I don't think that the bike is pay to win. Yes it's faster but its only a two man. great you got to the enemy base faster than the majority of your comrades. Now you wait until they get there or you die lol. Something as small as this isn't play2win. It does however give you a slight advantage due to the fact that it speeds up your travel time, but the advantage is so slight that it can't directly affect the outcome of a battle.
Well I'd say that P2W means you get material that is objectively superior to what is included in the base game. i find this graph saying that weapon diversity is inherently pay to win to be erroneous, as for that to be true then the gun you buy needs to actually be better than what is available. By this logic if you can buy anything exclusive then the game is P2W.
but the game must be "p2w whining proof" we know how hard is to explain a game shop to someone that never played Eternal Crusade or never read info about a game: the dev must sell the game to uninformed people, so the shop must be clear and don't create doubt on the potential buyer.
I have been giving this a fair amount of thought, on one hand there is the P2W argument. the 2 man bike offers a gameplay option not available on another vehicle. On the other hand the devs want to be able to offer cool things on the store, they have said they are looking at a way for players to gain premium currency through gameplay but they cant offer too rapid a way of gaining free currency without diminishing value to a paying customers. so i was thinking there has to be a way to allow players to get the 2 man bike through gameplay without making it a massive grind in order to protect the value of the premium currency. The simplest way of doing this that i can think of is to add something like an achievements that when attained through some sort of appropriate gameplay goal, radically drops the price of an item to a level that makes it very easy to pay for with currency gained in game. If this method is used on gameplay effecting items only found in the store then it would have the effect of protecting the value of the currency in the wider store and allow players a way to get the item while avoiding the potentially abusive nature of slow in game currency gaining mechanics used in other games. The example i am thinking of in my head is something like, 150 kills with the 1 man bike gets you an achievement that gives you 80% off the 2 man bike meaning you only pay 2000 RT points.
For what its worth, I agree with you, hence why the graph is an excellent outline of the P2W purists' point of view. I should stress I don't think there's anything wrong with that point of view, and there's a lot of merit in having a game which has fundamentally written P2W risk out of its model. The consequence is that it shifts the risk out of P2W and over to commercial failure, which is why most companies prefer to offer a fat, juicy carrot to the whales, who they're pretty much reliant on for funding. I'm not a fan of that particularly, but I empathise with where the companies are coming from - with subscriptions and paying up front now being risky for multiplayer games amongst all but the most established AAA titles, there's a lot of pressure on them to effectively monetise through F2P/freemium models, and I entirely understand why their finance teams go through intense brown trouser moments the moment someone says "Well, we do kinda need to give the game away for free to make sure there's a player base..." All that said, after the gaming community has been repeatedly burned by P2W, shafted by pre-orders and grown used to constantly batting away the vampire tentacles of EA's hideously aggressive microtransaction strategy in damn near every single fu flipping game they make these days, the purist view is incredibly widespread. So I do agree with Grig's view about how beneficial it would be to be able to easily kill the P2W argument as soon as its raised amongst potential players.
Seeing as the devs are trying to claim the bike is "just a fun, fast method for transporting friends" they could convert the vehicles into purely light transports. So they could take away the turret and replace it with a passenger seat (perhaps even give passengers the option to shoot a sidearm or light weapon (bear in mind, a light weapon includes bolsters and things like meltaguns, so it's best they only allow sidearms)). They could even add an extra spot for a third player to sit; the Ork war buggy has enough space for a third Ork if there's no turret; the Chaos bike could be turned into a trike, with two seats at the back; the attack bike could have another side car on the opposite side; and the Vyper could be modified with a larger rear chassis. Now we have, basically, a light transport, that should be slightly slower and less manoeuvrable than a normal bike, but offer greater transport numbers. If they then put the standard AB, Warbuggy and Vyper in game, with customisation options, the new vehicle can be seen as inferior, but great for players who want to muck around with friends or "look cool." Slap on a badass exclusive paint job, and you have a product to replace the current one. The vehicle is not as effective as an normal attack bike or equivalent in the offensive department, and is still inferior to a Rihno transport wise. The only advantage I see is it being used for fast hit-and-run waves by groups of people wanting a quick assault (I only really see the Vyper doing this, the other ones are land based and should be harder to manoeuvre, and slower, and can't fly over rough land as easily) from multiple directions by an attacking force. However, using a bike like this to drive up quickly, jump out and attack, and then drive off again, isn't as effective as a full bike assault, where the riders can attack faster and without having to dismount. And if normal attack bikes/Vypers/Warbbugys are in the game, deploying heavy weapons from three man light transports will also not be as efficient as utilising the heavy weapons that can be equipped by AB/V/W, which also have the benefit of being able to move around fast. So basically, the three man bike is inferior in all the ways it can be used, apart from being a fun transport for a group of mates that want to roll up to fights in style; that fits the description BE gives us of what they want the bikes to be, so this is a fair way to deliver their original vision, without the Pay 2 Win stigma attached. TL;DR: make the store bikes 2-3 man transport bikes (no secondary turrets, only allow sidearm weapons fire by passengers) and put the store bikes in the game with full customisation. Now the bikes really are just Pay to Look Cool, with no Pay to Win attached (reasons explained in 3rd paragraph).
The argument though is moot for the time being as you don't know how the Attack Bike performs, what it does, and what the other options are that can be chosen to fulfill it's role. Saying you don't want P2W is fine and that I completely agree with. What we're seeing here with EC is a far cry from anything resembling p2w in my opinion.
That's not so hard. For Eldar, you can have Falcon, it basically serves the same role, it can be a little more expensive and carry more firepower, or they can nerf it for balance sake. Either way, it's not too lore-breaking to be impossible. For Ork, the options are endless really, Wartrakk, Looted vehicles, a specially customized trukk...etc...etc... The only problem is CSM, because they don't have any real FAV, it's tricky but not impossible. For example, we can use Daemonic Engines like Blood Throne or Chariots. Any way, it's not necessary for every of these vehicles to function the same, that's not how W40K works, and not how bE wants EC to be (the reason why we have 6 classes for Eldar). As long as every faction can have a vehicle for every role they need, either that Scouting, Fire support, Harassing, and all of those vehicles are fun and balanced to play with, then that's fine.
