In other news I crossed the 50B ISK mark this evening and had a good time ratting havens with some friends.
This other players actions had no effect on our gameplay nor could he come in system and kick our arses, the 6 of us would totally destroy him.
Most folks don't understand how EVE really works, but whatever, EVEs the most "P2W" game ever.
This is one of the many reasons it was easy for me to avoid EVE. The fact you depend on these "friends" to be online to achieve something. Also the fact EVE does not allow individuals to separate themselves from the masses, by providing them the tools to withstand and dominate ganks. Newbies at least are aware of their limits and understand that hand holding is their only option. Through my experience in games that cater to ganks, avoiding the peak hours when they usually at school/work is best time to achieve something yourself.
You can desperately defend this failing game as much as you want Kyleran, but today it is more P2W than ever and that is a fact. For good or worse it had longer lasting than most games thanks to its complexity and sandbox elements, but even CCP is aware how that they need to reinvest their funding if they intend to stay relevant in the market ahead.
Not that I have any stake in this debate, but why does the argument of it not being PW2 only sit on the scenario of high end player vs newbie? What about two new players or two players who have played for a few months or a year? Won't I have an advantage over someone of equal skill or close to my skill?
Perhaps, but you will almost never find yourself in a situation where it will come down to just you vs your 'evil mirror twin' and his SP purchase will prevail. (besides, if you did, both of you did something terribly wrong, letting yourself get into a fair fight)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Whether or not a game is "P2W" by some arbitrary definition of P2W only matters to those who shun whatever fits their definition of P2W in the first place, and those people probably don't pay much money anyways (it's pretty rare to find a whale that gets deterred by a game being P2W for reasons I'd hope would be obvious).
More important is whether or not that cash monetization method hurts the game or not in some way. People buying fully upgraded equipment and stats in a game that doesn't have any competition doesn't really hurt the game very much because those people can't affect others anyways. On the other hand, if things get so bad that the PvE is balanced around whether or not one has cashed up gear, it can make F2P players quit which can then make it hard wofr whales to find a group.
Eve, of course, is a highly competitive game, but it still is more a question of how much any cash monetization policies affect the competition. In some games, having cashed up upgraded gear lets you solo entire armies. In Eve, that's not the case (as far as I know).
However, it does affect the long term meta a bit since it affects wars of attrition, which are kind of a thing in Eve. That may or may not be significant. Frankly, considering the game has had PLEX for such a long time, I doubt adding more cash based ways of holding back attrition would change the game as it is very much (not that the game is or isn't in a bad shape already from PLEX)
So... that's what I have to say about how this new cash monetization might affect Eve.
In terms of what this new cash monetization TELLS us, though, I think it does potentially possibly say something about CCP's financial situation a little that they came up with this. Although really, all old games come and decay over time so that's not too surprising either.
In other news I crossed the 50B ISK mark this evening and had a good time ratting havens with some friends.
This other players actions had no effect on our gameplay nor could he come in system and kick our arses, the 6 of us would totally destroy him.
Most folks don't understand how EVE really works, but whatever, EVEs the most "P2W" game ever.
This is one of the many reasons it was easy for me to avoid EVE. The fact you depend on these "friends" to be online to achieve something. Also the fact EVE does not allow individuals to separate themselves from the masses, by providing them the tools to withstand and dominate ganks. Newbies at least are aware of their limits and understand that hand holding is their only option. Through my experience in games that cater to ganks, avoiding the peak hours when they usually off school/work is best time to achieve something yourself.
You can desperately defend this failing game as much as you want Kyleran, but today is it more P2W than ever and that is a fact. For good or worse it had longer lasting than most games thanks to its complexity and sandbox elements, but even CCP is aware how that they need to reinvest their funding if they intend to stay relevant in the market ahead.
You don't have to wait for friends. You can do FW small/med plexes as a solo player and succeed. You can roam lowsec in a cloaky. You can do exploration. You can jump WH's in a SB and look for people to gank. You can go huff gas in a 300k venture. You can go mine (bleh.) You can mission. Plenty to do for a solo player. Keep being salty about.... every game Kopo. It's your thing.
EvE is considered by many here (it seems) to be niche anyways, so;
1) How many EvE players currently playing actually care about this?
2) If it's niche and not that mainstream, why do the rest of you care? Since "niche" practically means it won't be intensely noticed by the mainstream games anyway.
3) Given OP's countless posts on 'preferring' free games and EvE is sub to begin with. Why post as this news has already been mentioned here. One wonders.
In other news I crossed the 50B ISK mark this evening and had a good time ratting havens with some friends.
This other players actions had no effect on our gameplay nor could he come in system and kick our arses, the 6 of us would totally destroy him.
Most folks don't understand how EVE really works, but whatever, EVEs the most "P2W" game ever.
This is one of the many reasons it was easy for me to avoid EVE. The fact you depend on these "friends" to be online to achieve something. Also the fact EVE does not allow individuals to separate themselves from the masses, by providing them the tools to withstand and dominate ganks. Newbies at least are aware of their limits and understand that hand holding is their only option. Through my experience in games that cater to ganks, avoiding the peak hours when they usually at school/work is best time to achieve something yourself.
You can desperately defend this failing game as much as you want Kyleran, but today it is more P2W than ever and that is a fact. For good or worse it had longer lasting than most games thanks to its complexity and sandbox elements, but even CCP is aware how that they need to reinvest their funding if they intend to stay relevant in the market ahead.
Er no. I spend 85% of my playing time on solo activities in EVE, but it is true, PVP activities are most successful when done with friends.
I get it, you want a game that has unstoppable Jedis in it, one man wrecking crews vs legions and there's really no way to create or play a character in EVE that 3 to 5 people can't easily stomp flat.
Interestingly enough, some cash shop titles will sell you the means to become a near invincible warrior, at the cost of many thousands of dollars, but no developer today is going to give away such power for free, if available you'll have to pay dearly for it.
As subscriptions continue to lag (expectedly so) CCP is coerrectly looking for alternate ways to increase revenues, and since $75.00 monacles didn't seem to work, this may turn out to be a more palatable approach.
Quite honestly, I still expect to be playing EVE for the next five years, and don't worry, it will do just fine whether I defend it or not due to the support of those who know better.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Not that I have any stake in this debate, but why does the argument of it not being PW2 only sit on the scenario of high end player vs newbie? What about two new players or two players who have played for a few months or a year? Won't I have an advantage over someone of equal skill or close to my skill?
Perhaps, but you will almost never find yourself in a situation where it will come down to just you vs your 'evil mirror twin' and his SP purchase will prevail. (besides, if you did, both of you did something terribly wrong, letting yourself get into a fair fight)
That's fair enough, would it be the same for a group? Say 6 non-paying and 5 - 6 paying with relatively same skill level?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"A bizarre twist on that story has since emerged when another player named IronBank created a brand-new character and used around $28,000 worth of injectors to max out every possible skill he could acquire to level 5. A total of around 2,846 injectors were used to boost the new character up to 473,344,000 skill points that would normally take over 20 years of skill training time to acquire. Those injectors are currently worth over 1.7 trillion ISK or about 1,423 PLEX, which would currently cost between $21,161 and $28,446 to buy with cash."
Most folks don't understand how EVE really works, but whatever, EVEs the most "P2W" game ever.
That's the most funny part of the game.
Noobs think skillpoints determine the outcome of a fight, so they come from a easy to play MMO like WoW for example, they throw RL cash around to buy a older character, a fancy ship, some pimp fittings.
"it's just click to orbit and shoot and the best skilled player wins the fight". I look at their shiptype, know the strong points and their weak points, I see by their guns deployed which type it is (long/short range), I adjust my tactic, ammo, approach vector and 99/100, I end up laughing unless a smarter player baits me and he/she gets a 'GF' from me.
But most of the time:
Newb guy buys skillpoints or a old character, thinks he is playing in God Mode, some 'easy bait' comes along, like me on my alt(s) for example....I trick them into thinking they can defeat my 1-6 month alts with their bought character and skillpoints (yet they have no experience playing the game), and 5 minutes later they are cancelling the game ('this game is boring' is the most quoted excuse for failing hard in EVE) when I have killed, podded and looted them and frapsed their ingame rage and tears.
Yes, "EVE is P2W" like anti-EVE trolls claim, keep believing that, "actuall skill & thinking does not matter. "
These players with these mindsets are exactly the ones we like to see the most when roaming around and stripping them of their stuff.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Not that I have any stake in this debate, but why does the argument of it not being PW2 only sit on the scenario of high end player vs newbie? What about two new players or two players who have played for a few months or a year? Won't I have an advantage over someone of equal skill or close to my skill?
Your brain capacity decides the advantage. Nothing else.
It is 95% knowing when to fight, know when to bail or avoid a fight, know which countermeasures to use, know the movement tactics, optimal range, your opponent's (optimal) range, his and your ammo, intel about possible friends coming to help.
And in the last 5% gear and skill influences the fight.
EVE IS NOT WOW.
Level/gear does not decide a fight.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Most folks don't understand how EVE really works, but whatever, EVEs the most "P2W" game ever.
That's the most funny part of the game.
Noobs think skillpoints determine the outcome of a fight, so they come from a easy to play MMO like WoW for example, they throw RL cash around to buy a older character, a fancy ship, some pimp fittings.
"it's just click to orbit and shoot and the best skilled player wins the fight". I look at their shiptype, know the strong points and their weak points, I see by their guns deployed which type it is (long/short range), I adjust my tactic, ammo, approach vector and 99/100, I end up laughing unless a smarter player baits me and he/she gets a 'GF' from me.
But most of the time:
Newb guy buys skillpoints or a old character, thinks he is playing in God Mode, some 'easy bait' comes along, like me on my alt(s) for example....I trick them into thinking they can defeat my 1-6 month alts with their bought character and skillpoints (yet they have no experience playing the game), and 5 minutes later they are cancelling the game ('this game is boring' is the most quoted excuse for failing hard in EVE) when I have killed, podded and looted them and frapsed their ingame rage and tears.
Yes, "EVE is P2W" like anti-EVE trolls claim, keep believing that, "actuall skill & thinking does not matter. "
These players with these mindsets are exactly the ones we like to see the most when roaming around and stripping them of their stuff.
A game being p2w and needing a brain to play are not mutually exclusive.
It's undeniable that purchasing PLEX and now skillpoints does have an effect on how fast you progress your intended goals as long as you actually put them to good use (which conveniently everyone here is ignoring). Having scout alts, offgrid boosters, the ability to permanently replace ships and implants with no waiting does help you a lot at the game and will even allow you to learn it faster than someone who doesn't.
Then again this wasn't a huge game changer. You could do the same before with the character bazaar anyway and the rich player has always had an upper hand in this game wether people want to admit it or not. It's not a "WTF I win" button but it's fairly substantial.
Whether or not a game is "P2W" by some arbitrary definition of P2W only matters to those who shun whatever fits their definition of P2W in the first place, and those people probably don't pay much money anyways (it's pretty rare to find a whale that gets deterred by a game being P2W for reasons I'd hope would be obvious).
Really?
So it is arbitrary to think that being able to spend $28k to skip 20 years of earning skill points through the game is p2w?
What is your definition of p2w? Do you NOT consider the ability to spend $28k to skip 20 years worth of skill points p2w?
Personally i think this is as p2w as it gets .. way up there as buying L90 characters in WOW, but costing a lot more.
And i also suppose whales are alive and well (at least there are TWO) in Eve.
I don't think you understand a vet player with max skills bought over a few days probably has a bigger advantage than you think.
I dont think you have read a single word of my post you quoted
I did understand what you said that two equally skilled vets (one being bought skills and other being earned) with equal skill points would be a good fight.
But the question is "would a higher skilled (bought) have advantage?"
I think they would have advantage through some passive skills related to their ship.
And the sure-to-be-unsatisfying answer is only, "Maybe." There are too many variables. If it were a straight up mirror-match, sure.
In practice, a fight between two identical ships with identical fits is EXCEEDINGLY rare.
I like breachers. If I'm flying a kite-fit breacher and I encounter a brawl fit breacher, one of two outcomes is likely:
1. The fight will take place at my preferred engagement range (far). He will not be able to catch me, escape me, or apply damage to me. I will pew him down and he will die, while I am relatively or entirely unscathed. The difference between a few skills at 4 and a few skills at 5 is not going to have any measurable impact on this.
2. The fight will take place at his preferred engagement range (close). He will proceed to rip my face off with little fanfare. I will scuff his paint. Again, we're not talking about a close enough fight that skills will significantly impact the outcome.
Over hundreds of 1v1 fights I think I've had maybe 2 that have been so close that you could say, "Oh, I would have totally won that if I had that weapon spec skill at 5".
Whether or not a game is "P2W" by some arbitrary definition of P2W only matters to those who shun whatever fits their definition of P2W in the first place, and those people probably don't pay much money anyways (it's pretty rare to find a whale that gets deterred by a game being P2W for reasons I'd hope would be obvious).
Really?
So it is arbitrary to think that being able to spend $28k to skip 20 years of earning skill points through the game is p2w?
What is your definition of p2w? Do you NOT consider the ability to spend $28k to skip 20 years worth of skill points p2w?
Personally i think this is as p2w as it gets .. way up there as buying L90 characters in WOW, but costing a lot more.
And i also suppose whales are alive and well (at least there are TWO) in Eve.
You are still overlooking the hard caps in EVE nor understanding how skills arent nearly the end all for progression.
Trust me, there are very few hulls he can fly better skilled than me, Im near perfect and I will never be in a fight where the 2% I might give away will ever matter.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Trust me, there are very few hulls he can fly better skilled than me, Im near perfect and I will never be in a fight where the 2% I might give away will ever matter.
so someone spent 28k to get a 2% advantage over you .. sounds p2w to me.
Sure, the advantage is small and the $$$ huge ... and you are saying it is ok to have p2w as long as the advantage is small?
Got it ... let's fleece the whales by charging them a lot for a small advantage. Given there are already TWO that are happy to pay through their nose, the market is alive and well.
Entropia Universe still has EVE beat as the most P2W game in the universe but nice try Eve!
You can play EU for free if you want...Cant say that with Eve unless you know how to make plex and noobs dont know how to do that.....How many people in EU run 4-5 accounts also?...I've never understood the fascination with paying so much money in Eve.....Even just $60-75 a month for those 4-5 subs gets insane after awhile.....
I'm the first person to tell you that skill points do not actually equal skill in EVE Online. There's vastly more to the game.
That being said, I have three thoughts about this.
1) This is just another of the hundreds of examples of CCP not being able to look even slightly into the future and see what players might do given money and time or both.
They should have seen this coming from a hundred miles away and put a cap on how much someone can spend in a year to boost their character.
But greed is good, and CCP, with their recent string of failures and non-starters, can't turn down a buck.
2) While this does not make this player a skillful player, it absolutely, 100% cheapens the fact that I've spent the last ten years gaining 170 million SP, but some loaded guy can come in and overnight and train every skill on my skill plan, plus every skill not on my skill plan.
Characters are now irrevocably cheapened. Your time training, means nothing now.
3) He didn't win EVE. It's well established that Goons & Co. won eve about a year ago. They're too big, too established, too powerful to even take chips out of their power bloc. So one guy with every skill in the game is just one guy with every skill in the game. While I agree it's bullshit, he hasn't won jack squat so, no, it's not pay to win.
No one has spent 28k...all injectors were bought with in-game money.
Sticking with your rigid reasoning:
If one can achieve or obtain the same with RL money or in-game money, there is no actual advantage, there is an option - you can get max skill points character in different ways.
EVE is basically a frustration endurance test. It's the spirit of the game to be a mote among established player gods. Who doesn't know this by now? It's abuse on tap, you have to accept it.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Comments
You can desperately defend this failing game as much as you want Kyleran, but today it is more P2W than ever and that is a fact. For good or worse it had longer lasting than most games thanks to its complexity and sandbox elements, but even CCP is aware how that they need to reinvest their funding if they intend to stay relevant in the market ahead.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
More important is whether or not that cash monetization method hurts the game or not in some way. People buying fully upgraded equipment and stats in a game that doesn't have any competition doesn't really hurt the game very much because those people can't affect others anyways. On the other hand, if things get so bad that the PvE is balanced around whether or not one has cashed up gear, it can make F2P players quit which can then make it hard wofr whales to find a group.
Eve, of course, is a highly competitive game, but it still is more a question of how much any cash monetization policies affect the competition. In some games, having cashed up upgraded gear lets you solo entire armies. In Eve, that's not the case (as far as I know).
However, it does affect the long term meta a bit since it affects wars of attrition, which are kind of a thing in Eve. That may or may not be significant. Frankly, considering the game has had PLEX for such a long time, I doubt adding more cash based ways of holding back attrition would change the game as it is very much (not that the game is or isn't in a bad shape already from PLEX)
So... that's what I have to say about how this new cash monetization might affect Eve.
In terms of what this new cash monetization TELLS us, though, I think it does potentially possibly say something about CCP's financial situation a little that they came up with this. Although really, all old games come and decay over time so that's not too surprising either.
1) How many EvE players currently playing actually care about this?
2) If it's niche and not that mainstream, why do the rest of you care? Since "niche" practically means it won't be intensely noticed by the mainstream games anyway.
3) Given OP's countless posts on 'preferring' free games and EvE is sub to begin with. Why post as this news has already been mentioned here. One wonders.
I get it, you want a game that has unstoppable Jedis in it, one man wrecking crews vs legions and there's really no way to create or play a character in EVE that 3 to 5 people can't easily stomp flat.
Interestingly enough, some cash shop titles will sell you the means to become a near invincible warrior, at the cost of many thousands of dollars, but no developer today is going to give away such power for free, if available you'll have to pay dearly for it.
As subscriptions continue to lag (expectedly so) CCP is coerrectly looking for alternate ways to increase revenues, and since $75.00 monacles didn't seem to work, this may turn out to be a more palatable approach.
Quite honestly, I still expect to be playing EVE for the next five years, and don't worry, it will do just fine whether I defend it or not due to the support of those who know better.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
But I'm sure the game play is much more fun if you have real life cash.
Just can't seem to get a decent currency exchange rate for ISK though.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Noobs think skillpoints determine the outcome of a fight, so they come from a easy to play MMO like WoW for example, they throw RL cash around to buy a older character, a fancy ship, some pimp fittings.
"it's just click to orbit and shoot and the best skilled player wins the fight".
I look at their shiptype, know the strong points and their weak points, I see by their guns deployed which type it is (long/short range), I adjust my tactic, ammo, approach vector and 99/100, I end up laughing unless a smarter player baits me and he/she gets a 'GF' from me.
But most of the time:
Newb guy buys skillpoints or a old character, thinks he is playing in God Mode, some 'easy bait' comes along, like me on my alt(s) for example....I trick them into thinking they can defeat my 1-6 month alts with their bought character and skillpoints (yet they have no experience playing the game), and 5 minutes later they are cancelling the game ('this game is boring' is the most quoted excuse for failing hard in EVE) when I have killed, podded and looted them and frapsed their ingame rage and tears.
Yes, "EVE is P2W" like anti-EVE trolls claim, keep believing that, "actuall skill & thinking does not matter. "
These players with these mindsets are exactly the ones we like to see the most when roaming around and stripping them of their stuff.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
It is 95% knowing when to fight, know when to bail or avoid a fight, know which countermeasures to use, know the movement tactics, optimal range, your opponent's (optimal) range, his and your ammo, intel about possible friends coming to help.
And in the last 5% gear and skill influences the fight.
EVE IS NOT WOW.
Level/gear does not decide a fight.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Theres the real accomplishment in the story, and yes, he apparently knows how to "win" EVE.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It's undeniable that purchasing PLEX and now skillpoints does have an effect on how fast you progress your intended goals as long as you actually put them to good use (which conveniently everyone here is ignoring). Having scout alts, offgrid boosters, the ability to permanently replace ships and implants with no waiting does help you a lot at the game and will even allow you to learn it faster than someone who doesn't.
Then again this wasn't a huge game changer. You could do the same before with the character bazaar anyway and the rich player has always had an upper hand in this game wether people want to admit it or not. It's not a "WTF I win" button but it's fairly substantial.
Now I can just buy the skill points.
Either way I end up with a character with x amount of skill points.
What exactly is the issue?
In practice, a fight between two identical ships with identical fits is EXCEEDINGLY rare.
I like breachers. If I'm flying a kite-fit breacher and I encounter a brawl fit breacher, one of two outcomes is likely:
1. The fight will take place at my preferred engagement range (far). He will not be able to catch me, escape me, or apply damage to me. I will pew him down and he will die, while I am relatively or entirely unscathed. The difference between a few skills at 4 and a few skills at 5 is not going to have any measurable impact on this.
2. The fight will take place at his preferred engagement range (close). He will proceed to rip my face off with little fanfare. I will scuff his paint. Again, we're not talking about a close enough fight that skills will significantly impact the outcome.
Over hundreds of 1v1 fights I think I've had maybe 2 that have been so close that you could say, "Oh, I would have totally won that if I had that weapon spec skill at 5".
Trust me, there are very few hulls he can fly better skilled than me, Im near perfect and I will never be in a fight where the 2% I might give away will ever matter.
You don't play, so you don't understand.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Sure, the advantage is small and the $$$ huge ... and you are saying it is ok to have p2w as long as the advantage is small?
Got it ... let's fleece the whales by charging them a lot for a small advantage. Given there are already TWO that are happy to pay through their nose, the market is alive and well.
That being said, I have three thoughts about this.
1) This is just another of the hundreds of examples of CCP not being able to look even slightly into the future and see what players might do given money and time or both.
They should have seen this coming from a hundred miles away and put a cap on how much someone can spend in a year to boost their character.
But greed is good, and CCP, with their recent string of failures and non-starters, can't turn down a buck.
2) While this does not make this player a skillful player, it absolutely, 100% cheapens the fact that I've spent the last ten years gaining 170 million SP, but some loaded guy can come in and overnight and train every skill on my skill plan, plus every skill not on my skill plan.
Characters are now irrevocably cheapened. Your time training, means nothing now.
3) He didn't win EVE. It's well established that Goons & Co. won eve about a year ago. They're too big, too established, too powerful to even take chips out of their power bloc. So one guy with every skill in the game is just one guy with every skill in the game. While I agree it's bullshit, he hasn't won jack squat so, no, it's not pay to win.
Sticking with your rigid reasoning:
If one can achieve or obtain the same with RL money or in-game money, there is no actual advantage, there is an option - you can get max skill points character in different ways.