@target For your first point, here's a direct quote. "Jump right into the fray from day one. Defeat your enemies through your own skill and cleverness, not equipment or level." Also check out the Kickstarter video where they repeat pretty much the same thing. As for the post you linked, I see nowhere where it states that the iron armor is better than the default starting gear. What is likely is that it has good resist vs arrows, it slows you down immensely, and you still have zero resistance to a day 1 newbie who has a lightning spell (and therefore couldn't care less about iron armor; in fact, they would get a damage boost vs you probably since iron can conduct electricity). So say the top tier heavy armor in game is steel, and the whale buys a full set of top quality, top rolled steel armor on day ten. A day one F2P newbie happens to be a mage, and shoots out electricity at the whale. The whale, being slow and their armor having zero resist vs lightning, is kited, cannot run away as they are slow, and therefore dies; you loot their paid gear. Sure it sucks if you're an F2Per who runs a bow, but I guarantee you that the starting armor is likely light (or you could be naked), and you can just run away. I will also acknowledge that I believed the world was procedural generated many times, and am only partially right due to it applying to asteroids only. However, end game will likely be heavily centered around asteroids, and many dungeons will likely be procedurally generated as well. (Any new content will also be newly proceedurally generated, so my point on that stands regarding development time for constant updates.)
Second point is simple, people use the 5 vs 500 example because it always applies whenever you bring in whales. We all know that whales aren't exactly too popular with the F2P masses, and that whales often only comprise of 1% or less of a game's population. If an 'even' fight happens between two guilds, and one has a whale and the other does not, what will always happen (in EvE and IRL, see Italian city state conflicts in the 1400s) is that the poorer party will call upon a ton of allies who happen to covet what the whale has; the richer you are, the better target you make for looting! As for hiring the mercenary guilds, then it makes for good gameplay, and this is called cash burn because unless the whale constantly pays to buy the time of a whole bunch of F2Pers, they will eventually run out of cash and then lose (just see what happens in war when you run out of cash to pay for mercs, happens in EVE often and is hilarious. Usually the mercs go work for their enemy instead after. Happened IRL to the Romans and many others too.) If someone constantly pays the devs to sustain their non-sustainable guild, that is great for the dev's income and will fund content for everyone (and us F2Pers get to fight other F2Pers like the mercs).
I invite you to play EVE Online for a bit, as it is essentially Fractured in space. There is a High Security zone (Arboureus), Low Sec (Syndesia), and Null Sec (Tartaros). Different zones produce different resources (Null Sec resources worth the most naturally due to increased risk, and is where most PvP takes place). No one is 100% safe in any zone, but you will generally never lose more than you gain in High Sec so long as you play smart, and aren't using a whale ship (i.e a super expensive ship with rare mods, using ISK bought with IRL). In EVE, all the veteran players use standard, proven, best cost for efficiency ships that are easily replaced when destroyed; whales often do not adhere to this principle. If you haven't played it, it is extremely difficult to explain how the system is 100% non pay to win, but yet allows whales to spend insane amounts of IRL money, get nowhere in game, while still doing it and thus supporting the devs. Spending an extra $50 early in EVE to get a seed startup fund for trading isn't a bad idea, but spending $1000 for a spaceship in EVE to try to "P2W" is 100% always a bad idea. Just know that EVE launched in 2003, and is still going strong in 2018; if Fractured can imitate half its success, it will be a huge hit.
Third point, I will acknowledged that credits and mats cannot be traded (but I mentioned this directly in my post). You use credits as tax for trades, and to buy certain blueprints on the market. Warframe's model does expect everyone to have platinum at some point, and yet the system is such that nobody needs to buy platinum ever! In a system where you can trade platinum for in game items (not directly to the devs via an artificial market as in P2W games, though people can do that if they wish; usually it is a bad deal), but to other players. This is the crucial point where we can analyse Warframe's system and go: here is why the system is consumer friendly and not P2W. The same pattern is repeated on EVE Online; the richest players in EVE don't spend a dime. They have income streams (from playing the game efficiently). Whereas whales do not, they have cash injections, and cash injections run out (the game is funded by these whales constantly buying new, badly outfitted, ships and then dying again).
Last point, it's very simple, tying an in game currency to something like PLEX combats inflation in multiple ways. Firstly, is that you create a constant exchange of extremely large amounts of in game cash that is taxed by the market, thus directly taking out in game money from the system (and remember that PLEX is a consumed good that is gone forever, taking premium currency out of the market and into the pockets of the devs). Secondly, it ensures that you always have something to buy with in game cash, thus creating supply and demand for an artificial currency (somewhat related to Forex supply and demand principles, but unique to games as games generally do not have imports/exports). Lastly, it relates to human psychology. People who have received large windfalls of cash generally do not spend it wisely, both in games and IRL, since the money came so easily to them. Buying low demand items simulates the economy and creates constant transfer of currency, increasing the health of an economy by encouraging more in game activity (i.e farming for something rare and not super useful will still have some value). Basically it's all just supply and demand.
Using EVE as an example, whales will happily buy up things that are not necessarily needed or efficient (random rare blueprints for junk items, cosmetics, ship mods that are 5% better but 5000% more expensive), unlike a player who spent hours playing to gain that currency. The same happens IRL: People will use lotto money to first pay off all their debts and mortgages, then will usually do things like buy a new car, go on holiday and etc rather than investing (there are exceptions, but this is a general trend). Same for low level criminals (thieves and common scammers), they receive constant windfalls of cash, and then spend it all, thus making it necessary for them to commit more crimes to fuel their habit until they are eventually caught.
How does this translate to Fractured? A whale could buy up gear, blueprints for gear, materials, pets and etc from free players, and the free players could trade directly for premium currency, or indirectly via buying the VIP sub with in game cash. Some of the items that whales would buy are cosmetics (i.e cool looking in game blueprint for a building), others are all non-permanent game items! Someone with top level gear is going to eventually lose that top level gear (and it isn't even better in the traditional sense, as stated by the devs numerous times). Just like in EVE, gear does not last forever; it is highly likely that we have destructible gear too (say if you die, not every piece of gear you had on you is looted, because some pieces were destroyed in combat). This means the whale is paying for something that will eventually be destroyed (as the game is full loot). Again, I will re-emphasis this point, this makes the game not pay to win. In traditional P2W games, you cannot lose what you buy! Take one of those Asian MMOs with their +10000 epic sword of awesome that one hits every other player in the game. Those items remain in game forever, you cannot lose it, and thus it is P2W. If some whale in Fractured buys a VIP sub ticket, sells it for in game cash, buys the Fractured equivalent of top end gear (which as the devs stated, is horizontal progression rather than vertical), they will eventually lose that gear. Not immediately, but eventually they will die (unless they are beastmen staying permanently in the safe zone, in which case you shouldn't care at all how well they survive vs NPCs) and be looted. These whales will then have to buy their gear again with IRL cash, thus creating revenue for the devs while not being P2W.
@Finland The devs have said that all items are lootable everywhere, including Arboreus. Just that demons receive massive debuffs there, and are unlikely to defeat a single beastman without extremely careful planning. There are safe zones where demons can never reach, so in that case, you will be unlootable there. Also, PvEers have no reason to hate anyone who pays directly for gear that they use to kill NPCs alongside the F2Pers and therefore indirectly helps them; this is exactly like the Warframe model.
