WOW- Now pay to win?

[vashe9]

The whole corruption system is just so stupid anyway. It feels even more random than before

[Raelbo]

This isn't what P2W is, people make this same mistake when talking about it in HS. If 2 people of equal skill compete, one spent money, the other didn't, does the person who spent money have an advantage? If yes, that's the literal definition of what P2W is, they paid to get an edge.

If I have 10M gold and you have 10M gold, does the ability to buy more gold with a token make any difference? Absolutely not.

That's why tokens are not p2w. Having gold is important, yes. But spending real money to get it is not.

It doesn't matter if cheap decks can get legend or if people who don't spend money can clear mythic, spending money gives you a competitive advantage.

It's only a competitive advantage if getting the gold without tokens is unreasonably difficult.

That aside, if it was truly only about being the best, why did Method and Limit go massively in debt for 8.2 and 8.3 respectively, when they rolled around?

That's a very good question indeed. Why did they go into gold debt if WoW is p2w? If WoW was p2w then surely they would have just spent $$ and avoided that gold debt.

(on the question you actually wanted to ask, yes, gear does matter)

Great point, except that from Vanilla to around mid-Cataclysm (IIRC) in-game currency was obtained from in-game activities. So if you bought that BoE, you still earned it by farming mats, crafting,... Ever since they sold that BoE lion pet and later on in WoD, started selling actual gold, did you credit card net you a power advantage.

1) In-game currency is still obtained in-game. The difference now is that you can buy it from other players (using Blizzard as the intermediary).
2) Obtaining gold via credit card is never, nor has ever, been necessary. You can obtain it just fine in-game for a reasonable amount of effort.

Honestly, if you find yourself needing to resort to your credit card in order to get enough gold to be competitive, it was never a lack of gold holding you back....

[Eurhetemec]

That's a really weird definition of pay-to-win considering most people define pay-to-win as "getting an advantage by investing money" or simply "having purchasable things that are not cosmetic".
It seems like you willingly defined pay-to-win in a way that would specifically exclude WoW from this definition.

No.

His definition is the one that's been used for what, 10 years or more? Ie meaning games designed specifically around the player buying the ability to win, usually mobile games or Asian grinder MMOs.

In the last three-four years people have been trying to expand it so that it covers literally any advantage, no matter how tangential, that you can gain by paying money. That's fine but it is a change. No-one seriously called paying for server xfers or the like P2W in, say, 2010, even though people gained advantage by paying money. Now they do immediately.

[Nerovar]

No.

His definition is the one that's been used for what, 10 years or more? Ie meaning games designed specifically around the player buying the ability to win, usually mobile games or Asian grinder MMOs.

In the last three-four years people have been trying to expand it so that it covers literally any advantage, no matter how tangential, that you can gain by paying money. That's fine but it is a change. No-one seriously called paying for server xfers or the like P2W in, say, 2010, even though people gained advantage by paying money. Now they do immediately.

First of all, "pay-to-win" is not something that you're going to find in a dictionary. People have been using the term to describe different things since "pay-to-win" elements first came up but this tells us nothing about the utility of those definitions. Secondly, there obviously are degrees. Technically, buying the new expansion raises your level cap and gives you access to gear you would otherwise not have but no one would call that pay to win. It really comes down to how it affects the game though, doesn't it? If you can only compete at a really high level by spending thousands of dollars worth of gold on BoEs then it incentivizes putting additional money into the game. If a single purchase can boost your performance by 10, 20 or even 30% then it seems to me that the game creates an unhealthy incentive for people who have the spare cash (I actually know several people who spent real money at the start of the expansion in order to buy darkmoon decks (though they were considerably cheaper and had less of an impact)).

[Dystemper]

Personally I see this Corruption system, BOE issue as being a test run for Future Blizzard mobile games

[justandulas]

You could always buy BOEs for money, so either wow has always been p2w or never.

Wow didn’t use to sell gold tho, which is what makes it pay to win. When they sell the supply, and control the demand, and it gives you power in game.., that is called pay to win

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Personally I see this Corruption system, BOE issue as being a test run for Future Blizzard mobile games

They’re open that they have the very best of blizzard working on a wow mobile phone game

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Why don't you click on the link upthread, read all the info, and then come back to this, eh? You keep talking about "3rd party guesses" but you literally, I really mean literally do not know what you are talking about. Go read and your ignorance in this issue.

Token sales are trending downwards. There's just no way they're part of this. Even if we bought your less players buying more tokens theory, we'd see a spike at the right time. There was none.

So all you got is personal attacks. Noted.

[Enclave]

You could always buy BOEs for money, so either wow has always been p2w or never.

You could buy gold for irl money before wod? thanks for letting me know

[Low Hanging Fruit]

While there is a certain capacity for exchanging between them, it's fairly limited in practical terms. For a start, there is a limit to how many tokens an individual can buy (20 per week), but more than that, in order to get your gold, you need to put it on the market and sell it for gold, which requires that other players buy them.

The important implication of this is that it is impossible for a significant portion of the player base to convert significant amounts of cash into gold. In short, the system works fine when used for small things, but breaks down when it comes to big things.

For example: Everything works fine if ~10% of the playerbase using tokens to buy themselves 200k gold every month to pay for consumables and repairs that other players make simply by playing. Or if ~1% of the playerbase uses tokens to buy themselves a 2M BoE.

But as soon as the playerbase starts trying to demand more gold than that, it starts to affect the system. The gold price of tokens drops, thus increasing the amount you need to spend to get to your required target. In practice, an equilibrium will be reached, because the $$ cost of buying gold simply becomes untennable.

There, in reality, no, gold and $$ are not completely interchangeable.



I would argue that if you took tokens out of the equation entirely, nothing would change. Top guilds would still spend a fortune on BoEs and then still recoup their losses by selling gold runs.

20 tokens per week is insane. I get that it is a limit. But that is a high limit. Consider you might have people with 2-3 accounts on top of that. That can be 60 tokens if they have 3 for example. Then you have whole guilds that can be participating. Fandoms. Its a lot a tokens that could be floated.

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I would argue that if you took tokens out of the equation entirely, nothing would change. Top guilds would still spend a fortune on BoEs and then still recoup their losses by selling gold runs.

I am not saying it would really change anything. In fact I believe it would stay the same. That paying to win would still be a thing. Just the mode of how would shift.

I want to be clear though I don't think this is a widespread problem. In fact, I think it is pretty small. You have to be willing to spend insane amounts of money across several people consistently to really make it work. This is not even close to a big minority of players. It is an insanely low number. But that doesn't change the fact that the option is available is all I am trying to say. Most people will never really know what it is like to PTW.

[PenguinChan]

You could buy gold for irl money before wod? thanks for letting me know

Yeah, they're called gold sellers. Blizzard just introduced a safe way of doing it AND through them.

[TheFirstOnes]

Just grind for the gear, christ.

[Vynestra]

what are you winning?

You can have 3 boes from the ah w/ best corruptions and it still doesnt let you walk in and 1 shot M nzoth.

Theres no "winning" from the paying here, it just makes you do more dps, which you can also just play to get via m+ - therefor its not pay to win.

You can also just buy the boes w/ ingame gold.

Pay to win would be if you could pay for an advantage others cant get - everyone can get it. Most people who have millions of gold have never bought a wow token w/ irl money, your argument is fucking shit.

[SirCowdog]

fair point, IF the expert is impartial, which a content creator making money from it simply cant be...
i dont know Preach so i wont judge him, but majority of content creators bent with the "wind" and do content people will like, which sadly in most cases is whining, ranting or complaining...

Then watch the video and consider the points being made! Dismissing them without even hearing them is worse than ignorant.

I said it before, but I'll clarify. I don't like Preach in a general sense. But I recognize that this particular video is bereft of the sensational bullshit that you seem to be referring to. It's not a pitch to make money. It's not full of hyperbole. It's just a guy who plays at the high end of the game expressing his opinions on the effects of corrupted gear from an educated and experienced perspective.

[TrollHunter3000]

Manno it was over 500, I remember it clearly as I was usually buying about 100-200 for around 50 depending on sales.

You were getting ripped off then.

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I don't really understand why you think it's anywhere near being "pay to win" with the amount needed vs time spent.

When I think "pay to win" I think of crappy mobile games or your every day EA shooter game where if you want some of the best guns easily, you simply buy them (or spend a few dollars on loot boxes). This is opposed to spending time to play the game to get whatever you want. Also, in those "pay to win" games, you usually only need guns or a couple pieces of gear/armor - nowhere near the amount needed to be considered "geared" in WoW.

In many games you can either spend a bit of money to get something good, or spend a ton of time, so players are more incentivized to spend the quick $10 for a gun. That's absolutely not the case in WoW, where it's easier to spend a few minutes in an assault or vision (or spend more time in a raid) to get good gear, instead of hundreds/thousands of dollars. It's just not the same situation, and the person spending thousands of dollars isn't "winning" more than the person that spent a couple hours in a raid.

It's a matter of ease. Sure, you can "win" by spending thousands of dollars to deck yourself out, but that's absolutely not the same category as paying $10 for a single gun. The token and AH are not designed to be the exact same thing as a "pay to win" game in the slightest. No one's spending thousands of dollars to get the best gear in WoW for one patch, so it's an imaginary "problem" posed by the OP as well.

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Well, you're welcome to do so, but it just sounds like you don't like the game anyway, so maybe it's time for a break. You could either spend thousands of dollars to get a few pieces of gear to feel better, or you could spend a fraction of that and get, y'know, Animal Crossing or something in a month and take a breather.

This just Olympics level mental gymnastics where you're essentially agreeing but arguing somehow that you don't.

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Not really P2W

genius argument

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i have rank 3 twilight devastation ring which makes 9% of my dmg IN TANK SPEC (as its based on hp)
for dps its under 5%, and i cant possibly equip other corrupted items with it, so if i equip my better stat ring and corrupted +% of mastery and crit items it increase my dps more...

eh, why do i even bother with moron like you who just pull a number of his ass without actualy checking it in game... wellcome to ignore

If it's only 9% of your damage, you may be facing the wrong direction.

[Sinfelle]

No it’s not pay to win. Blizzard isn’t selling any items. You could at most buy two BoE’s out of a total of 15-16 total slots. There’s always nothing preventing you from also getting these items. The people who bought them did not generate them by buying a WoW token. They still have to drop, the seller has to offer it for trade, and you’d have to be the one that bought it. These items are not exclusive to those who buy tokens. I’d venture to say most of them are not owned by those who buy tokens.

My guild has plenty of them, either because they dropped for us, or we bought them off the AH with guild we’ve earned in game.

Sure they are a nice little bump in dps but they are in no way necessary or required to progress through mythic. They are really just an alternate gearing method on the road to BiS. Do I think they should be able to corrupt? Nope. But it’s not game breaking. They’ll be pretty worthless in an month or so.

Also I could give any LFR hero my decked out toons and they wouldn’t be able to do shit with them. Further washing away this notion of p2w. Blizzard does not sell power advantages. The server economy does.

[TrollHunter3000]

No, that is not the definition of p2w. It's your definition, and it's a pretty poor one, especially if the argument is that you're trying to prove that tokens are some kind of problem.

As I already said, a far better definition of p2w is that you are required to pay in order to win.



Sure. But the significance of this fact is directly proportional to how many actually do.

No where ever does anyone ever say the definition of pay to win means you are required to pay to win. Except you.

[Nerovar]

what are you winning?

You can have 3 boes from the ah w/ best corruptions and it still doesnt let you walk in and 1 shot M nzoth.

Theres no "winning" from the paying here, it just makes you do more dps, which you can also just play to get via m+ - therefor its not pay to win.

You can also just buy the boes w/ ingame gold.

Pay to win would be if you could pay for an advantage others cant get - everyone can get it. Most people who have millions of gold have never bought a wow token w/ irl money, your argument is fucking shit.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be. "Winning" in WoW can mean different things. If you're a hardcore PvE player it probably means Mythic progress. If you're a hardcore PvP player it probably means getting rank 1. For most players this is not what "winning the game" means to them. Some people may consider topping the DPS meters or DPS leaderboards in PvP "winning". Some people consider progressing your character and having really good gear "winning". The term "winning" is highly ambiguous in WoW but it is pretty much always tied to the power of your character. The fact that you're ignoring this in order to obfuscate the core of the debate just makes you look like you're arguing in bad faith.

So p2w also implies the currency must be sold by the company who made the game?

Because before Blizzard introduced the token, you could already pay real money to goldsellers, thus get gold and buy gear from AH.

Blizzard allows ppl to exchange gold and real money for Tokens and vice versa = P2W
Third party sells gold for real money = NOT P2W?

Seriously?

You don't see the difference between doing something legally and doing something illegally?

[TrollHunter3000]

Technically, according to that definition it is NOT p2w. Because it fails to meet the criterion of making the making game unbalanced for people who don't spend $$.

Except it is unbalanced. Either in terms of the time someone not spending money has to invest to get the same level of gear or the damage output if they don't spend that extra amount of time. Some people still haven't gotten a decent piece of corruption gear and it's been over a month of farming mythic raids, mythic+ and pvp.

[Sinfelle]

Except it is unbalanced. Either in terms of the time someone not spending money has to invest to get the same level of gear or the damage output if they don't spend that extra amount of time. Some people still haven't gotten a decent piece of corruption gear and it's been over a month of farming mythic raids, mythic+ and pvp.

What guarantee do you have that you’ll get a leet boe if you buy tokens? None. They have to drop, they have to be sold, and you have to buy it first. Not p2w, that’s server economy. Sit down junior.

[SirCowdog]

no, thats just basic economy, im accountant so let me explain it to you: when there is higher demand for something (in this case token) supply have to accomodate it, and its not immediate change, it takes some time, even if its only single day, it shows as spike in price, even if the price actualy ends on the same spot it started on, there is visible movement, there hasnt been visible movement on token price, hence there was not any significant movement on either supply or demand of tokens

sure, there are some people who bought tokens for the gear who wouldnt buy the token otherwise, but from the prcie movement we KNOW that it was so few of them it have zero impact on token price, so yes, there were some, but very few (this will be just assumption based on experience, but when there was no significant movement i would put the amount of token sold might increase by up to 1%)

I think you're basing that on the assumption that corruption gear is the sole, or even the primary thing, influencing the token price. In such a closed system with only the token and corrupted gear, I think what you're saying is accurate. But there are many more factors(most of which we don't have the data on) influencing the price of the token. I outlined some possible reasons in a previous post.

Basically I think that there was an increased demand for gold caused by the availability of powerful corrupted BOE gear. I think that you, being an accountant versed in "basic economy', can agree that such a valuable commodity being available would cause a spike in demand. Whether or not that was actually refelcted in the price of the wow token is not something we can actually determine without more accurate and detailed information about EVERYTHING that impacts the price, not just corrupted gear.