EVE is an easy 7/10 on Josh Strife Hayes' Pay2Win scale

[Multimorti_Oramara]

Advocating for new players to catch up without swiping the credit card, killing Eve Online in the long run. You seem to not think outside of the box, and be stuck in an “old fashioned/old viewpoint” of what MMO’s used to be and what they are turning into.

People think Nvidia is trying to take over the world with their generative AI stuff and other things they’ve been working on, but it turns out they were just ahead of the curve of what is most definitely coming in the very near future. I don’t really care if you think it’s cheating. Because NO MATTER WHAT, even IF YOU CAN spend unlimited money to attain everything in the game, you might just still SUCK and not be able to win a single PvP fight. Either way, what we think doesn’t really seem to have an effect on this issue, as CCP is most definitely going in the direction of allowing this type of system to exist in Eve Online… and it seems to be doing pretty well, based on the most recent economic reports.

Here is what I think that you are not getting: CCP is doing better w/ their financials, and are of course doing better in part, because of PLEX/Real money purchases in Eve Online. Why would they tailor/remake/change everything BACK because of the few people who disagree with their approach when it’s clearly making things better for the company. the players, etc? The people who say they really love Eve much more than others, which is why they are 100% against buying things in Eve with real money and why everything should be changed and real money should be removed from the game, are at the extreme end of ignorance. Ignorant that their views might could kill Eve. Ignorant that there may just be more than one way to skin a cat… lol. IT IS MAKING THE GAME MONEY, WHICH IN TURN MAKES CCP STAY AROUND LONGER. Period. And if anyone says Eve/CCP is horrible for taking money from people and whatever other BS they want to bring up about that - show me one other game that does more, or does what Eve has does and still does in regards to players? WITH players. FOR players. I’ll be waiting for your response. Eve and the way they have approached and handled this topic is a first of it’s kind, it would seem to me. And they are succeeding. It would not surprise me one bit if, in the future, other games follow suit and do similar with their games that Eve has done here. If they can do it, they will have a better chance of succeeding as a company. Isn’t that what makes the most sense? Isn’t that at least partially why we are still here, typing on this forum because of this? Hmm. So if you really love the game, should you or should you not be at least OK with the system of things? More happy than not with how things are going? Well, if you aren’t, I am. I’ve had love for the game for a long time. I’m a beta player. DEFINITELY not beta male, in-game my character is the Apex of… a female alpha. for sure. Yep. LMAO. Riiiiight haha. (I don’t care what you think or say to that here so let on with the jokes, if you wish) I’m happy with the direction CCP is taking. Am I 100% happy with Eve’s direction? Nope. Do I recognize and understand that most things/situations will not be liked 100% by everyone, 100% of the time? Yep. I get your frustrations, but I don’t understand the extent of how much you are displeased with it. Show me ONE EXAMPLE of someone buying tons of crap in Eve Online, and how it changed the game/economy/gameplay forever in a negative way, from that time onward… and maybe I’ll change my mind based on what you show me. Might change my mind, if you can show me that, but I doubt it. Fly safe friend, or dangerous - whichever you prefer! Long live Eve!! =)

[Mr_Epeen]

@Gerard_Amatin

A nice part about PLEX is that it allows people from third world countries to play for their premium instead of paying for it.

Seriously?

Third world? You mean the global south?

They have more money than most Americans. The people not living in prison, live in tent cities. There’s the 1% and then there’s the poors. And the EVE players are not in the 1%.

Please try to be less bigoted and ignorant…

Mr Epeen

[Drx_Drx]

@Gerard_Amatin

A nice part about PLEX is that it allows people from third world countries to play for their premium instead of paying for it.

Believe it or not this character was made by one of those people. A friend of mine i tried to get in to eve. Gave him a few plex and tried to teach him everything i knew. He burned out trying to farm enough isk to plex the account and gave up. Luckily i had enough info to pass account ownership verification process and salvage my “investment”

[Wadiest_Yong]

@Kezrai_Charzai

Sorry, but I made no claims whatsoever regarding the creation of the next generation of EVE players. Tarak and yourself framed the issue in terms of catch-up, or how it would mislead newer players into spending for resources while skipping learning the game. I merely responded to that.

You responded to it but now want to avoid further discussing the heart of the matter ?

On the one hand you claim:

@Kezrai_Charzai

Let’s say there was no paying for anything but subs. Then any new player knows right off the bat that every single other player in EVE is already ahead of him in some very important metrics. And he can never catch up in those terms, never even close the gap, really. Does he feel he’s got a fair deal?

But now it’s “framing the subject” when @Karak_Terrel and I point out they are presented with illusions to “catch up” and get a “fairer deal” in return for cash ? I prefer consistency in anyone’s opinion… It can change of course at a debate’s end, after comparing arguments and gaining new insights.

Let’s assume you mean that offering sp and plex for cash / via cash is good for new players because they then feel like “catching up” and getting a “fair deal” and that indeed you genuinely believe they are catching up. I disagree with the catching up, it’s an illusion.

or

Let’s assume you are okay with offering sp and plex for cash / via cash to new players because then they feel like etc. but secretly confirm it’s an illusion that is only good for business. That entails you being fine with selling fried air. I call it a questionable practice.

Of course I like it when ccp gets more income, but I’d rather see them do it for vanity items in the game, nothing else. I don’t even care if they charge “designer jeans prices” for a monocle … But I’d much more prefer them to do it for "hard"ware, like ship models, lego kits, T-shirts, shot glasses, card decks, bumper stickers and kitchen timers in funny shapes. It would at least feel more honest. But that doesn’t feed into the Fortnite-like model of cash spending frenzy…

And of course it feeds into the whole alpha status question, which in its current state is the same “convenience flavor of the decade” but in reality is one more attempt to merely grab an extra buck. But fortunately, that is an other topic.

@Kezrai_Charzai

I’ve never seen someone complain they bought Plex to get into a big ship in-game and then got killed immediately

Spend some time on the Rookie Help channel… It starts with “how do I get into this shiny battleship”.

@Kezrai_Charzai

But if you want me to believe the “it hurts people who spend money to get ahead” argument, you’d best be able to show me some of those people.

You can believe what you prefer. The best threads are the ones that just list pro and con arguments, without attacking the arguments. After all, a discussion here is not even a trustworthy tool for ccp to gauge the feelings in the community.

But bottom line: it’s not because a game is two decades old that sp and isk for cash needs to be on offer. That’s a marketing task, to create an illusion of a need and then increase that need “you didn’t know you needed this, now you do, and we’re here to help you address that need”.

In a much older thread I compared that particular “catching up” argument to “there’s no need to go to uni and try to become a doctor, because all those older, established physicians … there’s just no competing with them”. It’s the lie down and die argument.

EDITed to make it as crystal as a mountain lake.

[Kezrai_Charzai]

@Wadiest_Yong

You responded to it but now want to avoid further discussing the heart of the matter ?

I didn’t say I wouldn’t discuss it. You said it was my error, I merely pointed out it wasn’t my contention at all. I don’t believe new players are typically buying Plex to catch up or to quickly get into ships. I instead pointed out that my experience indicates Plex is mostly bought and used by established players to accomplish their in-game goals.

@Wadiest_Yong

I point out they are presented with illusions to “catch up” and get a “fairer deal” in return for cash ?

Most new players barely know how to get their ships from point A to point B. It’s rare to see a new player asking how they can get into an expensive ship. I see a few players ask how to get into a battlecruiser, battleship, or mining barge. The answers they’re given usually outline the options: pay for skill injectors, grinding for ISK, and the difference between having the bare SP needed to sit in one and having the gameplay skill needed to survive in one. And the advice is usually “wait for the SP to train”.

There’s no substantial body of newer players complaining that Plexing has cost them the ability to learn the game, or tricked them into big expensive killmails. It’s an imagined “think of the children” fallacy.

@Wadiest_Yong

Let’s assume you are okay with offering sp and plex for cash / via cash to new players

As stated, you keep harping on new players. I generally only see the arguments and usage of Plex by fairly established players. I’m perfectly fine with established players making choices between their disposable cash or their disposable time, and spending each as they see fit.

@Wadiest_Yong

Of course I like it when ccp gets more income, but I’d rather see them do it for vanity items in the game, nothing else.

Yes and I’d love to see world peace, an end to hunger, and goodwill to all people. But wanting something doesn’t make it so. Those items have never generated the cash CCP needs to operate EVE, and never will.

@Wadiest_Yong

Spend some time on the Rookie Help channel… It starts with “how do I get into this shiny battleship”.

See above comment about new players asking how to get into a BC/BS/barge. The options are generally appropriately laid out and I see a few of them say “wow sounds expensive” but no real objections to it.

@Wadiest_Yong

In a much older thread I compared that particular “catching up” argument to “there’s no need to go to uni and try to become a doctor, because all those older, established physicians … there’s just no competing with them”. It’s the lie down and die argument.

Well, again, I didn’t bring “catching up” or new players into the equation. First Karak did, then you did. I replied to your points, I didn’t raise them.

I don’t believe catching up is the driver for Plex / SP / injector sales. By far the greatest use I see of those is by existing players with existing characters who have decided they want to do X in the game, and they use Plex/SP/injector purchases to speed that up.

Again, point me to the threads posted by new players who feel they’ve been victimized or taken advantage of by SP/Plex etc. offers, and I’ll start giving that line of thought some credit. Until then it’s literally all in your head.

As for your points of offers/illusions being made to players, or Karak’s attempted point of

@Karak_Terrel

The whole game is now littered with ads about additional stuff you could buy, even if you are omega, it’s in every f’ing corner.

I have no idea what this is about. I play 1-2 hours per week. I run some missions, ferry some items, do a few market trades, or hack a few relic cans. In the past few years of this I’ve seen maybe 5 or 6 little icons pop advertising an ‘offer’. They’re little yellow cog icons IIRC, completely ignorable. At least 3 of those, probably 4, were when I was levelling up a new character to check the NPE. That’s hardly intrusive.

CCP wants to stay in business, sales are a needed for that. They can only sell what people are willing to buy. Players made it very clear, a decade or more ago, that subs and vanity items weren’t going to cut it. So CCP had to find/create more practical things to sell, things players were actually willing to pay for.

IMO so far they’ve gone about it fairly cautiously. They’ve made some blunders but also corrected them, and they’re treading a fine line between finding new monetization methods and going into the red. From what I can tell they’re doing a reasonable job balancing difficult financial demands against player expectations.

CCP/EVE has more fundamental problems to work on than the P2W aspects. EVE has been P2W since day 1 by directly tying SP to months of sub paid for. And then even moreso by encouraging multi-boxing. It’s part of the game.

[Mephiztopheleze]

@Karak_Terrel

I think most gamers that are extremely fond of a game will naturally chose a definition that does not include that game. They will even adapt that definition as the game adds more and more monetization. We have seen it, right here in EVE.

The problem here is there is no universally accepted definition of “pay2win”.

I use the somewhat classical definition.

You clearly use a different definition.

If we can’t agree on such a basic foundation for the discussion, it’s kind of pointless having the debate.

Gamers have changed a lot over the 20 years EVE has been Online (baddum tish, see what I did there?). The old ways of sub-only, 14(?) Day trial, thou shalt spend 30 days training Advanced Weapons Upgrades V model of eve just won’t fly anymore. CCP has had to adapt to a changing game landscape and changing gamers to stay alive. That’s not A Bad Thing™.

Although they’ve certainly tried, they haven’t really crossed the line of having items that give direct combat advantage for cash. Every time they put a toe on or over that line, community outrage ensues.

I think it speaks well of CCP that they actually listen when that happens.

In any event, this thread is all about some arbitrary scale dreamt up by some YouTuber. I disagree with some of his reasoning and I’m not alone in that.

[stefnia_Freir]

TLDR : bitter BTC shill complains about payment system in Eve and twists a youtube’s game analyzis video to make it fit his narative.
Then proceeds to make dogmatic and absurd claims in order to have morale high ground.

Soon he will tell us that the solution to all problems would be in NFTs.

To conclude, I would give Karak

@Karak_Terrel

Let’s be honest here, you are not interested to explore this topic to figure out if you are actually right. You just paste in some copy pasta from a quick google search that matches with your opinion and hope something sticks.

/10

[Wadiest_Yong]

@Kezrai_Charzai

Players made it very clear, a decade or more ago, that subs and vanity items weren’t going to cut it.

What ? How, where ?

If you mean that embarking on the next development adventure was frowned upon, you’re right. But unless you have had access to the books, claiming that ccp has ever operated this game at a loss, that’s just wrong. Of course, operating this game and firing up yet another new game project are two entirely different things. The first relies on product quality, the second on sound leadership principles in the company.

@Kezrai_Charzai

IMO so far they’ve gone about it fairly cautiously.

I agree with that. The line was drawn back in 2011. The community and its representatives watch that line like a hawk. And once in a while, some marketeer tests the waters to see if we’re still watching. We are.

@Kezrai_Charzai

EVE has been P2W since day 1 by directly tying SP to months of sub paid for.

Only if you equate SP with winning … Or multiboxing with winning… which I disagree with. SP opens doors which lead to content - from sites to supercap fights. In fact, linking SP to real time was a very novel and innovative way to keep a sandbox game alive - where players are and create the content, and where ccp merely adds pve content as an isk faucet at a rate far below any other non-sandbox mmo. Linking sp to real time was, in my opinion, one of the major reasons for the survival of the game in the long term. People come back for more doors opening, they can make plans and work towards them.

Btw, if you feel an argument has nothing to do with your opinion, don’t waste time responding to it. It avoids confusion and time lost.

[Karak_Terrel]

@Mephiztopheleze

The problem here is there is no universally accepted definition of “pay2win”.

Yeah, which is exactly why I posted that video which does an objective analysis of the different types of pay2win mechanics that have emerged over the years and tries to arrange them in a scale rather than just some arbitrary line that is drawn right outside the things your favorite game does.

I think this is the most comprehensive and game independent analysis of the problem so far.

I’m pretty sure you can repeat this thread in every game forum out there, even on games everyone here would agree they are absurdly p2w, and you would see the exact same response and defense.

[Mephiztopheleze]

OK, now, let’s remove the PLEX products section, which seems to be the major bone of contention with old’mates analysis.

Where does EVE sit on the scale then?

[Karak_Terrel]

@Wadiest_Yong

The line was drawn back in 2011. The community and its representatives watch that line like a hawk.

That line was somewhere completely different back in 2011. They repeatedly expanded on monetization and pushed the envelop.

One of the most obvious examples is still the SP situation, where it was promised on the introduction of the extractor/injector that they will never sell SP from the shop and it will always be generated by the players, because they justified the introduction with the character bazzar’s existence. Next they added SP to the shop just for the alphas, you know, it’s for the children, so they can get SP cheaper, and you can already buy SP on the market because now injectors existed. And then they stated to directly sell SP to returning players, and the community was like “there is already SP in the shop for a long time…”

The line gets always pushed. The booster implant that can’t be resold they peddled back on, I’m pretty sure they will try again. The community can only get outraged about such things for a limited time and at some point resignation sets in.

@Wadiest_Yong

Linking sp to real time was, in my opinion, one of the major reasons for the survival of the game in the long term.

Yeah I feel that way too. Sadly, with the introduction of alphas and injectors, it now exactly resembles a typical time gate mechanic you find in the common trash mobile game. I’m not joking, it’s virtually identical.

So while I agree that this was great when there was no shortcuts, it completely changed the dynamic of that system when they added those.

And sure since we know it from before as this great mechanic the thought about this getting classified as a mobile game time gate mechanic may be even offensive and it seems like it ignores the whole context how it came about. Well a new player doesn’t have that context. For them it will always look like the stupid mechanic they know from mobile games.

[Mephiztopheleze]

One other little thought bubble I’ve had on this video and how it relates to EVE…

I think we can all agree that EVE is a game like no other. No other single shard, persistent universe, player driven economy, permanent destruction game exists that I’m aware of. Hence, scales like the one presented will be “accurate” (for wont of a better term) for 99% of games, but not all.

With that said, one thing I’ve learned about the game is that the most valuable things to have in game are Trust and Friends. These cannot be bought, they must be earned over time. (Ok, you could hire a mercenary corp as a substitute for friends, but that only goes so far).

I’ll give you an example. Some time ago, a well known lowsec group decided they wanted my C4-3/5 magnetar bearhole, so they came in heavy with an eviction attempt.

Me and my bearhole partners had been in the game a while and we had friends across various alliances around the map. We also had an extensive defence fleet built up in our fort.

We put our the call for help, kept the invaders busy at the c3 while we slipped a prober out the c5 to get a chain in. 40 friends (about 30 actual beating hearts) rode in in their travel ceptors. We undocked in a solid heavy armour Machariel fleet backed up with haw dreads, carriers and a couple of FAX.

The alliance ticker column of the overview read like a who’s who of eve. We had goons, pl, Shadow Cartel, snuff, cal and gal mil.

My little three man wormhole corp had the support of friends in alliances that absolutely hated each other. The invaders contacted me afterwards wondering “who the hell are you guys?”.

So $$ may buy you skillpoints and ships, but it can’t buy you the really important things: friends and trust.

[stefnia_Freir]

@Mephiztopheleze

Where does EVE sit on the scale then?

It sticks on 7 because this is the “infinite growth money=power” that goes with multiboxing.

[Wadiest_Yong]

@Karak_Terrel

The line gets always pushed.

yep, that line is under constant pressure, and it needs watching. Some over-enthusiastic marketeer may convince his supervisor that an extra buck is the ultimate good, but the game would disagree - and then we all lose something we love. So would ccp, because you can’t turn this sandbox into a mobile game. That’s established in its dna.

@Wadiest_Yong

The toxic thing we have in EvE, at least in my opinion, is the selling of sp in any shape or form, be it injectors or packs. Those must be the reason why a naive new player starts to regard EvE as a pay to win scheme

Here’s some more harping about new players …

[Mephiztopheleze]

Oh boi…

Let’s introduce another irrelevant argument.

Multiboxing has been part of the game since day one. Deal with it. Complaints about it will be ignored.

[Karak_Terrel]

@Mephiztopheleze

So $$ may buy you skillpoints and ships, but it can’t buy you the really important things: friends and trust.

I absolutely agree with everything you said. The sandbox nature of EVE does indeed negate the impact a lot of the pay2win mechanics has on the overall interactions that happen in the game. It is more on an individual level where this mechanics have an impact. Do you want to wait a month for the skill to train or do you drop some cash on it so you can fly a better setup in the fight to come? I may not sway the fight in your favor, but then again if it had zero effect, CCP would not sell anything with micro-transactions and the whole argument about it being necessary for the business would be moot.

If friends or trust could be sold it would certainly already be in the shop. But joke aside, this dynamics, while they have a dampening effect on the overall impact, they can’t factor into the evaluation of the individual pay2win mechanics, because you could simply always make that argument no matter what CCP does. You could perfectly well use this same argument to defend gold ammo (and it will be used if they ever add it), and that shows in my opinion why it isn’t a helpful argument in this discussion.

[Mephiztopheleze]

The day Gold Ammo is introduced is the day I uninstall. And I’m fast from alone in that.

Mind giving me your thoughts on where eve sits if we remove the PLEX style products section?

[Karak_Terrel]

@Mephiztopheleze

Multiboxing has been part of the game since day one. Deal with it. Complaints about it will be ignored.

That doesn’t negate it’s impact on the game though. I use this mechanic on my own and I definitely would classify this as extremely pay2win. The more money I drop on subs for alts directly scales how big of a target I can suicide gank in Highsec for example.

[Karak_Terrel]

@Mephiztopheleze

Mind giving me your thoughts on where eve sits if we remove the PLEX style products section?

I agree with the other poster that it would still be a 7/10 because of multiboxing

[Mephiztopheleze]

And i repeat:

Multiboxing has been in the game since day one.

Deal with it.

Complaints about it will be ignored.