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Is GW2 P2W?


Splat.7981

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1 hour ago, mercury ranique.2170 said:

This debate is difficult as it depends on the definition of winning.

In general this game is a lot less pay to win then most other games. Specially cause you do not need to pay monthly fees or buy anything to play or be successfull in the game. You'll never be not welcome in a group cause you haven't pulled your creditcard to buy a certain item.

 Having said that, there are a good amount of QoL items in the shop that are helpful in being more effective in managing e.g. you inventory or buying and trading stuff. 

further, some people see fashion as the ultimate goal in the game and then it would be pay to win.

but, in the end, everything in the cashshop can be bought with in-game gold that you can farm.

so the answer must be No, it is not pay to win 

There's the literal interpretation of the words "pay to win" and then there's the generally understood meaning of the term, which in no way includes cosmetic items.  Why is that even up for debate?

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There are quite a few of QoL items in gem store. They won't however impact your ability to be competitive in the PvP or WvW modes. You might consider getting them, but you can buy gems with gold to do so. 

The good thing about GW2 is that the gear ceiling does not move with the new expansions (there might some new stat combos added, but you can swap stats for ascenended -> Mystic Forge and legendaries -> one of their functions). With ascenended gear dropping in fractals, raids and WvW (i hope i haven't missed any), gearing your character becomes less of a challenge. No need to spend money to get gold to keep up. 

I do recommend getting some of the Living World episodes as they give you easy access to ascended trinkets with selectable stats. This is however another convenience thing. 

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5 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

A little bit, I guess? There are many, MANY farms that can be solved just by buying and throwing gold at them, including the endgame gear.

However, the power peak is relatively easy to achieve just by playing, so it's not worth spending money on. And after that you're pretty much paying for cosmetics.

It's true that you could buy the game, use your level 80 boost then use real money to buy exotic equipment with better stats than the boost gives you, or even to buy a bunch of materials to level crafting and make ascended right away, but it won't actually help you that much.

How many times have we seen posts on this forum from people who boosted to 80, went into HoT or even PoF maps and died repeatedly to every enemy they met? Player skill counts for a lot in this game, you can't count on best-in-slot gear to carry you so even if someone was willing and able to buy their way to ascended on day 1 they'd actually be better off taking some time to play and learn the game instead.

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On 10/16/2021 at 3:04 PM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

No.  That's buy-to-play.  By your definition any game that isn't 100% free for full features is "pay to win".

As long as you cannot farm in-game gold with you effort, convert it to gems and buy expansions using gems, all those who pay will have a huge advantage over you, thats pay2win.

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2 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

As long as you cannot farm in-game gold with you effort, convert it to gems and buy expansions using gems, all those who pay will have a huge advantage over you, thats pay2win.

What huge advantage can you purchase with gold?  A legendary weapon?  It has the same stats as a weapon that  takes a couple of hours of farming gold and you can use exotic for absolutely everything in the game except fractal progression.  So I guess you can have a negligible stat advantage for a day or two and get your ascended set for fractal progression faster. 

Do you consider that a "huge advantage"?  I don't.  It's an expensive way to save a small amount of time.  Pretty much the opposite of "pay to win".  We're really reaching here to shoehorn GW2 into that "P2W" box, but it simply doesn't fit the definition at all.

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15 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

As long as you cannot farm in-game gold with you effort, convert it to gems and buy expansions using gems, all those who pay will have a huge advantage over you, thats pay2win.

If Anet released $20+ "expansions" every 3 months that continously raised the bar with new classes unquestionably superior to the previous, I'd agree with you.

But you know what, they dont. Buying a full expansion that also gives you the previous game with 3-4 years intervals is not P2W in any sane persons book. Not even now 2 expansions down the line is there anything that gives a "huge advantage". You can still beat HoT/PoF specs with core if you're good at it.

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10 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

If Anet released $20+ "expansions" every 3 months that continously raised the bar with new classes unquestionably superior to the previous, I'd agree with you.

But you know what, they dont. Buying a full expansion that also gives you the previous game with 3-4 years intervals is not P2W in any sane persons book. Not even now 2 expansions down the line is there anything that gives a "huge advantage". You can still beat HoT/PoF specs with core if you're good at it.

You know that when anet releases expansions the e-specs are super overpowered, pof was released in 2017 and the BIG nerf came in 2020. 3 years where players who bught the expansion anihilated core players, see the absurd condi mirage, the immortal scourge or the oneshot sniper...

 

The You can still beat HoT/PoF specs with core if you're good at it. has only been possible after the BIG nerf.

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On 10/18/2021 at 12:57 AM, frareanselm.1925 said:

As long as you cannot farm in-game gold with you effort, convert it to gems and buy expansions using gems, all those who pay will have a huge advantage over you, thats pay2win.

No it's not. If it was every MMO that charges for expansions would be pay to win, since in virtually every MMO your level goes up.


Pay to win wasn't a term that literally mean you pay to win. It was a term that meant that you had to spend money in the cash shop to get power.  You were paying to have an advantage over other people on a regular basis.

Expansions never counted in this, since every expansion would give you an advantage. By your definition WoW would be pay to win and no one says that. It is, however pay to play.  

Guild Wars 2 allows you to use the gem store to get shortcuts, but like every other MMO, you need to buy expansions to stay current with the game.

 

If you're saying then all MMOs are pay to win then you are in fact removing any meaning from the term itself, since it was made to show the difference between games where you could stay current just playing and games that made you pay money.

 

You can take the words literally, but that doesn't mean you understand their original intention. And you don't get to change the definition of a term, just because you want to take each word literally.

 

I saw three phone booths sitting in a row and the middle one said out of order and I was wondering if it belonged before the first one or after the third one. And if you moved it there would it start to work.   Taking terms literally is not how language works.

Edit: Spelling

Edited by Vayne.8563
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On 10/17/2021 at 6:57 AM, frareanselm.1925 said:

As long as you cannot farm in-game gold with you effort, convert it to gems and buy expansions using gems, all those who pay will have a huge advantage over you, thats pay2win.

That is not how the general gaming community or MMO would classify Pay 2 Win. If it was every game with an expac including the many FPS games would all be considered pay 2 win. By that definition developers would be unable to justify creating new content without becoming "pay 2 Win". GW2 is for sure not pay 2 Win.

The only two ways in which I have ever been able reason gw2 is pay 2 win in any sense would be fashion wars and the reward structre. However, in Fashion wars at this point the game is full of good fashion that can be aquired without gems and even gems can be aquired with in game gold. In Reward system I would say you can argue that since its more efficient to work an hour in RL to make $$ to buy gems (maybe not in every Country I guess) and convert the gems to gold and get a few houndred gold an hour with a min. wage job which is what 10+ times as profitable gold wise per hour. But that is more of an economical debate that relates to value of time which is subjective due to the personal enjoyment aspect of playing vs working. So even then I dont think its fair to just says, therefore, pay 2 win. Cause its not really like that. That is gold doesnt win you the game either. It does help allot but it doesnt get you everything. So I honestly see no valid basis for considering gw2 to be pay 2 win.

Edited by Moradorin.6217
typo
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3 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

You know that when anet releases expansions the e-specs are super overpowered, pof was released in 2017 and the BIG nerf came in 2020. 3 years where players who bught the expansion anihilated core players, see the absurd condi mirage, the immortal scourge or the oneshot sniper...

 

The You can still beat HoT/PoF specs with core if you're good at it. has only been possible after the BIG nerf.

Bruh that ain't pay2win, that's just terrible balancing on ANet's part and that still happens to this day. Pay2Win is me paying ANet to get godly stats that let's me do everything, regardless of game mode.

I've seen some of the worst Scourges and Mirages in the game pre-nerf and those people had literally no skill because they boosted to 80 and spent a day thinking they could curbstomp everything when instead they got curbstomped by experienced Vets. 

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On 10/16/2021 at 12:52 AM, Splat.7981 said:

Greetings everyone.

I just started playing a couple of days ago because a friend of mine that also loves MMORPG's started playing here.

I just had this question cross my mind because of the in game store and so much stuff in it that i had no time yet to see it all but i was wondering if this game is P2W in any way?

No. There's nothing at all that you need in the Gem-store. Some things are arguably very useful but even if you decide you do want or need one of the items, you can exchange gold for gems pretty reasonably. Gold is easy enough to come by at endgame that you shouldn't struggle to do this.

My only real complaint about GW2 is the lootboxes and lack of mount/glider skins available through play. The loot-boxes and the mount "adoption" skins are far more predatory than I am comfortable with but no where near the egregious levels you see in other games. Much of the psychological pressure is reduced. I'd say it's better than the likes of Fortnight.

I'd like to see more thought given to accessability, too, generally but for this thread, that's beside the point.

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19 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

No it's not. If it was every MMO that charges for expansions would be pay to win, since in virtually every MMO your level goes up.


Pay to win wasn't a term that literally mean you pay to win. It was a term that meant that you had to spend money in the cash shop to get power.  You were paying to have an advantage over other people on a regular basis.

Expansions never counted in this, since every expansion would give you an advantage. By your definition WoW would be pay to win and no one says that. It is, however pay to play.  

Guild Wars 2 allows you to use the gem store to get shortcuts, but like every other MMO, you need to buy expansions to stay current with the game.

 

If you're saying then all MMOs are pay to win then you are in fact removing any meaning from the term itself, since it was made to show the difference between games where you could stay current just playing and games that made you pay money.

 

You can take the words literally, but that doesn't mean you understand their original intention. And you don't get to change the definition of a term, just because you want to take each word literally.

 

I saw three phone booths sitting in a row and the middle one said out of order and I was wondering if it belonged before the first one or after the third one. And if you moved it there would it start to work.   Taking terms literally is not how language works.

Edit: Spelling

If your definition is pay cash to get power it is also the case.

Because expansions give access to meta stats like viper, trailblazer, marauder... meanwhile core players have no way to get them.

Pay to access more powerful stats is pay to win or still not?

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11 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

If your definition is pay cash to get power it is also the case.

Because expansions give access to meta stats like viper, trailblazer, marauder... meanwhile core players have no way to get them.

Pay to access more powerful stats is pay to win or still not?

You're paying for expansion content.  That's not pay to win.  Again, tell me how not having these stats can cause me to lose GW2.  Or, how having them can cause you to win GW2?

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10 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

You're paying for expansion content.  That's not pay to win.  Again, tell me how not having these stats can cause me to lose GW2.  Or, how having them can cause you to win GW2?

Playing with optimal stats and build is decisive in wvw specially if you're a roamer like me who constantly 1v1 and 1v2.

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Just now, frareanselm.1925 said:

Playing with optimal stats and build is decisive in wvw specially if you're a roamer like me who constantly 1v1 and 1v2.

Again, expansion content is not pay to win.  It's an update to the game.  Either you choose to update or not.  The argument was about P2W items in the gem store, which there aren't any.

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5 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

If your definition is pay cash to get power it is also the case.

Because expansions give access to meta stats like viper, trailblazer, marauder... meanwhile core players have no way to get them.

Pay to access more powerful stats is pay to win or still not?

Multiple people have already answered this question.  This model is called "buy to play".  You don't get the full features of the game for free.  You have to purchase expansions/DLC to unlock them, but once you do you are competitive. 

"Pay to win" is different.  You may have to purchase expansions, pay a subscription, etc. in a pay to win game as well.  The difference is that a pay to win game is driven by power upgrades that provide an advantage that is either impossible to obtain without cash or locked behind a massive grind or time-gate that may be simply bypassed with cash.

That's why GW2 is not "pay to win".  It doesn't have any of that.  The power upgrades you can purchase with cash provide players with minimal gain.

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