Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-72.240.12.100-20150318111521/@comment-25467429-20150321125023

It's fine and all for them to try to monetize the game, but at some point balance has to come into effect. We are talking about a game posited as a free-to-play, which entails a certain degree of ability to truly enjoy the game without having to shell out tons and tons of cash. It is true, however, that with the structure of the tournaments and the constant pressence of the forced sorties, those people who might want to do more than just fly through missions without a real care about results, are left in the position where they can't do that. Anyone who wants to be competetive in this game HAS to spend either tons of money or tons of time, or both. They either have to dedicate days on end, small chunks at a time, getting top-level skills, or spend a bunch of money to keep playing on and on. But it is at the point now where even skill doesn't gurantee a modicum of success, because it doesn't offset the sheer amount of money some are spending to keep in the top ranks of tournaments. It isn't completely new for them to marathon these forced sortie periods, but they have only done it recently where weeks on end it's gone on, and with just one or two tournaments during that period.

Plain and simple, this type of thing will likley hurt the game in the long term. Sure, there will still be enough fans to keep playing no matter what, and the big spenders will still toss out huge sums just to keep pulling down whatever big prize comes along. But I can tell you from talking to some of the people I know that they have stopped playing this game except on the rarest of occassions, because they want to be able to accomplish something in the game and have something to show for it. They know they're not going to always win the top prize, whatever it is, but they'd like to have a chance at it, a real, reasonable chance. Right now, that's not at all possible. As an experience, in terms of being in a mission and flying a plane, the game is great. In terms of getting there and the aftermath, this is about as bad as it gets. Trying to defend it because you like the series or the franchise, or because, "that's just the way it is" is not doing the game or the fans justice. I suspect, I hope, most fans will overlook this if and when a new game comes out, but there are with a doubt people souring on this company and this franchise, over this.