Free Merc Unlock instead of $$$ reward for lvl 2 and 4

(BioSnark) #21

Not being pedantic. I thought you were misunderstanding my point which was the only way I could understand your reasoning.

It does make sense. You have an advantage in Dirty Bomb if you spend money or grind for mercs and loadouts so it is somewhat p2w because the things you buy alter gameplay. However, as soon as you have gameplay altering purchases, p2w isn’t binary and it’s highly subjective. Levels of grind that are acceptable to bypass money are highly subjective. The amount that purchasables should alter gameplay is highly subjective.

A team of open beta people often can not break a nest or they can not repair or disarm because they do not have the classes to do it. Also true in the “competitive” matchmaking, which is funny.

(Nail) #22

what can you buy that affects gameplay, don’t say mercs because there is no game breaker, loadouts aren’t P2W either, it take a higher level comp team for them to make noticeable difference. You can’t buy understanding or teamwork… Pretty sure I could pick 5 people from here and with a bit of practice, they could go out and rek 50%+ of the kids playing using Aura and Skyhammer with stock loadouts, where’s the pay to win now

(BioSnark) #23

Currently, Kira completely destroys public matches on whitechapel, particularly last objective. Also, game altering =/= gamebreaking. However, class balance matters.

(Nail) #24

Vaseline can grease her

#25

Let’s assume both teams are equally skilled. The team who bought an engineer will win.

(Nail) #26

that’s not the merc, that’s understanding, not for sale on Steam

#27

Let’s also assume both teams know how engineers work and first team can’t afford buying an engineer.

(BioSnark) #28

A witty response doesn’t change that the team with access to all classes has an advantage.

(Nail) #29

" Pretty sure I could pick 5 people from here and with a bit of practice, they could go out and rek 50%+ of the kids playing using Aura and Skyhammer with stock loadouts"

(Destroy666) #30

These 2 sentences look kinda ridiculous next to eachother now, don’t you think? Explaining something with the “reality of the situation” is the peak of ignorance…

… and therefore you still didn’t reply why they can’t buy all starting mercs in that case. There is clearly no complete freedom of choice and you know that. Being able to spend 30-50k without any refunds if your choice was bad is in no way a “golden middle” or whatever you may be thinking.

(Protekt1) #31

[QUOTE=BioSnark;531253]Not being pedantic. I thought you were misunderstanding my point which was the only way I could understand your reasoning.

It does make sense. You have an advantage in Dirty Bomb if you spend money or grind for mercs and loadouts so it is somewhat p2w because the things you buy alter gameplay. However, as soon as you have gameplay altering purchases, p2w isn’t binary and it’s highly subjective. Levels of grind that are acceptable to bypass money are highly subjective. The amount that purchasables should alter gameplay is highly subjective.

A team of open beta people often can not break a nest or they can not repair or disarm because they do not have the classes to do it. Also true in the “competitive” matchmaking, which is funny.[/QUOTE]

You can’t be almost p2w. You are either p2w or you are not. Just because you can buy something that alters gameplay, doesn’t make it p2w. Since you can buy everything without paying, there are no paywalls. With no paywalls means the game is not p2w. Not almost not p2w. Not almost p2w. Just not p2w. And no, it is certainly not highly subjective. It actually is quite binary for it to have any meaning, at least in this type of game that has no timers to wait on to keep playing. You don’t just magically decide what is or isn’t p2w based on how you feel about it. You can decide whether a game has too much grind or not, but that is irrelevant towards whether it is p2w or not.

P2W is not some broadly interpretive standard by which you can just bring it up in any context and try to claim that something impacts whether or not it is p2w. And it is pathetic when people try to. The amount of grind is questionable towards whether you want to play or not, not whether the game is fair between paying and non-paying customers. But for some reason people need to try and argue p2w for emotional reasons rather than rational, because most people aren’t capable of real rational arguments.

As for your third portion, literally nothing is stopping them from using the credits they get from unlocking an engineer class if they choose to. Unlocking proxy is what… 30k credits? Don’t you start with 30k credits? How many credits are earned just from hitting level 2 + 4. I think you get about 25k between both levels if I am not mistaken. Rather than forcing players to take a merc they don’t want, that is a much better reward for those levels. Straight credits to let people spend it how they want. On the other hand, I am not against SD just giving everyone a permanent engineer unlock.

(Protekt1) #32

[QUOTE=Destroy666;531272]These 2 sentences look kinda ridiculous next to eachother now, don’t you think? Explaining something with the “reality of the situation” is the peak of ignorance…

… and therefore you still didn’t reply why they can’t buy all starting mercs in that case. There is clearly no complete freedom of choice and you know that. Being able to spend 30-50k without any refunds if your choice was bad is in no way a “golden middle” or whatever you may be thinking.[/QUOTE]

Oh please. Are you trolling with this response? The “reality of the situation” is just a phrase used to convey something, something that was clearly over your head since you’re focusing on the language used rather than the message conveyed.

As for your second portion, nice strawmanning. I never said there was complete freedom to do whatever you want, however you want. And you know that. Nor did I ever say anything even close to claiming it was perfect or a golden middle. I said it was BETTER than the alternative.

(Szakalot) #33

Based on the amount of whine and controversy it is highly subjective. if it took ONE THOUSAND HOURS to unlock a single merc, compared to buying them for 1 euro, would you say that its not P2W? If the grind is too big, game strays into P2W territory. Question is whether grind is too long: imo it could be shorten by ‘just a little’.

The point is not to argue the semantics of what P2W means. It will be more productive to discuss what people perceive as P2W, and how to avoid that label. In this context, eternal grind is P2W.

also:
you don’t start with 30k credits. that was a one time bonus to january steam-beta players.

(Protekt1) #34

[QUOTE=Szakalot;531277]Based on the amount of whine and controversy it is highly subjective. if it took ONE THOUSAND HOURS to unlock a single merc, compared to buying them for 1 euro, would you say that its not P2W? If the grind is too big, game strays into P2W territory. Question is whether grind is too long: imo it could be shorten by ‘just a little’.

The point is not to argue the semantics of what P2W means. It will be more productive to discuss what people perceive as P2W, and how to avoid that label. In this context, eternal grind is P2W.

also:
you don’t start with 30k credits. that was a one time bonus to january steam-beta players.[/QUOTE]

Just because something sucks and is relating to unlocking something doesn’t mean it is p2w. People try to argue p2w on the dumbest things because they think it magically makes their position stronger. You see people do this all the time. Especially youtubers who are just click baiting, like that angry joe video. Something might be too tedious to unlock, but that doesn’t make it p2w. P2W is a term referring solely to paywalls in this game’s context. And I only say this game’s context because there are a lot of different f2ps on mobile, mainly, that are structured in different ways that are completely different and irrelevant. A singleplayer game could have a different standard, for example, than a multiplayer game.

As for starting with 30k credits, I was referring to what you get from hitting level 4 and not that temporary bonus.

Regarding perception of p2w or not, this might be a discussion worth having but it is just not relevant to this specific discussion… at least not very relevant. It is more of a separate issue.

(BioSnark) #35

It’s annoying when people aren’t willing or able to engage in a discussion outside of a simplistic black and white binary.

(Nail) #36

you’re not discussing anything, you’re demanding everyone agree with you , which is hard because you’re wrong

(BioSnark) #37

And I have doubts that you actually play.

edit: To expand, that’s not just based on your argument that class balance isn’t important but because you didn’t/don’t see the store tab. I don’t see why you are arguing against lack of class balance ruining public games (and even “competitive” matchmaking) if you don’t play them. Perhaps you have played since that post?

(Protekt1) #38

So it is annoying when someone disagrees with you.

Also, just because my position seems “simple”, doesn’t mean it is any more or less valid or truthful for being so. I don’t think my position is simple. I think the conclusion is simple. How you get there is more complicated.

(BioSnark) #39

P2W is whatever people think it is because it doesn’t have a set definition. As he noted, a benefit of szakalots suggestion is that it makes people less likely to perceive the game as P2W.

They are less likely to complain about not having access to a merc because they did undeniably have access. They are less likely to bitch at me about being a tryhard or p2w rhino (for example) sitting on an aura station and being unkillable if they have a fragger or nader who can kill my healing station or have a rhino and realize it’s not the magic win merc. They are also less likely to not have a good class balance which prevents unbreakable turret / aura bunkers in public servers or lack of engineers to disarm bombs or repair the EV.

(jazevec) #40

On paper, all characters are sidegrades. In practice, some are vastly better for certain maps than others. For instance, I just played a game on Underground where two defenders had Bushwacker. Two extra turrets to take care of anything that slips past defenses, two superfast disarmers. It took overtime to get as past the 1st objective. Stationary Aura and limited Skyhammer don’t do you much good when attacking on Underground. So maybe switch to Kira ? Pfft. Only Fragger and Sawbones have useful abilities for that map in current rotation. On Underground, some characters aren’t sidegrades, they’re assgrades. This applies to every map.

Wait until more people have heavies. You’ll see teams like 2 Rhino on one side and no sniper or other counter on the other.

I would enjoy the game more if all major classes were represented among available characters at all times. We always have a medic and a fieldops, but not an engineer. I think the 3rd free rotation character should always cycle through an engineer.