3. pay to win

pay to win


  • They promote that this game is skills only, no P2W here!

    The steam store page says this:

    "The subscription cost is the same for all players, there is no way to pay more to gain more advantages."

    You can buy a sub token for real money, and then you can sell it in-game and get a huge amount of any ressources in exchange.

    If two players are equally good at the game but one of them is rich in real-life, there's no question who wins.

    It's as if i made this MMORPG and i sold imbalanced gear for real money saying: "Hey, the price of the gear is the same for all players, so there is no way to pay more to gain more advantages, this isn't a p2w game, i swear!"

    Please remove this P2W feature, you're better than this.


  • And who is going to pay for the server(s) then?


  • Have you read at all? Selling subscriptions is perfectly fine.

    Subscriptions tokens that you sell in-game for ressources isn't. (if you promote that your game isn't P2W)


  • actually, i have to admit:no.

    I stopped reading after the third sentence, expecting some more general P2W troll post. I apologize.

    Now i did, and tbh if you're talking about being equally good, in terms of "real-life" skill, this (imho) would imply the exact same requirements in real life. So both have no money, or both have money. 

    On the other hand if you got that far, that something like this makes a difference, you should have some friends. Its an MMO.

     

    tldr; Still do not agree. Simply for the ppl with "no money": Selling excess resources for game-time is something i appreciate. You just cant pick rules (dont) you like and say "its p2w".


  • Dear Ben,

    In theory, you are correct, the existence of sub tokens makes this a pay to win. However, I dare to disagree with this conclusion for two reasons:
    1. the effect of "skill" in this game
    2. the value of credits

    First and foremost, skill in this game has an impact far greater then any game I have witnessed to date. The vast majority of players (75%) struggle to simply not starve. They struggle to simply expand beyond a single room due to the extraordinary difficulty this game represents. That's ok, don't worry, I feel certain they greatly enjoy the game nonetheless. Solving this "simple" challenge is enough for most of the screeps players.

    To give a drastic comparison, I can guarantee that Dissi or Hernanduer's code even if scaled down to 10 rooms, will beat 99% of 10 room players regardless of the quantity of resources they may have at their disposal.

    Second, infinite credits only translate to infinite minerals(boosts). You may feel that is unfair, but PvP in Screeps has very little to do with the quantity of boosts or energy you have at your disposal. Even disregarding skill, CPU, spawn time, nukes etc all have a critical value in PvP. You are severely overestimating the value of subtokens.

    Lastly, the main purpose of subtokens and the existence of this market is to allow players which cannot afford to pay for the game or do not wish to do so, to still be able to play the game fully so long as they can sacrifice the equivalent resources. If their AI is strong enough to generate the resources in question, then this provides a means to play the game at a competitive level.

    Kind regards,
    Atavus


  • You make some good points Atavus.
    I understand ressources are not the biggest factor, etc..
    I'm mostly annoyed at advertisement vs reality.
    I wouldn't have said a thing if they didn't strongly promote their game has no p2w.

    Also, if the main purpose is to offer the game for free to players who want to share their ressources, they could easily do that without a P2W concept.
    It doesn't have to be players who sells the sub tokens.


  • I'm glad I was able to alleviate some of your concerns.

    I don't fully understand the last statement. Why do you believe the developers wish to share the game for free?

    Asking this in another way, how would it be possible for the developers of this game to spend the majority of their time working on it if they are not compensated for it?

    The purpose of the subscription is not to just pay for the ongoing development but also for the server costs of running the game.

    Despite all of this, you can in fact play without subscription. In the end, if you covered the steam purchase you can play the game fully with your friends or private community by hosting the game yourself on your own servers at no additional costs.

    1 Reply

  • @atavus Does anyone know if @ben2 is still active?


  • https://screeps.com/a/#!/profile/ben2 Looks like the last time @ben2 played was August 2017. So no, not active