FUT inhibits your ability to have a very strong team (progress) by keeping the best players behind packs, which give random rewards. Packs are also tiered, such that many of the best players come out of increasingly expensive or special packs. The odds for getting the cards that players want is incredibly low. This article puts it clearly into perspective: Putting EA's claim "you can acquire all items without spending money" in FIFA Ultimate Team to the test
This is nothing like WoW. You need a very literal amount of XP to level and generally speaking, that doesn't really change. You can clearly and easily predetermine your route to getting to 58, 60, 70, etc. WoW isn't taking any steps to actively slow you down, it's not asking you to open a chest to for a 1/100 chance to level up. You just get the required xp and you level.
The baseline for me is, games like Clash and FUT actively create artificial barriers to your progress, be it recharging energy that you can bypass with money, progression based loot boxes with horrendous drop rates that you can circumvent by paying enough money, or equipment. They have gone out of their way to create a problem just so they can sell you the solution, over and over again. This creates whales who have paid to get so far ahead of those who aren't paying that they are typically beyond reach of non-paying players.
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Trion was selling gear in the Rift store well before they sold the game off to some random dev to let them milk it a bit more. They were also selling you progress for their various Legendary/Artifact quests so you could skip some of the grind. Heck, Trion even did their own "Classic" (Rift Prime) before Classic WoW was a thing, and one of the main selling points was no cash shop.
Black Desert Online is another major MMO that's heavily P2W. I'm not sure what it's like now, but when I tried it, I don't recall directly selling gear, but the shop sold you the ways to get the gear without having to grind (think selling you the components needed to craft gear).
Last edited by themaster24; 2021-07-02 at 10:50 AM.
The problem with this definition is it's simplicity makes it useless, buying a new skin in a game is considered the same as buying items that grant invincibility or allow you to do double damage.
Mechwarrior Online allows you to save up for Battlemechs using in-game cash. You can also buy MWCredits with real money to get them. There are Champion Mechs you can only get with real money that give you a bonus to cash and XP grinding. There are also Hero Mechs with the same bonuses as Champions as well as unique configurations that can potentially make the Mech best in class.
So what is pay-2-win here? Personally I think that paying to skip the grind for a new Mech isn't an issue, if someone has more spare cash than time they can swap one for the other no problem. The Champion Mechs are a different issue, you definitely get an advantage but it really only reduces grind so to me it's more like paying for convenience.
The Hero Mechs are another matter altogether. While the devs have done a good job of mostly making sure they are quirky without being OP, but with a constantly shifting meta one could easily end up top-dog which I would consider a pay-2-win Mech.
On the other hand you would consider all the options to be pay-2-win regardless of whether it increases your in-game performance. It just seems silly to distort a phrase to remove any sort of nuance, but then again we live in a world where people use the word "literally" to mean its opposite and then have nothing to use when they are being literal.
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Can you unlock all the players in FIFA without paying any real cash? How many hours of play would it take an average player, is the time shorter for a skilled player?
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Yeah it's mostly browser, mobile and indie based stuff that lets you buy your way to victory, pay-2-win doesn't have a strong presence in AAA or AA development.
Old examples I can think of from the top of my head are RIFT selling extra gear slots and World of Tanks gold (armour piercing) ammo.
Because most people going into TBC are already leveled in Classic? Think, Kralljin. Think.
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This is 100% what I think when I think "P2W" in a MMO. Hell, even Wildstar had a cash shop like this at the end. WoW has never had a cash shop for gear or attunements or items beyond cosmetics or "boost to the level of the new xpac so I can play with friends" powers.
Heck, one large segment of the cosmetics: gender swapping is now built into the game.
Last edited by Kralljin; 2021-07-02 at 08:05 PM.
You said leveling cannot be bypassed unless you purchase the boost, hence it's part of TBC.
If it wasn't part of TBC, you could bypass it without purchasing anything outside of a sub.
I don't know, i'm not the one that randomnly throws in "it's not pay to win" in there like some mantra.
It doesn't help that you're one of three or four posters in this thread who seem to want to challenge anybody who dares have an interpretation of the concept of Pay2Win that doesn't 100% line up with what you think it means. It's the same semantic argument copied and pasted ad infinitum.