Avallo Kantor
DUST University
Ivy League
10
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Posted - 2013.06.03 14:45:00 -
[1] - Quote
Panther Alpha wrote:Garrett Blacknova wrote:XiBravo wrote:DS 10 wrote:You don't have to pay to have any type of in-game advantage over other players. I'm goin to have to disagree with you on this one... Name 3 pay-to-win items that CCP haven't already announced plans to fix or release an ISK version of? I can say 2 BIG ones. - BPO's that allow you to make ISK faster. ( Access to Proto gear in regular basics ) - Passive SP boosters that give you a HUGE skills advantage.
I don't think you are understanding what the term "Pay-to-win" means in these types of games.
Pay to win refers to a practice where certain items in the store are unavailable by any means in the rest of the game.
These items are also not simply cosmetic or make you spend lest time grinding, but instead are something akin to
"golden ammo", ammo that is literally better than anything else. An example of a true "pay-to-win" item would be
a super-protosuit or something else that is objectively better than any ISK equivalent.
On the matter of SP boosters, and BPOs, these don't fall into the category of Pay to Win. Instead they use what is the
common practice for free to play games "Pay to Advance." In the Pay to Advance model the game has natural hurdles,
or things that must be grinded to ensure your character gains in ability in the game. They then introduce items that let you
pay money to skip some of that grinding, or at least make it go by faster.
This is what skill boosters do. A unboosted player will still reach the same skills as a booster player, just slower. You should also note that Skill points don't give uncapped advantages. Ultimately there is a limit to how skills can boost your character in any one suit, and you can't go beyond that. All those extra skill points in tanking won't help your already maxed forge gunner at all. The unboosted player merely has to grind more to reach that point.
The BPOs follow the same principle but instead of avoiding the SP grind, it allows players to avoid the ISK grind. The suits you can buy a BPO of are cheap. Like less than 10k isk cheap. With costs for those items so low it isn't much of a hurdle to pay those costs per match, assuming one does not lose a huge number of suits. Ultimately if one were to use all BPO variants instead of the same level counterparts they would only be "gaining" a small portion of ISK per match, something around 20k ISK. Again, nothing stops a non-paying player from making as much ISK as somebody with a BPO, the BPO user (assuming he is using those BPOs and hasn't upgraded to better gear) simply makes the money a tad faster.
Generally the "Pay to Advance" Model exists to allow players with more income than free time to still be competitive in a game, without having to sacrifice as much time.
TL;DR: The two things you mentioned aren't Pay to Win.
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