Welcome to F2P, where you can spend money to bypass the grind.

 

Galactic Starfighter is more similar to World of Tanks/Warplanes than a traditional mmo and could perhaps learn a few things from them in terms of balancing the pay to win aspect. World of Tanks/World of Warplanes may not be perfect mmos but I feel they have pretty much perfected the balanced in terms of free to play versus pay to win. The premium tanks in WoT don't offer any major advantage than the regular unlock able tanks and people can buy "gold rounds" which is probably the biggest pay to win aspect of the game but still not overpowered in my opinion.

P2W is P2W no matter how small the advantage. You should not be able to use money to upgrade gear or stats. The fact that you have to use CC to transfer ship req to fleet req's and in turn upgrade to better ships is P2W. Is there another way that does not require money to convert that I am missing. If not, then its P2W. I guess BW did not learn their lesson for the last time they tried this the PVE ship armoring and player gear. This is just start. What next, you can buy componets with CC and other upgrades. BW needs to drop the CC req coversion.

How fortunate then that this is not pay to win.

This is pay to reduce the grind, and that in a VERY SPECIFIC way, since it doesn't grant you more requisitions, it just allows you to convert those you earned. The sum total is the same, it's just concentrated on one ship instead of being spread around... but in the long run the difference will be negligible.

Also, those who go around playing their different fighters to get the x2 req bonus will find themselves being far more effective, as the ones who specialize end up having to play unupgraded ships to gain that x2 bonus.

But regardless, it's not pay 2 win, simply to skip some of the grind, which is part and parcel of the F2P model. If it didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to play GS anyway as it wouldn't exist (or else would have come with an expansion fee).

Galactic Starfighter is more similar to World of Tanks/Warplanes than a traditional mmo and could perhaps learn a few things from them in terms of balancing the pay to win aspect. World of Tanks/World of Warplanes may not be perfect mmos but I feel they have pretty much perfected the balanced in terms of free to play versus pay to win. The premium tanks in WoT don't offer any major advantage than the regular unlock able tanks and people can buy "gold rounds" which is probably the biggest pay to win aspect of the game but still not overpowered in my opinion.

It's even closer to the way MWO does it: subscribers get a Req boost, you can pay to convert mech XP to general XP, and you can buy "hero" mechs to earn rewards faster, but these mechs aren't any better than other mechs.

None of these things are pay to win, and so all is good.

Gold ammo, however, which GS does NOT have, is totally pay to win because it actually makes you powerful in a match, in a way that free players CANNOT achieve by just grinding.

But regardless, it's not pay 2 win, simply to skip some of the grind, which is part and parcel of the F2P model. If it didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to play GS anyway as it wouldn't exist (or else would have come with an expansion fee).

I wanted to reinforce your point some more because when you actually start breaking this down logically the idea that an exp boost is pay to win is so ridiculous I don't know why people that think this way play rpgs at all. Since the game has a cap, and the grind is in no way so prohibitive as to prevent people who don't use the exp boost from leveling up, everyone reaches the same point at different times. If we're going to say an exp boost is an unfair advantage then someone who plays more hours per day/week/month has the same unfair advantage.

The same people complaining about an exp boost being pay to win have a 2 month head start on free players who don't get it till feb. Furthermore even the free players in feb have an unfair advantage of x amount of time on anyone who joins the game after feb or begins playing starfighter after feb where x is the time difference from when the person in feb started and the person who came later started.

So to reinforce your point the idea that being ahead of someone exp wise is pay to win is just so asinine as to be unbelievable.

For those who don't seem to know, pay to win is buying more power than a free player can reasonably achieve. This would be buying faster/stronger ships, better blasters, stronger missiles, more powerful shields etc.

It's only pay to win if there is no way to gain the exact same advantage through regular play. All ships have a maximum level of upgrades that can be attained only through playing. Spending cartel coins can get you there quicker, but it's the same destination in the end, since there's nothing outside of cosmetics that's exclusive the market.

I'm a casual player, and my ships are nowhere near fully upgraded yet, and yet I haven't noticed a sudden downshift in my performance. Either I'm not being matched against fully upgraded enemies or being fully upgraded doesn't give them enough advantage to stop me from playing and having a good time.

GSF is not in any way pay to win, and if other players want to blow large sums of cash on speeding up their progression or pimping their ride, I'm all for it. More money to fund future expansions.

If we're going to say an exp boost is an unfair advantage then someone who plays more hours per day/week/month has the same unfair advantage.

We better pull a china up in here and restrict how many hours people are allowed to play swtor so there arent no unfair advantamages goin ons.

This thread is amazing.

As people have pointed out, it's possible to 'game' the daily/weekly awards by unlocking lots of ships early, doing matches on each of them, and then spending lots and lots of CCs to reallocate ship requisition so you can upgrade a single ship.

That's not too much different than people playing a bunch of different characters to get PvP dailies on them, buying legacy gear, and using the commendations from multiple characters to gear up one character.

It still takes a heck of a lot of time. And, in this case, a lot of CCs.

However, the end result is no different. The advantage you gain by exerting all this effort (and CC coins) is fleeting. Even if you speed ahead for a few days on a specific ship, other players will catch up shortly since component upgrade trees only go so far.

And from what I've seen in games, piloting skill matters a lot more than upgrades. It's hardly a pay-to-win setup.

This thread is amazing.

 

As people have pointed out, it's possible to 'game' the daily/weekly awards by unlocking lots of ships early, doing matches on each of them, and then spending lots and lots of CCs to reallocate ship requisition so you can upgrade a single ship.

 

That's not too much different than people playing a bunch of different characters to get PvP dailies on them, buying legacy gear, and using the commendations from multiple characters to gear up one character.

 

It still takes a heck of a lot of time. And, in this case, a lot of CCs.

 

However, the end result is no different. The advantage you gain by exerting all this effort (and CC coins) is fleeting. Even if you speed ahead for a few days on a specific ship, other players will catch up shortly since component upgrade trees only go so far.

 

And from what I've seen in games, piloting skill matters a lot more than upgrades. It's hardly a pay-to-win setup.

Not to mention cant face that they're just bad, and others are better sometimes.

No they had to get there with unfair advantages, and pay to win and buying a lot of unlocks.

Cause admitting lack of skill, well, that's a bridge to far is it now.

P2W is P2W no matter how small the advantage. You should not be able to use money to upgrade gear or stats.

Again, the entire game works that way. You can use money to buy gear that upgrades your stats by purchasing Cartel Coins. That's how the game has operated since it went F2P. If that's P2W to you, and you can't deal with it, then this isn't your game. It's not like Galactic Starfighter suddenly introduced the idea. In actuality, CC gives much less of an advantage in GSF than in the ground game because what you can get with it is pretty limited. Right now, CCs will get you 2 exclusive ships (which give you no advantage over other ships except granting you faster reqs) and the ability to use the same reqs you still have to earn in a more versatile way (share between ships or use to buy new ships or unlock crewmembers). Unlike the ground game, you can't spend CCs to directly provide upgrades for your ships, no matter what you have to earn those.

Basically, imagine that the ground game had no gear. No weapons, no armor, no implants. You just had a character who needed to gain XP to level up and as you leveled you chose skills and talents That's essentially what your ships are in GSF. The way CC req transfers work would be like taking experience your alts earned and being able to shift them to a single character. That character would level up faster, sure, but you'd still need to log onto those alts and grind that XP out.

When you look at it from that perspective, GSF is much less "Pay2Win" than the rest of the game is.

However, the end result is no different. The advantage you gain by exerting all this effort (and CC coins) is fleeting.

Haha... "Fleeting".

Not to mention cant face that they're just bad, and others are better sometimes.

I can !

Never saw my entries here ? http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=702894

Sounds like ignorance on your side.

P2W is P2W no matter how small the advantage. You should not be able to use money to upgrade gear or stats. The fact that you have to use CC to transfer ship req to fleet req's and in turn upgrade to better ships is P2W.

Please explain to me 1) how one ship is substantially better than another of the same class and 2) how this complaint applies at all beyond the initial 10,000 Fleet Req anyway (since only Scout and Strikers ships have 'upgrades').

On top of this, the standard for 'P2W' has been, for many years, advantages given to players that pay cash that are unavailable to players who do not. Speeding through content, temporary boosts and cosmetics have been left out of that because while they allow players to pay to move faster, the players experience no more content by paying than any other.

Yet another thread of people failing to understand the concept of pay-to-win because they feel they deserve to have things handed to them. The same kind of people that get welfare and food stamps but refuse to actually look for work.

Can somebody explain me requisition, awarded after each game? We are trying to figure it out, not calculating bonus etc. DOesnt make sense, not based on medals or anything

The only thing I can figure out is that I earn more when my side wins. Other than that, I don't seem to get much more if I'm at the top of the board or not.

One thing I've read (can't say that I've tested it myself) is that objectives give much more reqs than kills and assists. Blowing up turrets, helping capture satellites, and defending satellites is the way to get more points. If you're just flying around trying to find people to kill you won't get as many.

One thing I don't get yet is whether or not you are "defending" a satellite just by being near it, or if it counts the time you're engaged in combat near one. I think it's the former, which means that one strategy is to just camp at a satellite while you sip a beverage and wait for someone to show up.

Only the third day into SF and I'm seeing players with well over 10000 purple req, you can also use CC to convert ship req into purple req. Totally unfair and I thought we were told CC would not be allowed to purchase player skills, we were lied to? Is this only a temporary deal?

Yeah right.

Fact: Player skills count in GS

Fact: Teamwork counts GS

Fact: Time played, with good skills and teamwork = progress.

Fact: everything else.... cosmetics and personal preferences in ship style.

/Thread

Only the third day into SF and I'm seeing players with well over 10000 purple req, you can also use CC to convert ship req into purple req. Totally unfair and I thought we were told CC would not be allowed to purchase player skills, we were lied to? Is this only a temporary deal?

Some people just don't know what pay 2 win means. I guess they figure they'll get more attention to their thread if they put "pay 2 win" in it. How is this purchasing "player skills"? If people could buy upgrades for their ship off the CM that are better than what could be obtained in-game, then THAT would be pay 2 win. Fleet req only allows you to purchase different models of ships and unlock different companions. You can't upgrade the ship itself with Fleet req.....you need Ship req to do that. We've been told a million times that the CM would be used for cosmetic options and not to purchase playable content. Purchasing a different looking scout ship is a cosmetic thing.

This is absolutely wrong.

 

It costs the same amount, whether in ship reqs or fleet reqs, to buy anything.

 

You can convert ship reqs to fleet reqs - but you have to earn the ship reqs by fighting.

 

Fleet reqs do not buy upgrades cheaper than ship reqs.

 

 

Impossible. You wouldn't be able to earn enough ship reqs to convert. You can only convert 1-to-1.

 

 

If you've only earnt 4000 ship reqs, you haven't been playing non-stop for three days. I get around 700 per match. Also, did you not buy any first-step upgrades for 1k?

 

Converting ship reqs to fleet reqs allows you to buy upgrades on a ship other than the one you earnt them on - but you still need to earn those ship reqs.

 

TL;DR: Your complaint is invalid because you're mistaken in thinking that fleet reqs buy upgrades faster than ship reqs. I am not sure why you haven't realised this yet.

All this.

I have played about 100 matches, and won 80% of them. I had the Flashfire unlocked on day 1 and Pike unlocked day 2. Ontop of the winning req, you throw in the dailies and the weekly and I've got a **** ton of requisition because of -hard frakking work-. Just because you are terrible, don't assume the enemy Ace who wooped your *** is.

Also, 10000 req is -nothing- compared to the costs of the final tier upgrades. 10K gets you a SINGLE weapon upgrade at tier 4, not even tier 5. As an example on concussion missiles, that is the choice between "Missile range increased by 5%" or "Ammunition capacity increased by 3". On Quad Laser Cannons that's "Crit Hit chance increased by 8%" or "Blaster cost reduced by 10%". Nothing even remotely ground breaking, and any player would be FAR better served spending that 10K req on secondary upgrades first.

Some people just don't know what pay 2 win means. I guess they figure they'll get more attention to their thread if they put "pay 2 win" in it. How is this purchasing "player skills"? If people could buy upgrades for their ship off the CM that are better than what could be obtained in-game, then THAT would be pay 2 win. Fleet req only allows you to purchase different models of ships and unlock different companions. You can't upgrade the ship itself with Fleet req.....you need Ship req to do that. We've been told a million times that the CM would be used for cosmetic options and not to purchase playable content. Purchasing a different looking scout ship is a cosmetic thing.

This is wrong. You can purchase components with fleet req. Say you have 100 ship req on your scout, and 1,000 fleet req. If you go to purchase an upgrade on your scout that costs 1,000 ship req, you will get a window telling you that you don't have enough ship req, and it's going to take 900 from your fleet req. So, after the purchase, you will have 0 ship req on your scout, and 100 fleet req remaining.

I'm generally supportive of the game, and have been hesitant to call this pay2win, but here is my experience... I've never felt any desire to use my monthly cartel coins (long time subscriber here) for anything other that cosmetic gear, and to buy packs to sell on the GTN for credits. When I'm leveling an ALT, I also have bought the XP boosts. But I quickly drained my cartel coins once starfighter came out, and for the first time have been tempted to actually purchase cartel coins (but I'm resisting on principle). Why?

If I were to purchase the two cartel ships, I can get more requisition with the daily and weekly missions. The two cartel ships also earn a bonus on requisition because they are fully mastered. I can then use more CC's to convert ship req to fleet req and buy the other ships, which will increase my req further. Then, I can use CC's to convert all that ship req to fleet req to quickly upgrade one of my ships and move on to the next. It's maybe not pay2win, but it's very close to it. If it wasn't, I wouldn't find myself tempted to purchase CC's. But, I've already blown through my existing cartel coins to upgrade my scout as far as possible. How? I fly my other two ships to get their daily bonus requisition and the daily/weekly missions on them. I used my CC to convert to fleet req, and used the fleet req to purchase upgrades on my scout. I now have ship req on my other ships that I can't convert because I have 0 CC (for the first time in forever). If I bought more CC's, I could upgrade my scout further - which is a form of pay2win, or at lease paying to have an advantage.

Now, at first, I didn't think this was a big deal, and thought people were complaining over nothing. But, last night, on the imperial side on Shadowlands, I played about 10 matches and we lost every one. In every case, each person on the imperial side had the 3 free ships. I think one person had 4 ships. But, on the republic side, about 90%-95% of the team had every ship unlocked - which tells me they are using CC's, and probably have their ships highly upgraded. Now, I'm a pretty good pilot, so I usually ended up in the top 3 - but we lost every match, so I earned far less requisition. The republic side, which in this case just happened to be made up of a lot of cartel spenders, not only had an advantage with their ships being more upgraded, but they were also earning more requisition for winning - so this is very, very close to being pay2win. At least in the short term while everyone who is not spending CC's is catching up.

I'm not complaining. But, it is what it is. If it's not pay2win, it's unfortunately the closest the game has gotten to it. I kind of want to deny it is so, but the fact that I'm tempted to buy CC to get ahead in starfighter kind of slaps me in the face and tells me it's at least close to pay2win.

Now, at first, I didn't think this was a big deal, and thought people were complaining over nothing. But, last night, on the imperial side on Shadowlands, I played about 10 matches and we lost every one. In every case, each person on the imperial side had the 3 free ships. I think one person had 4 ships. But, on the republic side, about 90%-95% of the team had every ship unlocked - which tells me they are using CC's, and probably have their ships highly upgraded.

Have you actually looked at what upgrades do? 5% more blaster damage, 10% more range, minor things like that. Sure it helps but unless the matches were extremely close you lost on skill not gear. You still have to hit people with your weapons and avoid their fire. Beyond that to actually get as much req as you think they had they would have to have playing times similar to what pro-gamers put in, which further suggest and absolutely astronomical difference in skill. Skill in this game far and away dwarfs the minor gains upgrades give.

Have you actually looked at what upgrades do? 5% more blaster damage, 10% more range, minor things like that. Sure it helps but unless the matches were extremely close you lost on skill not gear. You still have to hit people with your weapons and avoid their fire. Beyond that to actually get as much req as you think they had they would have to have playing times similar to what pro-gamers put in, which further suggest and absolutely astronomical difference in skill. Skill in this game far and away dwarfs the minor gains upgrades give.

Some of the matches were close... 1,000 to 800 or 900+. Some were blow outs. The teams weren't all the same. I think in the closer games, the gear might have made a difference. But, I do think there were a lot of newbs on my side as well in some fights. Personally, in some matches, I know I could have gotten another kill or two with a little more damage. The advantages with shield penetration and things like that can make a big difference.