I have spend $$$ on this game and i look at it like this, so you can see how it works.
i used to buy a new game every month or two. They are (in New Zealand Dollars) about $85 - $100 each. Then i would play that game, on average, 100 hours. Good games easily double that. So say each game cost me 50 cents per hour to play.
So - thats 50 cents per hour, and i played games about 25 hours per week so to me that equated to $12.50 per week to spend on gaming. I dont drink or smoke, drive expensive cars so gaming is my hobby and where i choose to place my money.
Crossout was the game i played 90% of my time for 5 years, and i honestly dont know what i spent on the game. I buy packs i want (50% off sales) battle passes and premium.
I still maintain that this is not pay to win. I have only this year been consistently in Bronze and getting Uranium every week. More gear means more options but every weapon needs time to get good at it. My best wining build is still arbiters even though i have 10 relic weapons.
I have friend who is level 240 and never spent anything on the game and has a good inventory. Its just that people dont want to wait and earn stuff now. Grind is there if you believe it. just play the game, have fun and your inventory will grow. Its only if you are chasing the best of gear and not appreciating the small, regular upgrades to your build where people get annoyed.
I dont see why people hate on people that spend money because we pay for the game that free players play, but dont want to spend anything on. Can you think of anything in life which is free, great entertainment and bring groups of people together for mutual enjoyment?
I still say for someone that makes $400 a week would still consider $400 a small amount to pay for thousands of hours of entertainment over almost 6 years.
for the sake of comparison, here is a rough estimate of my numbers:
2600 hours
$190 USD
3 Years
I tend to hang out in the 7k’s but do go upwards of 9k from time to time. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever felt pressured to advance with the “bigger and better” items. I think that’s more of a younger persons thing, racing to get the bigger and better…I used to do that back in my 20’s when I played WoW, always “needed” to progress out of the Fear of Missing Out. I grew out of that and , I think, lots of people do grow passed it but…some people get the addiction and just start pumping money to feed it. Then, those same addicted people throw their tantrums when reality smacks them in the face…song as old as time, tale as old as rhyme, money and the beast.
I think you hit on a good point here without realizing it.
I too used to play a bunch of MMORPGs back in the day. And dropping 15-20$ a month on a subscription to just be able to log in was common.
So some of us are used to “tipping” dev teams as they progress, if you get what I mean. A few hundred $ a year (even 15 years ago) was common for RPG players, but not for FPS players.
FPS guys always expected one price for the game and then free servers forever.
Like, there’s a club one can join where (even as a member) there’s a cover charge at the door.
Then there’s clubs one can join paying once in a while for membership with allowance of the club grounds for life.
Now, the clubs are merging and the people used to the cover charge are like “Yo, what’s the problem?” and the others are like “I didn’t get what I paid for.”
clan wars has become '‘punishers, hammerfall/breaker hovers, arbiters/imps’ ONLY, with some destructors, scorpions and cannons sprinkled in every once in a while. The reason? faster hovers, omamori, and the way that makes hovers tilt.
Faster Hovers
faster hovers are most useful to close range weapons, the maps now allow players to close the gap to enemies within one cloak length. Softening the enemy’s armor and maybe ploinking off a weapon or two before they can get to you is now not viable anymore.
Omamori
Parts used to have their hp finetuned to the damage of weapons. High risk high reward guns were therefore not played that much, because of the, well, risk. Enter Averter and Omamori, and now you take away the risk part, leaving only ‘high reward’, while also often granting the other go-to weakpoints like the cabin and modules some of that delicious 50% damage. Right now, the module only starts receiving damage after the attached parts receive more than 360 damage within a certain period. Many of the high risk weapons have less health than that, so the module usually doesn’t even start receiving damage until one weapon already gobbled up twice its health and decides to head out.
Hover tilt
As insult to injury to ranged hovers, hover tilt makes firing at your enemy while backpedaling insanely hard, or even outright impossible if your build isn’t made for it. MG’s can deal with this, with the way their blueprints are made, and their large maximum depression, but cannons and other weapons simply run out of gun depression while moving backwards.
But then again I make 3 or 4 times that amount every day depending on the work flow of my business. (And we are the poor ones in comparison with the other people we work with - So people that don’t have money will value money very differently, because they view everyone else in the same boat as them - So above is not a “Flex” it is just reality. I drop more then $400 on a weekend, ever weekend, just for me and my wife to get out of the house and spend time together.
Based on what I just read, you are closer to the 1% than you are to any other wealth gap. If you spend 400$ for an average out of the house every weekend, you are doing FAR better than MOST people on this planet. Sure… I can splurge 400$ every weekend. I could still pay bills but I would be eating raman and wouldn’t have a dime if something happened outside of that means. So yes, there are BILLIONS of people on this planet that can’t afford to do what you do and you seem ignorant of that. How? That part’s beyond me. But I’m sure it’s an interesting story.
Still… Money is hyper focusing. How do you time vs money in a game? Consider the Money vs Crowns vs Gold Coins exchange alone. You can spend 25$ or more in this game on a vehicle that would not change your status, the amount of parts, the gear, anything… at best would give you a few gold coins to spend on new not-so-pricey equipment that likely wouldn’t do much to your PS or your place in the game.
But… you can buy top tier weapons all day for CHEAPER than you can build it. Where’s the motivation to climb and participate?
Also, when the player does it all the right way (or whatever) and he’s in a match vs people in the same PS that has a weapon that’s 3X the price of their own weapons and can’t compete against those same attackers. This happens much too often.
Player sees those weapons he’s against, looks them up and realizes the ONLY way he has the ability to obtain them are to buy them. But there is such a huge price gap between the weapons he has and the weapons he wants and grinding does very little to gain $$ to purchase the 3x+ the amount that it takes to get only 1 of those weapons.
It’s a broken system in my opinion. It’s a bit of a slap in the face as well.
Some people really would like to advance because it’s a natural thing to do to want to succeed. Another way to look at it would be that other would often enjoy participating in something that seems impossible to participate in.
Not sure why you didn’t understand that as a possibility but hey, weird times we’re living in. Am I right?
Some of them are cool. I play this one because I can do it by myself… I wouldn’t mind doing some team ones that are actually team based. That being said we could actually use a team mode in this that is better than what is currently offered.
Nobody plays Rust. Why would they? When they get there with their 11k PS vehicles, they get demolished by 10x pts fused relic clans that just crush them with 0% talent and builds that can buy their combined inventories with just one weapon. When they finally win they get 30 scrap metal, yay.
There’s nothing to farm in Bronze or Tin, so the game’s population is really low and mostly gunning for ura leagues. As a result, it’s a relic fest. And it doesn’t help that some relics are n00btubes that border on p2w, or leave pretty much no chance to 95% legendary- builds.
Exactly, the lack of incentive is why the CW pool is so stagnant right now. Newer players only have enough perseverance to get stomped for a small amount of scrap before they decide CW (and maybe the game) isn’t worth it.
The poor MM is partially the reason why the CW pool is so small and stagnant. And the poor MM is what scares newer clans away and prevents the pool from getting bigger. It’s quite the Catch-22.
The frustration from CW makes me consider quitting the game.
CW needs an overhaul.
There needs to be better rewards for Rust and Tin league.
Clan Wars seasons should be 2-3 weeks long (Uranium cap and end-of-season reward would be adjusted accordingly)
The League MM should also work properly.