I've been playing for the last 2 days on and off and i think it's a solid game, but man the pricing just seems ridiculous on some of this stuff, and crafting seems to be made extraordinarily cumbersome. I just got my first weapon blueprint (i have no clue what the stats of it are it's a sword called chronos) cost me like 15k of the money stuff, and STILL takes an entire day to build?

Are the developers trying to make it feel like a punishment not to buy your way out of grinding loot? Are they content with this pay model or is it going to be revamped before release? Doesn't seem like the right way to go about this F2P thing, not as bad as that marvel game but it's close. However, unlike marvel it hasn't completely made me stop playing yet but it definitely doesn't make me want to spend money on anything.

Anyway, is it worth grinding out or will the pay wall just get to the point where unless you have a million years of free time you won't be able to progress at all without spending money? I don't mind spending money on a game that i like, but when a game feels like its just trying to force you to spend more than what the game is worth it's pretty disappointing. Especially since this game doesn't even have dedicated servers.

@oursin_360: It didn't seem all that onerous to me when I was playing; you can get most of what you want without paying, but you will advance much more slowly than if you plunked down the cash. That's a pretty common approach to free-to-play games, so it didn't strike me as being so bad. But yeah, I'd be much more likely to keep playing if they had dedicated servers (might even pay cash for access to them), as the lag in that game made maybe a third of games all but unplayable for me.

I think you're misusing the term "paywall." One can obtain all of the non-cosmetic gear is in the game for free players, there's no paywall.

The Platinum (real money) system is there for people who feel it's worth the premium to obtain new gear without the requisite crafting cost and wait time. That cost/time are actually pretty trivial overall, I feel. I'd also argue that this system is a pretty decent way to handle F2P. Since free players have access to the same things as everyone else. You've just got to work at them a little.

I have 90% of the items in the game and the only things I've spent Platinum on are cosmetic color palettes and weapon slots. If one wanted to make the case that weapon slots are bullshit, I'd probably agree with that, but the free/paid balance is otherwise pretty good IMO.

It's actually one of the best F2P games out there as far as not locking you out of anything. I played for about a month and ended up with 5 maxed frames and probably 10 maxed weapons, and literally the only thing I spent any money on were catalysts and extra weapon/frame slots.

Thanks for the replies guys,

@rorie Yeah, i've had more than a few matches lag and even pause to reconnect because the host left, which i'm used to playing on consoles anyway. I also think paying for severs would be a much better, and less obstructive way to get people to not only keep playing but spend money on the game.

@ravenlight Well that's really what my question was, is the pay wall as steep as it seems right now? I didn't want to get invested in this game and get to a point where i can't continue unless i buy a 20dollar gun or mech suite or whatever else. And the grind seems a bit excessive with the addition of having to wait a whole day after spending so long grinding to get something. I don't mind grinding, i think that's what makes these type of games fun usually. I mean they even have thing on the side like "hey, yeah this is taking really long why not pay us some more moneys and speed this along?"

Anyway, thanks i'll stick with it a little longer and see what happens.

It's a slow grind, I guess it depends on people's patience.

@oursin_360: Some of the grinding is a bit much and a lot of it is left too much to chance. If you want to craft a new frame you'll have to go to the store and buy the blueprint, then go find the boss that drops the schematics for that blueprints. Each frame is made up of Helmet, Chassis and Systems - all of which may or may not randomly drop after defeating a specific boss. Each of those items have varying levels of resources required for crafting. Then when you have all of that it takes 3 days to actually build the frame.

So yah, if time is of no worth to you then it's a perfectly accessible game. The only things completely hidden behind paywalls are cosmetics - although 70 platinum for a single color palette is a bit steep.

I had a ton of fun with it for a while and gave them my $50. That let me get a frame I wanted ahead of time and buy some small items here and there without having to grind - but I still continue grinding to for stuff. I built 2-3 more frames from pure grinding where some of it was pretty easy while others, like Saryn frame pieces, were literally a nightmare. I think I did 35 consecutive boss runs before I had the 3 parts I needed drop.

Yeah, i'm about to start a new job working roughly 55-65 hours a week, probably won't have the time to grind it out to that extent lol. WOW @ 3 days, wtf is the point in that? I don't understand what they are thinking, sure they may get a small core fan base, but this will turn off any and everybody else. I can see taking a long time if it's in actual gameplay, this is just waiting until a ticker says you can proceed.

If you're enjoying the game, simply forget about paying for anything. Take any platinum you have an spend it on extra weapon and frame slots. You aren't forced to spend money at any point nor does the game nag you to pay either. You will, over time, find yourself with so much money you won't know what to spend it on especially if you just run void missions with other clan members. I wouldn't worry about a lot of the concerns you have right now. I will say that you should try and log in ever day even if you can't play just so you can receive the daily reward which can range from something small like 10k in credits or a large discount on platinum.