Read in the Paper: Ea is going to add P2W to all their games

I'm going to have to back up DarthThc on this one....

Yes..the crystals are a form of pay to win, and yes there are crystals you can buy on the market instead of gambling on them.

As he said if the stats did not matter then why not a +0 stat one that glowed silver or gold?? Pay to win does not mean that you buy stuff to beat opposing players rather that you buy items to make the challenges in game play easier to defeat. You guys who defend this cartel market will not understand this until they do release instant level 50 tokens and Full dread gear on the market. It will happen....Who here hasn't taken the time to realize that that cash shop has been more updating than the game itself since launch??

Well. 2 +41 end crystals give you about 1000 hps over what you'd get with stock +4 end crystals. That's something like a 20-30% bump in hps at that level.

That is significant, for a while. But the 1000 hps stop being as important later on.

2 +41 expertise crystals... Well. 82 expertise just isn't gonna get it done. You're better off with the 1000 hps previously mentioned.

If you can get your hands on a couple of Hawkeyes the bump in power is pretty nice for a DPS spec at low level. Still, I'd rather slowly add power augs, and have the hp cushion. Not many 10s have a healer companion.

Again, this is for PvE. And unless you know something I don't, we don't Raid at lvl 10. So you're not buying a win.

PvP as we've said does a bolster which evens things out a bit, and negates the advantage.

Color crystals are, by and large, cosmetic. They're there to give you "Teh kewl new saber!". They're 41 so you can use them in your endgame weapon, where everyone wants to be BiS.

Yeah, they probably 'should' have made them scale. But they were lazy. Laziness is not some master plan to 'slip p2w in through the backdoor'.

My point is a small benefit is still a benefit. Just like a penny is still money.

Once it's a benefit, large or small, and it's created via RMT only, it's p2w.

You don't want to admit it's a benefit. Why?

Because one ant will not haul off your picnic lunch and you know it. To use an analogy with a practical context. Here's another one... you are making a mountain out of a molehill and want us to believe it is actually a mountain.

IMO, you are just being petty about it because you want to be right about EA adding P2W to this game. Tell you what... If they DO add generally acceptable P2W elements (as I pointed to earlier) into the game, I would be happy to throw the red flag standing right next to you.

The difference between you and I is you are projecting that they are going to corrupt the game with P2W (but have no actual real credible evidence) and I am willing to wait and NOT prosecute the issue unless I see them actually do it.

TL;DR How about we wait until they put actual P2W onto the test server before we light all the buildings on fire and grab the pitch forks?

Well, because you'll call it a 'gateway benefit' leading to a +310 chestpiece that costs USD $xx.xx.

A company is in business to make money. Lots of money. Disgusting great piles of the stuff.

You, and I, and the rest of the regulars have seen p2w cause issues in other games.

So has EA. Give them a little credit. They do, after all, research this stuff.

The CM is here. It's not going away. New things will be added. Old things phased out. ( Oh where, oh where, has my Celebrator gone ).

But, the CM is not ( currently ) p2w. I, for one, do not believe that it will *become* p2w.

And, if it ever does? If the content is still worth my time, I will still pay.

I don't want a mountain. I want you to admit it's a mole hill. And watch it to see if it grows.

That is, IF you care about p2w. Some don't care at all. And that's fine. But those who DO care about p2w need to take off the rose-shaded glasses that obfuscate the mole hill behind GTN postability and sitpends for subscribers. They need to see it for what it is.

A mole hill.

A toe in the water.

The first step of a test to see what's acceptable and how far it can be taken.

+41 crystals were not the toe in the water. *Maybe* the 7 series ship parts. Maybe. I prefer to think of those as a 'cartel coin sink for subs'.

I guess I'll just have to ask you to forgive me for not trusting EA control their greed to the extent it doesn't destroy the game. They do have a certain track record for destroying good things... *cough*

Hopefully you're right. If the g7's were the test and not the +41's, they quickly learned there's a hard boundary they cannot cross.

Dude... I care about P2W... I even stipulated what it looks like to me (applying generally accepted measures for what it is/is-not in an earlier post).

Get back to me when the mole hill is replaced with a mountain (that every sane perons agrees is a mountain). I will be happy to fight right along side you against it. But a molehill does not mean a mountain will be there tomorrow. So please... I am pleading with you to stop with the Don Quixote impressions. Teh windmill is not a dragon. A dragon is a dragon.