Is this Pay to Win?

[Netsa]

I'm a fan of Stalker, so I was interested, but the top review makes this sound as if it's basically War Robots (in that game, basically every update releases very overpowered gear, and then nerfs the overpowered gear from the previous update so you have to spend tons of money on lootboxes and roulette wheels every few months to stay on top).

Is it THAT bad? I do want to play a Stalker MMO, but I don't want to play a cashgrab that just takes a dump all over Stalker's legacy.

[Bleepie]

I haven't played War Robots, but it sounds a lot worse than Stalcraft. Stalcraft is very grindy, you can skip the grind by paying, but it is so expensive to convert cash into progress that you are better off grinding for the most part.

The "meta" changes for weapons, armor and artefact sets. Armor is fairly balanced so you can upgrade your favourite one without much worry.

Weapons gradually change, so if you want to keep using the best weapon you will need to craft the newest one which is also fairly easy. However, upgrading a weapon to the max level can be very expensive so it may be better to stay with a fully upgraded "mid" weapon then switching to the new meta gun.

If the weapon you want to get is an event weapon, then you either need to open event crates and obtain all 4 blueprints for the weapon (event armor was recently included). End-game event items for the most part are sidegrades to what you can craft in the barter tree. The problem with these event crates is that they heavily RNG-based. I had a friend who got all the blueprints the weapon he wanted within 40 crates. I managed to get it in less than 300 crates. Some people have opened 2000+ crates and still not gotten the item they want. To get more crates you either have to grind the event, pay other players, or pay real money for progress in the event battlepass (or both).

Recently they added a battlepass weapon that you can obtain through playing the event. If you want this gun immediately you can pay to progress through the battlepass. Otherwise it is reasonably easy to play the event daily and you can obtain the weapon about a week before the event ends.

Artefact meta don't change much, but can happen suddenly. Luckily for artefacts, for a cost you can make them tradeable again after it is binded to you. So if you want a stronger artefact of the same kind or want to sell it and buy a new one it is possible. The problem for artefacts is that ones that are nerfed drop in value and ones that are buffed rise in value. This can lead to a lot of market speculation, and there is profit to be made if you make the right investments. If you always want to use the best artefacts, I recommend using the weaker rarities. The are marginally weaker, but much cheaper and won't leave you bankrupt when you want a new build or can't find a good price to sell it for.

Switching to the meta is much quicker and easier if you pay (or are part of the dominant clans). Personally I don't mind this aspect so much. The game can feel like a cash-grab because even after paying, you can get extremely unlucky with crates and have to pay/grind more to get the item you want. The people who you see running around with event items after every event most likely paid for it. The limited-time nature of events create FOMO, which can force you to pay for the items you want if you do not have the time to play it. However, the biggest reason that it feels like a cash-grab is that the game has so much potential and can easily be made more enjoyable. The main issue that everyone complains about it the server quality. Stalcraft desperately needs better servers, or at least improve the combat experience. There are many videos online to show what it currently looks like.

The end-game combat with strong artefacts results in either people becoming super tanky or super fast. Headshots become much more important so it becomes a sort of boxing match where people try to bob their heads around to make you miss. This would have been a deal breaker for me had I not already spent a long time playing. I miss the old, shorter TTK where the game felt more immersive and tactical rather than aim lab and arcadey.

Another issue is the lack of communication from developers and community managers. Players have become frustrated/hostile with the game and towards them. That combined with them likely not being native English speakers makes it difficult to respond to each issue. There seems to be a big disconnect between what the endgame playerbase looks like and what the devs perceive it to be. I find it kind of sad, because even when something good is made the community can be quite toxic towards them.

Some loadouts are outright trash, but for the most part, gear that isn't meta is still viable.

[Spogg]

Stalcraft is very pay to win

[=Starvin Marvin=]

Stalcraft is so pay to win it makes me sick

[Netsa]

Is it viable to play this at all as a F2P player (or with some small investment)? Is there a lot of PvE content, or will I have to die in PvP?

[makropod]

if u spend ur time, u can get anything for free. took me 4-6 weeks to complete the battle pass which would have been 400€ to purchase

[makropod]

but this game is riddled with toxic players that will camp everywhere, get on lower gear servers with their end game gear and magically run to people that carry a lot of loot. this game is like any other game with a lot of russians and ukranians - toxic and many cheaters

[makropod]

also the game "stay out" is even worse

[☢︎Noob☢]

Originally posted by makropod:

but this game is riddled with toxic players that will camp everywhere, get on lower gear servers with their end game gear and magically run to people that carry a lot of loot. this game is like any other game with a lot of russians and ukranians - toxic and many cheaters

Unless they have changed how the matchmaking works, that's not possible. As soon as you wear something that brings your gear score up, you're moved buckets permanently. That means a higher tier player won't be put on the same server as a lower one.

There used to be issues in which that process could take a full day to take effect, allowing p2w players to have a full day to shoot at noobs before they were put in a higher bucket. Not sure if that's still the case, but the vast majority of players with higher gear score will never see lower gear scores even if they are on the same team.

[Morbid]

Originally posted by ☢︎Noob☢:

Originally posted by makropod:

but this game is riddled with toxic players that will camp everywhere, get on lower gear servers with their end game gear and magically run to people that carry a lot of loot. this game is like any other game with a lot of russians and ukranians - toxic and many cheaters

Unless they have changed how the matchmaking works, that's not possible. As soon as you wear something that brings your gear score up, you're moved buckets permanently. That means a higher tier player won't be put on the same server as a lower one.

There used to be issues in which that process could take a full day to take effect, allowing p2w players to have a full day to shoot at noobs before they were put in a higher bucket. Not sure if that's still the case, but the vast majority of players with higher gear score will never see lower gear scores even if they are on the same team.

Saw a dev say somewhere that the gear score number does nothing and is just a remnant of the old mechanic.

[Yosh]

Originally posted by Netsa:

Is it viable to play this at all as a F2P player (or with some small investment)? Is there a lot of PvE content, or will I have to die in PvP?

u can play free to play and slay its just take a long time to get ur ♥♥♥♥ to +15 and master tier

also u can buy battle pass and premium with rubbles (money in game)

[☢︎Noob☢]

Originally posted by Morbid:

Originally posted by ☢︎Noob☢:

Unless they have changed how the matchmaking works, that's not possible. As soon as you wear something that brings your gear score up, you're moved buckets permanently. That means a higher tier player won't be put on the same server as a lower one.

There used to be issues in which that process could take a full day to take effect, allowing p2w players to have a full day to shoot at noobs before they were put in a higher bucket. Not sure if that's still the case, but the vast majority of players with higher gear score will never see lower gear scores even if they are on the same team.

Saw a dev say somewhere that the gear score number does nothing and is just a remnant of the old mechanic.

Welp... then ♥♥♥♥... I hope that was a fake post because last time I heard the devs talking about it, they were tightening the system rather than loosening it up. But I do remember hearing about a redoing of the whole bucket system. I'm starting from scratch with a few friends, so I'll have a better idea of how the matchmaking is working once I get to Rostok

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by ☢︎Noob☢:

Originally posted by Morbid:

Saw a dev say somewhere that the gear score number does nothing and is just a remnant of the old mechanic.

Welp... then ♥♥♥♥... I hope that was a fake post because last time I heard the devs talking about it, they were tightening the system rather than loosening it up. But I do remember hearing about a redoing of the whole bucket system. I'm starting from scratch with a few friends, so I'll have a better idea of how the matchmaking is working once I get to Rostok

Gear score does nothing, gear tier/color is what you're thinking about, someone using max tier gear(red) should never end up in the same server with a new player because the new players highest gear tier would be white or green, depending on server population you may be up or down tiered by a level