I agree that time is the main thing that gives an EVE player (dis)advantages in playing, which doesn’t inherently makes the game “P2W” by any means. The definition I gave of “P2W” does exclude such facts as being a component in labelling a game as “P2W”.
I simply wanted to kill the whole argument that EVE is P2W by making a definition that could apply to any non-single player game and see whether or not it truly is a “P2W” game. EVE is not, and has never been nor should it ever be P2W. If it ever came to that then the game would certainly die within a few weeks, I’d bet.
having time an assets (also related to time) as solely balancing factor in a 20y old game is more than questionable and outdated. people complain about that all the time as you can see in every discusion about the skill system.
however, there is no easy solution for this problem and its one of ccps money makers, hence it wont change anyways.
are you trying to legitimate a bad thing with another bad thing?
I’m simply pointing out that ‘unfair advantage’ is built into the very heart of the game. It is, after all, supposed to be a cruel dystopian reality…not some perfect utopia. I like disparate advantage…even if someone else has it. There would otherwise be nothing to fight for.
It started long before Pearl Abyss came along. In fact the infamous 2011 Summer Of Rage was fueled by the threat of Eve turning into P2W.
I started playing in 2008, there wasn’t any SP Daily Tasks, no Daily Log-in, no ‘Special Offer’ or any SP game packs available. There wasn’t any Skill Extractors / Injectors nor was there any extra SP rewards such as the NPE AIR Program.
In fact, if you wanted to gain more SP’s per hr, you had to do Attribute remaps, buy Attribute Implants and buy / train up about a dozen different ‘Learning Skills’. Also there wasn’t any long term skill queue available, you had to keep track of your skill training and basically ‘set alarm clock’ to keep skill training going. Not to mention also had to make sure your Medical Clone was updated so you wouldn’t lose any SP’s upon being podded.
Granted some of those were a vast improvement / QoL changes for the game. However CCP also started making everything more generic with ‘easy access’ to ships, modules, skills, etc all in the name of rebalancing.
Back then there use to be a lot of players with ‘Specialized’ characters doing business in this game. CCP basically abolished that aspect as well. That was Eve’s ‘Golden Time’ and the playerbase / log-in numbers constantly grew, players actually invested time in-game to advance their characters.
All of that was pretty much abolished when CCP decided to turn this game into easy mode for instant gratification, most of which started happening around 2016.
Anyway, the IronBank character I linked in my initial post showed just how easy it was to ‘game’ the system and for all intents and purposes, is a great example of P2W in this game.
one could also say its badly balanced, or ccp creates the “unfair advantage” to create an incentive to spend money on the game to overcome it. thats how many p2w games work btw
I’m well aware of how things used to be, I started back in '09, and like you I also feel like the game has lost some of it’s Soul along the way. Not all of the changes that have been made to the game, I agree with but nevertheless game has to evolve one way or the other and for the most part I’d say it have been mostly positive.
Having less MAUs now than it did years ago is just a natural progression, being a niche game, peoples lives change - Job, family, friends and what else might happen - expectations of the game, some lose interest in playing games, new players join (less than those that leave).
EVE have been running for 20 years and that in of itself is a huge achievement, few games last more than a single decade.
It only shows how someone threw away thousands of $$ for no other reason than they could. Having a maxed (SP) character doesn’t give you any special advantage that someone else couldn’t have. All that really does it give you options in which ships you can fly, it does not determine how well you as a pilot can fly the ship. Experience and knowledge of game mechanics are far more important factors in winning a fight, small or big fleets. Although outnumbering your enemy by a sizeable margin in big battles does heavily impact who wins (assuming not of the pilots are complete idiots). Again the actual SPs each player has matters very little in the big picture.
Eve is like joining a game of Monopoly 3/4 of the way through and all the properties already have houses and hotels on them, all the stations are owned, and those players have vast wealth…and those are the very people who whine loudest about ‘unfairness’ to any noobs who may join the game. Go figure !
Some guy spent thousands of $$ to get a Navy Raven, fully purple fit it, and game time, and skillbooks…after a bit of a wait(b4 LSI) he flew it…lost it in under 2hours.
Complained that players should not be able to do that…that purple was best in WoW and should of been OP in EvE.
Claimed he was a lawyer.
Threatened to sue CCP
Got permabanned as a result
Sorry but I disagree. That IronBank character was created out of P2W mechanics. Granted he did the extreme with it, but nonetheless it still proves the point of it being P2W.
Now about the claim that skill and knowledge are far more important than SP’s for winning. That claim would only apply to an extremely brand new player whereas somebody who is familiar with the game would have different results.
I had a friend who was teaching me some PvP combat tactics. We had clean Jump Clones using the exact same T1 Frigates fit with the exact same modules. During the course of engagement, we both noticed that my ship was dealing out a bit more DPS, my propulsion, shield regen and tracking was a bit faster and my range a bit longer.
We compared character stats to find that my skills were level 5 whereas most of his were level 4. He had way more knowledge and PvP skill yet due to my character’s higher level SP’s, the defensive tank on his ship was slowly starting to break.
Anyway, P2W doesn’t just apply to brand new players, Vet players can also use it for an unfair advantage.
Under your definition, even Diablo Immortal and most Gatcha games would not be considered p2w.
The problem is not that the interpretation of p2w as pay for in-game advantages is to broad, but that the mayority of games released in the last decade all come with various forms of p2w mechanics, and players like you making excuses because they can’t handle the fact that their favored game is full of p2w mechanics.
You even acknowledged this:
You made the definition to get a specific outcome related to eve, so it would not apply. Exactly as I said.
This will absolutely fool no one except the fanboys who play eve and are offended by people confronting them with the reality of eve’s blatant p2w mechanics.
Think about this: If you would go back twenty years to when EVE first launched, when the game had no cash shop, no PLEX, no SP extractors and starter packs, and you would describe the players back then about all this thing being in the game in twenty years. Do you think they would agree with you that this is not p2w, or would they completely lose their ■■■■ and call it p2w garbage?
i wont argue with that statement, some people invested a lot of time and or money in this game. thats probably also the reason why there is rarely any objective discusion in this forum. people try to protect their investment which causes all the bias, meta gaming and gatekeeping.
i think the p2w in eve is somewhat tolerated because there are no exclusive advantages yet from speding cash, non swipers can generate enough income for most things, the benefit of spending cash has some diminishing returns and lots of people are already past the point where spending money helps the most.
however, there is a fine line ccp should not cross and we are already pretty much on this line right now, or it will backfire a lot. thats exclusive advantages from money only and when most people cant generate enough income anymore to compete with swipers. ccp did not nerf income yet, but inflation and the increased ship costs has basically the same effect. people have to grind longer, or need to swipe every now and then if they want to keep the same buying power without more tedious grind.
Or maybe it just means exactly that every single MMO game in last decade is pay2win. Why is it a problem for you?
Why do you need to bend the definition and make your own to exclude EVE from it?
Admit it, you hate pay2win and you would never play such garbage game. But oh well, you are playing EVE so what do we do? We redefine pay2win term so EVE is no longer pay2win. Problem solved!
Well, one in an exchange of your finite amount of time on this planet for a currency you sadly need to survive, the other is exchanging your finite amount of time for digital content useless for real life existence.
I’m not bending the definition to exclude EVE specifically. “P2W” is a slang term that awoke from Free to Play games that provided Vehicles, Equipment and/or Ammunitions that could only be acquired by paying for it with credit card, meaning that whoever bought such things did/do without any doubt Pay to Win. For example World of Tanks/Warships where they have “Gold” Tanks/Ships and ammo, no matter how much time you grind in those game you’ll never acquire those Vehicle or ammo.
EVE doesn’t have anything remotely like that
Yes, I do hate P2W mechanic and if they’re ever introduced into EVE I’ll quit playing.
Diablo Immortal (DI) is without any doubt a P2W game, it has been documented by many YT content creators that in order to max you character you’ll need to spend at least half a million dollars, if not more. It is simply not possible to max you character’s gear without swiping your CC:
DI has 5 different currencies all designed in a way that the Player does not have a clue on their spending in the game. Only one does not require you to swipe CC, Gold, but is as useful as
Trading in DI requires Platinum which can for the most part only be acquired with CC.
To acquire Eternal Legendary Crests - to run rifts for chance to get Legendary gems - you have to swipe your CC. Note: you can buy 1 (normal) Legendary Crest every month by doing PvP - however the gems you get from running rifts with normal Legendary Crests you will never max out your gems/gear
Only Gems acquired from rifts using Eternal Legendary Crests can be sold on the Market.
Do I need to go on about the countless mechanics in DI that is P2W? None of the above things is remotely related to “accelerated training” “XP boost” or similar mechanics that briefly gives a small boost.
Ok. So how does EVE differ here? It takes decades to max out your character with the slow SP trickle you get from a regular Omega account you already pay for. So how much would it cost you to max out a character with the credit card?
And before you go the “but you don’t need to max out your character in EVE to do stuff”, the same goes for DI.
Your definition was that they can acquire things with credit cards that they could not otherwise acquire in game. As far as I can see a free2play player can acquire all the gear and gems.
Just as in EVE, where a free2play player could grind ISK to buy PLEX to access the better modules, ships, skills and faster SP accumulation. They could even grind some more to get injectors. But how realistic is that? How long would it actually take to have a maxed out char in an officer fit titan (that goal is as moronic as a maxed out DI character)?
They have both similar pay2win mechanics, it’s just packaged differently. You look down on DI as the ultimate obvious p2w game, yet you don’t even realize that EVE is in many ways completely similar.
Actually I think you would just redefine your definition of p2w again so it allows you to say EVE doesn’t match the description.
It’s actually sad. You can play this game perfectly fine and accept the fact that it is pay2win, almost every online game this days is to some degree. Ignoring it and lying to yourself just leads to complacency and a community like we have today that simply swallows everything and even defends it.
A decade ago the simple introduction of payed digital goods was controversial and met with an uproar. Today they directly sell SP in the shop and no one cares anymore, because CCP turned up the temperature of the water slowly and constantly over the last decade, introducing such things in incremental changes to ease the acceptance.
Exactly, that’s basically what I meant in my initial post of this thread when I said - it’s all part of mind-set conditioning being done over time. I even listed the steps of how they did it with the SP’s.
Sad thing is they’re now doing it again with Boosters. Granted the procedure is a little different but overall it’s basically the same, first incorporate some low level stuff for free and let the playerbase get use to it, then add in some free mid level stuff for special events / log-in rewards. After a while add high level stuff to game packs.
Where CCP messed up was they jumped the gun by adding that high level booster item to the Amarr Event game pack when they should have added a mid level version for free as a Log-in reward. And after the playerbase had gotten use to it, then add high level versions in game packs.
Of course there’s more but…
Anyway, like I said earlier, the P2W dam was broken a long time ago…
You can get any item in EVE without paying a single dollar ($); sure it will maybe take you a 3rd of a lifetime to max out your SPs but other than that everything is relatively easy to get your hands on.
If you’re referring to EVE Echoes I would most certainly agree with you on that for the most part, being almost as big of a “cashgrab” as DI is, although not equally as bad in terms of P2W. EVE Echoes is more a legalised “botting service”.
) which I suspect is influenced by this jesters