Yep. Because paying for SP doesn’t make you skilled 
Who said it doesn’t? It’s been extensively criticized and I don’t like it either.
There is some truth to that, but I think EVE is a special case in some ways. First of all, there are few in-game, objective standards as to what “winning” means. So you always have to consider what the goal in this particular scenario is and how it affects other players.
A hisec carebear PLEXing a fleet of barges and an Orca, mining and letting the isk sit on his account isn’t having an unfair advantage over anyone. If he uses that isk to play the market, he gets an advantage in market PvP. But it all depends on context - there are no 5 vs. 5 matchups with clear victory conditions or player rankings here - the gameplay is highly freeform and that gang of blingy Tengus can still get welped by a group with superior numbers. In games with clear win-lose conditions and limited parameters of competition, the p2w problem would be much more pronounced, here the lines are muddier I think.
Second: yeah, you always need to actually play with the stuff you bought, but EVE has a very high skill ceiling and a very steep learning curve, so it’s much, much harder to use the money to simply get ahead early. Hence the hilarious 40 bil Raven killmails. The pay-to-win mechanisms only kick in at higher levels of play - that doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all, but might be less noticeable by the majority of low-to-mid skill players.
I agree that buying skillpoints shouldn’t be a thing. But not so sure about the microtransactions being merely cosmetic. That would come at the cost of removing the possibility of PLEXing your account and probably having to get something like WiS into the game to give stronger incentives for paid personalization - essentially, Incarna 2.0. We’ve already been there, but I know there are people here that would support it.
Anyhow, that’s just my musings as someone who probably isn’t experienced enough in the game to make these judgements, but if someone asked me, I’d probably say you can pay to win in EVE, sort of, but it’s harder to pull off and actually benefit from it.
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Huge credit card bill.
But that’s you getting caught up on the literal word “win”. Most MMOs have no fixed win condition, that doesn’t mean that pay to win mechanics can’t exist.
He’s got a time advantage. He hasn’t had to build up ISK or wait for skills to train. That’s an advantage.
Right, so again this raises the question, if premium ships that can only be bought for cash were sold, those ships could also be welped by a group with superior numbers, yet I doubt many people would argue that premium ships weren’t pay to win.
I don’t think that changes whether or not it’s pay to win though, it just changes how much advantage you are given. But even that is subjective because over a similarly skilled pilot, paying will give an advantage.
I don’t really understand why for most games people understand that paying for any speedup or any advantages is pay to win even without actually winning, but as soon as it applies to EVE people start to become incredibly literal with the word. It feels like people are trying to delude themselves into accepting CCPs microtransaction strategy without admitting they are playing a pay to win game.
You can’t really tho, as for the reasons you’ve pointed out.
Don’t fall prey to false arguments
Esp ones coming from alts
I’m all for anything that annoys the right people.
Yeah, well, I totally see CCP doing all of that.
Hence the last paragraph in my post. I think we mostly agree, I was just considering both sides of the argument and perhaps put emphasis on different things. Or maybe it is trying to delude myself into thinking EVE isn’t pay to win.
But you also can, for the other reasons I pointed out.
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Except it isn’t really pay to win. Swiping your CC isn’t guaranteeing you can win in EVE, merely saving time.
I feel like most of ya’ll have actually never played an actual P2W game or else you would know
You aren’t deluded. EVE isn’t P2W.
Don’t fall for the quafewaffle LOL.
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So then what game is pay to win? What game can you swipe a card and guarantee a win?
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Yeah and saving time to the point you can e.g. immediately replace losses in a war while the opponent has to grind for it is paying to gain an enormous strategic advantage. In most situations, for casual players, what you say is probably true. But if you scale it up enough, your corp may indeed pay to win a war.
What examples would you give of actual p2w games and how they work?
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You got any proof anyone is actually spending that kind of cash and has it actually turned the tide in a war?
I’ll wait LOL.
You notice the language you use right? “If”. As in could it happen? Of course. Is it happening? No
Did you miss the COD scandal or
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You’d need CCP-level access to data to know to what degree it’s happening. I’m still waiting for you to tell me what game you can swipe a card and guarantee a win.
Are you the replacement for Gix by the way?
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Seems like it would be a cool option for some players.
ftfy
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I like the way the skills system work now. I cannot support this idea. I don’t want to have to buy and fly something just to train it. That would mean some things would be beyond my abilities to train due to their price and/or danger to use, having to buy it over and over again to continue training it despite getting killed in it over and over again…
~Fifie adamantly opposes.
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It’s enough it can happen. If you think there are no credit card warriors who actually do this, you’re extremely naive. How can I have proof, I’d need records of PLEX purchuases from all players in the game and then do a lot of data crunching.
I don’t follow gaming news or other games, that’s why I asked. Please point me to a game in which you can buy an item or ability that is a guaranteed instant win button, because this is what you implied is the requirement for a game to be truly pay to win. I’m not saying such games don’t exist, but surely you can give me an example of something that fits your criteria so I can compare?
It “can” happen. You got absolutely no proof that is happening. Its ok to admit you’ve said a hypothetical situation
I literally just did? If you can’t Google COD or COD Battle pass P2W and find things, I weep for the younger generations
I’m just going to say no to what the OP proposed…
The way it is now, SP training is just fine.
What should be done is CCP stop selling SP’s in various game packages. Also stop giving SP’s for Log-in rewards and in-game Daily tasks.
Lastly CCP should make SP extractors and injectors exclusively soulbound to the character. When the idea of Extractors & Injectors was first proposed, it was to be a way for players to re-skill their characters, not to create Titan pilots with new characters within a few days…
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If you take 2 twins, with the same personal skills. The start and play the game the same time.
One of them is rich and buys a lot of thing (PLEX, Skill boosters, ships, …)
They will meet one day a fight. Who do you think will win?
Pay to Win doesn’t guarantee you a win, but your chances are much better. P2W is everything, what can change game-play for money. If you want a game without p2w, you can sell only cosmetics (ship skins, …) and have subscription (same for all).
Sorry but Eve is totally P2W, it combines subscription and P2W Elements, which is not good. I hope they will not introduce loot-boxes.
EVE without P2W, with only subscription seems to be great idea. It could work as the second server.
Devs should decide, if they want to sell PLEX + PACK + SKILLS Boosters (P2W), or Omega Subscription. Both is just greedy.