EVE General Discussion

No. Essentially, he's saying that EVE isn't a P2W game. Whether it should be and what idiotic mechanism that ruin the game could be implemented and only skirt the lines of P2W:ness is a completely different question.

But nice strawman. Actually, I lied. It was laughable in its completely contorted lack of reasoning and logic.

Yes really, yes. The more you fund alt accounts with RL money, the less you have to grind and do isk-related ingame stuff for them. Therefore, the more time you have to better your PvPing.
Therefore, the more time you have to get better at winning.

In this point, what you're saying is, "there are no connections between this and that", when in every case, there is -for anybody with any common sense-
You're also saying that training does not make one better at winning, which is just mind-boggling



But the same advantage could not be had without paying for it, because for an equal numbers of RL players on each side with equal skill, the only way to get alts -the aforementioned advantage- was to pay RL money for them.

In this point, what you're saying is "they can't have more numbers in such a scenario, but they can have more. Also, while the only way for the alt-less side to get alts was to pay RL money, they could get alts some other way without paying RL money"

*snip*

Please remain on topic, thank you.

EDIT: post removed for trolling

CCP should care because those areas can pretty much only be realistically fulfilled by alts. It's a bad gameplay experience which means people are less likely to keep playing. That's gaming your ARPDAU instead of trying to maximize revenue itself.

-Liang

It is, but for a rather complicated reason. So I'll demonstrate a way to do gold ammo in a way that is not P2W in EVE.

In the AUR store, there is a a blueprint original for said ammo. It costs (say) 100 AUR and can only be bought in NeXes in stations where normal ammo blueprints are seeded.
Outside of the AUR store, the same BPO can be had in the same stations for (say) 10M ISK.

…now, you'll notice that this is not actually gold ammo at all. It's not particularly gold (especially not when we consider the balance of it, which I'll get to) — hell, it's not even ammo. It's just a blueprint. Not only that, it's a blueprint that you could have gotten for ISK in the exact same station that you had to travel to in order to get it from the NeX. It's also slightly more expensive to get it through the AUR.

The reason it's not ammo is because of the other things that it needs to satisfy in order not to be P2W: it must not provide you and special advantages. So it's available in the same stores as the for-ISK BPO so you don't gain the advantage of not having to travel to the right NPC stations. It not ammo so you don't gain the advantage of bypassing the entire industrial sector and the market. In fact, it's not even all that good (somewhere between T1 and low-end faction, but proportionally more costly than T1) so you don't gain the advantage of not having to deal with LP stores and so that the ammo itself doesn't completely obsolete normal ammo. Finally, it's more expensive to get the BPO through the NeX so that you don't gain the advantage of getting it cheaper just because you paid for it.

…except that there is a strict limit to how much you can fund an account and to how much you can train, and except that you still have to do things to it in order to have it be worth anything, so the whole “the more … the less” is just bunk. The connection isn't nearly as clear as that (and will actually quickly reach diminishing returns for your payment). In addition, funnily enough, the time required to make use of those alts, will be rather similar to the amount of time you have to “grind” on a non-alt. As a result, the time savings for training are still only loosely connected at best; the connection between training and having an upper hand is still as weak as ever; and the connection between payment and win is still nil.

…except through the methods enumerated many times throughout the thread. Your restricting one side from using those methods in this scenario does not mean they do not exist or are impossible. The advantages you speak of can still be had without paying for them, thus no P2W.

I already have. I see you keep banging on about the irrelevance of alts in twitch games. This means you are still not addressing the point I'm making. Would you care to do that rather than repeat the same irrelevancies that I've already responded to? I can enumerate the different points for you if you have trouble reading…

Agreed on the definition. However, it could be taken further to a place where I, personally, would not be comfortable. For example, CCP add an "SP injector" to the NEX store:-

SP Injector = one time injection of 2 million SP
Cost = 1 plex or equivalent in Aurum
May be traded on the market for ISK

The numbers may vary but the concept is the same as the gold ammo.

This would be more than annoying at least for me. Am I the only one?

Edit - added aurum

I did not mean "training skills", simply 'training", training to fly, training to PvP.
Since you do not spend time grinding, if you fund accounts through RL money, all your ingame time can be devoted to get better at winning.

You can also buy chars with RL money, completely skipping the "training skills" part






But no, because, at the time, you could not fund alts any other way than through RL money.
The scenario is "equal number of equally skilled players on each side", which is the basis for balance in any game, that is, the paradigm around which you make the rules. It is more than a scenario, in fact.
The use of alts disrupts the balance, and those alts could only be paid for with RL money. Therefore, P2W.




Oh really? Let's hear you:
"Doesn't matter because that's not what the argument is about. It's about how equating numbers to payment means that any multiplayer game becomes P2W since a numerical payment difference between the teams provides an advantage. This, in turn, shows that the proposed equivalence is silly, and if we choose to be a bit more stringent about it all and separate the two, we quickly find that it is not the payment that creates any win, but the numbers. Thus, no P2W."

Any multiplayer game is balanced around two teams of equal numbers, with equal skill (more or less). In a WoW, WAR or whatever PvP mmo arena, you don't play several characters at once, because you cannot reliably control all of them.
So, in twitch-based multiplayer games, you don't play several accounts at once (or it's obvious for everyone, aka Team Wizzy).
In a non-arena scenario, players you encounter in the open world are 99% percent of the time controlling only one character. If they could control more (thus, pay for them) and have an edge, they would. But gameplay hampers that.

Tldr: you can't reliably P2W through alts in twitch-based multiplayer games, and almost nobody does it. Therefore, your assertion that "payments equals number would mean that every multiplayer game is P2W", is absolutely dumb.

In EvE, you can control reliably several characters at once. This requires additional accounts, which have to be paid for, and the best way, more efficient, funnier and faster, which frees up gameplay time not spent grinding, is to use RL money.
Therefore, payments can make up numbers in EvE, and you don't have to rely on many other people. It's thus desirable.

Thus, P2W.

Accounts do not have to be paid for by the individual using them. You can fund accounts with in game currency, and thus no pay to win exists for multiple accounts.

What I really want to know is the precise reasons you think my example of gold ammo is 'pay to win'. From your explanation on how to make gold ammo not 'pay to win' you've listed some points to that effect. I started to break that down to get the answer, but ended up feeling as though I would end up putting words in your mouth. So, Tippia just tell me in a direct way what makes my gold ammo example 'pay to win'?






Thanks for your direct reply. You have perhaps a narrow definition of 'Pay to Win', but you're consistent with its use.

*Guarantees a win most of the time, but not always.





General comment directed at multiple people, but here you go:



This clearly confirms that I am hallucinating, because you clearly did not reference a free to play game that survives on it's pay to win scheme to further your argument.