Is Guild Wars 2 Pay2win?

[Leo G.4501]

6 minutes ago, maddoctor.2738 said:

I gave you the equivalent of an amount of money you MUST pay to play a subscription based game, let alone win it.

I gave you the reason why it's not a congruent comparison. You decided to ignore that thus circumvent discussion.

[maddoctor.2738]

Just now, Leo G.4501 said:

I gave you the reason why it's not a congruent comparison. You decided to ignore that thus circumvent discussion.

 

It's the only comparison there is. You were asked to provide a game that is not pay 2 win. You posted about a subscription based game which by definition is pay 2 win. Now you can go back to your original reply and answer truthfully about a game that is indeed not pay 2 win.

[Leo G.4501]

Just now, maddoctor.2738 said:

 

It's the only comparison there is. You were asked to provide a game that is not pay 2 win. You posted about a subscription based game which by definition is pay 2 win. Now you can go back to your original reply and answer truthfully about a game that is indeed not pay 2 win.

The point is, it's not comparable.

 

If you have to conjure the closest possible comparison you can think of, why not ask yourself if you're comparing apples to chicken sandwiches.

[maddoctor.2738]

Just now, Leo G.4501 said:

The point is, it's not comparable.

 

If you have to conjure the closest possible comparison you can think of, why not ask yourself if you're comparing apples to chicken sandwiches.

I'm comparing apples to apples, which is why I chose that particular comparison to begin with, because they are the same. You saying that they aren't comparable doesn't make them any less comparable. It's x amount of cash paid on a game versus the same x amount of cash on a different game, and what their end result is, can't really get any more similar than that.

[Leo G.4501]

2 minutes ago, maddoctor.2738 said:

I'm comparing apples to apples, which is why I chose that particular comparison to begin with, because they are the same. You saying that they aren't comparable doesn't make them any less comparable. It's x amount of cash paid on a game versus the same x amount of cash on a different game, and what their end result is, can't really get any more similar than that.

You can also finance a car for 14.99 a month. That doesn't make it comparable outside of money spent.

[maddoctor.2738]

7 minutes ago, Leo G.4501 said:

You can also finance a car for 14.99 a month. That doesn't make it comparable outside of money spent.

 

That's why we are on a topic about mmorpgs no need to bring anything else in the discussion. It's an apples to apples comparison of what you can do with 15 a month on two different mmorpgs (or more)

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

Let me first describe what I view Pay-to-Win (P2W) as.

Any system in which power or expedition of a process can be achieved by spending real life money that gives an edge above any and all ingame options with the only practical option available is to purchase it with real money.  (So this means ingame currency to cash shop currency is a no go if the methods to farm ingame  currency are so slow that you'd be better off paying real life money.)

With this definition, I think at some points, GW2 did.  The first thing that comes to mind are gathering tools that were both permanent and harvested extra materials from nodes, cost a few thousand gems, and the gold to gem conversion was quite high with no really effective farms.  However, that's since been fixed with the introduction of glyphs that you can buy for gold and slot onto any tool or the tools you can buy with karma.  GW2 does very little in the way of actual P2W.  It doesn't have systems of inconvenience to incentivize you to purchase cash shop items (Think if ANet sold a way to make two or more ascended daily crafts for instance), and it doesn't have excessive grinds that can be  made into a reasonable grind by spending money on boosters.  ANet also regularly gives out boosters with birthday rewards, level rewards, and some achievements and there's almost always a way to share some of these with your friends (Gifting them, or just using the communal boost bonfire.)

[KryTiKaL.3125]

2 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

 

How about buying gold?

 

Circumventing grind. You pay cash, now you can buy the things other people grind for. I've made a few legendary weapons, one with the backlog of stuff I saved, one with cash and one with good old fashion gold grind+farming. What do you get from it? A weapon with the best stats that you can freely alter. 

 

I'm not saying is super P2W but it IS an advantage both for upgrade conservation, inventory conservation, effective gear and some of them look cool to boot. Trying to play it off as purely convenience is just delusional.

That is the thing though...it is all convenience. Due to the simple fact that gear has very little value in GW2 compared to most other MMORPGs on the market. Legendary and Ascended gear have the same exact stat values, Legendaries do not have higher stat values than Ascended. I hope you know that. The only thing you gain from going higher in the rarity spectrum on GW2 is more convenience, that is it and that is just in terms of stat swapping. Exotic (Least Convenient) > Ascended (More Convenient) > Legendary (Most Convenient). Stat swapping isn't an advantage, not with how GW2 plays. You think if you roll into WvW and someone bodies you that if you stat swap your gear and then change your build then you're going to then find that person again and win? Because you stat swapped and thats an "advantage"?

 

Now you say completionists consider finishing as winning, however winning implies there was a competition. When you complete a singleplayer game do you go "Hey I finally won Dark Souls" you would get looked at like "Where did you learn english grammar?" So a more accurate word for that would be "beat" or "defeat"; both of those words can also imply competition; beat your opponent, defeat your opponent but they can be used even when no competition exists because they also mean you overcame something. A challenge, a goal, an obstacle, etc. Beat can also mean to circumvent something, which you do say paying circumvents aspects like grinding. So should we change the terminology? Pay To Beat? Pay To Overcome? Pay To Circumvent? Pay To Defeat?

 

Also those things you list, upgrade conservation and inventory conservation, those are not advantages...those are conveniences. Advantage or benefit or bonus aren't even synonyms of the word convenience. They aren't even synonyms of the synonyms of it. Convenience does not inherently infer an advantage, not even in the context of GW2 due to how the game functions. If you consider conserving inventory space an advantage, does that mean buying more slots for bags is P2W? If conserving upgrades from stat swapping gear is an advantage, does that mean the Upgrade Extractor is P2W? As for effective gear, be careful with that...mentioning effective gear means suggesting the meta and the bunch on this game doesn't do well when you suggest to them that they use anything meta. Effective gear is subjective anyway, because well there is a bigger discussion there for "Is there actually any reason to do Raids or Fractals if you don't care about the skins from either of them?" (I include Legendary armor in that) The challenge? There are literally other games for that experience and they do it better, like it or not. Gold? Literally better to either just 1 spam open world grind for that or buy gems and really you're just going to use the gold on skins anyway so...

 

I've already contributed in getting this further bogged down in more semantics and more subjective reasoning, but what it boils down to, in my opinion, is P2W originated as a term to be used when someone pays to get a significant advantage not accessible through any amount of gameplay when playing against other players; but people have unfortunately forced the term to "devolve" into one that somehow encompasses any form of paying for anything because apparently they're competing with everyone for everything at all times. Oh and also "How dare they have a thing that I don't have and they paid for it". Like I said in a previous post, the same ones who will complain about that will probably also complain about someone being able to play more hours a day than they can and how thats "unfair".

 

Much of what I discussed above in this post is the exact reason why people using P2W as wildly and irresponsibly as they have has gotten us to this point. It has lost its meaning, mostly its relevancy, because people can't seem to figure out or decide on a meaning because it means about a thousand different things all at once and different things to so many different people.

 

The shortest version, and again my opinion, it is entitlement, envy and a byproduct of our hypercompetitive society. Most of it anyway.It has become similar to how the "They're hacking" claim has become the "Boy who cried wolf" of the internet because its used the most simply when someone gets killed in a game; "There is no way they killed me, must be hacking. HACKER!"

[Leo G.4501]

30 minutes ago, maddoctor.2738 said:

 

That's why we are on a topic about mmorpgs no need to bring anything else in the discussion. It's an apples to apples comparison of what you can do with 15 a month on two different mmorpgs (or more)

You can rationalize it however you want, then.

 

Paying a subscription to play a game is Pay2Play. Buying things for the game is going to get you in a different category.

 

The only thing you can buy in FF11 is character slots to make more characters. You can also buy the expansions which is Buy2Play.

 

You can keep trying to argue that FF11 is pay2win but I don't have to point out you're reaching hardcore to support that conclusion.

[Leo G.4501]

10 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

That is the thing though...it is all convenience. 

One portion of the definition of P2W involves being sold the solution to your problems. If paying to circumvent grind is considered "convenience", then you're admitting the game implemented intentional grind with money as one solution.

 

And to clarify, you're trying to distinguish between "win" and "beat". You're making a semantics argument. That's fine but I don't really distinguish between the two, especially when I'm talking about PvE and the opponent is the game 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Leo G.4501

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

I gave you the reason why it's not a congruent comparison. You decided to ignore that thus circumvent discussion.

Pay to play is even worse than pay to win. You're asserting you have to pay to "win" at Guild Wars 2 which I still disagree with. You have to pay to even play pay to play games.  

Honestly though, I've never played that game. Is it considered a AAA MMO?   I've played WoW, Rift, Lotro, DDO, Guild Wars 2, Aion, AoC, TSW, Perfect World,  and they're all pay to win by the definition given.

Even if an 18 year old game isn't pay to win, and I have no evidence one way or another, I'd say that it's at least probably out of development. Are they still adding to that game. I really have no idea?

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Applaud the effort but it misses a lot of nuance in an attempt to minimalize a talking point, basically to dismiss it. To really get the big-brain perspective, you have to be willing to see the argument from the position of your opposition.

Yes you definitely are not seeing the argument from the position of your opposition. I agree.

The term pay to win has a negative connotation that prexisted. Even in this thread it is painfully obvious that no one can even agree on what pay to win means but we know for  a fact that to some people it's abysmally negative. No one called Guild Wars 1 or WoW pay to win but by the definitions being thrown around here they are. That term is only applied to this game which some people see as free to play and some people see as buy to play.

 

But even in Wikipedia it says free to play games aren't expected to be completely free or free all the time. Hence, the idea that telling people that the cash shop is not pay to win but you have to buy expansions would solve the vast majority of people's issues. Maybe not yours.

But even the most casual perusal of this thread would let you know that only a small percentage of people think the game is pay to win.

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Are you sure about that?

Of course I'm not sure about it. But we know from polls in the past and online studies in general that that's usually the case for free to play games. A majority of free to play game player bases play nothing and a fairly small percentage of the community pays for everything. I'm not sure which is why I said I'd wager.  It wouldn't be possible to prove unless I worked at Anet.

But I've seen enough comments and polls and run enough guilds with enough people here to believe it. Strong belief is something obviously doesn't make it true. That's why my post was phrased the way it was phrased. I have enough evidence to satisfy myself personally. 

[artharon.9276]

I'm personally ok with the current state of the game but the bar for a game to be declared as p2w is getting lower and lower. these days gamers/critics/youtubers are debating having a flashy gun or sword with different sound, or wearing a cosmetic item with colors that blends with the environment might be p2w.  I don't know how far the war against the microtransactions will go. In 2012, gw2's business model was praised because they dropped monthly sub with a kicka** game, 4 years ago not a single person called this game p2w. Now we have this debate. No matter what you guys say, items like teleporters, level 80 boosts and anything that speeds up the progression will be considered as p2w in the future. Even the simplest stuff like crafting lounges will be considered as p2w and there's little anyone can do about it. 

[Kaizen.3804]

6 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

 

How about buying gold?

 

Circumventing grind. You pay cash, now you can buy the things other people grind for. I've made a few legendary weapons, one with the backlog of stuff I saved, one with cash and one with good old fashion gold grind+farming. What do you get from it? A weapon with the best stats that you can freely alter. 

 

I'm not saying is super P2W but it IS an advantage both for upgrade conservation, inventory conservation, effective gear and some of them look cool to boot. Trying to play it off as purely convenience is just delusional.

Oh wow, you bought gold. Yay. Not like you can buy ascended gear with that. Or Legendary gear. Maybe t1 legendaries, if you're willing to shell out thousands of dollars to convert to gold. Buying gold means nothing. 

 

Your arguments are pitiful and easily picked apart, as they have been for several pages now. Mental Gymnastics at their finest. Do yourself a favor and just stop. 🙂

Edited May 25, 2021 by Keitaro Dragonheart.9047

[Leo G.4501]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Pay to play is even worse than pay to win. You're asserting you have to pay to "win" at Guild Wars 2 which I still disagree with. You have to pay to even play pay to play games.  

Honestly though, I've never played that game. Is it considered a AAA MMO?   I've played WoW, Rift, Lotro, DDO, Guild Wars 2, Aion, AoC, TSW, Perfect World,  and they're all pay to win by the definition given.

Even if an 18 year old game isn't pay to win, and I have no evidence one way or another, I'd say that it's at least probably out of development. Are they still adding to that game. I really have no idea?

 

It was the MMO that is the precursor of the current AAA game FFXIV. Yes, they still release content for it although much of it is balance changes, rotated events and grind items.

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Yes you definitely are not seeing the argument from the position of your opposition. I agree.

The term pay to win has a negative connotation that prexisted. Even in this thread it is painfully obvious that no one can even agree on what pay to win means but we know for  a fact that to some people it's abysmally negative. No one called Guild Wars 1 or WoW pay to win but by the definitions being thrown around here they are. That term is only applied to this game which some people see as free to play and some people see as buy to play.

 

But even in Wikipedia it says free to play games aren't expected to be completely free or free all the time. Hence, the idea that telling people that the cash shop is not pay to win but you have to buy expansions would solve the vast majority of people's issues. Maybe not yours.

But even the most casual perusal of this thread would let you know that only a small percentage of people think the game is pay to win.

Oh I do see the perspective of my opposition. I'm fully aware that P2W has negative connotations. That was nearly the whole premise of my initially posting in this thread to begin with. That the industry has been shifting to not just casualize MMOs but to also force grind but give you a pay-route around it. I'm not even against that, particularly, but moreso emphasizing the negatives these can have over time as certain aspects become baseline. 

 

P2W isn't really a bad word anymore because of what I'm trying to put a billboard around because as much as we try to isolate bad words like "grind" to only pertain to things we disagree with (people will literally say GW2 has no grind because you don't need ascended or legendary).  That is bias and dishonest. People hate on loot boxes now but players were crusading even harder against them 10yrs ago. Very possible, a few years from now, loot boxes will be completely accepted sans maybe a few countries who outlaw them. 

 

From what I've said, it might sound like I'm making a slippery slope argument but I'm more focused on the positives of the term P2W as it enabled players to make the decisions themselves on how they use their time in a saturated entertainment market and if it's regulated properly in the game, it can actually be good.

 

12 minutes ago, Keitaro Dragonheart.9047 said:

Oh wow, you bought gold. Yay. Not like you can buy ascended gear with that. Or Legendary gear. Maybe t1 legendaries, if you're willing to shell out thousands of dollars to convert to gold. Buying gold means nothing. 

 

Your arguments are pitiful and easily picked apart, as they have been for several pages now. Mental Gymnastics at their finest. Do yourself a favor and just stop. 🙂

 

Appreciate it. Toddler debate tactics. Saves me some effort.  

 

So gold means nothing...I don't need to bother 😁

[Vayne.8563]

14 minutes ago, Leo G.4501 said:

 

It was the MMO that is the precursor of the current AAA game FFXIV. Yes, they still release content for it although much of it is balance changes, rotated events and grind items.

Oh I do see the perspective of my opposition. I'm fully aware that P2W has negative connotations. That was nearly the whole premise of my initially posting in this thread to begin with. That the industry has been shifting to not just casualize MMOs but to also force grind but give you a pay-route around it. I'm not even against that, particularly, but moreso emphasizing the negatives these can have over time as certain aspects become baseline. 

 

P2W isn't really a bad word anymore because of what I'm trying to put a billboard around because as much as we try to isolate bad words like "grind" to only pertain to things we disagree with (people will literally say GW2 has no grind because you don't need ascended or legendary).  That is bias and dishonest. People hate on loot boxes now but players were crusading even harder against them 10yrs ago. Very possible, a few years from now, loot boxes will be completely accepted sans maybe a few countries who outlaw them. 

 

From what I've said, it might sound like I'm making a slippery slope argument but I'm more focused on the positives of the term P2W as it enabled players to make the decisions themselves on how they use their time in a saturated entertainment market and if it's regulated properly in the game, it can actually be good.

 

 

Appreciate it. Toddler debate tactics. Saves me some effort.  

 

So gold means nothing...I don't need to bother 😁

Because the vast majority of players will see pay to win as negative, arguing over the  positive aspects will mislead most players. We need another word. You're not going to reframe enough people with what you're saying to not mislead.  That's a language problem that's always existed. It's easier to make a new word than redefine an old one.

As for grind, no one ignores grind exists in this game that I've seen. They're talking about optional grind vs. required grind. Leveling in this game simply isn't a grind. You can get to max level easily and get max armor and weapons even with very little grind compared to most games.  Optional grind was introduced to give people something that want to grind to work for too.

[fixit.7189]

1 hour ago, Keitaro Dragonheart.9047 said:

Oh wow, you bought gold. Yay. Not like you can buy ascended gear with that.

 

uh, you can easily buy all the ascended mats off the bltc to make armors and weapons with gold/RL cash...i know this b/c i made 2 complete sets this week and it literally took me 10 minutes and a few hundred gold to do it: zero farming or grind needed. win?

[KryTiKaL.3125]

4 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

 

It was the MMO that is the precursor of the current AAA game FFXIV. Yes, they still release content for it although much of it is balance changes, rotated events and grind items.

Oh I do see the perspective of my opposition. I'm fully aware that P2W has negative connotations. That was nearly the whole premise of my initially posting in this thread to begin with. That the industry has been shifting to not just casualize MMOs but to also force grind but give you a pay-route around it. I'm not even against that, particularly, but moreso emphasizing the negatives these can have over time as certain aspects become baseline. 

 

P2W isn't really a bad word anymore because of what I'm trying to put a billboard around because as much as we try to isolate bad words like "grind" to only pertain to things we disagree with (people will literally say GW2 has no grind because you don't need ascended or legendary).  That is bias and dishonest. People hate on loot boxes now but players were crusading even harder against them 10yrs ago. Very possible, a few years from now, loot boxes will be completely accepted sans maybe a few countries who outlaw them. 

 

From what I've said, it might sound like I'm making a slippery slope argument but I'm more focused on the positives of the term P2W as it enabled players to make the decisions themselves on how they use their time in a saturated entertainment market and if it's regulated properly in the game, it can actually be good.

 

 

Appreciate it. Toddler debate tactics. Saves me some effort.  

 

So gold means nothing...I don't need to bother 😁

 

I mean...yes P2W is still a negative term and there is still a lot of negativity surrounding it. Thats why people started to incorporate "Pay For Convenience" into the phrases being applied to cash shops because that was more appropriate and accurate to what was being offered. Thats sort of how Buy To Play came about because you could still associate Pay To Play with subscription based MMORPGs and it still is.

 

You're essentially trying to re-frame and reshape how a word or term or phrase is perceived and that is not going to happen, especially because you're doing it for the purposes of arguing your own point of view and proving it. Realistically that is just not going to happen, you are not going to change how people perceive the term which is exactly why, like I said above, something like Pay For Convenience started being used. Yet as per some of your previous posts I imagine you will still try to argue that Convenience items = gaining advantage therefore from your perspective PayForConvenience = P2W apparently.

 

😬

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, fixit.7189 said:

 

uh, you can easily buy all the ascended mats off the bltc to make armors and weapons with gold/RL cash...i know this b/c i made 2 complete sets this week and it literally took me 10 minutes and a few hundred gold to do it: zero farming or grind needed. win?

What did you win?

[kharmin.7683]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

What did you win?

I keep asking but no one seems to be able to answer this very simple question.  Good luck!

[Veprovina.4876]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I keep asking but no one seems to be able to answer this very simple question.  Good luck!

And no one ever will. Because every p2w argument i read in this thread is trying so hard to bend reality that it's kind of hilarious. Suddenly the p2w definition is up for everyone's interpretation and then everything is p2w "because i feel like it is". Doesn't matter you're not getting a competitive advantage or anything, it's the feelings. According to some of the "definitions" in this thread, single player games are pay to win because you have to buy them to play them. 🤣

 

I'll just re-post this here... 🤣

This is basically the level of arguments in this thread.

On 5/23/2021 at 7:23 PM, Veprovina.4876 said:

Some of the things i observed reading this thread:

 

1. Buying the full game when the game has what basically ammounts to a huge free demo is pay to win.

2. You can win at fashion wars (even though fashion wars is a play on words on Guild Wars and has nothing to do with competition or battle), but only if you buy something from the gem shop with real money. You can't possibly win fashion wars by having your character look the way YOU want and that being the starter armor. You also apparently can't convert gold to gems and get something from the shop that way.

3. Convenience is winning.

4. Pay to win means i'm jelous someone else has more shiny stuff than me so they won and i lost and this game is pay to win because the shinier player paid for their shiny. You still can't convert gold to gems and get that exact shiny.

5. Every business practice in the game shop i don't agree with is pay to win.

6. You win by avoiding gameplay.

7. You win by having the exact same gear strength as everyone else. But only if you bought gold with gems to have that gear sooner.

8. You win by having a full game in PvP where everyone's equipment is standardized and the only difference between 2 people of the same exact build is someone's skill. But you won by having 2 extra build choices.

9. You can't complete the game and play the endgame content if you haven't bought a skin in the cash shop.

10. Winning is everything. Enjoying the game at your pace means you're a loser.

 

This thread is hilarious, please don't let it die! 😅

[alcopaul.2156]

23 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

If you're replying to me, then no, it's not having the top tier shiny stuff, it's finishing. Finishing can pertain to a lot of things and winning doesn't mean someone loses. Finishing could be map completion, it could be story completion, it could be legendary crafting or finally obtaining your griffin mount. Some of those activities require gold which would otherwise require grind. Buying the gold to pay to finish (since you're traumatized by saying "win") falls under this discussion. I'm sorry if you disagree.

but if you have the full game and logged consistently for all the living story for your account to be activated, then there is no way that the pay2win concept apply to that (unless you hibernated for a long time and logged and found out that a living story costs gems to activate). you play at your own pace. you don't need to pay someone to help you to finish an instance. you could just do only wvwvw or pvp and do some pve if you feel like it.. but if say if you want a chak infusion asap just to keep up with the rich players in game, you have to pay for gems to get the chak infusion costing 9500 gold. and by normal playing, how many weeks does it takes for someone to get 9500 gold?

[Leo G.4501]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:07 PM, Vayne.8563 said:

Because the vast majority of players will see pay to win as negative, arguing over the  positive aspects will mislead most players. We need another word. You're not going to reframe enough people with what you're saying to not mislead.  That's a language problem that's always existed. It's easier to make a new word than redefine an old one.

As for grind, no one ignores grind exists in this game that I've seen. They're talking about optional grind vs. required grind. Leveling in this game simply isn't a grind. You can get to max level easily and get max armor and weapons even with very little grind compared to most games.  Optional grind was introduced to give people something that want to grind to work for too.

 

The other spectrum is broadening terms.  Pay to play has broadened into various aspects of monetization like Buy to Play and Pay to Play because there are CLEAR defining terms for Buy to Play but that doesn't remove it from the broad category of Pay to play.

 

You may think it's misleading to rephrase a word but others see it as misleading to obfuscate the aspects held behind a price.

 

On 5/25/2021 at 10:10 PM, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

 

I mean...yes P2W is still a negative term and there is still a lot of negativity surrounding it. Thats why people started to incorporate "Pay For Convenience" into the phrases being applied to cash shops because that was more appropriate and accurate to what was being offered. Thats sort of how Buy To Play came about because you could still associate Pay To Play with subscription based MMORPGs and it still is.

 

You're essentially trying to re-frame and reshape how a word or term or phrase is perceived and that is not going to happen, especially because you're doing it for the purposes of arguing your own point of view and proving it. Realistically that is just not going to happen, you are not going to change how people perceive the term which is exactly why, like I said above, something like Pay For Convenience started being used. Yet as per some of your previous posts I imagine you will still try to argue that Convenience items = gaining advantage therefore from your perspective PayForConvenience = P2W apparently.

 

😬

 

Pay for Convenience is mostly a sugar coat.  It's still Buy to Play or Pay to Play in spirit but if you try to game the free aspect, it becomes Pay to Win.  It ultimately becomes a war of perspectives but I prefer to focus on the gold-to-gems aspect instead which can certainly buy you certain luxuries that can be obtainable with grind OR cash.  

 

On 5/25/2021 at 11:53 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

What did you win?

 

Getting closer to the end without the hours of fluff.

 

On 5/26/2021 at 8:21 AM, Veprovina.4876 said:

And no one ever will. Because every p2w argument i read in this thread is trying so hard to bend reality that it's kind of hilarious. Suddenly the p2w definition is up for everyone's interpretation and then everything is p2w "because i feel like it is". Doesn't matter you're not getting a competitive advantage or anything, it's the feelings. According to some of the "definitions" in this thread, single player games are pay to win because you have to buy them to play them. 🤣

 

I'll just re-post this here... 🤣

This is basically the level of arguments in this thread.

 

You actually think people are bending reality?  It doesn't even have to go that hard.  The moment you start bending people's wallets, the whole situation changes.  Luckily, GW2 doesn't do that too hard but when you start looking at needing 250 materials for 15 materials + 150 gold to buy items from NPCs for specific goals, the opportunity to get that completely satiated with a swipe of a card certainly could fix a lot of problems.  

 

On 5/26/2021 at 12:14 PM, alcopaul.2156 said:

but if you have the full game and logged consistently for all the living story for your account to be activated, then there is no way that the pay2win concept apply to that (unless you hibernated for a long time and logged and found out that a living story costs gems to activate). you play at your own pace. you don't need to pay someone to help you to finish an instance. you could just do only wvwvw or pvp and do some pve if you feel like it.. but if say if you want a chak infusion asap just to keep up with the rich players in game, you have to pay for gems to get the chak infusion costing 9500 gold. and by normal playing, how many weeks does it takes for someone to get 9500 gold?

 

First of all, some people don't have the opportunity to log in for all living story releases.  Some of us get deployed or are unable to access luxuries like internet or MMOs for weeks on end.  Secondly, no one is even asking to be granted those benefits in the first place.  Those should be seen as BENEFITS to the dedicated and nothing else.  When you start talking cash or gems, that is a whole other ballpark.  "Playing at your own pace" comes with the stipulation that it likely has gates lined with gold that can be overcome with cash.  If you are blind to that, then by all means, tell new players that you can get everything by just buying the base game and nothing else.

[cloudsareyum.8120]

Nope!

 

last I checked, in pvp, base mesmers, and base rangers, and other base classes are HELLA strong, you just need to know how to play them!  you can also do a -huge- amount of damage output with good traitlines on free to play classes.  Also no one asks for specific builds on fractals until cms, so any high damage you can live with it build is fine.  Base warriors and other classes do great on world bosses and buffing others too.  I think some content is explicitly p2p, like raids, and those are the ones who may ask for more expacs.  All of central tyria is open to you and great, base mesmers and thieves have portals for doing jumping puzzles.  Free to play in this game for me wasn't limited at all besides the map chat (which I think they may have updated) and trading post (but I'm not sure, maybe it's updated now so ftp players can use it? It really felt like a 'full game'.     As ftp you can pvp which gives you a ton of gold, and just the regular amount of gold you get playing the game will suffice for any kind of regular game playing things.  As P2P you can turn gold into gems for extra cosmetic shinies, and that would be for me the main draw of getting a lot of gold, so it wouldn't be something as a ftp player would be applicable anyway.  Most of the gem store items either give some useful resources or are cosmetics, they aren't really gameplay buffers.  I do not know of an item on the gem store that has a significant actual -gameplay- impact besides 'helping someone acquire materials faster'/convenience/happiness. (they have some items where you can teleport to pretty crafting hubs, like a fancy version of pocket lion's arch).  Good Meta equipment is FTP available; there are a few extra stats the expacs give you but they are more for raids, which require p2p *anyway*, so they wouldn't apply, and you can complete all the ftp game content with FTP stats.  (like, most of the popular stat combos except for specialized roles are FTP anyway 😃 )   You can do all the high level content as ftp and be as useful as as p2p, there are some classes which are better at buffing others than others as a ftp.   Fractal cms while people do tend to ask for specific classes that require expac, I think there is some small demand for specific ftp classes that do buffing as well, and I know people who still complete the content without the 'in demand' expac classes and handle the content well.

 

And I'm pretty sure that as ftp, they didn't list P2P achievements on my achievement panel, so yeah.  Completion style should be ftp friendly as well.

 

  I pretty much only got the expacs because I wanted gliding and flying around on a DRAGON and I had played the game already and loved it as a ftp player for quite a while (a few years maybe!).  Even with expacs, I just adore central tyria and spend most of my time there.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

my bias for this particular reply is that I'm assuming you're asking this as a player who hasn't really gone into the super high level content yet and wondering specifically whether you need to pay with $$ to enjoy the game/gameplay wise will be always a second class citizen compared to expac holders in terms of damage and mechanics.  I was not taking into account whether this questions was more meant to be an actual discussion on whether it's P2W, and I'm using the common-newbie-question typical definition of P2W - aka, pay to do high level content, have decent damage, important things you need to do high level fights etc.   This reply is not my opinion as to whether it fits my subjective, personal definition of pay to win or not, only the typical definition as commonly asked by new players or players who haven't really gotten into the game yet.  I have not taken 'gold amount value' competitiveness into account either (which $$$ really does matter), or alternate 'win' definitions besides gameplay and firepower, because the former in my experience was utterly inconsequential as a ftp, and I am or was assuming this is a genuine question from someone who hasn't really messed around with high level content yet as a ftp and is wondering whether it's worth investing time or they'll just be stuck always behind the p2p people-- that was something i -did- experience as a ftp and only later after I Got Good did I realize that while back then it was true, in this current game environment it really isn't.   In pvp my base mesmer is -scary-, and so is my base ranger, and they are similarly scary at a similar level to my expac classes, *and* I'm wary of certain specific base-classes opponents.  ( i would say base necro and base thief, base engi, base warrior, guard have a little less utility than their expacs, but they are still scary if traited and played well. one of base warrior's most useful duely expac, for me gameplay wise merely gives me one extra skill, if i see base warrior, they're still going to mess me up  if i'm not careful since 99% of their dueling skills are still from base warrior).  So my experience at least a year ago in pvp is that the base classes and expacs were pretty much even in threat level. base necro does have a signicant gap in fright power from its expacs, but it's still very scary, and altho base thief has more utility from expacs, i still am wary of a base thief.  Tho, base mesmers and base rangers are particularly strong base classes imo and are among the scary classes for pvp.  If you're a ftp wondering about the same thing I did back then, hope this can help.  (boons and mechanics, they got fiiirepower).

Edited May 30, 2021 by cloudsareyum.8120