Star Citizen Pay to Win?

[LimpCurve]

I was reading around and am a small bit confused. Is Star Citizen pay to win? I look at these two pictures and have to question what's going on.

[Amanaman83]

The money you pay for the ships will help fund the game. When the game is released you can get the ships with the in game money and not have to pay any real money

[Jade]

The money you pay for the ships will help fund the game. When the game is released you can get the ships with the in game money and not have to pay any real money

Not my thread, but thanks. I was confused about this as well.

[LimpCurve]

The money you pay for the ships will help fund the game. When the game is released you can get the ships with the in game money and not have to pay any real money

Ahh okay

[rentaspoon]

I was reading around and am a small bit confused. Is Star Citizen pay to win? I look at these two pictures and have to question what's going on.

No it's crowd funded and that's to help the development, while the base ship (Aurora) isn't as good as some it's still a worthy ship, I think its better than the 300 series

@Wauthar @isHypnophobic and me had a game and at some points I felt I had the better ship

Here's the link, if you look at the last few waves you'll see a little ship evade 6 missiles at once and take on the swarm, that's me

The base ships have a few advantages the others don't.

[Wauthar]

It is not, you support the development by donating money with ships as a reward, essentially.

Also, take a look at the first post of this thread, interesting read: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/93157/katamari-damashii-pay-to-win

[jesperb]

I was very surprised to find a sub-forum for Star Citizen here.

 

This particular topic has been debated quite a bit, but I think Chris' post that was linked above covers most bases. One important thing here is that just because a game offers players to purchase in-game money or content does not automatically make it P2W. We have all seen these horrible mobile games where you can either wait for several hours for a magic barrier to be unlocked, or you can pay some money and get whatever it is you want for free. This is a horrible practice, and such games should be avoided like the plague.

 

Games without in-game purchases cater to people with a lot of spare time. Games with in-game purchases cater to people with spare money. People who have neither spare time nor spare money sadly have bigger problems on their hands than being able to buy a shiny digital space ship. SC will allow people to purchase in-game credits at roughly the same rate as they would have been able to earn them in game. This will also help fund future developments of the game as there will be no monthly fee.

 

Will SC be P2W? It is too early to tell. If the amount of money you can purchase with in-game credits is too high, then it absolutely will be. If they get the balance right, then it won't. They claim the latter. Time alone will tell.

[CatCloud]

Just to add, what some people fail to understand is this is a skill based game, you can sit In you giant Idris warship all day that you bought but I'll still kill you in my little m50 racer because I'm probably a better pilot, it might take an hour or two to kill you but I'd still win, oh you bought Javelin destroyer now? Guess what? I'd still win.

Why? Because you don't know how to fly the damn thing.

Pay all you want but by the end of the day the skilled player will win. Just at a slower pace. (because of all that defence)

Just an example of a highly possible scenario.

But as already stated, by release or even beta you can't buy ships or whatever anymore.

Maybe some weapons, ship equipment or decoration. But that's it.

[unidentical]

I will say that the model they've gone with for crowd funding is certainly a clever one, it's also what turned me off of the game. I love the ship designs, the concept is very interesting, but the way they've gone about things has just left me skeptical.

 

Knowing that someone can spend 3 grand on the game and have a full fleet of ships with LT insurance is a little bit pay to winnish, especially because they will have access to that on day one. 

 

Maybe my concerns are unfounded, maybe the community will be mature and everyone will have fun, but I suspect that there will be a few bad apples who delight in harassing players with small ships who could only afford the one. If your ship is constantly being destroyed it's going to be pretty impossible to earn enough to by a better one in game.

 

I figure best case scenario the bad apples are kept in check by knight in shining armour types rolling around like cavalry, and I'll cross my fingers for that, because even if I don't play it I do want this game to succeed.

[jesperb]

Just to add, what some people fail to understand is this is a skill based game, you can sit In you giant Idris warship all day that you bought but I'll still kill you in my little m50 racer because I'm probably a better pilot, it might take an hour or two to kill you but I'd still win, oh you bought Javelin destroyer now? Guess what? I'd still win.

Why? Because you don't know how to fly the damn thing.

Pay all you want but by the end of the day the skilled player will win. Just at a slower pace. (because of all that defence)

Just an example of a highly possible scenario.

But as already stated, by release or even beta you can't buy ships or whatever anymore.

Maybe some weapons, ship equipment or decoration. But that's it.

Even though the general idea is correct, I believe this particular example is not. You will not make a dent in a Javelin or an Idris with an m50 no matter how skilled you are. CR mentioned this in one of the early '10 for the chairman'. The shields will simply regenerate quicker than your rate of fire, and the hull is to thick to pierce with the small-bore projectiles that smaller ships have.

 

If you bring a Gladius with a fully loaded torpedo bay on the other hand.... then we're talking.

[CatCloud]

Even though the general idea is correct, I believe this particular example is not. You will not make a dent in a Javelin or an Idris with an m50 no matter how skilled you are. CR mentioned this in one of the early '10 for the chairman'. The shields will simply regenerate quicker than your rate of fire, and the hull is to thick to pierce with the small-bore projectiles that smaller ships have.

 

If you bring a Gladius with a fully loaded torpedo bay on the other hand.... then we're talking.

Your ruining my plans to send people to there death! gaaaah! 

[rentaspoon]

You will not make a dent in a Javelin or an Idris with an m50 no matter how skilled you are. CR mentioned this in one of the early '10 for the chairman'.

[Grrizz]

I will say that the model they've gone with for crowd funding is certainly a clever one, it's also what turned me off of the game. I love the ship designs, the concept is very interesting, but the way they've gone about things has just left me skeptical.

 

Knowing that someone can spend 3 grand on the game and have a full fleet of ships with LT insurance is a little bit pay to winnish, especially because they will have access to that on day one. 

 

Maybe my concerns are unfounded, maybe the community will be mature and everyone will have fun, but I suspect that there will be a few bad apples who delight in harassing players with small ships who could only afford the one. If your ship is constantly being destroyed it's going to be pretty impossible to earn enough to by a better one in game.

 

I figure best case scenario the bad apples are kept in check by knight in shining armour types rolling around like cavalry, and I'll cross my fingers for that, because even if I don't play it I do want this game to succeed.

If you're a small fry you can either stay in "safe" space and use the UEE for protection or spec your ship to be hard to find/catch/etc. as a large powerful ship is going to stand out like a sore thumb on scanning equipment giving you plenty of forewarning, the matchmaking should help keep things fair too. Also bare in mind the space in this game is instanced so there wont be blockades etc. and LT insurance is relatively meaningless from a cost point of view, small common ships should be replaced by insurance a lot quicker than the larger ones too so people trolling with a Connie or Javelin also have a lot more to loose then someone with an Aurora.

The other point is this game is not just a dog fighting game so I don't know how people are defining the term "winning".

In my experience in MMOs with open world PvP getting around the "bad guys" is not hard at all if you stop and think about what you are doing regardless of level/gear differences, most of the time the people crying on the forums about being ganked are just walking into the same traps over and over thinking it'll be different next time they try, like a single player level where you just have to rinse and repeat till you perfect the string of commands required to proceed... unfortunately PvP in MMOs isn't the same as cookie cutter single player encounters, you don't perfect the encounter, you learn from it and adapt.

And don't forget you're part of the UOLTT family, I think I speak for everyone when I say "we got your back"

[unidentical]

The other point is this game is not just a dog fighting game so I don't know how people are defining the term "winning".

 

Well there is also economic power in the game so if you have a well to do player starting out with a StarFarer and a merchantman, for example, that seems like it might be a fairly significant advantage.

 

Anyway, like I said, I'm not interested in the game anymore as a player, I do want it to succeed because it is ridiculous and that's a good thing. 

[WalrusMan]

You can buy a few ships and their variations through the store which when the full game comes out will also be available with in game currency.  These are vastly overpriced and the point of them is to support the development of the game.

[Wauthar]

You can buy a few ships and their variations through the store which when the full game comes out will also be available with in game currency.  These are vastly overpriced and the point of them is to support the development of the game.

Uhm, the prices the ships are right now are cheaper then what they will be when the game launches. The only difference is that you won't be able to buy them with real money, only in-game currency.

[Bloodyvalley]

I got a Freelancer

[Zweihander]

Everything is obtainable just by playing the game...from what I understand. 

[rentaspoon]

Everything is obtainable just by playing the game...from what I understand.

Yep your right