why is the SWTOR community so against "pay to win"

whenever i try to suggest giving any kind of non-aesthetic purpose to spending real money, people in the community put their earplugs in and rant about it being "pay to win". as far as i see it, the CM should be used to bypass work, but so long as someone can work hard for something just as powerful, then it isn't "pay to win" as the community rants about.

a perfect example that is actually a reality is the CM crystals. they are available at level 10 and claimable in the collections tab, yet someone can craft or buy a crystal of equal power at level 50, this is my ideal of "bypassing work" in action.

with very few non-cosmetic things in the cartel market (speeders, crystals, pre-modded armor, legacy perks), it is my guess that bioware might actually be losing money. if members of the community are happy with their cosmetic choices they've unlocked in their collections, they have little reason to buy CC.

another example of the whole cosmetic thing not working out well is what happened with GSF. completely useless paints, paint schemes, and color modules for blaster fire and engines were all that were available. the only good use for CC was buying CM ships, which recycled models that were already in the game, and transferring ship req into fleet req (again, my "bypassing work" philosophy). i think the lack of CM use was what might have made GSF bomb as much as it did.

i would like to see some advanced implants, earpieces, offhands, and mods of all levels (counting by 5's) purchasable with CC that are equipable by anyone 5 levels early. some other uses would also be nice.

anyway, as with the title of this thread, i would like to non-threateningly (the community has a tendency to lash at the slightest thing) ask why everyone is so against what is so natural for an MMO.

There are other games that offer a Pay 2 Win approach. Spending real-world dollars gives someone an actual playable in-game advantage of some sort.

These games end up being structured such that if you DON'T spend money in the cash shop, you are gimped.

Your ability to play the game becomes tied to how much additional money you pump into it, instead of simply your subscription fees and skill.

Offering only cosmetic features in a cash shop does not have the same effect.

Some games cater to people who enjoy p2win, some do not. Its a particularly popular structure in asian MMOs.

This game caters to the crowd that would prefer in-game power be earned instead of bought.

One of the big things about MMO's is that regardless of how much money you make in the RL, you are on the same level as everyone else.

Why stop there why not full 180 gear for you and your comp that you can use at lvl 1 sure some people spent dozens if not hundred of hours but you can be just as good as they are in just 5 mins by spending real money.

Pay to win tends to be self perpetuating. You have a new player who's dropped thousands into a game and is better equipped, often better skilled (some mmos allow you to buy bonus skill points with real cash), and buffed with all those consumables that make them even more outrageous.

The only people I've known over the years (and I've been playing MMOs since before WoW came out) who actually liked the idea are the very people spending so much real money in the first place. The sharp lack of "pay to win" is one of the things I actually like about this game after so many years of dealing with p2w cash shop games.

why would the game need this though? I mean really from the data we have been given, in the cartel markets current state, without pay to win, cartel sales are going up. Based off that Bioware is clearly not losing any money. Strongholds from what we can tell so far, thanks to cartel coins options for strongholds ( particularly the tatooine stronghold) could help make more money.


also, here is my opinion on why gsf was not as popular as it was intended in the beginning (although on my server I can still occasionally que up and get a match). Simply put, gsf is among the only playable content that, without a queue pop, you cannot really practice or are used to doing. We use our ground characters all the time, so naturally people gravitated in the end more to something that they pretty much had 24/7 access to in contrast to gsf, which you could only get whenever the queue popped. Naturally it declined, because you had to wait until the next queue pop to do it again, you couldn't do it at your leisure, and it had pretty much no effect on the ground game ( except for the usual xp, daily, and credit rewards). With strongholds I see it being different though. A huge section of fleet has been rededicated to Strongholds ( and on the main level too so everyone can see instead of like the gsf area that was on a random level). Also crafting has been adjusted accordingly too, and most importantly, you can visit the stronghold anytime you want, even show it off to friends and random people. Unlike gsf strongholds has a very huge tie to the ground game, so there is very likely to be increased cartel market sales throughout the duration of strongholds due to this more expansive effect.

my point is, why would bioware want to have a pay to win appoach ( or as you have equated it to, pay to skip might be more accurate) when bioware is clearly not losing any money? at the most maybe they would do it at the point in time years from now when this game is close to its end to at that point get as much out of their investment as humanly possible, but right now there is simply no need or point. And in fact, by making the players work to get gear and whatever, some players might be retained and play the game over a longer period of time before moving to something else, so I can see that kind of reasoning too. But I can see the opposing arguement of people getting tired of grinding, just like to point out though.

So pay to win is a big problem on it's own, and can become a huge problem. Let's go over some scenarios.

You can buy warzone commendations. Right now warzone commendations can be converted to ranked commendations. If that stays, it means that day 1 of a new pvp tier coming out you could buy it. Or you could earn it over time. Getting a full set of ranked gear can take a long time right now. Something probably along the lines of 20,000 ranked commendations. It will be much more difficult to earn those if you cannot compete in ranked warzones because some people day 1 will out gear you in every slot. So it becomes pay to play. Want to seriously compete in pvp? You better pay up for it. And this is on top of your monthly subscriber payment.

What if they release consumable buffs? +20% damage for 2 hours. Obviously that's a problem for pvp as well, but it's also a problem for pve. A lot of guilds compete to be the first to complete a new operation. If one guild uses the consumable and another doesn't, it's much more likely that the guild that pays will win. What if a lot of ops groups start saying that you have to have the consumable if you want to raid with them, much like a gear requirement? What happens when EA gets greedy and starts designing content for people that use these new buffs? They're just answering player demand. Now you can't even complete the hardest operations without paying money. Again, on top of your subscription.

The point is that there should never be content that you have to pay for beyond your subscription. And admittedly a bit of pay to win is sneaking into strongholds, and a little was snuck into GSF. But more of that can only be a bad thing and drive more players away.

Pay to win breed competition of idiots, who cannot let go of there investment till it is too late!

In my opnion that is not the way to go forward for escapisme!
I think what EA/Bioware did so far is good, simply everybody can be competitive.
And everybody can play at there own pace, if people feel the need to gamble or reward EA/Bioware additional.
For the game time they had fun playing so be it.

If people feel the need to take a break they might not catch up on CM purchases, but they are still available trough GTN.
In the end the system we have now is quite good, remember if 1 million people are playing, even with 50 average a year spending is 50 million annually income!
That is not a small income at all for the current smaller team and service crew.

Can't you already do this? You buy unopened pack/crates with real money. Then, you sell for millions on the gtn. Then, you buy millions worth of 180 armoring, mods, hilts, enhancements, implants, etc.