, pretty sure that CCP won't leave P2W items in the game, and have seen evidence of them fixing many such items previously.

East solution.

Make all Aur items sellable for isk on the market. Never make it sellable for AUR, never allow AUR to transfer.

Thank you for the hard data.

I will take a look at them, but in any case, let-¦s just remember that if some unbalance is happening, CCP will fix it.

The Codewish Duvolle TAR
The Schizm repair tool
The Spitfire SMG
The Tether Shield regulator
My personal fave - The Abyss drop uplink (seriously, check out the stat difference on that one)

And let us not forget the the 3 Proto damage mods

(The abyss has actually very few spawns in it - 5 iI think)

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OP post
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This hope has been proven false by the events.

Last week CCP added some new modules to the market place to go along with the rest of the collection of supremacy goods.

They added a new top tier codebreaker module with reduced fitting reqs, the 'Pathogen'
Also added was the ever popular and soon to be best seller, the Light Complex Damage Mod 'Cascade'
There was also a new Nanohive, I believe it is of the Ishukone Flux variety, although I cannot recall specifically what name it runs under.

So you have supremacy goods for all of the following:

Codebreaker
Damage Mods
Repair Tool
Nanohive
Shield Regulator
Tanks(although here the case is much more gray, as the PG/CPU difference is quite small relative to total vehicle output.)

With all of those options, you can certainly make a much better fit that with straight ISK gear. I think that falls most clearly under the P2W category. What is more troubling is that those three items at the top are new, they were not in the market last week. When I use to point to the damage mods as classic P2W, people used to say that the Light Weapon version got removed and they were sure the others were on their way out. Well, now CCP has brought back the light damage mod and more.

Now, yes, I understand that when we get a player market, then there won't really be any pay to win as long as people are willing to trade for those items.

My problem is that we are heading into Planetary Conquest with a complete set of supremacy goods, but no way to trade these items. It completely locks out players who won't or can't put money into the game, and ensures that those who are buying aurum are able, if they so choose, to buy a set of equipment that can outperform any ISK variant. Now, I am not saying that these goods are an auto-win button. But I think we can agree that if we were to take two players of equal skill and SP and put them in identical suits with only one having access to the Aurum supremacy goods, that the player with access to those goods should be able to put together a more combat capable fit.

I find it very problematic that we are going to go into the very first real battles and we are doing so with a two tiered player base.

I wouldn-¦t jump so fast into conclusions, for they have fixed unbalanced things before.

Nanohive:
Less PG/CPU, Less ressuply, less maximum carried.

Codebreaker:
Less CPU/PG, Same Bonus.

Damage Modifier
Less cpu/pg, same bonus.

Repair tool
Less CPU/PG, Less range, less repair rate.

Ok, from the items you mentioned, the nanohive and the repair tool aurum items suck big time, and the codebreaker and dmg modifier are less CPU/PG intensive, but give the same bonus.

On a high sp character, is this cpu/pg difference considerable to the point of not being able to fit, or is this noticable only to low sp people?

Because if i can fit the same fitting, and get the same bonus, and the difference between an aurum item or an isk one is just the difference between the cpu/pg of a lvl 4 skill and a lvl 5, then i think it-¦s quite complicated to call it p2w.

Trolls used the word P2W a bit carelessly there, let's see thru that.
If I understood correctly, his point is:


An AUR item is bought indirectly by real money.
It creates a new item.
Background: There will be AUR-to-isk ratio, determined by the PLEX price and PLEX-to-AUR conversion ratio.
Every AUR item will have a threshold value over which it is a 'best way to get isk' and also the price under which it doesn't make sense to sell with RL money to isk.
Those things mean they set the isk price of equivalent isk items as well on the free market - the value of isk item is very unlikely to get any higher.
That would mean the market on these items isn't that free - but in some sense free still, as everything is derived from PLEX price.


Please note that CCP has never revealed any intentions of players creating blueprints (normal copies) as sort of a manufacturing way.

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OP post
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The codebreaker and the light damage mod and the nanohive were put in this week. They are new P2W items, not old ones.