KS wrote on Jan 4, 2014, 15:40:
Are there things that cost more than 2000? Basically, are they stopping people from saving virtual cash for several months to buy "really" good stuff, thus forcing them to pay for it?
Kind of a slap to P2P people.
You're on the right track but going in the wrong direction
The most expensive items in Planetside 2 are 700SC, with the exception of a couple of bling gold versions (functionally identical to a 700SC version) which are 1,000 and a couple of cosmetics. There are also a lot of much cheaper items, not sure on numbers but as an indication on items that matter (weapons) say roughly one third are 250, a third 500 and the rest 700. (I'll note there is no obvious logic for the price differences, there is absolutely no reason to assume a 700SC gun is better or objectively preferred than a 250 one.)
There are some bundles which are north of 2,000 sure but bundles are excluded from the voucher.
So basically, there is a limited number of 700 and 500 SC items and no reason to assume you'd want them over the cheaper versions anyway. Whilst you can now get a 700SC item each month whereas before it would take a month and a half, you're going to stop winning against the old 500SC grant pretty quickly into your sub.
But, haha, the base price is besides the point anyway. Every day there are 2 items on sale - historically half price, but recently this changed to be about 1/3 off. AFAIK everything turns up in the sale rotations eventually. There are also some bundles which are much better value - sometimes even better than a 50% sale price - and bundles are excluded from the "up to 2000SC" coupon. There can also be one-off sales over holidays or whatever, with entire ranges on sale or even cheaper.
Provided you are patient, the average price is (or was) far lower than base. I have just about everything for my main faction (and a some for alts) and with the exception of the first item, I never paid any more than 350SC and the average was probably around 250.
The best part of all this is it is most likely just an example of how incompetent they are. They probably actually think it is a better deal. If you don't actually think it through, if you are bit short on smarts, it is easy to see it as a better deal. If you only take a short subs and play casually it may well turn out better.
Their intentions for the change is likely that someone realised that they are giving player studio (fan made) content creators 40% of the sales price but everyone gets the SC in the sub or when SC is on sale. Oops! There is probably also some internal shit regarding subscribers for one game using the SC on a different one.
This incompetence runs right through the game at every level. Man, fuck me this game can be awesome.
EPIC. But SOE do not seem to know what they are doing. Every update there's some incredible disaster proving there is no QA. Balance changes are probably done on a spreadsheet by some intern using bad data; I'll still say they fuck it up from incompetence and not bait-and-switch shit to get you to buy different gear, or pay to beta test for PlayStation4, but I've given a ton of goodwill towards that and it is wearing thin to say the least. The game is supposed to be on some 3 year development but 14 months in we've got one new vehicle, a bunch of weapons and cosmetics (to buy), and the rest has been a
lot of fixing. Well, we got the "alert" sub-game but this is a band-aid for the lack of meta and continent-locking which is coming eventually.
I could go on and on but I've written a wall of text and probably put anyone off the game already.
This comment was edited on Jan 4, 2014, 20:28.