Are you really happy with the game?

I'm not a fan of the way GCs have been restructured - I think they could have done better there - putting the 'complete the battle' feat behind the pass wasn't a great idea in my opinion.

That having been said, people keep saying this is a 'new direction' and in some respects I agree. But the idea that the game is more pay to win now than it used to be is perhaps not a fully informed perspective. 

Rauleitor-7 wrote:

What reasons do I have to play a game where anyone, just by paying a significant amount of money, can be better than me?

This has been the case from the day the game was launched. The big difference now is that the lions share of F2P rewards are no longer trapped behind Squad Arena Shard Chats filled with big spenders and the prospect of unlocking new characters on day 1. Before Squad Arena crystals were moved to GAC, smaller of F2P accounts had little chance - very little hope of getting meaningful crystals payouts because every new Legendary release ushered in a new meta that completely crushed anything the F2P community had access to. That paradigm shift put tons of crystals into the pockets of the folks that couldn't keep up. 

The biggest difference that I see now is that CG is being up front and transparent about where the most effective places to put your gaming dollars are. I'm perhaps a bit outspoken on this issue, but I see this as a good thing - it's a shift to a more straight forward path to success in the game, where before it was largely a matter of guessing what character you might need to put gear on for the next big thing and hope to maybe tread water against the whales and the krakens. 

Overall I'm happy with the game. I certainly have my gripes - and there's some technical issues that I think desperately need attention - but in general I think things are looking up.

I'm a (mostly) free to play player who appreciates that games like this which can be played for free require some kind of p2w element to balance out and have superiority  over f2p.

I have gone for the paid track granted (the extra omicrons alone are worth the cost of 3 beers a month), but from what I've seen the free track isn't so bad.

As for what reasons- the game has always had a p2w gap, and you can enjoy the game without trying to keep up with whales. In my case I spend about 30 quid a month (obviously to some this might not qualify as mostly f2p!) and comfortably sit in K2/K3.  I do so because over 6-7 years I've got to a point where I am only going after new characters. Maybe 3 years ago Id be as unhappy as you (I was completing older characters and couldn't go for new characters immediately), which makes me wonder if a lot of the complaints about the changes are by accounts which shouldn't be worried about competing against whales, or even be chasing end game content as their account isn't ready yet.

As I just play F2P, I simply work with or around whatever changes they make. As long as they keep adding more characters and ships, especially from Legends, then I'm content. Granted, I wish they could add more types of gameplay to pad out waiting between events and store refreshes.

Im not a fan of it now, my history of it has been at certain bottlenecks i became disillusioned.  This is worse than before.

But, this new approach using new (and at a far increased release rate) toons towards GCs, Conquest, Marquees is nothing short of trying to rip every penny they can.

We have content creators openly telling us they dont even need kyro so expect a new gear currency at some point. At one time i pointed out they had 28 or so packs to buy, its now closer to 70. Let that sink in.