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Pay-2-Win: Does it have a definition at all?


Kurock

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We could even refer to this slice as the "No-Future" nihilist cultural group that is cannon to the DU lore. No Future in this case because continuing to grind does somewhat cap your growth potential (if you are having to serve others before serving yourself).

That depends. I started my "Grind" in EVE by mining asteroids, then took a leap of faith into a Wormhole and came out 1/4th of a PLEX richer. It's not much about grind. People who are risk-takers in EVE, make MAD banks. People who buy PLEX in EVE for the game time ,are people who take huge risks. And at a point, you just play the market. IF you INVEST mind into the game, you will learn to make money by trading or playing the market like stock exchange - buy low, sell high.

 

It's the beauty of a game that has a realistic economy and depleting resources. You start small, and build big slowlly. EVE's rising PLEX cost, is due to EVE not havign depletign resources.  People don't have to waste money on fuel either, fuel is endless on mining barges in EVE - as well as all ships mostly. DU changes that. Then, add the need for a crew on board a freighter ship or the lack of automated mining.. The more jobs exist in the game, the more money float around, the lower is the price of a DAC,

 

If a person with too much free time wants to hold 5 jobs inside DU, sure, go for it, you'll be making 1 DAC in 1 Week. I know I did mining, hauling and trading on my own in EVE, and I got my first PLEX within a week, sure, it was hard, but nowadays I have built a capital I simply invest in the market on long term sell orders and make PLEX like easy.

 

 

Space Capitalism, best capitalism.

 

 

But having multiple things to do in a game, is no grind.  If Empyrion taught me anything, is that actively scouting for resources, or resource gathering, or hunting, or farming, when done with buddies, it becomes the best way to pass time. And as we know, the game is an MMO. I mean, if you play an MMO to play solo, there's a fault in that internal logic :P.

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I think its worth noting that the only thing you can really gain is Time. Trading a DAC for reaources only saves you the time it would take to gather them. Trading a DAC for a ship only saves you the time it would take to design and build the ship.

 

Sure you don't need to be specked in a required skill to make the ship, but it saves you the time it would take to provide the goods and services you would need to trade for the ship literally any otherway.

 

People who don't work so many hours IRL and can't afford extra DAC's will be able to do those things themselves. People who work many more hours or have family commitments will have a shortcut.

 

The kicker is that it is entirely up to the "working class" as to how much that shortcut will get you. Actual players will be trading for these and getting something meaningful out of it. Unless there are enough of the things floating around for the price of a DAC to hit a "stable" level, it'll be kind of the wild west. Will players base the value if a DAC based on some kind of in-gams hourly wage? We have no idea exactly what we'll be able to get with them.

Yeah for me the red line with P2W has always been whether or not whatever is gained by paying irl cash is obtainable through normal means in game. Paying to get shortcuts or time shaved off a grind isn't P2W because you can get to the same point by just playing the game. So being able to pay for direct power advantages that you can't get any other way is what defines P2W for me.

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  • 4 months later...

As this topic interests me as well, I am reading these kind of posts at the forums.

 

So, I'd like to add my 2 cents and say that, most of the times people are approaching this in a somewhat limited fashion.

 

Sure, for the individual player DAC is not a p2w system, for a number of reasons that have already been explained/mentioned, but what about guilds? A guild for example can replace, fix and so on, a ship with in-game currency obtained by selling DACs. Then that guild can operate efficiently that ship, cause it is a guild and has the necessary number of  players. Their adversary guild though, that does not participate in the trade of DACs, will have to get in-game currency "traditionally", which would be a process. This means that the first guild has an advantage over the second guild, (the first guild being able to replace their ships before their enemy), that was paid for!

 

Now, here is the important question, whose answer in my opinion will define if the DAC system will/can be turned into a p2w system.

 

How long and difficult is this process?

 

If it is long and difficult, this will determine the outcome of the conflict between the two guilds!  If on the other hand it is not that much of a process, the outcome of the conflict will not be influenced by this system that much, if at all.

 

So, let's go back to the example.

 

Guild [A] fixes and replaces their ships via in-game currency obtained in the DAC market. If at the (relatively) same time Guild fixes and replaces their ships as well, via in-game currency obtained via in-game methods, the DAC system is not p2w. If on the other hand, Guild [A] is able to fix and replace their ships x2 faster than Guild , because they can always have readily the necessary funds, obtained via the DAC market, then there is an in-balance and literally Guild [A] won cause they paid to won, hence p2w.

 

But all that is theory, let's add some actual facts as well.

 

Discussing this at DU's reddit, people have reported that EVE PLEX trading can result in more than a year's worth of traditional ISK farming! I haven't played EVE to know personally, but this kind of scenario is scary, and if this is indeed true, then EVE is outright p2w.

 

So, and taking into account that ditching DACs at this point is highly unlikely, I think that this problem could be bypassed if DACs were not being traded freely. Instead a number of restrictions at various points could be introduced.  To state some examples, as I think of them; a) players could buy a maximum of -X- DACs per month from NQ,  b ) players could buy a maximum of -Y- DACs per month, in-game, c) some kind of tax could be implemented at DAC trading, and if a tax is implemented at all tradings then DAC's trading could have a higher "tax", d) there could be a restriction at the number of DACs in circulation at a time,. So if only 500 DACs at a time are allowed, no more DACs can be bough from NQ's cash shop, e) the in game currency made from DACs could be received after a longish "processing time". Again if that is a feature for all trades then this time would be more in DACs' case, f)......etc, g) a combination of some of the above.

 

As I said, these are just examples as I was thinking them. There are of course pros and cons to all of them. That said, my favorites (and which I think are better) are a) and b ) in combination with each other. If that is not enough, then tax could be added.

 

In any case. the point is that NQ should take measures in order to always reach the outcome where no guild has an advantage over the other, just cause one of them is involved in the DAC market.

 

The other thing that I'd like to point , but is less important (taking into consideration the fact that DACs are here to stay) is that, although external trading of in-game currency is possible, "legalizing" trading in-game currency for real life money (or rather a product bought with real life money -the DAC-), will make these kind of transactions more prevalent. In other words, those who would buy in-game currency with real money, would be less if there was no DAC and they will be more now that there is the DAC system.

 

Yes, yes, the DAC method will also come with its perks, but as far as the p2w element goes (buying in game currency with real money), the problem is getting worse.

 

That said, what is important (and the solution) in my opinion, is for the DACs to be seriously regulated and not to be allowed to be traded freely.

 

That, and of course, not to combine the DAC system with a system similar to the "skill injector" system that EVE has. Cause these two combined make a game absolutely p2w.

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The previous example does not constitute p2w to me. An organisation recouping losses faster by using DAC's does not give that organisation an advantage that can not also be gained in game by having players actually play the game.

 

The suggested fixes, while commendable for being off the top of the head, need a bit more thought: 

A, B. Limit DAC purchases per month. This can be taken two ways. One is the limit is per player which will prevent little as alts can be created with ease. The other is NQ only releases X number of DACs for purchase each month. This will raise the cost of DAC as they become a very limited resource, being bought up as soon as there is quota available. Those that get them first will have an advantage over everyone that did not get them in time. Nevermind that this decreases the effectiveness of one of the principle reasons for having DACs: to curb IRL blackmarket purchases of in game money. 

C. Tax the DACs. Would this not mean the quanta price will increase to compensate for this tax?

D. Regulating DAC's in circulation. Similar to A and B.

E. Delay on DAC to Quanta conversion. This is an interesting one. There will always be people willing to buy DAC, though with a bit more effort/ time a better price could be found for the same number of DACs.  Putting an artificial delay on a DAC purchase could mean a player does not get his subscription paid in time as the DAC "clears". I can see player brokers appearing to circumvent the delay in quanta payment (for a small fee of course), so again this would not have the desired effect.

 

Of course, these are just off the top of my head and I am no economist.

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since the market is run by players, you can't just sell 2000 DACs for the same price - supply/demand. If you throw 2000 DACs at the market, prices will drop and you will get less per DAC. The only real indicator that counts for EVEs economy is the PLEX price which is HIGHLY regulated by CCP. If NQ does the same in DU, it's not a P2W feature

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@Phaethonas

 

You are expecting ships to be built in 0.001247 seconds.

That's not how production works.

Also, if Guild A is pure shit and fall for traps, they wil ldie. It happened in eVE al ot of times, "weaker" fleets, winning cvause the "mucho much odenyro" fleets were led by total morons.

Also, as Lethys pointed out, DAC prices go lower then more of them float in the markets. You know hat else goes up though in price? Minerals - you know the things yo uuse to build new ships. If Guild A dumps 2000 DACs to get minerals to build new fleets - or straight out buys ships - it will end up with Guild A paying MORE and MORe due to the scarcity of the ships.

 

Also,. limiting DAC sales won't change this, it will only hurt the people who pay for gametime WITH DACs and will make Gold Farmers happy. You know, the DACs were added for defeating the Gold Farmers.

 

Also, you seem to think you "consume DAC to get free money". You have to SELL the DAC for IN-GAME money to other players - it's literally subscriptio you pay for other people and they in-exchange give you in-game money for it. Selling takes time - unless you undercut the market, in which case, you LOSE in-game money value on your DAC.

 

 

So, no, no matter how you try to spin it, DACs do not constitute as P2W. in EVE Online, nobody ever said "oh, we lost the war cause  the enemy had more PLEX (EVE's version of DAC) ." That's arguementation that springs out of ignorance on how the market operates.

 

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20 hours ago, Kurock said:

The previous example does not constitute p2w to me. An organisation recouping losses faster by using DAC's does not give that organisation an advantage that can not also be gained in game by having players actually play the game.

 

I don't know your definition of p2w but this is an old school, classical, traditional p2w situation.

 

The organization that has the monetary ability to always, constantly recouping losses will win. And if an organization is getting funded via the DAC market, then in the long run of an entire conflict they will have the monetary advantage always, and as such win all the time.

 

Note here the key phrase; "Always having the monetary advantage".

 

No matter what the other guild does, no matter how many hours they play, no matter how good they are, they will always have less money than the guild that is trading DAC.

 

You can't get more literal and old school than that.

 

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A, B. Limit DAC purchases per month. This can be taken two ways. One is the limit is per player which will prevent little as alts can be created with ease. The other is NQ only releases X number of DACs for purchase each month. This will raise the cost of DAC as they become a very limited resource, being bought up as soon as there is quota available. Those that get them first will have an advantage over everyone that did not get them in time.

 

First of all, and correct me if I am wrong, but in DU we will have one character per account. So your alt argument is not valid.

 

Secondly, and regardless of how may alts we may have (if any), the idea behind what I said is simple. When you buy a DAC from NQ you buy it outside the game, in their site etc, with the use of your account. So even if you have 3 alts, you have one account and you buy the DACs with this one account. Now, for the person who buys the DAC in-game, the sub time is added to the account and not to the alt of course. So what I am suggesting basically is, for the player to be able to have 1-2 additions of sub-time, per month to his/her account.

 

That said, it is possible for people to make additional accounts and to use them to bypass the system. To that I argue that; a) These people will be less than the number of people who would buy multiple DACs without this regulation. For example, without regulation we will have 50 people buying multiple DACs, whereas with the regulation we will have 20 people with multiple accounts that buy multiple DACs. b ) this is why I said that there may be a need for two (or more) measures to be implemented.

 

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E. Delay on DAC to Quanta conversion. This is an interesting one. There will always be people willing to buy DAC, though with a bit more effort/ time a better price could be found for the same number of DACs.  Putting an artificial delay on a DAC purchase could mean a player does not get his subscription paid in time as the DAC "clears". I can see player brokers appearing to circumvent the delay in quanta payment (for a small fee of course), so again this would not have the desired effect

 

You misunderstood. The person who buys the DAC will get the DAC immediately and the sub time will activate immediately. The person though who sold the DAC will get his/her money after a time period.

 

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Nevermind that this decreases the effectiveness of one of the principle reasons for having DACs: to curb IRL blackmarket purchases of in game money. 

 

So what?

 

First of all let's make something clear. The IRL blackmarket purchases of in game money are like a fraction of the amount of in-game currency that is being bought when this transaction is being legalized. So from the p2w perspective, legalizing the in-game currency trade is worse than having a black market.

 

Now, will it decrease the effectiveness of the DAC system on that front? Absolutely, no doubt about that. But essentially you will have (partly) the best of both worlds. The black market will be severely limited and the p2w will be also severely limited. if you don't regulate the DAC market you may have a non existent black market but you will have a p2w mechanic. And frankly, personally, I can ignore the black market, but I can't ignore, nor will I ignore a p2w element.

 

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since the market is run by players, you can't just sell 2000 DACs for the same price - supply/demand. If you throw 2000 DACs at the market, prices will drop and you will get less per DAC. The only real indicator that counts for EVEs economy is the PLEX price which is HIGHLY regulated by CCP. If NQ does the same in DU, it's not a P2W feature

 

Frankly, I don't care how much money players who are into the DAC market will make. All I care is that they will be making money and that in an organization's context these money can be used for literally p2w.

 

As for CCP's regulation, that does not ease my worries. EVE is p2w. EVE's example is to be avoided and not to be followed, if you want to avoid p2w that is. Which is what I want.

 

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You are expecting ships to be built in 0.001247 seconds.

That's not how production works.

It doesn't really matter how fast production works actually. Assuming that the time factor is the same for both guilds, the time factor doesn't play a significant role.

 

Let me be a little more detailed on that.

 

My example was comparing two equal (for the most part) organizations/guilds. They had similar number of players and similar skill. Not the same/equal, but similar. As such, the guild that is trading DAC will always be able to produce ships, the other guild would not, as they would be lacking the materials. The first guild would just buy the materials from the market, the second guild would have to wait to farm the materials and/or farm in-game currency in order to buy the materials at the market. The first guild would produce at 100% of their ability because they always had the materials, the second guild would have production gaps because of lack of the materials. Do I really need to say it in yet another way?

 

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Also, if Guild A is pure shit and fall for traps, they wil ldie

And if they aren't they will have literally paid2win.

 

Which is also the most likely scenario.

 

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Also,. limiting DAC sales won't change this, it will only hurt the people who pay for gametime WITH DACs and will make Gold Farmers happy. You know, the DACs were added for defeating the Gold Farmers

 

People who buy in-game their sub time will be able to do so.

 

As for gold-farmers I couldn't care less about them. I am not a gold farmer, I don't buy from gold farmers. I understand though that NQ has every reason to worry about them. Although I will support NQ in their efforts to combat gold-farmers, I will protest if by doing so they hurt me as well.

 

So, the DAC/PLEX system may be hurtful to gold-farmers but is also hurtful for people who don't want to play a p2w game.

 

This is why I propose a compromise, by suggesting basically; "OK NQ combat the gold-farmers, but there is no need for collateral damage".

 

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it's literally subscriptio you pay for other people and they in-exchange give you in-game money for it. Selling takes time

Did I say anything else?

 

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So, no, no matter how you try to spin it, DACs do not constitute as P2W. in EVE Online, nobody ever said "oh, we lost the war cause  the enemy had more PLEX (EVE's version of DAC) ." That's arguementation that springs out of ignorance on how the market operates.

 

I don't care how much it takes for a DAC to get sold, I don't care how much times someone needs to farm in order to buy that DAC, I don't care how much money will someone make from 1 DAC, all I care for is if the DAC system becomes p2w.

 

That said, I am not saying that the DAC system is p2w, I am explaining that it has potential to become p2w.

 

Exactly because it has the potential to become p2w, it can be combated and prevented from becoming p2w.

 

Now if you think that such a system does not have the potential at becoming p2w, then you are simply wrong.

 

Proof of that is that, actually people at EVE have said that they have lost wars because of the PLEX system, and perhaps more importantly they have proven it. As such EVE's PLEX is the definition of p2w, primarily cause it is accompanied by the skill injector system.

 

And no alternative scenario you may think undoes that. If there is even one single valid p2w scenario then the system is p2w even if there are 10 non p2w scenarios.

 

Lastly, if you were right you would be able to counter-argue my above scenario. Not by proposing that another scenario could unfold (that Guild A is full of noobs for instance), but prove that it is not a valid scenario, and as such that it cannot unfold at one time or the other.

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41 minutes ago, yamamushi said:

Money doesn't equal everything in Dual Universe, the fact that there are pirates that can take all of your work with a bit of coordinated effort exemplifies that. 

 

Agreed, money doesn't mean everything but it does mean something.

 

I will also say that DU in comparison to EVE (Which is p2w), has some overall gameplay mechanics that will make the DAC system less p2w than the PLEX.

 

To name a few of them; a)  the limited resources that DU has (and EVE doesn't), b ) the fact that DU ships are not predefined but player made and designed (while EVE uses predefined ships), c) the fact that DU will need crews to operate those ships (while EVE doesn't need crews) and d) the fact that DU does not have a skill injector mechanic (at least at the moment), while EVE has.

 

All these (and potentially others as well) will make make the DAC less p2w, but the potential will still be there and it is worrisome enough.

 

I am a practical man, I know that the DACs are here to stay. I don't want them., I don't like them, but they are at DU and it is unlikely they will go anywhere. As such what I am suggesting is the regulation of the DAC market.

 

OK you may not like that, I get that.

 

But the problem remains. DACs remain an element with strong p2w potential. And no matter how many times and how hard someone says; "they will combat the illegal gold-farming", my answering will be the same; "Combat the gold farmers there is no need for collateral damage".

 

So you don't like regulating the DAC market? Propose something else, cause as it is DU has a system that will allow p2w.

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I believe the true definition of pay to win is when the developers create items from thin air in exchange for a direct payment, bypassing normal player production or farming methods.

 

The downside to creating a Plex-like item in a brand new game is that there may not be the players to acquire the resources or items you may want to buy with your currency, the main issue however will be the limited supply in the beginning. It took CCP nearly ten years to remove the npc buy orders to maintain the markets and that was with a lot of faucets available to players.

 

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@Phaethonas Please define what you would call "winning" in a sandbox MMO and please define what you mean by p2w (pay to win).

 

But why? Isn't it obvious? No, it isn't obvious as there is no one recognized definition of what "p2w" means. But everyone knows it's "bad" and having a game labeled as "p2w" is a sure fire way of losing players. This is the point of the OP.

 

To reiterate, some consider a p2w game to be any game where you can gain an advantage by paying RL money. There is no denying that in EVE (and DU) there *is* an advantage to be had by paying some RL money for PLEX/DAC. Otherwise there would be little point in purchasing them in the first place.

I feel that definition is incomplete. To me a p2w game is one that you can pay RL money to gain an advantage that could *not* be gotten otherwise (like by playing the game) in a reasonable amount of time.

 

While I agree, the DAC system is not perfect, it does what it was meant to:

  • Allow players with less time to trade RL money for Quanta generated by those that do.
  • Reward dedicated players with free subscription (by trading their Quanta for a DAC)
  • RL money that would have gone to gold farmers goes to NQ instead.

Perhaps regulating the DAC market in a way hidden from players so as not to inflate prices is a good idea, happily that decision lies with NQ.

 

YMMV

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Paying for advantage is an inseparable part of mainstream online gaming, and it's not going away.

 

I've stopped worrying about it. I play the game to the best of my ability, and if I don't enjoy it, I stop.

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4 hours ago, Phaethonas said:

 

Frankly, I don't care how much money players who are into the DAC market will make. All I care is that they will be making money and that in an organization's context these money can be used for literally p2w.

Oh, you should. Because they won't get any quanta out of thethe market from DACs anymore, so they make less money, so they can't use it to kill others...

4 hours ago, Phaethonas said:
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Also,. limiting DAC sales won't change this, it will only hurt the people who pay for gametime WITH DACs and will make Gold Farmers happy. You know, the DACs were added for defeating the Gold Farmers

 

People who buy in-game their sub time will be able to do so.

It's about people who DON'T BUY THE SUB. 

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16 minutes ago, Lethys said:

It's about people who DON'T BUY THE SUB. 

Calm, Lethy, calm. Are the forum pixels that aggravating? xD

1 hour ago, NanoDot said:

Paying for advantage is an inseparable part of mainstream online gaming, and it's not going away.

 

I've stopped worrying about it. I play the game to the best of my ability, and if I don't enjoy it, I stop.

I agree with the last sentiment: We are here to have fun. If it's not fun, what is the point?

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The notion that PLEX or DAC are Pay2Win mechanics are nonsense.

 

Neither of these will buy you anything in game that will really advance your ability to progress any faster and by the time it would you will probably have enough in game wealth to buy what ever you want anyway.

 

In EVE, while you can use PLEX to buy injectors to sit in a Titan day one of you playing, you won't be able to use or apply what you gain effectively. In EVE, and I would certainly expect in DU, the _experience_ you gain through playing the game at a normal pace will _always_ have more impact.

 

I have actually tested this with someone who made the claim of Pay2Win in EVE. I gave him the injectors to skill  up and PLEX to omega his new account. He injected into a t2 exploration frigate with full T2 fit while I created a new alpha and started from scratch. Once I had my T1 exploration frigate we went to null space and started exploration, finding relic sites. After 5 hours he had died three times, lost his loot every time and gave up, he took (and lost) a total of about 350M from sites while flying (and losing) 200M ships. I had not died once, had close to 1.2B ISK in my cargo hold and came out of Null  in one piece in my 15M ISK Heron.

 

Similar experiments were done where experienced PVP players in T1 alpha toons would take on 'bought' beginners in T2 fits.. the experience would destroy the bought skills nearly always.

 

No, buying skill does not make you 'win' at a sandbox game like EVE or DU. Gaining experience will.

 

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56 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

The notion that PLEX or DAC are Pay2Win mechanics are nonsense.

 

Neither of these will buy you anything in game that will really advance your ability to progress any faster and by the time it would you will probably have enough in game wealth to buy what ever you want anyway.

 

In EVE, while you can use PLEX to buy injectors to sit in a Titan day one of you playing, you won't be able to use or apply what you gain effectively. In EVE, and I would certainly expect in DU, the _experience_ you gain through playing the game at a normal pace will _always_ have more impact.

 

I have actually tested this with someone who made the claim of Pay2Win in EVE. I gave him the injectors to skill  up and PLEX to omega his new account. He injected into a t2 exploration frigate with full T2 fit while I created a new alpha and started from scratch. Once I had my T1 exploration frigate we went to null space and started exploration, finding relic sites. After 5 hours he had died three times, lost his loot every time and gave up, he took (and lost) a total of about 350M from sites while flying (and losing) 200M ships. I had not died once, had close to 1.2B ISK in my cargo hold and came out of Null  in one piece in my 15M ISK Heron.

 

Similar experiments were done where experienced PVP players in T1 alpha toons would take on 'bought' beginners in T2 fits.. the experience would destroy the bought skills nearly always.

 

No, buying skill does not make you 'win' at a sandbox game like EVE or DU. Gaining experience will.

 

I hope all of your test subjects had fun, in T1 or T2.

 

small ship pvp in small groups or solo is a lot of fun and a nice change from large tidi fleets where I'm usually logo and cursing the ecm frigates that are a fraction of the value of my ship. Small combat drones can be useful, if there's no smart bombs around.

 

Pay to win needs to be defined and avoided.

 

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@ Kurock,

 

first of all, I don't think our definitions of p2w are that different. After all, in order to communicate my definition I used an example which fits your description

 

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 To me a p2w game is one that you can pay RL money to gain an advantage that could *not* be gotten otherwise (like by playing the game) in a reasonable amount of time.

 

This is exactly what I described, and I fear!!

 

And exactly because I included the time factor, I suggested (among others) the measure to regulate the DAC market via having the seller of a DAC receiving the money in a period of 1-2 days later, maybe more. In my example (that once more seems to fit your definition of p2w) the guild that trades DACs is gaining an advantage because it is generating constantly and immediately in-game currency, whenever it needs these funds and at the amount it needs them. The other guild can't cope with that. On the other hand if the guild that is making in-game currency via the DAC market will receive that funds in 10 days, then the field is leveled as the other guild (that is not trading DACs) will have ten days to generate an equal amount of in-game currency or the necessary amount of it.

 

In my example the 1-2 and 10 days are just examples. Statistics and data processing can help us at determining an objective number. By processing the necessary and correct data it is possible to find the correct and objective amount of delayed-time. As such if there is a regulation that DAC in-game currency is received after 10 days, that number will not be arbitrary.

 

And as I have said before (I think at the reddit), I wouldn't trust such things easily to many other development studios but I feel that NQ has the necessary know-how, because of JC's scientific background.

 

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While I agree, the DAC system is not perfect, it does what it was meant to:

  • Allow players with less time to trade RL money for Quanta generated by those that do.
  • Reward dedicated players with free subscription (by trading their Quanta for a DAC)
  • RL money that would have gone to gold farmers goes to NQ instead.

Perhaps regulating the DAC market in a way hidden from players so as not to inflate prices is a good idea, happily that decision lies with NQ.

The DAC system is not perfect, no-one can say otherwise, after all NQ has admitted that it is not perfect.

 

That said, it can become better!

 

Also, what I am suggesting does not affect at all the three point you are making. If anything it adds a fourth bullet; "The DAC system is not turned into a p2w mechanic"

 

This is the only thing I am suggesting, making the DAC system better, by shifting it out of any p2w area.

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3 hours ago, NanoDot said:

Paying for advantage is an inseparable part of mainstream online gaming, and it's not going away.

 

I've stopped worrying about it. I play the game to the best of my ability, and if I don't enjoy it, I stop.

 

I completely disagree, on both!

 

There are non p2w games. Basically if the game is just subscription, it doesn't have a DAC/PLEX system and there is no cash shop but for cosmetic items, you have a non p2w game. Such games exist.

 

Also, I want my game p2w free thank you very much.

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2 hours ago, blazemonger said:

The notion that PLEX or DAC are Pay2Win mechanics are nonsense.

 

Neither of these will buy you anything in game that will really advance your ability to progress any faster and by the time it would you will probably have enough in game wealth to buy what ever you want anyway.

 

In EVE, while you can use PLEX to buy injectors to sit in a Titan day one of you playing, you won't be able to use or apply what you gain effectively. In EVE, and I would certainly expect in DU, the _experience_ you gain through playing the game at a normal pace will _always_ have more impact.

 

I have actually tested this with someone who made the claim of Pay2Win in EVE. I gave him the injectors to skill  up and PLEX to omega his new account. He injected into a t2 exploration frigate with full T2 fit while I created a new alpha and started from scratch. Once I had my T1 exploration frigate we went to null space and started exploration, finding relic sites. After 5 hours he had died three times, lost his loot every time and gave up, he took (and lost) a total of about 350M from sites while flying (and losing) 200M ships. I had not died once, had close to 1.2B ISK in my cargo hold and came out of Null  in one piece in my 15M ISK Heron.

 

Similar experiments were done where experienced PVP players in T1 alpha toons would take on 'bought' beginners in T2 fits.. the experience would destroy the bought skills nearly always.

 

No, buying skill does not make you 'win' at a sandbox game like EVE or DU. Gaining experience will.

 

Sure, if you limit things the way you did, it doesn't seem to be p2w, but you ignore altogether my example, which has an entirely different context.

 

First of all I did not compare two individual players. Also there was an assumption (at one message I explicitly declared it, I can't recall if it was here or not), that the two guilds were more or less equal in size and skill.

 

In this context, the outcome of the battle will not be determined by the small difference in the skill between the two guilds (as it should have), but will be determined depending the pocket of the guilds. Hence p2w.

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May I mention that even games without P2W mechanics are P2W. There are factors outside the game, such as internet speed or computer hardware, that can be improved with money to make you 'win' (given how loosely the term is being used at the moment). Therefore nearly any competitive game is P2W.

 

Technicality aside, anything that would be purchased with a significant amount of DACs (such as when paying to win*) would take time to come into effect. It's not like the whale can just spawn in 20 battleships at a moment's notice, they'ed have to sell the DACs to get the money, then request them to be built by shipyards, which take time and resources to be built (alternatively buy them, but you can't guarantee a seller). You then have to crew them with crew members, and then train them to work as a unit. By the time that's done, whatever event sparked the DAC offload has long since been resolved, nearly always not in your favour. Money isn't the resource that decides a conflict, its the assets you have on hand at the time. Money can be turned into said assets, but not fast enough

 

Another option would be to hire your fleet at a moments notice, but that can be a slippery slope, since mercenary fleets, especially battleships, are hard to come by. If you hire multiple fleets, you can't guarantee that they will work together as a unit, and they may even become disloyal if they think their pay isn't enough.

 

[Insert examples to last 'till the end of time...]

 

Anyway, if your way to deal with problems is to throw money at them, you shouldn't be in charge.

 

 

* 'paying to win' is the act of throwing money at something to do something. P2W mechanics are built for this exact purpose, but other mechanics can be used to achieve the same effect. DACs can be used to do this, but they are not a pay to win mechanic, since it wasn't built for the exact purpose of allowing those with money to win easier. It's purpose is to allow those either without money or without time to play the game, which after all is a plus since: players = content.

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On 14.9.2017 at 2:43 AM, Phaethonas said:

 

Guild [A] fixes and replaces their ships via in-game currency obtained in the DAC market. If at the (relatively) same time Guild fixes and replaces their ships as well, via in-game currency obtained via in-game methods, the DAC system is not p2w. If on the other hand, Guild [A] is able to fix and replace their ships x2 faster than Guild , because they can always have readily the necessary funds, obtained via the DAC market, then there is an in-balance and literally Guild [A] won cause they paid to won, hence p2w.

So let's assume both are on the same planet.

The normal guild would just mine, produce, build - everything on their territory, protected by shields. Standard DU tactic.

The whales would need to buy dacs, possibly with an alt, sell them On the market (which may be far away!). They now have money. Great. They need resources.....

So they send a convoy to the market - buy resources, load them into the trucks, have to organize a defensive force, fly back to their territory and then start building.

 

I have nothing against regulations, in fact they need to regulate that market as dacs are the index for economy. 

 

It's not that easy in DU to just condemn dac as p2w, because there are many many other factors you have to consider like: markets, sell orders of resources, economic growth of markets and Minerals, supply of minerals, location of markets, pirate threats in that area, intelligence of the player, demand of dac (yeah, you stillshould haven't answered that),...

 

On 14.9.2017 at 2:43 AM, Phaethonas said:

Discussing this at DU's reddit, people have reported that EVE PLEX trading can result in more than a year's worth of traditional ISK farming! I haven't played EVE to know personally, but this kind of scenario is scary, and if this is indeed true, then EVE is outright p2w.

Trading in eve, regardless of item, ALWAYS yielded the most profit. I made billions per month with 10min/day work just because I had a monopoly on drones. Margin trading, station trading, wholesalers of different products will ALWAYS get huge amounts of in-game money, that's independent of plex or dac.

 

This doesn't define plex as p2w, skill injectors do to some extent.

 

Also: didn't read your last post well, so that's why there wasis ago misunderstanding

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^^ This..

 

Trading in EVE is not understood by the vast majority of players. It is an excellent way to make huge amounts of ISK when done right. For me, my station traders make enough ISK to fund all my operations in EVE with minimal effort although most of them pay for themselves anyway. That said, I am scaling down in that game as I feel DU is (for me) a much better package as a game and what it offers..

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