For me it's not the fact that I can get Zen through the exchange without having to pay real money, but the fact that you don't need any of the store items to perform well.
Reputation perks and gear, fleet gear, endgame ships, lobi-consoles, purple doffs, choice of faction, boffs with good traits and abilities etc... are free or were free for a certain time (e.g. event ships, lobi event, giveaways etc...).
completely free without anyone in the chain ever having to spent a single dime of real money.
It's still not Pay To Win though. It's Pay To Be Lazy (or in OPs case, Don't Pay And Be Very Patient.)
THIS. This is exactly correct.
Although, the Scimitar bundle is one giant enticement to pay and just get the damn thing already. Because scimitars are grossly OP. And we all know it.
I really only have one problem with one move made by Cryptic and PWE when it concerns STO and how they make their money and that is how they handled the Hanger Bug ships that can only be used on the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier.
IMO linking all the versions of the Hanger Attack ship to needing to own the Godly Lock Box Bug was just a greedy cash syphon move and could have been handled much better.
There was no real reason that Cryptic could not have made the rare version of the Hanger Bugs open to all the owned the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier and made it so that to unlock the higher versions of the Hanger Bugs required the owning of the lock box bug ship.
Other than the above I've got no problems with Cryptic trying to make money for STO, has it was already said STO has one of the fairest F2P models of 95% of the F2P MMO's on the market when it comes to what a player needs to buy to play STO.
F2P players in STO do not need to spend any RL currency at all to enjoy STO.
I'm happy that players are spending money here in STO (myself included from time to time) because it's the influx of cash that keeps this game running and I think that we can all agree that this is a good thing
Dilithium is Free, 99% of the Zen out there is not.
Of course it isn't! What do you expect? Don't be so naive.
Cryptic have to make a profit from somewhere and Zen is the means to do that. If they make no profit, the game will disappear. At the very least they should run break-even after all their CBS-royalties, hardware expenses and employees have been paid.
If Zen was easy to get free, Cryptic would make no money and the whole system would collapse.
Tyr shall give me strength! For the glory of Tempus! I am the hands of Shar! Flames of Kossuth, protect me! Oghma, grant me knowledge! Lolth commands, and I obey!
Take away the payer, and the F2P crowd are screwed!
Your hypothetical scenario has no bearing on the actual state of affairs and the argument also ignores important underlying factors. Take away the payer and the game ceases to exist; for example.
Fact of the matter is people can attain 100% optimal performance in STO without paying any real money themselves.
They can win. They didn't pay.
This pretty much ends the argument.
The people who spend money in an attempt to pay2win might succeed and PWE certainly appreciates their contributions but these people have no advantage over anybody else;
I dare say they're at a disadvantage with their awful spending habits and priorities.
Most people spend real money to either make things easier for them or save time obtaining stuff they want.
They don't attempt to spend money to win, they spend money because they're lazy and realize the futility in a pay2win mentality.
#Addition
Just want to say I have bought stuff for real money myself. I'm not trying to extol the virtues of not paying anything and neither am I a hypocrite.
Spending money helps but it's not necessary if you're willing to put in more time.
The people who spend money in an attempt to pay2win might succeed and PWE certainly appreciates their contributions but these people have no advantage over anybody else;
Only if you refuse to accept "expedience" as an advantage. :rolleyes:
Only if you refuse to accept "expedience" as an advantage. :rolleyes:
And advantage to whom? The player? Or PWE?
I just wouldn't want to generalize in that regard; some people here likely are affluent enough to not have to care in the slighest how many lifetimes they bought while on the other end of the spectrum some are poor enough they literally earn a noteworthy amount of money farming dilithium (which can surpass 50cent/h).
So it can go both ways. In any case it's not an advantage of factual consequence in game.
And advantage to whom? The player? Or PWE?
I just wouldn't want to generalize in that regard; some people here likely are affluent enough to not have to care in the slighest how many lifetimes they bought while on the other end of the spectrum some are poor enough they literally earn a noteworthy amount of money farming dilithium (which can surpass 50cent/h).
So it can go both ways. In any case it's not an advantage of factual consequence in game.
No, sorry, it undeniably is an advantage to obtain more powerful gear more quickly. Once you have it, yes, you're just on par with everyone else who owns item XYZ, but that's not the entire point being made.
Alright, I'm really getting tired of people whining about C-Store stuff, Lockboxes and the Lobi Store and how freaking greedy Perfect World/Cryptic are apparently.
So I went through all my purchases and calculated the overall amount of Zen that they cost.
Note that none of the items on this list were paid for with real money! I simply play between one and two hours per day and grind whatever I currently need to grind.
So, here's my List:
EC Cap - 500 Zen 2 Character slots - 625 Zen Tactical Vesta - 2500 Zen Isometric Charge Console - 1500 Zen Rhode Island (giveaway) - 750 Zen Nebula (giveaway) - 2000 Zen Yellowstone Runabout (giveaway) - 500 Zen TWOK Uniform (giveaway) - 550 Zen TOS Command Tunic (giveaway) - 550 Zen Reman Character (reputation unlock)- 600 Zen Delta Flyer (crafted it the old way)- 500 Zen Tac Bortasqu' - 2500 Zen Eng Bortasqu' - 2500 Zen Guramba Siege Destroyer- 2000 Zen B'Rel Retrofit (character unlock via VA Token) - 2000 Zen Kar'Fi Carrier (character unlock via Emblem grinding before we had Dilithium)- 2000 Zen To'duj Fighter (giveaway) - 500 Zen Marauder Patrol Cruiser (giveaway) - 2000 Zen Phalanx Science Vessel (giveaway) - 1000 Zen Qorgh Raptor (giveaway) - 1000 Zen Krenn Class, Temporal Destroyer - 800 Lobi - 20160 Zen ( 5 Lobi per box) Temporal Warfare Set - 600 Lobi - 15120 Zen ( 5 Lobi per box) Korath Uniform - 200 Lobi - 5040 Zen ( 5 Lobi per box) Korath Class, Temporal Science Ship - 145 million EC - 10458 Zen (1,75 mil per key at the time of purchase) Lhair Class, Tal Shiar Adapted Destroyer - 56 million EC - 5922 Zen (1,2 mil per key at the time of purchase)
Which amounts to:
82775 Zen
Again, I did not pay a single dime for any of this. All I do is spend a little time ingame each day, mostly grinding my 8k Dilithium per day on one and sometimes two characters.
Oh, and I went Silver when the game became F2P. So no stipends either.
So quit your whining and stop being lazy. Getting shineys isn't hard, it just takes some time.
You forgot to mention how many days it took you to buy this stuff just by grinding dili for 'little time'
Because you surely didn't spend any dili on space or ground equipment and all you did was save your precious 8K dili a day which you made by spending 'little time' in game.
Every free player has an account dil cap of 24k per day. 449 days is the quickest you can grind 82775 zen.
Everyone who has subscribed for atleast one month has a dil cap of 32k per day. 337 days is the quickest you can grind that much zen.
The OP bought two character slots, so has a dil cap of 48k per day. 224 days + however many it took to grind out the character slots is the quickest you can grind that much zen.
Keep in mind that the OP is including exchange-bought ships. Buying lockbox keys and selling them on the exchange isn't the only way to make EC.
The OP is also including the zen items that Cryptic gave away in promotions.
Its probably nice to be a slave of an online game... not. But it is pretty much what you are saying - if you don't have money or don't want to pay be ready to invest some real hours for many months to have things that are pretty much fluff.
I couldn't have said it better. Cryptic is actually very generous with this game. If you want to know what greedy means you should try to play swtor without spending a single penny. There are so many restrictions and nerfs for free players that it becomes a pain.
Because Cryptic is generous to free players, I enjoyed this game from day 1 and actually stuck with it. Because I kept playing I decided it was actually worth spending some real cash on this game. Although I can't spend much I still do from time to time.
With STO spending cash feels like extras, with swtor it feels like you're being blackmailed to pay for regular features that are FREE on STO.
Ty Cryptic for keeping us happy.
Agreed,
Even though i have issues with Cryptic for them bringing alot of Foreign Non-KDF/Fed/Rom align Alien Ships via Lock Box which i believe ruins each factions own unique feel.
But overall i like Cryptic's handling of it's F2P system which is far better than what other F2P games system have and does not have any negative impairments except for things that involves bank, doff amount and other trivial non-combat related things etc.
Buying Zen so u can zerg buy things is not P2W, it's just being highly impatient.
My view whats P2W is something u can't get or do ingame by F2P means, which in the most part in STO u can get virtually everything if u know how get resources easily.
The closest things i see P2W in this game are the Red Matter Converter (from Collectors Edition) and Veteran Rewards Skill (from LTS/Subs).
No, sorry, it undeniably is an advantage to obtain more powerful gear more quickly. Once you have it, yes, you're just on par with everyone else who owns item XYZ, but that's not the entire point being made.
Explain to me again how you need Zen to buy fleet gear?
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
That is Entirely the point - Someone, somewhere, PAID for that Zen. "PAID".. If they were given it free, fair enough yet 99% of the Zen on the Exchange has been Paid for by someone.
Again, if all those selling Zen on the exchange were to cancel their orders so there was no Zen on the exchange, where would you get your Zen from for buying C-Store items?
If everyone stopped selling Zen and purchased items themselves from the C-Store but didn't post the sell-able items on the Exchange, How would you get your Fleet ship modules or your Survivor packs?
Dilithium is Free, 99% of the Zen out there is not.
Hence, Pay2Win is not a myth, it is a FACT.
And lets say for arguments sake it did happen for a short time, For the F2P person, there would be No Keys to buy on the exchange, No more lobi crystals for items, No Doff packs to buy, No more Fleet ship access as no mods on the exchange, ect, ect.
Take away the payer, and the F2P crowd are screwed!
So choose your words more wisely :cool:
Pay-to-win refers to how a player directly interacts with a game to get gear and abilities. If -I- do not have to take money out of my wallet to receive gear or ships... then it is not pay-to-win.
Regardless of if someone else had to pay for it first or put money into the system. This is set up so that the game can have one -of several- viable sources of income. By your logic, gift cards at retails stores should not exist. Say I purchase a $20 gift card; it does not matter if I keep the card for myself, or gift it to someone else. The store already has the money. Now, I have my gift card, and I trade it to a friend for about $20 worth of pizza, again, the store does not care; it already has the money. Who is paying for what? Am I paying for the pizza? Is the Store? Is my friend selling the pizza, or buying the card? All a matter of how you look at it.
Same thing with Zen and Dilithium. I have Zen I do not want. My Friend has Dil they do not want. So, we trade. Is my friend getting Zen for free? Or am I purchasing Dilithium? The game does not care; they already got the money. But, from my friends point of view, he can get Zen from the dilithium he gets from playing.
Expanding that point, given an open market, you can conceivably grind out all the Zen that you desire, without opening your wallet. Therefore, to the player, it is free-to-play; and Cryptic still makes money.
Live on Earth. Work in Space. Play with Dragons. Join the best add on to STO, the Neverwinter holodeck program! Only 14 GPL a month.
Actually that decision no longer makes sense, I can only understand it as a attempt to make JHAS owners to buy the Jem Dread but its incredible shortsighted because the JHAS is not a Lock Box ship, its a limited event ship.
So after the JHAS fever have passed how the hell are they going to sell a ship (JHDC) that is nerfed? its also not as the JHAS is something someone can even have access anymore because its a event ship, the few that are in the exchange are at a exorbitant price out of almost anyone league.
This is 100% true and was the basis of the main argument that many of us that were upset by the move to link being able to buy the Hanger Bugs for the Jem Dreadnought Carrier (that can only be used with the Carrier) to needing to own the Lock Box Bug ship.
It was a bad move and greedy move by Cryptic and my opinion on that will never change.
Even selling the hanger bugs for Lobi would have been a much better option that still could have made Cryptic some cash and boosted the playability of the Jem Dread at the same time.
At 200 Lobi per Hanger I still would have bought the bugs and in the long run it would have made cryptic more money due to the 1200 lobi that the player could have needed to spend to get the Dread and a play set of the Bug Hangers.
Explain to me again how you need Zen to buy fleet gear?
Fleet gear? You don't. But you still need a developed fleet, and let's not pretend there's no temptation to pay real money for dilithium to throw down on those projects. Either way, that's barely a marginally-relevant tangent to C-store pay to win.
Fleet ships require modules, which you can buy on the exchange, but once again, it's no different than buying them in the C-store yourself.
No, sorry, it undeniably is an advantage to obtain more powerful gear more quickly. Once you have it, yes, you're just on par with everyone else who owns item XYZ, but that's not the entire point being made.
That is good enough for me. We can agree you only 'catch up' more quickly to the optimum and in some cases, like reputation, it does not speed up anything.
I don't see it as much of an advantage and more of a convenience.
That's putting it fairly well.
You forgot to mention how many days it took you to buy this stuff just by grinding dili for 'little time'
Because you surely didn't spend any dili on space or ground equipment and all you did was save your precious 8K dili a day which you made by spending 'little time' in game.
I smell BS around here...
Exactly. 1 or 2 hours a day, every day, for years, grinding only for dilithium, over and over, with 4 alts is boring to say the least. There are better things to do in STO than just grind dilithium constantly. And if he let others cover all the dilithium for fleet projects as well...
I also object to calling those who support the game and buy zen for all the F2P players lazy. Having a job and grinding for cash is not lazy. At minimum wage 2 hours a day would net far more zen than going the F2P route and does not come close to being lazy. To the contrary, it would be more industrious. There are many reasons some have more time than money while others have money to buy zen, and no reasons to judge each other on how much money they spent on the game.
Exactly. 1 or 2 hours a day, every day, for years, grinding only for dilithium, over and over, with 4 alts is boring to say the least. There are better things to do in STO than just grind dilithium constantly. And if he let others cover all the dilithium for fleet projects as well...
I also object to calling those who support the game and buy zen for all the F2P players lazy. Having a job and grinding for cash is not lazy. At minimum wage 2 hours a day would net far more zen than going the F2P route and does not come close to being lazy. To the contrary, it would be more industrious. There are many reasons some have more time than money while others have money to buy zen, and no reasons to judge each other on how much money they spent on the game.
Only in a bizzaro MMO world a guy with 8 to 9 hours job and family / social responsibilities would be called either lazy or a loser.. and that also by people who do nothing but spend 8 to 10 hours a day in front of PC and then brag about how they never paid a dime for the game.
Fleet gear? You don't. But you still need a developed fleet, and let's not pretend there's no temptation to pay real money for dilithium to throw down on those projects. Either way, that's barely a marginally-relevant tangent to C-store pay to win.
Fleet ships require modules, which you can buy on the exchange, but once again, it's no different than buying them in the C-store yourself.
Let's also not pretend that you're under no obligation to spend money on Dil for fleet projects, and i'm sure there are plenty of fleets who have to get by on what they can earn, rather than what they can buy.
Again, "Pay To Be Lazy". Top end gear doesn't require you to spend a penny.
Ships are a different kettle of fish, but again, you're not required to have a fleet ship to succeed in this game. You can use the free T5 ships to great effect and there are ships and Retrofits available in the fleet shipyard that don't require Modules - Hoh'Sus, Aquarius, Retrofit Nova, Mercy etc.
The problem here is I get the impression that you're arguing that it's P2W on the basis that it matters in PvP, whereas - due to the state of it in STO - I don't think PvP matters so I don't see why it's such a problem.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
In terms of the argument whether this game is Pay2Win 'lazy' is just meant to label the time-saving aspect that dominates the advantages of investing real money in non-Pay2Win games like STO.
It's compareable to EvE Online where you can buy ingame currency for real money in a very similar manner to STO.
While the discrepancies between these games are great they have a lot of similarities in terms of RMT.
So... anyone who doesnt normally pvp want to load up a ship with lobi and uni consoles and come fight a ship ive stripped down to just mk xi blues from the dil store?
im game.
not about ego I just want to illustrate a key point earlier in this thread..
no such thing as pay to win... trust me.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
In terms of the argument whether this game is Pay2Win 'lazy' is just meant to label the time-saving aspect that dominates the advantages of investing real money in non-Pay2Win games like STO.
That doesn't make it accurate, it is still an unwarranted insult of the people who fund the game for us.
To play on A Few Good Men speech ~ I don't have the time or the patience to explain myself to a man who plays for free the game I provide and then complains about the manner in which I provide it. I would rather he just say thank you! Otherwise pick up a credit card and man your post.
Comments
For me it's not the fact that I can get Zen through the exchange without having to pay real money, but the fact that you don't need any of the store items to perform well.
Reputation perks and gear, fleet gear, endgame ships, lobi-consoles, purple doffs, choice of faction, boffs with good traits and abilities etc... are free or were free for a certain time (e.g. event ships, lobi event, giveaways etc...).
completely free without anyone in the chain ever having to spent a single dime of real money.
THIS. This is exactly correct.
Although, the Scimitar bundle is one giant enticement to pay and just get the damn thing already. Because scimitars are grossly OP. And we all know it.
Dilithium/Zen exchange
And i like it alot :cool:
IMO linking all the versions of the Hanger Attack ship to needing to own the Godly Lock Box Bug was just a greedy cash syphon move and could have been handled much better.
There was no real reason that Cryptic could not have made the rare version of the Hanger Bugs open to all the owned the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier and made it so that to unlock the higher versions of the Hanger Bugs required the owning of the lock box bug ship.
Other than the above I've got no problems with Cryptic trying to make money for STO, has it was already said STO has one of the fairest F2P models of 95% of the F2P MMO's on the market when it comes to what a player needs to buy to play STO.
F2P players in STO do not need to spend any RL currency at all to enjoy STO.
I'm happy that players are spending money here in STO (myself included from time to time) because it's the influx of cash that keeps this game running and I think that we can all agree that this is a good thing
Cryptic have to make a profit from somewhere and Zen is the means to do that. If they make no profit, the game will disappear. At the very least they should run break-even after all their CBS-royalties, hardware expenses and employees have been paid.
If Zen was easy to get free, Cryptic would make no money and the whole system would collapse.
For the glory of Tempus!
I am the hands of Shar!
Flames of Kossuth, protect me!
Oghma, grant me knowledge!
Lolth commands, and I obey!
Your hypothetical scenario has no bearing on the actual state of affairs and the argument also ignores important underlying factors. Take away the payer and the game ceases to exist; for example.
Fact of the matter is people can attain 100% optimal performance in STO without paying any real money themselves.
They can win. They didn't pay.
This pretty much ends the argument.
The people who spend money in an attempt to pay2win might succeed and PWE certainly appreciates their contributions but these people have no advantage over anybody else;
I dare say they're at a disadvantage with their awful spending habits and priorities.
Most people spend real money to either make things easier for them or save time obtaining stuff they want.
They don't attempt to spend money to win, they spend money because they're lazy and realize the futility in a pay2win mentality.
#Addition
Just want to say I have bought stuff for real money myself. I'm not trying to extol the virtues of not paying anything and neither am I a hypocrite.
Spending money helps but it's not necessary if you're willing to put in more time.
He's dead, Jim.
Only if you refuse to accept "expedience" as an advantage. :rolleyes:
I bet my hide every time I queue that I know how to fly mine better.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
And advantage to whom? The player? Or PWE?
I just wouldn't want to generalize in that regard; some people here likely are affluent enough to not have to care in the slighest how many lifetimes they bought while on the other end of the spectrum some are poor enough they literally earn a noteworthy amount of money farming dilithium (which can surpass 50cent/h).
So it can go both ways. In any case it's not an advantage of factual consequence in game.
He's dead, Jim.
No, sorry, it undeniably is an advantage to obtain more powerful gear more quickly. Once you have it, yes, you're just on par with everyone else who owns item XYZ, but that's not the entire point being made.
You forgot to mention how many days it took you to buy this stuff just by grinding dili for 'little time'
Because you surely didn't spend any dili on space or ground equipment and all you did was save your precious 8K dili a day which you made by spending 'little time' in game.
I smell BS around here...
Its probably nice to be a slave of an online game... not. But it is pretty much what you are saying - if you don't have money or don't want to pay be ready to invest some real hours for many months to have things that are pretty much fluff.
Agreed,
Even though i have issues with Cryptic for them bringing alot of Foreign Non-KDF/Fed/Rom align Alien Ships via Lock Box which i believe ruins each factions own unique feel.
But overall i like Cryptic's handling of it's F2P system which is far better than what other F2P games system have and does not have any negative impairments except for things that involves bank, doff amount and other trivial non-combat related things etc.
Buying Zen so u can zerg buy things is not P2W, it's just being highly impatient.
My view whats P2W is something u can't get or do ingame by F2P means, which in the most part in STO u can get virtually everything if u know how get resources easily.
The closest things i see P2W in this game are the Red Matter Converter (from Collectors Edition) and Veteran Rewards Skill (from LTS/Subs).
Explain to me again how you need Zen to buy fleet gear?
Pay-to-win refers to how a player directly interacts with a game to get gear and abilities. If -I- do not have to take money out of my wallet to receive gear or ships... then it is not pay-to-win.
Regardless of if someone else had to pay for it first or put money into the system. This is set up so that the game can have one -of several- viable sources of income. By your logic, gift cards at retails stores should not exist. Say I purchase a $20 gift card; it does not matter if I keep the card for myself, or gift it to someone else. The store already has the money. Now, I have my gift card, and I trade it to a friend for about $20 worth of pizza, again, the store does not care; it already has the money. Who is paying for what? Am I paying for the pizza? Is the Store? Is my friend selling the pizza, or buying the card? All a matter of how you look at it.
Same thing with Zen and Dilithium. I have Zen I do not want. My Friend has Dil they do not want. So, we trade. Is my friend getting Zen for free? Or am I purchasing Dilithium? The game does not care; they already got the money. But, from my friends point of view, he can get Zen from the dilithium he gets from playing.
Expanding that point, given an open market, you can conceivably grind out all the Zen that you desire, without opening your wallet. Therefore, to the player, it is free-to-play; and Cryptic still makes money.
This is 100% true and was the basis of the main argument that many of us that were upset by the move to link being able to buy the Hanger Bugs for the Jem Dreadnought Carrier (that can only be used with the Carrier) to needing to own the Lock Box Bug ship.
It was a bad move and greedy move by Cryptic and my opinion on that will never change.
Even selling the hanger bugs for Lobi would have been a much better option that still could have made Cryptic some cash and boosted the playability of the Jem Dread at the same time.
At 200 Lobi per Hanger I still would have bought the bugs and in the long run it would have made cryptic more money due to the 1200 lobi that the player could have needed to spend to get the Dread and a play set of the Bug Hangers.
Fleet gear? You don't. But you still need a developed fleet, and let's not pretend there's no temptation to pay real money for dilithium to throw down on those projects. Either way, that's barely a marginally-relevant tangent to C-store pay to win.
Fleet ships require modules, which you can buy on the exchange, but once again, it's no different than buying them in the C-store yourself.
That is good enough for me. We can agree you only 'catch up' more quickly to the optimum and in some cases, like reputation, it does not speed up anything.
I don't see it as much of an advantage and more of a convenience.
That's putting it fairly well.
He's dead, Jim.
Exactly. 1 or 2 hours a day, every day, for years, grinding only for dilithium, over and over, with 4 alts is boring to say the least. There are better things to do in STO than just grind dilithium constantly. And if he let others cover all the dilithium for fleet projects as well...
I also object to calling those who support the game and buy zen for all the F2P players lazy. Having a job and grinding for cash is not lazy. At minimum wage 2 hours a day would net far more zen than going the F2P route and does not come close to being lazy. To the contrary, it would be more industrious. There are many reasons some have more time than money while others have money to buy zen, and no reasons to judge each other on how much money they spent on the game.
Only in a bizzaro MMO world a guy with 8 to 9 hours job and family / social responsibilities would be called either lazy or a loser.. and that also by people who do nothing but spend 8 to 10 hours a day in front of PC and then brag about how they never paid a dime for the game.
Oh the irony.
It turns the special events where they re-release it in doff packs into a feeding frenzy.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
Well of course it is. For Pay2Win to be real, you have to be able to win. :P
Let's also not pretend that you're under no obligation to spend money on Dil for fleet projects, and i'm sure there are plenty of fleets who have to get by on what they can earn, rather than what they can buy.
Again, "Pay To Be Lazy". Top end gear doesn't require you to spend a penny.
Ships are a different kettle of fish, but again, you're not required to have a fleet ship to succeed in this game. You can use the free T5 ships to great effect and there are ships and Retrofits available in the fleet shipyard that don't require Modules - Hoh'Sus, Aquarius, Retrofit Nova, Mercy etc.
The problem here is I get the impression that you're arguing that it's P2W on the basis that it matters in PvP, whereas - due to the state of it in STO - I don't think PvP matters so I don't see why it's such a problem.
It's compareable to EvE Online where you can buy ingame currency for real money in a very similar manner to STO.
While the discrepancies between these games are great they have a lot of similarities in terms of RMT.
He's dead, Jim.
im game.
not about ego I just want to illustrate a key point earlier in this thread..
no such thing as pay to win... trust me.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Quite honestly I wouldnt buy a JHAS. I had the money at one point, passed it over.
the JHAS is no match for a romulan ship, especially a tvaro or dhelan.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
That doesn't make it accurate, it is still an unwarranted insult of the people who fund the game for us.
To play on A Few Good Men speech ~ I don't have the time or the patience to explain myself to a man who plays for free the game I provide and then complains about the manner in which I provide it. I would rather he just say thank you! Otherwise pick up a credit card and man your post.
Whether or not you are obligated to pay does not negate the fact that you can pay "to win."