For those who cry pay to win

Dear @kaspen2012

from your response it is clear that you have either not fully read all of the posts above or do not fully comprehend them. So I will address your concerns one at a time with the quickest to answer first. To every one reading, I am sorry for such a long post but it is the only way I could clearly explain things.

Regarding gambling

You state: “Yes they can rig it. It is no different then a casino.”. If you read above the point I was trying to make is that is EXACTLY WHERE IT DIFFERS from a casino. Gambling in a casino is regulated, the odds still favour the house but THEY CAN NOT RIG ANYTHING. They can not for example present dice in which the odds are always 1:6 but actullay use weighted dice to secretly change those odds. The tern 'rig' does not mean that the odds favour the house, it refers to cheating. If regulated, they must tell the governments and all players must know all the odds and mechanics of the game up front so that they can make informed choices. Gambling in computer games is unregulated. Hence if they wanted games companies can rig it and cheat at the game, and for example change the odds as the game progresses without you knowing. Presuming they are not cheating, you say its ok "Because I know the odds" but you don't even know that EA are keeping them a secret. You are completely blind to the odds and mechanics used in the game and so all your choices are ill informed. As I said above regarding gambling “I would be ok with it even in games like this if it were regulated” so that games companies could not manipulate you in unorthodox ways if they so wanted. Why do you think it is a good idea to give companies the ability to cheat you out of money if they so wanted?

Regarding choosing to pay money or gamble

You state: “No one at any point says you have to buy this or you have to gamble. It's all by choice”. As I stated above “BF2 more than any game before initially had such an extreme level of grind that players felt that although they were not explicitly being told to pay money that they were being given no real option by EA other than to pay up cash to get out of it.”….”Feeling they are now being coerced into paying money to escape grind and also win, player also found that the method of paying is via unregulated gambling”. Let me illustrate further the situation via an extreme example. If someone said to you “Do exactly what you want it is your choice. However if your choice is not what I want you to do then ill shoot you in the leg”, is your choice in such a situation truly free? No that is what is called COERCION.

Regarding whether Pay to Win really gives you an advantage

You state: “So you're telling me that because of the cards I have on at any given time and get 30 kills. That is the advantage I get from them”. No that is NOT what I was telling you at all. Please read again. I said “If in such a game two equally skilled players faced off but one had paid for e.g. more health then they would have an advantage though that does not mean they would definitivly win the game”. Please read the words again “that does not mean they would definitivly win the game”. The effect of the advantage is not exact every time it is statistical. Let me explain. If you are facing an equally matched player the chances of winning are 50:50. That means on average if you play 10 games then you will win 5 and they will win 5. Please note the words ON AVERAGE. So for example you may play 10 games and win only 2 and your opponent 8. The next 10 games you may win 7 and your opponent 3. The next 10 games you win 6 and you opponent 4. In total you have won 2+7+6=15. Your opponent has won 8+3+4=15. So you have won 15 and you opponent has one 15. You are equally matched as the odds say 50:50, you won 50% of the games ON AVERAGE. If you then buy P2W extra health the game is no longer evenly matched. Just as an example, say the odds are now 60:40 in your favour. This means ON AVERAGE for every 10 games you play you will win 6 and your opponent 4. As with the previous example this does not appear exact for every 10 games you play but adds up over all games and will be so on AVERAGE for all games. The fact is the more games you play the more it will tend to exactly 60:40. So for your first 10 games it may be 30:70, for your first 30 games (which include the first 10) in may be 50:50. For you first 100 games it may be 58: 42. For you first 1000 games it may be 60:40. In fact statistics says the more you play the closer in will get to being exactly 60:40 over all games played so far. This is not my theory THIS IS A STATISTICAL FACT. Every mathematician and scientist knows this from the mathematics teacher teaching teenagers to Albert Einstien and Stephen Hawkins.

You state: “Because I have ran with no cards on and still ended up getting 30 kills roughly”. I hope the above illustration explains why you have found on occasion you performed the same with no cards. It is because the effect is statistical and appears ON AVERAGE NOT ON EACH. This means that not every game will conform exactly to the to the advantage that is given or not given. If you played say 200 games with the cards and 200 games without the cards then perhaps you will see the difference in the average (i.e. add all the results up) of all games of each type. It is interesting that your example uses the word “roughly” and that just supports my point.

You state: “Over all from my perspective and the ways I have played. The cards really don't give you any kind of advantage”. Any psychologist will tell you that ones subjective perspective can be very very deceptive. However the number do not lie. If it wasnt for statistics we would not have the advances in the world that we have today. Everything from the distribution of food across the country to the design of the CPU inside the computer you are using relies upon statistics not our subjective perspective or our feelings about matters. Remember it was when we developed mathematics and science and stopped relying on subjective perspectives that we realised that the sun did not orbit the earth and that the earth was not flat.

Regarding levelling up giving you the real advantage.

You state: “the cards don't really mean much. It's the weapons you obtain from leveling and unlocking as you progress”. My example that follows is a general illustration regarding P2W in computer games and is not specifically tailored to its use in BF2. I just want to illustrate the effect to you by using a simple example so that everyone can easily understand the sort of stuff that can happen. So please dont pick holes in the illustration specific to the mechanics of BF2. This illustration is general for all P2W games.

As I have pointed out above, a statistical advantage given from P2W means you will win more games. Wining games gives you credits. And credits allow you to level up. If you win more games due to your statistical advantage from P2W you will level up sooner that your opponent. This will mean you have an even greater statistical advantage and win even more games. Your opponent will eventually level up but they will still not equal your advantage as you will at the very least still have your P2W advantage. So you have the time after you levelled up and before when they have levelled up during which you win many more games, and the time after they have levelled up in which you still win, although not as many, still more games than them due to your P2W advantage. In total you have won even more of the games since you have levelled up than you did before you levelled up in spite of the fact that they have also levelled up. This means that you will get more credits even sooner and level up again sooner, giving you even more advantage. The effect is cumulative and the advantage gap between you and your opponent will only ever grow. This is because as time goes by you are levelling up faster and faster compared to your opponent.

People do not tend to realise what an extreme cumulative effect can occur over a very short amount of time given only a very slight statistical advantage. I have prepared a simple simulation for you. In this simulation there are 10 tournaments each between 2 players. Each player is equally skilled and starts at level 1. In each tournament one player has a statistical P2W advantage which effectively increases his player level by only 0.01 of a level. The tournaments run 1 game at a time with each game being decided statically based on players current level and advantage. As described above this does not mean the player with the greatest chance of winning always wins as effectively a roll of a dice is made but skewed to the odds. The average effect over all games conform to the statistical odds of each player winning in the same way as all my illustrations above. When a player wins a game they get 1 credit. After getting 10 credits the playerr can level up by 1 level. As each tournament varies because the results of each game are not deterministic the graph averages the result over 10 tournaments.

You will notice from the graph below that although each player starts at level 1 and one player only has a 0.01 level P2W advantage, after 1000 games the player who started with the P2W advantage is now a level 51 player and the other player is only a level 41 player. 

I realise than the majority of people do not have the opportunity and advantage of a mathematics and scientific education and so are simply unaware of the facts and how things work and this is not any reflection in anyway upon them. They have simply never been told the facts and were unaware. However, if you are interested I would be happy to direct you to some websites where you can learn about this stuff. I am sure you will find it very interesting.