Not ‘Pay to Win’, You Technically can’t even Pay to Win in a Sandbox Game, unless it’s PvP, cause there is nothing to ‘Win’. There is no PvP, there is no Conflict, there is no compatition.
Heck, if you see Money as the end goal, then being able to buy Plots, thanks to the FootFall system is Pay to Win. Because while yes, you get some Cubits from leveling up, you don’t level up fast, while Paying skips the wait and gives you lots and lots of plots very very quickly and easily to cover an entire planet or very large section of the map in.
Might not seem like much if your Solo, but if your in a massive guild? Part of a Youtube community? Got a bunch of friends to share all the land with? Why just this morning there were posts of a Guild Leader leaving his town and removing all of this plots. So much land, that the other members couldn’t even buy it all up combined. That’s a LOT of land.
So no, I don’t want that.
What I want, is easier and simpler gameplay.
Another way of Comparing Eve and Boundless. Eve, all the blueprints and crafting only ever boil down to very basic Ore. With ‘End Game Astroids’ just giving even more of the exact same ore, not different high tier versions of the ore.
So Low Tier, Mid Tier, and High Tier players would be doing, and dealing with the exact same thing. Just that High Teir needs a lot more, so all the Astroids and gear dropping for them yields a whole lot more to match it.
Secondly, like I pointed out, NPC with Quests based on the different jobs to make money.
I would love that to be put into Boundless. Along with NPC Towns for those quest npcs to be. They can have different Tiers, having Miners collect Materials based on the Tier, Crafting a Machine based on the Tiers, and Hunting specific Boss Monsters based on Tier, and so on and so on. Rewarding Money so people can do what they want, while being supported what doing it.
This is the biggest difference between Eve and Boundless. Cause Eve you can sell your stuff, but you aren’t going to be making as much as if you repeat the quests over and over while doing the same activities.
Plus the Community is very different compared to Boundless too. In Boundless, you’re expecting if in a group, that if you Gather 1000 Diamonds, that all of it would go to the community. But in Eve, even if in the same Guild, or company in that game, the guild leader, or high rank officer in charge of maintaining the stations and crafting, will pay you for your ore, based on it’s average AH worth in the Jita, minus a little bit as ‘Tax’ for the guild.