Is Guild Wars 2 Pay2win?

[scerevisiae.1972]

32 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Getting to 80 faster isn't winning, because it's not the goal of the game.  Arguably everyone who buys the expansion has a level 80 booster, so I can get to 80 before anyone else can.

Cash shop boosters can be bought with in game gold anyway. Thus not pay to win.

if you could _only_ buy with in-game gold, yes, that would not be P2W. buyable with in-game gold does NOT mean not P2W... 

 

numerous "win" items are purchaseable with real-world money - elite specs (being so much better than core specs), time-saving (eg: various boosters)  and gold-making enhancements (eg: infinite gathering tools, portal devices) are all P2W. even being able to buy gold directly with cash is P2W.

if you could *only* buy these things with in-game gold, or you could *only* buy cosmetic items with real world money then GW2 would not be a P2W game. but you can, so it is. it's a mild P2W game, but it's definitely P2W.

[Linken.6345]

9 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

if you could _only_ buy with in-game gold, yes, that would not be P2W. buyable with in-game gold does NOT mean not P2W... 

 

numerous "win" items are purchaseable with real-world money - elite specs (being so much better than core specs), time-saving (eg: various boosters)  and gold-making enhancements (eg: infinite gathering tools, portal devices) are all P2W. even being able to buy gold directly with cash is P2W.

if you could *only* buy these things with in-game gold, or you could *only* buy cosmetic items with real world money then GW2 would not be a P2W game. but you can, so it is. it's a mild P2W game, but it's definitely P2W.

 

Explain how they are winning with those items?

 

You can buy all the gathering tool enhancements with karma for example.

 

portal devices you can just use a waypoint instead to the same worldboss.

 

Buying gold only works if people are selling gold are you saying the ones selling gold are losing? the opposite of winning is losing right?

 

The only thing that would be pay to win is elite specs but those comes with expansions only and if expansions are p2w then litteraly any game that have an expansion is p2w.

 

And they aint so please make up some better p2w points bub.

[Hesione.9412]

7 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

if you could _only_ buy with in-game gold, yes, that would not be P2W. buyable with in-game gold does NOT mean not P2W... 

 

numerous "win" items are purchaseable with real-world money - elite specs (being so much better than core specs), time-saving (eg: various boosters)  and gold-making enhancements (eg: infinite gathering tools, portal devices) are all P2W. even being able to buy gold directly with cash is P2W.

if you could *only* buy these things with in-game gold, or you could *only* buy cosmetic items with real world money then GW2 would not be a P2W game. but you can, so it is. it's a mild P2W game, but it's definitely P2W.

You can't buy elite specs. The only way you can get elite specs is to purchase the expansion/s. Are you classing game expansions as play to win?

 

I have a gazillion boosters in my bank because I don't use them. I've also trashed a bunch of others.

 

I have a recharging teleport to friend device that I bought off the gemstore. I also have more than 100 free one-use teleport to friends because I didn't realise how many of these I was going to keep getting.

 

I have unbreakable tools, bought from the gemstore on a number of characters. On others, I have purchased specific ones with karma and carry a bunch on me. When it was Wintersday I bought over 50 of the frostbitten orichalcum mining tools, which are gold-making enhancements. I spent no gold, it was all karma.

[scerevisiae.1972]

i think some major white-knighting going on here...

 

but yes i would say any expansion that adds a class/spec that is clearly better than the existing ones available is consistent with the pay-to-win label yes.

 

i don't really get the big deal, most games have pay-to-win aspects to them - it's how they incentivise spending money on their game and earn income -- GW2 is no different. 

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

if you could _only_ buy with in-game gold, yes, that would not be P2W. buyable with in-game gold does NOT mean not P2W... 

 

numerous "win" items are purchaseable with real-world money - elite specs (being so much better than core specs), time-saving (eg: various boosters)  and gold-making enhancements (eg: infinite gathering tools, portal devices) are all P2W. even being able to buy gold directly with cash is P2W.

if you could *only* buy these things with in-game gold, or you could *only* buy cosmetic items with real world money then GW2 would not be a P2W game. but you can, so it is. it's a mild P2W game, but it's definitely P2W.

It's not pay to win due to expansions. If that were the definition of pay to win, every single MMO that raised the level cap would be pay to win, because you could get to a higher level than anyone else. No one says WoW is pay to win even though people with expansions have a huge advantage over people who don't have them.

Pay to win has always had a very specific definition. Having to pay money to the cash shop to maintain your power level on a regular basis.  Not an expansion every 3 years.  That's not the original definition of pay to win.

 

You're taking the words literally but language isn't literal. You're bending the definition to include expansions. Let me ask you this. If every MMO raises the level cap, except for this one, then aren't in fact all MMOs pay to win? And if all MMOs are pay to win then why does the term have any value at all.

 

The term was designed to identify legit MMOs from ones in which you could by power from the cash shop. Nothing more.

 

[scerevisiae.1972]

10 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Pay to win has always had a very specific definition.

 

i think you mean: _your_ personal definition.

urbandictionary definition with 778 approves: 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

Quote

Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.

 

read that to yourself slowly and then, objectively if you can, apply that to GW2.

even if you want to arbitrarily restrict it to PVP, someone who buys expansion and competes with elite specs has a clear advantage over someone restricted to core specs.

in PVE, someone who spends $$$ for boosters, larger bank & bag slots, infinite gathering tools, salvage-o-matics and world boss portal device etc has a clear gold-per-hour advantage over someone who doesn't. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by scerevisiae.1972

[Vayne.8563]

Just now, scerevisiae.1972 said:

i think you mean: _your_ personal definition.

urbandictionary definition with 778 approves: 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

 

read that to yourself slowly and then, objectively if you can, apply that to GW2.

even if you want to arbitrarily restrict it to PVP, someone who buys expansion and competes with elite specs has a clear advantage over someone restricted to core specs. 

Yep, and someone who buys a wow expansion has a clear advantage over someone that doesn't. This is true of EVERY MMO I've ever played, since expansions traditionally have raised the level cap and introduced new tiers of gear.  Saying it's true here, means it's true of every single major legit MMO out there and the very term loses it's meaning and definition.

 

This term has been used to seperate legit games from not legit ones. Look at maple story and runes of magic as examples of pay to win games, where in order to maintain an advantage you had to continually put money into the game.. People payed hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be competitive. Now compare this to WoW.

WoW has a system by which every expansion increases the level cap. This is a game with open world PvP too. So if you're on a PvP server and some guy 10 levels above you attacks you, you die. THerefore, by your definition WoW would be pay to win. But no one says WoW is pay to win because expansions never counted.  They included a lot more. It was expected to buy expansions to play the game. It was not expected to have to make cash shop purchases to play the game. That's the difference.

I'm saying expansions have never counted and if they did, then every MMO would be pay to win and the term would be meaningless.

[scerevisiae.1972]

pay-to-win is a spectrum, not a binary choice.

there's no doubt that GW2 is on the less pay-to-win side, and that's fine. everyone is going to have their own personal breakpoint at which point the pay-to-win-ness is tolerable (in your words, "legit") vs not. and that's ok.

[Vayne.8563]

1 minute ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

pay-to-win is a spectrum, not a binary choice.

there's no doubt that GW2 is on the less pay-to-win side, and that's fine. everyone is going to have their own personal breakpoint at which point the pay-to-win-ness is tolerable (in your words, "legit") vs not. and that's ok.

Okay name an MMO that's not pay to win. I'll wait here.  If it's a spectrum and Guild Wars 2 is on the far side of it, what game is less pay to win than this one? Again, the ORIGINAL definition of pay to win was well known but pretty much everyone and has gotten perverted by people who took the words literally. It has a fine definition. You can change it if you like but don't pretend that everyone who played these games fifteen years ago didn't know what was meant by a pay to win game.  There was plenty to read about it.

Less experienced gamers came in and started to say anything that gave you an advantage at all was pay to win. But expansions never counted and if they did, please tell me what AAA MMO isn't pay to win by that definition.

[Infusion.7149]

39 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

i think you mean: _your_ personal definition.

urbandictionary definition with 778 approves: 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

 

read that to yourself slowly and then, objectively if you can, apply that to GW2.

even if you want to arbitrarily restrict it to PVP, someone who buys expansion and competes with elite specs has a clear advantage over someone restricted to core specs.

in PVE, someone who spends $$$ for boosters, larger bank & bag slots, infinite gathering tools, salvage-o-matics and world boss portal device etc has a clear gold-per-hour advantage over someone who doesn't. 

It's cute you use urbandictionary as a definition site.
 

Gold per hour is not "winning", because unless you live in a country where one dollar eighty cents an hour is considered a living wage (that's what the typical 30g/hour farm is) why would you even bother to just aimlessly farm?

 

PvP has core support guard , core condi necro, and core tactics warrior as an alternative to support spellbreaker, not to mention core WS ranger. It really seems like you have no idea about these game modes. Couple this with the fact that PoF is now bundled with HoT and it makes no sense to even mention this. To join GW2 today and not have elite specs means you're either a free to play account or never bought an expansion.

If you do fractals you get so many boosters and exp you don't know what to do with them. The rest you mention are one off QoL items.

 

What would be pay to win is if they sold +18 power stat infusions (not agony, power ... that is not a typo) in the gemstore as the Chinese GW2 did.

[amak.7059]

Doesn't seem to be. I've been playing 2 days. 

[kharmin.7683]

18 minutes ago, amak.7059 said:

Doesn't seem to be. I've been playing 2 days. 

Have you won GW2 yet?  😁

[KryTiKaL.3125]

9 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

pay-to-win is a spectrum, not a binary choice.

there's no doubt that GW2 is on the less pay-to-win side, and that's fine. everyone is going to have their own personal breakpoint at which point the pay-to-win-ness is tolerable (in your words, "legit") vs not. and that's ok.

It isn't a spectrum. Or at least it isn't as broad of a spectrum as many have tried to "evolve" the phrase to be. For "pay to win" to be a spectrum on the level you imply one would have to consider winning anything to be on a spectrum as well. Which if winning was on a spectrum then technically there wouldn't be "losers".

 

Winning and losing is binary, like it or not. If someone wins something, someone loses something. Thats it. I explained this before; for winning to be a variable then there must inherently be a competition or something being competed over in which to incur winning or losing as achievable variables.

 

What in GW2 PvE constitutes or incurs an inherent competition with other players? Nothing. Just because a player gets ahead of you in something or achieves something before you do does not mean they have "won" anything against you. They are not competing against you even if you somehow view it as a competition. PvE is not inherently competitive it is cooperative, WoW is pretty much the only game that has competitive PvE; which has turned their real money purchasable WoW Token (which can be sold to other players for in-game gold) into an actual pay to win item because those Mythic Dungeon esports players have 100% used them to get gold and purchase higher/highest ilvl gear which is available on the Auction House. This was especially blatant in the last expansion, Battle for Azeroth. You could literally buy the highest possible ilvl pieces of gear on the Auction House for gold. Buy a couple WoW Tokens, sell em off for gold and tadaa thats your pay to win as defined by how that phrase even began; buying the best ingame gear with real world money.

 

Now you can lump me into the white knighting crowd if you want with my post here, but I can assure you I am very far from white knighting this game. Pretty much any time someone in one of the discords I'm in ever brings up GW2 I criticize this game into oblivion. I got fed up with ANet and this game in general about a year ago and haven't returned in-game since I uninstalled it back in March of last year and none of my issues have to do with this game being even remotely pay to win. There are so many other things wrong with this game and how ANet handles it but "pay to win" is literally nowhere on that list.

[LucianDK.8615]

Theres absolutely no P2W in Guild Wars 2. The gear curve is flat.  Upgrades such as the copper fed salvage device is nothing but a coniviency, compared to the created variants.

[Imba.9451]

You can get into the game, cash up and be lvl 80 and fully equipped on your first day.

I don't care if people try to stick the literal meaning of "pay to win" down somebodies throat, because in extension, reaching a win condition (perfect equip) is pretty much pay to win, no matter if you could achieve that by only playing the game as well. I mean, you COULD unlock everything in Star Wars battlefront 2 as well.

Unless the ingame monetization is cosmetic only, a game can be considered pay to win. Some games are a bit more excessive than others, but the simple ability to buy progress in a game is pay2win, simple as that.

[kharmin.7683]

17 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

You can get into the game, cash up and be lvl 80 and fully equipped on your first day.

I don't care if people try to stick the literal meaning of "pay to win" down somebodies throat, because in extension, reaching a win condition (perfect equip) is pretty much pay to win, no matter if you could achieve that by only playing the game as well. I mean, you COULD unlock everything in Star Wars battlefront 2 as well.

Unless the ingame monetization is cosmetic only, a game can be considered pay to win. Some games are a bit more excessive than others, but the simple ability to buy progress in a game is pay2win, simple as that.

But what does one win?  How is it that I lose GW2?  What constitutes a win condition?  Perfect equipment?  By what definition?

[Tayga.3192]

27 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

reaching a win condition (perfect equip)

 

If that's your wincon then yes GW2 is pay to win

[Infusion.7149]

42 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

You can get into the game, cash up and be lvl 80 and fully equipped on your first day.

I don't care if people try to stick the literal meaning of "pay to win" down somebodies throat, because in extension, reaching a win condition (perfect equip) is pretty much pay to win, no matter if you could achieve that by only playing the game as well. I mean, you COULD unlock everything in Star Wars battlefront 2 as well.

Unless the ingame monetization is cosmetic only, a game can be considered pay to win. Some games are a bit more excessive than others, but the simple ability to buy progress in a game is pay2win, simple as that.

Makes no sense since PvP (where winning matters) does not rely on your item stats and everyone is scaled to level 80 exotic + in WvW.

[kharmin.7683]

43 minutes ago, Tayga.3192 said:

 

If that's your wincon then yes GW2 is pay to win

That makes no sense to me.  How can someone else's subjective opinion on what is "perfect equip" be a win condition?  Whom do they defeat?  Does that win versus every other player in GW2?  Heck, the equipment that I use right now is perfect for me.  Does that mean I win now?

[Imba.9451]

54 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

But what does one win?  How is it that I lose GW2?  What constitutes a win condition?  Perfect equipment?  By what definition?

You win against the game. It's content. The AI. Whatever.

 

People are imho way too literal with their definition of p2w, especially those who try to act as gatekeepers. Just because P2W started in competetive games doesn't mean the concept cannot be transferred to PvE content. I mean, even then, it's in the name: Player vs Enviroment. You win against this enviroment.

[Tayga.3192]

10 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

That makes no sense to me.

 

Same, what a coincidence. GW2 is not pay to win unless someone considers things like "perfect gear" winning.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Tayga.3192
+++

[Infusion.7149]

10 minutes ago, Tayga.3192 said:

 

Same, what a coincidence. GW2 is not pay to win unless someone considers things like "perfect gear" winning.

Isn't perfect gear full legendary? 😃

[Tayga.3192]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

Isn't perfect gear full legendary? 😃

 

Most of it cannot be bought with gold unless you hire raid sellers to carry you through raids. Even then there are some account bound parts like WvW reward track.

[Infusion.7149]

9 minutes ago, Tayga.3192 said:

 

Most of it cannot be bought with gold unless you hire raid sellers to carry you through raids. Even then there are some account bound parts like WvW reward track.

That's my point

[kharmin.7683]

17 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

You win against the game. It's content. The AI. Whatever.

 

People are imho way too literal with their definition of p2w, especially those who try to act as gatekeepers. Just because P2W started in competetive games doesn't mean the concept cannot be transferred to PvE content. I mean, even then, it's in the name: Player vs Enviroment. You win against this enviroment.

So, I don't understand why it would matter.  Even if it were P2W for PvE, why should anyone care?  I mean, if I accept the premise, then so many players have finished the existing content.  That has absolutely no impact on me or any other player and whether or not anyone else can finish the existing content.