Rivals is F2P – to which degree is it also P2W?

When Rivals was announced, it was not met with enthusiasm from the C&C fanbase. I feel this is due to very similar reasons like when Diablo was announced for mobile:

1. Mobile games are expected to be free to play (F2P), and F2P is associated with (often ridiculous) pay-to-win mechanics (P2W). So especially fans of challenging and competitive games are worried about F2P games – rightly so.
2. Fans worry that mobile games being developed means no desktop games being developed anymore. So they fear the double whammy: A game that does not work for them, and no new games that they would like to see.

In both cases of Diablo and Rivals, I feel better communications by the developers could have helped reduce the negativity that is based around these two reasons above. Roughly, I would have announced them as:

"We know you all love the original games of our series. And we will continue to develop games in that series that will deliver what you expect from them. At the same time, we also want to bring this universe to the mobile platform. Which is very challenging, as a small screen, different controls and different business models mean it can be hard to live up to your expectations on what a game of this series should be about. Yet, we want to take up this challenge and create a mobile add-on to the universe. Some of you might like it, some of you might want to wait for the next in our traditional desktop series."

Yet, neither Diablo nor Rivals were announced with such nuance and humility, leading to unsurprisingly negative feedback. Not just from fans, but also from the press.

Now, is this feedback deserved? Is Rivals a "P2W" game? Or is it still a challenging, skill-based RTS?

Found on reddit

Rivals absolutely has some P2W elements

• Units level up over time, and with each level, they get ca. 10% more damage and 10% more hitpoints. This matters.
• You can level up reasonably fast without paying, but can have a disadvantage against players who started earlier or pay to accelerate their progress.
• Especially once an opponent has 2 or more levels more than you (does not happen often, but from time to time)

P2W elements are mitigated by many factors

Anecdotal evidence: There are many F2P players who did not pay money in the top 100. They are there because they are skilled, and usually played since at least 2-3 months (because time is relevant if you don't pay). 

To list some factors how Rivals mitigates potential negative impacts from P2W, so that in my view, the game works for players who pay nothing.

• You can level up without paying money reasonably fast if you optimize the way you do it. More on that further down.
• Match making is based on success of players, which is a compound of their skill and their unit levels. So if you meet a player with higher-levelled units, they will often be worse in terms of skill. 
• It's entirely possible to compensate for 1-2 level difference with skill, especially in the lower leagues. Thus, you do not get that many matches where you feel you don't have a chance.
• Depending on the league you play in (determined by your medal count, which is effectively your match making rank/rating (MMR), there is a "league cap", i.e. units are capped at a certain level depending on the league you play in. For the lower leagues this cap is low enough that you can compete with the capped decks easily after just a couple of weeks.
• A special weekly game mode, basically a special tournament conducted in derivative of the Swiss system, has even lower level caps. For example L11 for the highest league, which you would need maybe 6 months to reach as an active F2P player.
• There is a challenge match system, which means that against players with higher unit levels, you often do not risk medals / MMR, and have the opportunity to win more. This, plus the psychological factor of being able to blame losses on unit levels and wins on your skill, means that (at least for me) playing even against unfairly high unit levels annoys me less than I would have expected.
• Unlocking units is reasonably fast, and after 2 months of free play, you will have access to all units. So at least not having access to certain unit types is not a big deal after your initial time with Rivals.

You can play competitively without any P2W component

And there are some ways you can even play the game competitively without unit levels mattering at all:

1. You can play training matches at equal level. Only skill counts here. 
2. Tournaments are organized only with this equal level mode. There's not that many tournaments, yet – but anybody who wants to play more on equal level can help organize them!

Currently, there's e.g. a weekly tournament series. You can find out more in the Rivals Subreddit or in the #tournament chat of the official Rivals Discord chat.

And here you can find an hour-long YouTube video that shows footage from such an equal level tournament:

Optimizing your F2P progress

Especially if you pay nothing or little, it's key to optimize the free stuff you get. I will write a longer article on this at some point, but a short "cheat sheet" checklist here:

1. Every 11 hours, you get a free chest in the in-app shop. Get it twice a day!
2. You get daily bounties. If you complete all 5, you get extra XP, credits, and a chest. Two of the bounties are unchangable (play GDI 5 times and play Nod 5 times), but the others are configurable with fuel (a free resource you get just for playing), so you can complete your bounties with 10 matches a day. Do so!
3. You can order a free chest every 8 hours. You can accelerate this to 4 hours by investing one fuel (the free resource mentioned above). So in theory you
4. Diamonds are the premium in-game currency. You get some for free in chests, or for connecting your Rivals account with Facebook. Use Diamonds you have only for rushing chests. Rushing chests means that after you shorten your wait time for a chest by 4 hours with fuel, you can further rush it with 24 Diamonds, so you can spend Diamonds to get more chests.
5. All other forms to spend Diamonds are vastly less efficient. So just focus on rushing chests with Diamonds you have.
6. You can earn additional Diamonds (and credits and cards) with the weekly "Champions" events. Play it! 
7. The higher you get, the more scarce credits will be (compared to cards). You can dodge this issue if you do not level up any unit you can, but only those you really want to play.

Speaking about this most efficient way to invest Diamonds: If you play 20 games a day (60-90 minutes), and want to rush all the chests you can (limiting factor being fuel, which you get for playing), you need Diamonds in the value of ca. $1/€1. Means: If you decide to pay some money (to support the developers and/or accelerate your progress), you basically max out the most efficient way to spend money for $1/€1 a day or $30/€30 a month. Yes, that's still a lot – I mostly mention it to illustrate that even if you want to progress quickly, it's just not very smart to spend tons of money on this game. Plus, you could argue that $30/month is ok if you're really into Rivals (like I am, play no other games right now). Which is one reason why there are not that many players who did so, further reducing the number of "ultra high levelled whales".

Final Thoughts

I'm sure that the F2P / P2W model could be further optimized to strike the ideal balance between a competitive, skill-based RTS and a business model that works for the developer.

But the current balance is not that bad.  (In further posts, I might describe what tweaks I'd do.)

And what would be the alternative? If the in-app purchases would not help you win games, then the revenues would likely be too small. And a paid app or subscription model would very likely not work, at least in today's app economy.

So, if you have doubts, I encourage you to try for yourself. As an experienced RTS player, and with some helpful tipps for beginners (more to come here, until then go to the useful links in the sidebar), you will get good winrates and progression even if you pay nothing.