EVE General Discussion

huh? alts on the same account can't play at the same time.. and someone had to use their account training time to advance the alt. This isn't a situation where you are paying to make an existing new alt stronger through gear or stat purchase.

This games been pay to win for as long as you've been able to have multiple accounts.

So why worry about it now?

In my opinion, Pay To Win does exist in Eve. But only as a marginal case.

One handy metric you can use to define a P2W feature is if the developer attempts to hide the use. For example: Player Bob pays the developer an extra fee to get an advantage when he attacks Player Larry. Obviously, the developer would not like Larry to know the outcome of the match was determined by money Bob paid. Larry would probably quit the game. To sneak in P2W, you must open the possibility of paying extra for an advantage to everyone, without ever declaring how useful that advantage was to the loser. Only the victor can know. It's only P2W if the help was hidden by the developer.

In the solo PvP circuit of Eve, this exists as 'boosting alts'. In my solo Rifter, facing off with against another Rifter with a boosting alt somewhere in the crowded lowsec system, I will lose the fight. No mention of the boosting alt will appear in my loss mail, even though it had a very large effect upon the fight. The alt-booster player is shown to have won a 1vs1 fight. I'm left to guess what the hell went wrong... whether I just flew it badly, loaded the wrong ammo, or if he was boosted. (Hint: in this manner I'm supposed to pay for another account so I can get my own and remain competitive.)

Now to be fair, CCP has stated they intend to do something about this. And honestly, how many people fly solo versus other solo pilots? Probably not many these days. As I said, it's a marginal case at best.

But it was enough to make me walk away last summer. And, though I reactivated on a lark, when August rolls around my account will expire again. Maybe I'll return when that's fixed.

I can kill an alt, I cannot kill a twinkie with gear no longer possible to get and invincible.

Alts on 1 account are not pay to win, but alts on different accounts are. Why to you think they advertised a second account as the power of two. Some people used to have 10 accounts and some probably still do.

Some of the big manufacturers and BPC sellers use multiple accounts because they can be far more effective, but then the alts on the same account can still be used to assist once they're trained to a certain level. But as already discussed, alts on the first account are available to all so that's not pay to win, but multiple accounts is a form of pay to win.

Although, that is less of an advantage than multiple accounts. As no matter how much isk you have on one account you can still only fly one ship at a time and the ship that you can fly is limited to the character skills (just like anyone else). This holds true as long as you can't buy sp but even then 2 or more accounts is better than just isk.

As others have already pointed out EVE is already 'pay to win'. All that can be reasonably argued is the degree in which EVE is 'pay to win' in comparison to other games, trying to say it is not is simply people in a state of denial or ignorance.

As far as changes go, I don't think Plex ought to be removed, it's the lesser of two evils. Better Plex than rampant 3rd party money sellers. I'd ban character sales, were it not too difficult to control and police.

Alts are another matter, the problem most MMORPGs have is the nature of their gameplay permits the playing of multiple characters at the same time, heck some roles like buffing/boosting require no effort on behalf of the player other than setting it up, but they gain a significant competitive advantage over other players not doing the same. By comparison, how many people run multiple accounts at the same time in FPS games, even MMOs like Planetside or Darkfall? Few to none, because the gameplay is to involved to play two active characters and there's no or little benefit from passive ones.

So, what CCP should do is make gameplay require more active player participation and nerf/remove gameplay where passive characters can give advantage to active ones.

The most clear and obvious target of this is Boosting Alts, which I agree should be nerfed into oblivion. Either by requiring on grid boosting or by making the ships have to be outside of POS shields and go into some sort of locked down siege mode to give a bonus. Lastly, removing the ability to use links with things like eccm on the same ship, making near unprobable Boosting ships a thing of the past.

You can call them mains if you like but they're still for all intents and purposes alts.

Only way to fix it is to get rid of multiple accounts and that's not going to happen. So it remains pay to win, which we've all accepted for years anyway.

Most people will not engage in combat PvP if they think they're going to lose. So your flag system will not serve any real purpose other than knowing which alts belongs to someone and that kind of information I'm not even interested in.

If you have something to lose in a fight, you don't go looking for an even fight. Even fights are a luxury that you have to be sure you can afford.

Are you that dense. You said it yourself most people will not engage in combat PvP if they think they're going to lose. A flag system will tell that solo player that he is up against a player with multiple accounts online at this time. So why would he engage? But if he did not know then he can be abused. By an off grid booster. So a flag system does have uses.

It is also usefull for a small gang for the same reasons. Only this time the advantage is reversed.

PL brought a 140 billion setup to last night's AT fight and got their **** pushed in by 3 RRless Sleipnirs. Pay to win obviously doesn't work.