Lady Siara
Member
Of course they do in a long, close game, but you could also argue that early game cheaper gear pickups make a large early game difference which while leads to reduced late-game efficacy, can lead to significant cascading consequences.
If you score a few early kills and manage to make a push on the sentry, that's often a pretty determinant factor on your success in these games, on which early-game, cheap items has a far greater influence upon. So while they may be better long-term, they are far worse in the short-term early game. In addition, any $ not spent on items can be spent on field resources, so it isn't as if the team buying worse items loses out in the long term entirely. If they had say, an additional $3000 each by using greens rather than purples then that amounts to an additional 7 power bots (or other upgrades) each. That can have a pretty significant impact on the match too, and we'll need to see some high level play (which will take a little time to develop) to see how these things pan out in terms of gameplay balance.
Either way, for now I think it's safe to say you're jumping to conclusions that we simply don't have the information to make, and most certainly neglecting the disadvantages of purchasing those high-cost items.
I'm well aware of their disadvantages, that's exactly why I chose to say long and close matches. We are in agreement when it comes to this, and it's a pretty clever way of handling it I think.