Pay to win

[Mad Dog Fargo.7543]

Background:

I played GW1 for almost 7 years and GW2 for 6+ years now. And I developed some friendships with a few Anet employees along the way. So this isn't just blind piss and bile to hurl at a nameless/faceless company.

My Take:

The Elite specs are definitely pay to win. It's undeniable. If you don't buy the expansions you are at a clear disadvantage in any competitive area of the game. And it's no accident. Many core classes get nerfed to remove or reduce their viability. Even if you are very skilled with a core build, an unskilled player on an elite spec has the upper hand, along with so many freebies it removes the skill curve. Elites do EVERYTHING better than the core classes. So much for being a 'skill based' game.

Now, you could say the OP nature of elites is for the PvE bosses and raids and new story content for level 80+. But that doesn't excuse the utter insult they are to competitive balance. At the very best, it's inexcusable and incompetent. At the worst, it's a deliberate planned removal of content and engineered obsolescence to FORCE players to either give up playing or pay more money to be relevant again. Not much of a choice, if one at all.

Some History on Anet's stand & commitments:

And before the 'Anet can do no wrong' fanboys try to cry foul and justify it by saying it's part of the new mechanic or all MMO expansions could be considered 'pay to win', you were dead wrong LONG before GW2 was even released. Anet swore up and down during development they did not want to make the game pay to win. This was a core commitment. The original context was with cash shop items. And guess what? The expansion upgrade IS marketed in the cash shop. But even if it wasn't, the principle and commitment both still apply.

Compare and contrast this with Guild Wars 1. When new classes and skills were released they went to great lengths to separate them and keep them balanced competitively. So Anet HAS the knowledge and ability to do that. And this balance did not hurt GW1 sales at all. It was a great game with a broad fan base and a very lengthy track record of success. And that is a key point you fanboys are conveniently ignoring. Anet loses nothing by keeping the elite specs balanced for PvP/WvW. The only people who stand to lose, and thereby rush to the defense of the new pay to win sales model, are the unskilled players, new and old alike, who rely on the clear advantage it gives them in all things PvP.

The risk and result:

But Anet is at risk of losing something important in another way. They are already alienating a large portion of their existing and loyal fans by leaving the pay to win 'incentives to BUY the expansions' in the game. Long standing players, guilds and groups in the community are leaving. And this situation has become yet one more broken promise in the recent history of GW2.

And don't get me started on the content they took away from us and put behind the 'paywall' of HoT. Namely, a large portion of the guild upgrades we unlocked in the first 1-2 years of playing. Don't have HoT? Sorry, you can't play or use most of that content anymore. Do have HoT? OK great, you just need to grind it out 2-3x longer and unlock it all again.

And while they work on these new 'features', we are still waiting for things like skill/gear templates and customizable UI, things GW1 had on release.

The core issue here isn't of a technical nature, or communication, interpretation, or even balance. It's one of ethics and integrity. They CLEARLY said they were anti grind, anti RNG reward, anti pay to win and anti gear treadmill. And yet there are multiple mechanics added to the game that are exactly these things. Sometimes they get changed back or removed. But not so much lately, and certainly not if it is profitable.

I used to love this game and the company. But with each successive ethical failure, I am more and more convinced this is NOT the same Anet that made GW1 and released GW2. They have been corrupted more than a 50 man WvW necro bomb. And I am now convinced things like these are not being examined or fixed for one simple reason: Anet simply doesn't care.

Not getting another dime of my money, ever. And I'm not alone in this decision.

[Falan.1839]

There's actually far more viable core builds than after hot release, too. Thief, Warr, Guard can all be easily played on core up to the highest lvl, and there are people in Legend who play these classes on core. But you will not satisfy the whiners here. Other games charge 15€ per month and release a more or less mandatory expansion every year and people here get emo if they need to buy 2 expacs in 5 years. Well.

[zealex.9410]

I was watching the na monthly and 1 team went all the way to the finals with a core ranger on the team.

[Crinn.7864]

@zealex.9410 said:I was watching the na monthly and 1 team went all the way to the finals with a core ranger on the team.

Sindrener ran core S/d thief in the finals on EU as well.

[Morwath.9817]

@Falan.1839 said:There's actually far more viable core builds than after hot release, too. Thief, Warr, Guard can all be easily played on core up to the highest lvl, and there are people in Legend who play these classes on core. But you will not satisfy the whiners here. Other games charge 15€ per month and release a more or less mandatory expansion every year and people here get emo if they need to buy 2 expacs in 5 years. Well.

Woo-hoo, Quaggan agrees, yet disagrees.Quaggan agrees that complaining about having to buy expansion once in few years is more than silly, but what Quaggan consider even more silly is fact that we have to accept powercreep caused by PoF , even when it's bad for the game. It may be good for anet as it gives them more moniez, but many players simply don't enjoy their new PoF toys, and old specs should be viable for same reason as HoT zone events are still viable and played.

[Falan.1839]

I don't think I've ever played an MMO where expansions didn't bring a certain amount of powercreep. I'm not saying it's awesome, but you better accept the things you can't change.

[zealex.9410]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I was watching the na monthly and 1 team went all the way to the finals with a core ranger on the team.

Sindrener ran core S/d thief in the finals on EU as well.

Since i got you here might as well ask how unlikely is for a good necro to make core necro work in mid to high lvl pvp?

[Crinn.7864]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I was watching the na monthly and 1 team went all the way to the finals with a core ranger on the team.

Sindrener ran core S/d thief in the finals on EU as well.

Since i got you here might as well ask how unlikely is for a good necro to make core necro work in mid to high lvl pvp?

define "work"

You could make a passable axe/staff power build with wells, running spite/blood/soul reaping. But to be competitive high level with it...eeehhh. The thing about necro is that 90% of necro's power comes from it's elites. Core necro has poor damage, mediocre survivability, and poor mobility.

[zealex.9410]

@Crinn.7864 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I was watching the na monthly and 1 team went all the way to the finals with a core ranger on the team.

Sindrener ran core S/d thief in the finals on EU as well.

Since i got you here might as well ask how unlikely is for a good necro to make core necro work in mid to high lvl pvp?

define "work"

You could make a passable axe/staff power build with wells, running spite/blood/soul reaping. But to be competitive high level with it...eeehhh. The thing about necro is that 90% of necro's power comes from it's elites. Core necro has poor damage, mediocre survivability, and poor mobility.

Feelsbad lul

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Falan.1839 said:I don't think I've ever played an MMO where expansions didn't bring a certain amount of powercreep. I'm not saying it's awesome, but you better accept the things you can't change.

Ye Op doesn't understand what pay to win is. Buying an expansion is not pay to win, otherwise every single expansion to an online game would have to be considered pay to win. It would be like playing WOW but not buying the latest expansion and complaining that its pay to win because owners of the expansion get to raise their character level.

[jihm.2315]

making the newer specializations stronger than the other ones is a bit pay to win a newcomer that will try the game will be extremely dissapointed

[Larenc.1269]

Kinda funny thread sense pof/hot specs are fairly weak compared to core specs. Only ones I use is holosmith,reaper,firebrand the others are just god awful waste of a trait line. Hell my necro is weaker just because i swapped d/d with gs for the sake of a decent aoe

Core=high skill cap

Pof/Hot=lower skill cap

Also if you trait yourself properly the pof/hot mainly act as modifiers for the core traits. Pay to win? I don't think so! Its called expansion of the game. GW1 had HUNDREDS of skills while the base game of gw2 has very few. Should buy the game and support anet for finally giving us new skills instead of blathering ignorant crap

Most likely your a bronze fighting legos and your getting slaughtered by people who actually know what their doing. It has nothing to do with how many years you've been playing its all about what you gained during the time you've played. I see it all the time where people fail to dodge properly or use the environment to their advantage. Its honestly not their fault though due to the fact that the current group of players has the "rush" mentality.

@zealex.9410 Core necro can easily handle legend teir pvp if used properly. It has one of the highest crit tank builds in the game with functional subsidiaries.

[Aeolus.3615]

@narcx.3570 said:Renegade: Anet is proud to announce the first ever Pay to Lose class...!

those effects should blind any target in real life that is not playing with sunglasses....

Anet has 5 years and this game is full of awfull decisions, class design, skills, awfull balance, awfull game modes, dull pve, low effort mechanics, full of visual clutter that went out of control...

So dont expect decent elite trait, that will serve just to force players to get new gimmick kids tool, and classes in this game are only good if they carry the players trough spam or power creep, classes that cant fit both or one of those, will not be good at atll on pvp content wich is the current issue with renegade.

@Larenc.1269 = gw1 high skill capGw2 core = meh...Hot = wow any one can look good, gw2 become a no skill gameplay, wht is Anet wanting?PoF = ok... Anet has lost its mind and went full retarded, a game from retardeds to retards.

[ArthurDent.9538]

@Morwath.9817 said:

@Falan.1839 said:There's actually far more viable core builds than after hot release, too. Thief, Warr, Guard can all be easily played on core up to the highest lvl, and there are people in Legend who play these classes on core. But you will not satisfy the whiners here. Other games charge 15€ per month and release a more or less mandatory expansion every year and people here get emo if they need to buy 2 expacs in 5 years. Well.

Woo-hoo, Quaggan agrees, yet disagrees.Quaggan agrees that complaining about having to buy expansion once in few years is more than silly, but what Quaggan consider even more silly is fact that

we have to accept

powercreep caused by PoF , even when it's bad for the game. It may be good for anet as it gives them more moniez, but many players simply don't enjoy their new PoF toys, and old specs should be viable for same reason as HoT zone events are still viable and played.

Power creep kind of is inevitable with any new expansion unless the new specs are worse then the old ones in every situation since at the very least new options can allow for surprise tactics which keep the enemy slightly more uncertain of what you are running at the start of a match. However power creep can get excessive which HoT absolutely was considering that no core builds were ran during the entirety of pro-league play and no core builds won a high level tournament from the start of HoT till recently with SD thief becoming popular. With that being said PoF has been much more mild on the power creep with about half the new E-specs being much stronger than the old builds, while the other half are on par or weaker than the core/HoT counterparts.

[Loop.8106]

This post was made before the expansion was released. Way to dig up old threads. :tired_face: