14 DAY TRIAL // Apparently, things aren't as rosy as they used to be in PlanetSide 2, Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play first-person shooter.
Some players are complaining that the company is stepping on the gas and trying to make money faster by nerfing the drop rates of Implants, a move which many see as encouraging a pay-to-win mentality.
The move occurred after the new tier 4 implants were introduced to the massively multiplayer online game, after which the power of tier 1 through 3 implants was adjusted to encourage high-end sales.
Implants were added to the game a while ago, as an extra loadout slot, and something for players to grind for while online. They drop randomly whenever players accrue experience points, and they can also be bought for in-game currency or real-world money.
The way implants work is by offering tangible temporary buffs to players, at the cost of energy, which can be similarly regenerated by shelling out some cash to get chargers. While this is nowhere near the state of tablet games, some members of the community are starting to be concerned that Sony might be ramping its monetization efforts in the future, and that this is merely the beginning of an emerging trend.
Sony needs to pay the bills too
Many players feel disenfranchised and have taken to various social media outlets, and gaming blog In An Age has tracked the discussions, showing that Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley defended the company's decision on Twitter, by stating that they were simply trying to make money and that he did not consider the move a money grab, as some people had accused.
He clarifies that the downward adjustment is not solely meant to encourage people to buy implants, but that it was also a balance change, as the team made the drop rate for implants too high.
In addition to this, a debate also took place on Reddit, where Community Manager Tony Jones defended the decisions and attempted to further clarify the matter.
"Depends on how you define P2W. If implants are P2W, then yes you may not like everything in the future," he told a gamer asking whether the community should expect a bigger pay-to-win experience going forward.
The truth is, as always, not as simple as that, and many PlanetSide 2 veterans can attest to the fact that during the title's launch days, the purchasable options (such as rocket pods) had a more serious pay-to-win effect on the game, granting a much bigger kill farming potential.
The game has been constantly evolving since its launch on PC at the end of 2012, and it's now headed to the PlayStation 4 home console from Sony, with the debut of the beta test expected to take place during the week of January 13 through January 20.
@AdamNowotny @planetside2 @mhigby @RadarX sorry but we are actually trying to make money. I don't consider it a money grab.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) December 31, 2014
