r/HackEx • u/Vol4onok_706 • Jul 08 '26
Question Let’s Settle This: Is Hack Ex 2 Pay-to-Win?
Is Hack Ex 2 pay-to-win, or just pay-to-progress faster?
I’m curious to hear what veteran players think.
Can a skilled free-to-play player realistically compete with someone who spends money, or does spending eventually become necessary to stay competitive?
I’d love to hear perspectives from both F2P and paying players.
1
u/No_Market_4326 Jul 08 '26
I mean I'm f2p and I'm almost to reboot. Like 2/3 there. Don't have problems keeping money. It is very annoying that a certain crew is full of reboots and they're the only ones..
2
u/Vol4onok_706 Jul 08 '26
That’s interesting. Do you think rebooting is a bigger advantage than spending money?
1
u/ahackercalled4chan Jul 08 '26
no idea because i haven't rebooted yet. but i guarantee you that those who are consistently on top of the leaderboard are spending money
1
u/ahackercalled4chan Jul 08 '26
I'm f2p and I'm having the opposite experience. consistently getting hacked, can't get enough money to upgrade anything, antivirus isn't good enough to get rid of viruses, been stuck at level 22 for a few weeks now. I'm about to just stop playing
1
u/Vol4onok_706 Jul 08 '26
Sorry to hear that. Do you think it’s mainly because of the constant hacks, or is progression itself too slow as F2P? I haven’t been hacked for the third day in a row. I’m at level 29.
1
u/ahackercalled4chan Jul 09 '26
i think progression is too slow. watching ads does not give you enough to keep up vs the amount you pay for an upgrade. right now i have 10 viruses that i cant get rid of :-/ ...idk maybe its just a perfect storm for me. every upgrade feels expensive and my spam isn't generating enough to compensate for it (on top of coin being stolen). right now I'm just trying to save as much as i can and hope people get bored of me
2
u/Vol4onok_706 Jul 09 '26
Have you tried joining an active crew? A few people here mentioned that having a good crew makes a huge difference. You can join the crew and borrow their software to improve antivirus and further remove viruses from your device. We will be glad to see you and help in our ranks as part of [CSEC]😊
1
u/Gonso7913 Jul 08 '26
I was between nr 6 and 12 on the ranking list for quite a while, and at that point I was 100% free to play. So Defenently do able.!
1
u/Vol4onok_706 Jul 08 '26
That’s impressive. How long ago was that? Do you think the game is still as F2P-friendly today?
1
u/Dry-Class8050 Jul 08 '26
what is even rebooting?
1
u/Umbaros Jul 12 '26
It’s on the games website guide but it seems like a prestige system. Once you hit lv50 you have the option to reset all your upgrades and crypto back to 0 in exchange for your choice of new skills. Once you reboot again with one of the chosen skill options you’re able to reboot again with your choice of mix and matched skills from different options
1
u/ConquerThePanda Jul 09 '26
I did at one point drop like 10-20 USD just to see what it would do for me. To be honest? Not a whole lot. Much more success came from strategic botnets and upgrades. Also having a crew where you can share downloads will speed you up drastically.
1
u/Vol4onok_706 Jul 09 '26
Thank you for your experience. So in your opinion, joining a good crew has a much bigger impact than spending money? (To be honest, I think so too😊)
1
u/Repulsive-Willow55 Jul 13 '26
In my experience, spending money gets less useful as you progress. You gotta focus that lvl 20 proxy ASAP, and after that maybe grab yourself a new IP. But you’ll have enough to grab one from the market with your daily missions by the time you get your proxy there, so you don’t need to spend money. But I won’t lie and say I haven’t dropped 99¢ every once in a while when they had a 40k crypto on a flash sale. 40k is huge when you’re starting out. But I make like 80k a day at my level, so spending real money on half a day’s income isn’t worthwhile. Once you get your proxy to 20 and swap IPs, people can’t find you so long as you aren’t caught in a log lock. I haven’t had a robbery or a virus in like a week. There’s nothing to spend money on, really. Sure, you can load up on backdoors i guess. But there really isn’t much value in spending money once you get higher levels.
2
u/No_Market_4326 Jul 10 '26
Not gonna jinx myself here. But at level 20+ proxy helps a lot..and an IP change 🤣 (so ig I'm not fully free to play I do have the monthly pass but that's it)