It’s not “free” either if you have to grind for it. As long as you having fun playing it’s fine either way. But if you are bored and this becomes something like highly competitive cybersport for “profit” you are losing it.
Grinding, or playing the game, is a voluntary free activity.
If someone wants to waste their time doing something they don’t like, well that on them.
If you ever feel like the game is work, then your playing it wrong.
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Where’s the bus? Its not in the shop.
It’s realistic in this type of F2P situation because they keep getting nailed as overly profiteering and the transparency would prevent that. What it doesn’t prevent is them using the assets to make a profit though. Even if an item enters the core game on a set schedule and now has traditional in-game resources now representing it’s costs to players it does not stop them from continuing to market market that item with a set RL cash cost. Or allowing side access to them via a BP system which is pretty much just a fancy name for a packaged deal.
None of this anti profit and it fits fairly well with the original model of the game where a buy in was a remedy for early access of items game progression wise.
If no one bought the items in to start with there wouldn’t be any on the market to purchase in that method. When any of us try to describe it as grind the resources > Convert to coin > Buy the item it is missing a step when dealing with pack items. It’s missing that initial step that someone in the game already bought it and placed it on the market. That’s not describing free even though there’s an attainment process. An item crafted from all pack items is very much just a tier 2 pack item which has required one or more RL transactions.
The simplest thing of offering workpieces and or reward exchanges for those pack items would easily close up the some of the issue though. Even though the cleanest solution still would be having those types of pack items enter the core game more regularly. Doing so doesn’t stop them from selling the packs still but it does halt players from feeling like they are being cash milked for access and that paid players have some perceived advantage.
At the end of the day, you’re talking about perceptions, and how do you decide which ones to address?
None of us should assume that our perspective on the game is the correct one.
We either keep playing, or we stop. We can vote with our dollars and time.
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A lot of it isn’t perception based though and is just general business model, method, market issues. There’s a lot of small things they could clean up method. You start with the issues that garner the most negativity and cost the company returning purchases and existing players. You also have to look at what costs the game in terms of player retention of new players. Things have to be marketed very clearly. We really shouldn’t be seeing players in the forum asking why they didn’t get more structure parts from duplicate packs. In the mini BP’s players that have already earned a blueprint for an item are having to re-earn them to craft them, I’ve seen that one come up in gen chat a few times recently. I also have to include the challenge issue from the last mini BP too that info has to be correct when it goes out to players.
There are other ethical gaming issues too such as the gacha mechanics of the paint, and decor containers. It was ok when the game first started but this far into the game there should be a crafting system for them. Both the old upgrade method and the new recycle method are both still using the gacha mechanic method. There are actually counties that ban games with this type of mechanic in them. Similarly the current upgrade method is not far off from this either.
They could solve the 2-teir paid item issue really fast just with doing a quick update adding those crafting items to the reward bench and it would no longer be an issue.
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No mater how you try to spin it, this is a true free to play game.
Also I’m not sure about on PC but on Xbox we get free coins for being Xbox subscribers. So even if no one ever bought packs, coins would flow into the economy.
It does not mater if someone had to pay into the game, the people that didn’t are still “Free to Play” players.
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As I log in to play, I’m a little taken aback by the fact that there are essentially 3 special events going on at the same time.
I’m not even really paying attention to what each offers at this point. 
I may or may not buy that waderkvakaghaorn thing… I guess I’ll look at it closer if & when I finish EVERY LEVEL.
Call me a little burnt after Radiance, I guess.
Nope the most we ever got was those daily give always years ago where they gave you some resources each day and at the end of the week/month if you logged in everyday you got a gacha crate that normally gave you a flag or sometimes an untradeable item but had the potential of giving you some coins even though it was rare.
How many do they give you for being an Xbox sub?
There’s no spin on it really, no matter how you look at it someone pays in to get that item on the market. It’s just the way the logic of the store to market mechanic works. That’s not saying you can’t have free players under those conditions. There’s lots of methods that still allow for a game to label itself as free to play but still pay wall stuff it happens all the time. That’s generally where the perception of shadiness comes in.
The game in the past has taken steps away from that too easy example is the introduction of structure parts to the badge exchange. Similarly the attempt was made to place some of them as prestige level awards. If they didn’t have that there would be no way for players to earn those parts. Both of these being from paid sources the only real difference is the market issue.
If those methods attainment didn’t go in what you’d slowly develop in game is a player base that mirrors a caste system of who paid in when and where and then at the bottom of that the free player. Players could still play for free by your definition though. Having this type of caste sucks the fairness out of the game and players start to say it’s pay to get ahead and pay to win… You can still be both those other things and still be free to play.
There’s really no difference with other types of items, as the premise of market availability does not always function, and has been recently demonstrated by the leak and is also demonstrable by just looking at how many other items are sold out… If it’s not craft-able there’s a real supply issue going on.
Even the offering up of mini-passes using past BP items is basically rectifying a very similar issue of restricting blueprints and limiting crafting that would have otherwise created similar caste structures in the player base if it wasn’t rectified. Instead of offering a free attainment method such as the badge exchange they’ve rather monetized it further. Using the pack items in crafting is really just doubling down on the same issue complex. Sure it can still be called free to play but the balance between paying and free shifts slightly away from the free player placing them at the mercy of the market.
I always use to like a little break between events.
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Technically, yes. But you don’t need to participate in one of them, balance-wise, since Drones offer only decor. And Waderkvarn offers only one weapon and it is a bad and very expensive weapon, so, essentially, we have only one important event.
Better late than never 
We get 15coins a day, it’s not a lot but 450 free coins a month is nice 
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That’s a nice amount especially for new players.
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Guess that explains why they will never merge the markets lol.
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Yeah, this is also something I have never seen posted in the forums. We have been getting this for years.
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I never heard of it before either. It could be that xbox players just assume everyone else gets the same hand out perhaps. Hard to say… Makes me wonder if the PlayStation players get anything like this too?
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I did assume you guys got something.
It is only for Xbox subscribers, it is a subscription reward. So not all Xbox accounts get this bonus.
I’m not sure about PS4
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We get it too on PS4. I think it’s because console players have to subscribe to play online, so they give us something for it.
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These battle passes seem to appeal to FOMO. Using tactics like expiring blueprints and possible OP weapons to get people to buy levels to get shiny toys a lot faster.
Battle passes have gotten worse too. If people keep buying them, the devs will keep pushing to see what they can get away with for maximum profit.
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So this reward seems to try and make it more fair for people that have to pay to play a free game.
Seems like something they didn’t have to do, but it is pretty cool of them.
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