Opinions on Planetside 2 being Pay to Win or not?

[Twilight_guy]

It's not pay to win because you can can unlock all the things without paying money. It is grind-tatic without spending money though. They probably need to adjust there numbers to avoid burning players out.

 

[Piorn]

The main misconception people seem to have is that the weapons are actually "better", and that you need them to be competitive.
I'm having fun, and don't get owned regularly. I suck less than in the beginning, despite always using the same beginner weapon. It's just skill, practise and tactics.

In ground combat, sure. You don't really need anythin other than stock weapons to take on other infantry (might need some stuff to handle MAX). However infantry swarms aren't the bulk of the game, vehicles are the bulk of the game. Without sunderers, air support, and tank support you'll never get very far. However of those 3 the only one thats useful without upgrades are the tanks and even then if you go up against someone who has their tank fully teched out you're little more than a minor speed bump to them. Without upgrades your aircraft aren't a threat to other aircraft and you literally can not help support ground troups in a fighter. Without upgrades you're a sittin duck for other aircraft and are only minorly useful against ground targets in a Liberator. Wtihout upgrades your Sunderer is just a really expensive troop transport with really cruddy weapons that have trouble takin out enemy infantry, let alone aircraft or other vehicles.

That is very true. I have to admit I propably focus on infantry combat the most, because of the resources you have to put into the vehicles to make them useful. Still, infantry works great, and I hope they figure something out for vehicles.

 

[L4Y Duke]

No, not really.

There are a few things that definitely favour people who pay. Fighter VTOLs are the big one, like you said. To be effective you basically need an air-to-air cannon and either seekers or rocket pods. The liberator bombers also only really come into their own if you have explosive or anti-armour weapons for them.

Apart from that the default gear for tanks and infantry will serve you just fine.

Everyone has equal access to hard upgrades since they're unlocked with XP only.

However, the prices on the weapons are pretty ridiculous. 1000 certs (many, many hours of play) or about $7 if you use cash.

Pretty much what he said.

 

[Colt47]

I've noticed a trend that the people who say it is not pay to win point at infantry upgrades and vehicle upgrades, where as people who are on the pay to win side are pointing to the items like vehicle weapons that are necessary for the said vehicle role. The later sounds more convincing at the moment.

 

[shintakie10]

I've noticed a trend that the people who say it is not pay to win point at infantry upgrades and vehicle upgrades, where as people who are on the pay to win side are pointing to the items like vehicle weapons that are necessary for the said vehicle role. The later sounds more convincing at the moment.

I honestly wouldn't go as far as to say its pay to win. The truer phrase would be somethin like pay to be competitive. Its a lot like MWO in that respect honestly. You're not 100% useless if you're new and don't pay money to the game, but you're most definitely weaker than anyone with time under their belt or a bank account with money to burn.

 

[Cavan]

Considering that in its month and a half of lifespan there have been 2 triple station cash days, a double station cash day and various other offers, as well as 15 ish days of double xp. I'd say that things are more than alright, if you missed out on every single one of those offers and bonuses somehow...wait until another one comes along? It's probably not even going to be that long before they do more.

I'd also say that for your main tank and infantry, the standard weapons (especially TR and VS) are among the best you're going to get in every category, especially LMG wise. I still use the standard rocket launcher about 95% of the time.

There is no real requirement to playing air or even in tanks. I never bought the lib bomber gun despite buying a fair amount of station cash and I have never felt gimped because I never expect anybody else to get in it, it's not important to my playstyle. If I want something to crash into people and fire the main cannon of maybe i'l grab one quickly, but otherwise I spend the majority of time in a MAX or in a tank or in a reaver. So far I have unlocked roughly 10,000 cert points and i'm honestly running out of things I care about upgrading, cert timers and additional levels in minor performance upgrades and stuff have started being my main focus.

I bought with certs an HE gun for my lightning, use the stock vanguard to great effect(with shield upgrades) and splashed out for air to air missiles only, that and the EM6, GD-7F and GR22 and a couple MAX weapons are all I needed for my playstyle. I am completely done with meaningful progression in the game now(although I still enjoy playing it and keeping going, I look forward to additional content, especially for the MAX who really lacks cert options).

I actually currently have 6000 sc sitting around that I am deliberately not bothering to buy a zepher/dalton or AP vanguard gun, or the crow rocket launcher or anything..because they're not rewarding. I'm not willing to lib spam or pilot while somebody else spams, I like the versatility of the HEAT, and I prefer either the standard rocket or in some few cases the hawk (it's broken atm anyway). I have used them all extensively during beta or during trials, and..meh. I can see how the situations and playstyles they compliment would be good..but meh.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I haven't played Planetside 2 enough to make any criticisms with confidence, but I can say that cert requirements seem high considering how long it takes to get them.

Also, Tribes Pay to win? I was one of the first to receive closed beta access and have been playing it since. The amount of time it takes to unlock things is perfect in my opinion because of the learning curve behind the game since it's not a conventional shooter. My assumption is that it forces new players to master the basics with the default class before moving onto some of the more advanced ones. Granted it doesn't stop the lazy ones from paying, but I believe the intention was to get people to learn.

 

[Easton Dark]

No way is it pay to win. I still use the default weapons and I'm death incarnate.

The only real problem I have with the game is I wish it was easier to get ammo in the field. Assaulting a tech plant and suddenly my rifle's clicking empty. Sunderer's 400ft below me. ....

 

[IamLEAM1983]

If you only consider ordnance, it's not Pay to Win at all. I tend to work okay as an Engineer with the starting loadout, and a lot of my usual squadmates never had to even cast a sideways glance at the cash shop. Most guns are "side-grades" of the starting package. Basically very close to the 'nilla loadout, with very light advantages.

You do need to fork up some cash if you want to actually be more than just a glorified transport pilot. Rockets cost money for some obscure reason. Seeing as it only unlocks a fairly basic function, I wouldn't call it Pay to Win.

Don't worry, OP. P2W at its very essence would have to be the crap Sergei Titov is pulling in the Motherland to boost sales for his game. The Russian version of The War Z is said to offer a 100$ package that's crammed with rare weapons, tons of food rations and several rare tools.

As far as SOE is concerned, you're honestly not forced to pay for anything in Planetside 2. I haven't played much, but the vanilla content is more than enough.

 

[Worgen]

I haven't found it pay to win at all,I have no trouble earning certs in the game, Ive unlocked rockets, heavy assault minigun (kind of a waste of a thousand certs, fun though), max burstar and a max right gatling gun. on top of a bunch of other cert things.

Rockets are really nice but they are hardly the end all win all, frankly I like the anti inf gun on my fighter more but the rockets are awesome for taking out tanks.

 

[joe-h2o]

No way is it pay to win. I still use the default weapons and I'm death incarnate.

The only real problem I have with the game is I wish it was easier to get ammo in the field. Assaulting a tech plant and suddenly my rifle's clicking empty. Sunderer's 400ft below me. ....

That's why you have to love and protect your engineers. My favoured role in an on-foot assault is as an engie - rep the AA max's waddling along, keep the fun bus topped up, rep any tanks that keep poking their heads out to shoot and then crucially drop ammo boxes at key points on the push, especially for the heavy assault guys if there's significant enemy armour to take out.

It's an interesting choice that you can carry an ammo box *or* the tank mines but not both. Are the engineers who you run with all carrying C4 only? If so, yell for one to swap out to an ammo box. If he's the only one putting one down he'll be racking up XP like it's christmas - nothing like free XP because other people are reloading

To get it back to the main topic - I don't necessarily think it's pay to win. I think the cost of the weapons is a little high, but as other people have said you can be a perfectly effective team member without paying a dime with the various cert unlocks for infantry. Sure, you might not be able to leap right into a fully upgraded aircraft or pimped out sunderer with the mobile spawn point and fancy turrets but you can play along side of people that *do* and get all the benefits.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

It's an interesting choice that you can carry an ammo box *or* the tank mines but not both. Are the engineers who you run with all carrying C4 only? If so, yell for one to swap out to an ammo box. If he's the only one putting one down he'll be racking up XP like it's christmas - nothing like free XP because other people are reloading

There is an interesting glitch with the ammo box which I'm not sure is intentional or not. Equip claymores or tank mines in your utility slot, where the ammo box normally goes. Then pull out your turret. Hit B (the alternate fire key). Your turret placer will turn into an ammo box! Drop an ammo box, hit B again; it is now a turret placer again!

You can get a turret, an ammo box and a utility all simultaneously using this trick. Like I said I'm not sure if it's an exploit or not, because it doesn't make sense to code in ammo boxs into the turret slot in this way if you wanted them to exclusively be a utility item. Time will tell if Sony patches it or not

OT: I made a very large post about this a few weeks ago (it was actually the reason I registered on the forums!) but essentially, I don't think PS2 counts as a pay-to-win game. This is because the real-dollar unlocks, like the guns, are almost universally sidegrades that specialise towards one function or another at the expense of versatility, whereas the default loadouts are intended as jack-of-all-trade weapons.

The problem is that the community perceives some sidegrades as direct upgrades, leading to complaints that you have to drop money in the game to be competitive. This isn't totally accurate. The unlocks are genuinely sidegrades, it's just that some of the sidegrades are considered so useful that the community basically perceives them as upgrades.

For example: it's virtually impossible to hit aircraft with the default missile launcher on the heavy assault, because it's a dumb-fire weapon. If you want to hit air reliably, you need to pay certs or real money to unlock a missile launcher with lock-on. A lot of people consider the lock-on launchers as direct upgrades because you'll have zero chance of killing aircraft without them, but the fact is that the lock-on launchers don't deal as much damage as the dumb-fire ones, and after maining as heavy assault for about a hundred hours, I can tell you that I prefer to carry the dumb-fire for this reason.

There are a couple of exceptions - rocket pods or A2A missiles on the fighters, for example, are so massively useful in all circumstances that you basically can't pilot seriously without them, which is a balancing issue. ALso, the grind in PS2 is very steep.

I should mention, however, that Sony regularly drops double or triple station cash days (about once a month) and that double XP weekends are not infrequent (we're just coming off the tail end of two weeks of double XP for the holiday season). Once you factor those in, the grind becomes a lot more tolerable. (To be honest, they need to permanently double XP gain if people want any chance of unlocking things in a reasonable timeframe.)

 

[Cavan]

There is an interesting glitch with the ammo box which I'm not sure is intentional or not. Equip claymores or tank mines in your utility slot, where the ammo box normally goes. Then pull out your turret. Hit B (the alternate fire key). Your turret placer will turn into an ammo box! Drop an ammo box, hit B again; it is now a turret placer again!

You can get a turret, an ammo box and a utility all simultaneously using this trick. Like I said I'm not sure if it's an exploit or not, because it doesn't make sense to code in ammo boxs into the turret slot in this way if you wanted them to exclusively be a utility item. Time will tell if Sony patches it or not

It's not a glitch, the turret ammo box counts as a roughly level 3 normal ammo pack. The point of the utility slot is being able to
A:level up your ammo box to last longer and resupply further
B:have two out at once