They are selling hero points in the gem store now

[Darklord Roy.2514]

3 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Expansions wouldnt be pay2win if the anet balance team did a decent job. But all they do is boost the latest especs and let the core specs rot in hell.

Enter metabattle and tell me which core class is recommended in raids or fractals... none.

Try to enter in a competitive Raid party with a core ele for example and you're kicked.

Free2play users are outlawed individuals taht nobody want in their team, just because are underperforming. 

What you are describing is power creep and buy to play, not pay to win. Again, every MMO in history that has ever released an expansion has added some degree of new, different, and powerful features to the game that *require* you to own the expansion to use. Locking features behind expansions isn't P2W, if everyone had access to everything without needing to pay for expansions then gaming companies would be losing profits on making them.

F2P in this game was always, from the beginning, meant to act as a sort of "try before you buy" system. It exists so that people can get a taste of GW2 and see if they enjoy all of it's unique systems before they commit to buying it. It is not meant to act as anything close to a complete experience of the game. Personally I've seen plenty of new players who only purchased SoTo (and so have no elite specs) trying out strikes and fractals. They're never top DPS, but generally speaking most PUG groups don't really care that much if you're a little slow in strikes, fractals, or dungeons. I myself have never been in a group where someone has been kicked for running a core spec, with the exception of CO CM because you HAVE to have good DPS to beat it. And on that matter, core specs have no business playing CMs or raids because they are the highest level PvE content you can possibly play. If you want to legitimately try content at that level, then you have been F2P long enough to know you like the game and you should purchase an expansion to get your power creep.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

20 hours ago, SpyderArachnid.5619 said:

The thing is it does affect you. It might not affect you directly, but it definitely affects you indirectly.

An extreme example, GW2 player invites their friends to play GW2. They don't want to waste time leveling or getting the elite specs or waypoints. They just want to play with their level 80 friend who already has all that. So, they buy the skip stuff (80 boost, hero points, waypoints, etc). They are grouping up for world bosses, strikes, pvp, etc. You name it.

You just so happen to be in those groups (not actually in their group, but doing the same content). Trying to kill that world boss and it fails? Well all those fresh new players with their boosted characters ruined that for you because they have no idea what they are doing. Strike? PvP? Heck, maybe even a fractal (not likely). Wondering why that meta failed after you tried so hard? fresh new players that boosted and bought their hero points and waypoints so they could try it out.

This assertion is an assumption.  First, it assumes that new players who purchase HP on the TP are not "learning their profession."  We have no data to support this assertion except the assumption that this would be the case.  Second, it assumes there will be a statistical difference between players who earn HP via play and those who buy them in so far as learning their profession.  Again, no data is available to support that there will be such a statistical difference.  What we do have is anecdotal data from dozens (if not hundreds) of older posts asserting that meta events were failing because the vast majority of players don't know what they're doing and "just press 1."  I am going to assume that that vast majority who "earned" HP are not going to suddenly learn their profession better because other players are buying HP.

19 hours ago, Roads.5130 said:

This is factually incorrect, there is absolutely no way I can use dual swords on my Guardian if I don't pay real money for EoD, there is no way I can play a Mirage with their godlike PvE dodges if I don't pay for PoF. Free to play players do not have equal access to all equipment, they do not have access to all the runes, etc.

Are you trolling? Free to play players do not have access to the specializations of each expansion.

Oh yeah? When was the last time you saw a free to play player on a roller beetle?

In GW2, free to play is really a trial of the game.  F2P players are not only denied elite specs and mounts, they are barred from more than 90% of content inserted post vanilla.  Most trials in other games are limited to attaining some level (usually short of the level cap).  GW2 allows F2P to get to the cap, but not to progress further in the game, which amounts to the same thing as stopping short of the cap.  While a core-only free player in WvW will be at a disadvantage vs elite specs, this disadvantage is not as bad as being a level 35 in a cap-90 game (if that game's trial even allows access to a PvP mode.

Edited December 2, 2023 by IndigoSundown.5419
Clarity.

[Roads.5130]

4 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

None of that is PAY TO WIN.  It is BUY TO PLAY.   Massive difference.  And even so, again I'd have to ask how does one WIN?  How does a player, who has purchased content, beat a free account player in winning GW2?  Would they have an advantage in competitive play (PvP or WvW)?  Absolutely, but they don't win the game.

I understand, and don't get me wrong, I like the monetization in this game, but I do think it falls into the P2W category. The fact that people can buy unlimited amounts of in game gold by swiping a card is a clear sign to me, the fact that some advantages are paywalled is another clear sign, ANet did not release pure story content, they did not just release JPs and prettier looking areas and weapons, they have been releasing stronger versions of their free to play content.

Now, while I do think GW2 greatly benefits players who spend more money on it (like how some people were able to exploit the daily login system by purchasing multiple accounts and became filthy rich in game) I would not know what winning in this game looks like, I don't play this game to win anything. My participation in this thread started by replying to the person who claimed they would leave the game if the HP for cash feature was not promptly removed, which I found so ridiculous that I replied to them the way I did: "The game has been pay to win for a while a now", if they are willing to consider getting easy access to HPs through swiping a card as P2W then they should also consider the other, more blatant and more important advantages one gets in this game from spending money on it.

[Roads.5130]

10 minutes ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

This assertion is an assumption.  First, it assumes that new players who purchase HP on the TP are not "learning their profession."  We have no data to support this assertion except the assumption that this would be the case.  Second, it assumes there will be a statistical difference between players who earn HP via play and those who buy them in so far as learning their profession.  Again, no data is available to support that there will be such a statistical difference.  What we do have is anecdotal data from dozens (if not hundreds) of older posts asserting that meta events were failing because the vast majority of players don't know what they're doing and "just press 1."  I am going to assume that that vast majority who "earned" HP are not going to suddenly learn their profession better because other players are buying HP.

In GW2, free to play is really a trial of the game.  F2P players are not only denied elite specs and mounts, they are barred from more than 90% of content inserted post vanilla.  Most trials in other games are limited to attaining some level (usually short of the level cap).  GW2 allows F2P to get to the cap, but not to progress further in the game, which amounts to the same thing as stopping short of the cap.  While a core-only free player in WvW will be at a disadvantage vs elite specs, this disadvantage is not as bad as being a level 35 in a cap-90 game (if that game's trial even allows access to a PvP mode.

Yeah, the person I replied to claimed that everyone has access to every mount and every weapon, which is just not true, some advantages are locked behind a paywall, and some people will consider that pay to win. I share your opinion about GW2 being a buy to play game with a very vast demo version, but I also believe GW2 greatly rewards players who spend more money on it.

[Roads.5130]

8 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

So paying for actual content in an MMO is now considered "pay 2 win"??? 🤣

You can still win against any enemy without using dual swords.

I googled the definition of pay to win and came across a reddit thread, I also read about it on other sites for like 2 minutes, there is not a single definition of pay to win, but I think GW2 bussiness model fits these definitions from different people:
-Real money > In game benefits

-Pay to win is any system where a player can purchase something that is not superficial or cosmetic.

-"Pay To Win" is defined as games in which you get an advantage in the game if you spend real money on items, weapons or features and are thus clearly superior to other players.

-In computer games, involving or relating to the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give you an advantage over players who do not spend money

You say "So paying for actual content in an MMo is now considered pay to win??" with a laughing emoji, but you are conveniently ignoring the fact selling content does not have to equal selling advantage, ANet could have made the choice of releasing new areas, new skins, more story and new JPs while letting everyone have access to the new elite specs, all the mounts, all the raids so they could farm for legendary armor, but no they locked these advantages behind a paywall and, clearly, many people consider that pay to win. I personally don't care too much, even though I do not have the means to pay this new direction ANet has taken where they deliver paid content two or tree times a year.

[Roads.5130]

3 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

By this definition, WoW is pay to win, because expansions raise your level and make you more powerful. In games where open world PvP exists, that's the very defiinition of pay to win.

Guild Wars 2 is a buy to play game that has a free to play version. The core game is free to play. But the expansions have seperate content. Expansions never counted as pay to win, just cash shop items that made you more powerful. The fact that people want to take the term literally is the issue, not this game being P2W.

I don't know about WoW,  and I don't know whose definition of P2W we are using, but having certain advantages (best mounts, best specs) locked behind a paywall will be considered pay to win by many people, if we also consider the fact that you can have as much in game gold as your credit card allows you to spend I have no doubt GW2 bussines model could be considered pay to win, it greatly benefits people who spend more money on it.

I started replying in this thread to the person who claimed they would leave if the HPs for cash feature was not removed as they considered it P2W, following his logic I replied that the game has been pay to win for a while now.

[kharmin.7683]

59 minutes ago, Roads.5130 said:

I understand, and don't get me wrong, I like the monetization in this game, but I do think it falls into the P2W category. The fact that people can buy unlimited amounts of in game gold by swiping a card is a clear sign to me, the fact that some advantages are paywalled is another clear sign, ANet did not release pure story content, they did not just release JPs and prettier looking areas and weapons, they have been releasing stronger versions of their free to play content.

Now, while I do think GW2 greatly benefits players who spend more money on it (like how some people were able to exploit the daily login system by purchasing multiple accounts and became filthy rich in game) I would not know what winning in this game looks like, I don't play this game to win anything. My participation in this thread started by replying to the person who claimed they would leave the game if the HP for cash feature was not promptly removed, which I found so ridiculous that I replied to them the way I did: "The game has been pay to win for a while a now", if they are willing to consider getting easy access to HPs through swiping a card as P2W then they should also consider the other, more blatant and more important advantages one gets in this game from spending money on it.

The entire idea of GW2 being P2W is complete fallacy.  No one yet has been able to answer how one "wins" GW2.

[Roads.5130]

13 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

The entire idea of GW2 being P2W is complete fallacy.  No one yet has been able to answer how one "wins" GW2.

Oh I see, that's the mistake, this is not about how one wins GW2, this is about what pay to win means as a practice. I understand the confusion, but they are not the same.

[Darklord Roy.2514]

37 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

The entire idea of GW2 being P2W is complete fallacy.  No one yet has been able to answer how one "wins" GW2.

It is only a fallacy if you use the word "win" strictly with a single definition, in this case meaning winning the game as a whole. You cannot "win" any MMO, because by their very nature they are games without an ending. You can play them endlessly unless their servers shut down. There is no true conclusion to any MMO, period. That doesn't mean that an MMO cannot utilize P2W tactics.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that one of the only examples of true P2W would be if Anet decided to create a whole new class of armor/weapons/trinkets that had higher stats than ascended/legendary do and made them exclusive to the gem store. Let's take that a step further and say that at the same time, they also decided to add gem store exclusive PvP gear with the same higher stats and also remove gold-to-gem conversions, so the *only* way you could get the new best in slot gear was to spend money. Buying that gear would not make you "win" the game, since we already established that doesn't happen in MMOs and therefore doesn't matter, but it *does* give you a numerical advantage over other people competitively. If you put two players of equal skill level against each other with the same class, weapons, and utilities, the one with the better stats wins. That is a P2W advantage.

Granted this is an extreme example and I can't see Anet actually doing this, but other MMOs have in the past. Plenty of money-grubbing companies have added legitimate vertical progression into their cash shops.

[Junkpile.7439]

Didn't even remember that game have hero points. What ever.  No idea why anybody would buy that scroll.  😄

[TexZero.7910]

Meh. Too much screeching over literally nothing.

[Mrs Lana.2506]

You say slippery slope like the waypoint unlocks haven't been a thing since September 2021

But yes, I didn't like the waypoint unlocks and I don't like the HP unlocks.

[Swoo.5079]

People that say GW2 is pay to win never played a real play to win game.

It is pay to get rid of a lot of inconvenience though - if you played from the start, adding a bag slot here, a bank tab there, a shared inventory slot or a storage expansion here and there, you might not notice as much. But if you make a new account, you will notice it and getting the account to a decent state of play without spending real cash will cost you a few hundred hours of efficient play 

Edited December 2, 2023 by Swoo.5079

[Vayne.8563]

5 hours ago, Roads.5130 said:

I don't know about WoW,  and I don't know whose definition of P2W we are using, but having certain advantages (best mounts, best specs) locked behind a paywall will be considered pay to win by many people, if we also consider the fact that you can have as much in game gold as your credit card allows you to spend I have no doubt GW2 bussines model could be considered pay to win, it greatly benefits people who spend more money on it.

I started replying in this thread to the person who claimed they would leave if the HPs for cash feature was not removed as they considered it P2W, following his logic I replied that the game has been pay to win for a while now.

Look, maybe you weren't there, and maybe you don't know about WoW, but it really doesn't matter what a lot of people consider. A lot of people think a lot of things that are simply incorrect, because they never learned better.

Pay to win talks about buying power in the cash shop. It was a way to distinguish between legitimate games and games that you couldn't keep up with unless you continually spent cash in the cash shop. Games that had predatory business practices that kept you paying every week or month. Not buying an expansion. That was never the definition of pay to win.

Almost every single MMO that releases an expansion has a level cap that increases. Those expansions are necessary because it's part of the game moving forward. You will not be able to compete with people who own the expansion because they'll be a higher level than you. This is true of pretty much the entire genre. Expansions are an expected part of play.  This game launched as pay to play game, not a free to play game. That means buying expansions were part of the contract from day one. It's the way the day survive. The expansions are selling you features and zones and story, not just power. 

When someone says that I can spend money in the cash shop to get something that gives me hero points that I could just as easily get in the game without spending any money at all in a completely reasonble amount of time, it's no different from a level 80 boost. Shortcuts and time savers are not pay to win, unless the grind to get something is so excessive, most people can't do it without actually paying that money. There were games where if you didn't pay, you have a long term disadvantage over other people who did pay, usually in open world PvP, and that wasn't a one time payment, because no sooner did you get your top stats, that you had to pay again. That's not like this in this game.

You can say that buying expansions is pay to win, but if you do, you run into this trap. Every single game is pay to win and now you no longer can distinguish legitimate games from games that want you to pay constantly.   WoW is a stop closer to pay to win because you have to pay to play it every month and still have to buy expansions which increase your power and give you cool kitten. Every single expansion. But no one is calling WoW pay to win.

The real misnomer here, if there is one, is that Guild Wars 2 is free to play, but the Guild Wars 2 series is not. It's buy to play. You were always expected to buy expansions. No MMORPG can give you infinite content for free.  Some charge for expansions and a montly fee and they all increase power, but no one calls them pay to win. The only reason people call this game pay to win is because they don't understand that it's a buy to play game. It started as a buy to play game. They made the core game free and you can play that for free and you can stay there forever. But if you wish to continue on to the rest of the game, it's buy to play. You're expected to buy expansions.

Expansions were never considered part of p2w and if you want to put them there, that's on you. But once you do, every MMO is pay to win, the term loses any meaning or value and you've changed the definition of an existing word and made it something it's not.

A lot of people thought Guild Wars 2 was an MMO, most people that played it. It was not. It was a lobby game. But people still call it an MMORPG even though Anet never did. If people dont' want to educate themselves, that's their lookout. But they can still be wrong.

 

 

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, Roads.5130 said:

Oh I see, that's the mistake, this is not about how one wins GW2, this is about what pay to win means as a practice. I understand the confusion, but they are not the same.

Pay to win never included expansions. If it did, every single MMORPG would be pay to win as in all of them, and the term will have lost all definition. It wasn't meant to say you would never have to pay for an expansion. It was meant to say  you would never have to pay money in the cash shop to buy power you couldn't also get in game in a reasonable amount of time.

[AHITCZ.5694]

Hero points mean nothing without application and every player will be able to unlock all hero points eventually. However, I do see how some may get annoyed that others will be "ahead" in some way.

Imagine two players:

- Player A: Buys hero points via the Gem Store

- Player B: Does not buy hero points

Player A will be able to unlock traits, elite specializations, etc. quickly.

Player B will gradually need to work on gathering hero points, spending some hours doing this.

At one point, both players A & B will have unlocked the hero points they need. Also it does not even take long to unlock hero points. But in the end, it does not matter, and both will be able to freely select skills & their elite specialization. Neither player has an advantage in the end-game because it depends on how they use their skills and traits anyway, so therefore it does not matter.

Now, imagine if a player were able to buy a "Boost trait's ability XYZ" from the Gem Store and let us take it one step further by making this item a permanent boost. Now, that would certainly be unfair, right? This will give a player a sure advantage over another. If two equally skilled players were to fight, but one was able to get a boost to their trait, guess who would probably win?

[Junkpile.7439]

For me p2w have always been about damage and defense boost. My every game before gw2 player could get ridiculous stat advantage by using real money. Without paying your job was mainly entertain whales like a npc that have little bit better ai. This game p2w doesn't bother me much at all. Only problem is that they add most of skins only cash shop. That is kind of annoying.

[DarcShriek.5829]

I want to be bothered by this, but then I look at my inventory and I see thousands of Hero Points.  I don't care.

[Roads.5130]

6 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Look, maybe you weren't there, and maybe you don't know about WoW, but it really doesn't matter what a lot of people consider.

It really does matter.

6 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Pay to win never included expansions. If it did, every single MMORPG would be pay to win as in all of them, and the term will have lost all definition. It wasn't meant to say you would never have to pay for an expansion. It was meant to say  you would never have to pay money in the cash shop to buy power you couldn't also get in game in a reasonable amount of time.

From the little reading I did on the web, no one mentioned expansions, but even using the definition you are giving "you would never have to pay money in the cash shop to buy power you couldn't also get in game in a reasonable amount of time" I think having access to unlimited gold as long as your credit card allows it should fit in that definition of pay to win, you can get every legendary weapon on day 1 of playing, but people conveniently ignores that fact when arguing about GW2 being pay to win or not.

[Roads.5130]

6 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

A lot of people thought Guild Wars 2 was an MMO, most people that played it. It was not. It was a lobby game. But people still call it an MMORPG even though Anet never did.

Guild Wars 2 | Play for Free | MMORPG

Guild Wars 2

https://buy.guildwars2.com

 

One of the most highly-rated MMORPGs of all time. Join Guild Wars 2's enormous community of players to explore, PvP, raid, and build heroic legends ...

^^^That comes from googling "arenanet gw2 mmo"^^^

And this comes from The Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto from 2010:

"The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG"

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

 

7 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

If people dont' want to educate themselves, that's their lookout. But they can still be wrong.

That really goes both ways.

[Vayne.8563]

56 minutes ago, Roads.5130 said:

It really does matter.

From the little reading I did on the web, no one mentioned expansions, but even using the definition you are giving "you would never have to pay money in the cash shop to buy power you couldn't also get in game in a reasonable amount of time" I think having access to unlimited gold as long as your credit card allows it should fit in that definition of pay to win, you can get every legendary weapon on day 1 of playing, but people conveniently ignores that fact when arguing about GW2 being pay to win or not.

Because it doesn't give you a power advantage above ascended. That's the point. It's not being ignored, it's literally the point I'm trying to make. You're saying everyone ignores the fact that there are shortcuts you can pay for, but short cuts you can pay for is not what pay to win meant. And because the definition of pay to win was made a very long time ago, the bar can keep moving as much as it wants, but that wasn't what the word was meant to mean.

Yes, you can get a legendary weapon. But you can't get legendary armor or accessories that way, so it barely affects your overall damage at all if you have exotic, and if you have ascended it's the same stats. The fact that you think that's pay to win isn't really an issue for most of us, because most people don't.  In games that were pay to win you had to keep pouring money in the cash shop to get something that you couldn't get otherwise.

Take BDO, as an example. In BDO, if you want to craft the best weapons, there's a chance you're going to break your weapon when you try to upgrade it. Instead of going up a level it can go down a level. It's a grind to begin with and then the crafting recipe to upgrade it is RNG. There's a chance you're going to have to waste those mats and do it all over again. 

In the cash shop you can buy outfits for $30 or so that can be salvaged into fail stacks which raise the chance of you not failing your crafting roll. Buying a couple of outfits with cash can not only help you get the best stats on each piece of gear, but it could save you a lot of the time to regrind. People consider that borderline pay to win.

In other games, you couldn't stay current without continually paying money to the cash shop. We knew what it meant because the term was coined back in the days before free to play MMORPGs even existed. Everything was sub. Everything had expansions, and you were always expected to buy them. It's the norm for every MMO. And it was never considered pay to win.

You think stuff is being over looked, without ever acknowledging the fact that you may not have understood how the term was used in the first place.

[Vayne.8563]

43 minutes ago, Roads.5130 said:

Guild Wars 2 | Play for Free | MMORPG

Guild Wars 2

https://buy.guildwars2.com

 

One of the most highly-rated MMORPGs of all time. Join Guild Wars 2's enormous community of players to explore, PvP, raid, and build heroic legends ...

^^^That comes from googling "arenanet gw2 mmo"^^^

And this comes from The Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto from 2010:

"The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG"

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

 

That really goes both ways.

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO, Guild Wars 1 was not.  It was a typo. It's why I said was and  not is.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Vayne.8563

[Roads.5130]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Because it doesn't give you a power advantage above ascended. That's the point

It does not have to be a power advantage all it has to be is an advantage, that is the point.

 

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The fact that you think that's pay to win isn't really an issue for most of us, because most people don't.

The fact that you don't think that's pay to win isn't really an issue for most of us, heck, the fact that the game gives as many advantages as it does to the players who spend the most is not even an issue for me either as I barely even notice them. It's funny that you say that most people don't, when in reality what I have read about the topic reflects that GW2 would fit neatly under most people's current definition of pay to win.

 

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

And because the definition of pay to win was made a very long time ago, the bar can keep moving as much as it wants, but that wasn't what the word was meant to mean.

What it was meant to mean does not matter, times change, games change, industries change, business models change, marketing strategies change and words change.

I guess to me it is just does not make sense that someone can join the game and swipe their credit card until they have 2 sets of every legendary weapon plus 10,000 gold and then I go about my day thinking "yeah, I can totally get all that in a reasonable amount of time". Does this fact render the game unplayable for the rest of us? Absolutely not. Does that fact make the game P2W under many people's current understanding of the term? Absolutely.

Here I will leave a list of the first 15 or so definitions of pay to win from googling "what is pay to win":

From google answers, dictionaries, game sites, etc:

Spoiler

~"Pay To Win" is defined as games in which you get an advantage in the game if you spend real money on items, weapons or features and are thus clearly superior to other players. Most of the time, such games are free-to-play, making it very easy to get started in the game.

~in computer games, involving or relating to the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give you an advantage over players who do not spend money

~Pay-to-win (P2W) is term players use to refer to games that allow players to purchase in-game resources with real money. Some examples are high-level items, abilities, more powerful weapons, additional health points, character progression, and in-game currency.

~ Essentially, pay-to-win is a term used to describe games that require or heavily involve paying real money in order to give players access to some form of significant advantage over other players

~"Pay-to-win" or "P2W", is a pejorative term for a game that offers any advantage that can be obtained faster or exclusively via commercial transactions over gameplay rewards or the impact of the player's own performance.

~(video games) Designed in such a way as to allow players to exchange real-world currency for in-game benefits.

From the first reddit thread that comes up in the search:

Spoiler

~Pay to win is any system where a player can purchase something that is not superficial or cosmetic.

~Real money -> In-game benefits.

~Pay to Win is where the alternative -- not paying, has such a significant disadvantage as to essentially just be fuel to make whales feel good, and fostering deep roots of elitism within the player-base.

~Can you buy something with real money that makes you stronger than you could be without spending money? Then its pay to win.

~Personally I interpret the term as a game where paying for items/characters etc. gives an advantage that leads to players often "winning" as a result. This means coming first or getting more kills in multiplayer or progressing through a game more easily.

~Absolutely any system where a player may purchase an item, buff or something like that, that affects gameplay and is OBJECTIVELY (I.E stats wise) Superior, OR, unlocks more powerful late-game items earlier. Cosmetics are only Pay 2 Win in fashion.

From the second reddit thread that comes up:

Spoiler

~To me pay to win is anything be it big or small that gives you a in game advantage over other players that is obtained though real life currency.

~Pay 2 win = being able to be stronger than someone else with real money. That's all. Even if you can eventually catch up by farming a lot, you will still be weaker for a long period of time.

~Not only stronger, but any advantages. More speed, more inventory space, more life/mana regen, teleports, mounts, etc... If u spend to get ANY ADVANTAGE it is p2w. If you buy skin that doesnt do kitten beside look cool, it aint p2w.

~pay to win is when a player can use money to get an advantage over their oponents, advantages like extra armor, more money, better weapons,etc.

~"Pay to win" is an overused buzzword that lost all meaning.

As far as I remember it rose to prominence during the wave of F2P MMO that came around WoW release. The expression P2W (Pay to win) was coined by players as an opposition to the claimed Free to play. Understanding the game is free to play but to be good you have to pay.

Nowadays people claim that anything that you pay for is an unfair advantage without taking into account the divide that used to separate paying players from free players.

~Consider this thing that used to exist called a "game demo." You could download it for free and it would let you get maybe 10% of the way through the game. If you wanted to play past that point, you needed to buy the game for $60 or whatever. Should this be considered Pay To Win? I don't think so. But it meets your definition: someone has bought in-game content with real money that advanced them gameplaywise.

There are even a few current multiplayer games that use a similar model. Battlerite is the only one I can think of at the moment. You can play it for free and have a limited selection of heroes available to play, and I guess you can slowly unlock them (similar to how LoL works), or you can pay $30 one time for full access to all gameplay-relevant unlocks, essentially "buying the game". This clearly meets your definition, but it seems like a completely reasonable payment model to me.

In my view, a key element of Pay To Win is recurring payments, or payments that aren't capped such that you'll never spend more than a reasonable price to "buy the game"

 

Sorry for the huge wall of text, I skipped two or so comments because more than stating what they thought was pay to win they presented a question or other commentary on the topic, I barely even rearranged the definitions from the order they appeared. As you can see, basically no one mentions expansions or Buy to play models, all that goes out of the window and what most people focuses on to state their definition of pay to win is basically: if real money gives in game advantages = pay to win. You may disagree with those persons, and there may not be a single precise definition that everyone agrees on, but they do seem to have a common trend.

I purchased the game when HoT came out, and then a couple of years after PoF came out I was able to purchase it, I haven't been able to buy EoD, SotO or any of the current content, I am absolutely not on equal footing in terms of character capabilities with players who have got the most current expansions even though I "purchased the game" twice now. For what is worth I think GW2 has the best monetization system of any MMO I have played, sadly it still fits under what I perceive to be most people's current definition of pay to win.

 

 

[Roads.5130]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

You think stuff is being over looked, without ever acknowledging the fact that you may not have understood how the term was used in the first place.

You think the term is being misused without ever acknowledging the fact that you may be stuck with an archaic definition for a current issue.

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Roads.5130 said:

I purchased the game when HoT came out, and then a couple of years after PoF came out I was able to purchase it, I haven't been able to buy EoD, SotO or any of the current content, I am absolutely not on equal footing in terms of character capabilities with players who have got the most current expansions even though I "purchased the game" twice now. For what is worth I think GW2 has the best monetization system of any MMO I have played, sadly it still fits under what I perceive to be most people's current definition of pay to win.

 

How does someone win GW2 with all of the expansions unlocked?  How does someone without them lose GW2?