Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Charge me Doctor]

Actually, you CAN farm it in game now because you can buy a game token with gold. But it's clear you will do mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging the game has blatant p2w elements.

You can't buy token with gold from blizzard, you're buying it from other players on AH, blizzard don't take your gold as payment, it's an anti-inflation gold sink

[Ivanstone]

Paying for a level boost is literally an advantage over someone NOT spending the $60 so therefore it's a p2w feature.

It’s not an advantage because you have deprived yourself of playing the game. If the level boost came with a permanent statistical advantage then you would have an argument.

[Lolites]

Are you absolutely certain it's the same person? It's very easy to divide people into sides and assume a critic of FFXIV will also be a "defender" of WoW, lump two different sets of opinions together and assume that one person will hold both those opinions.

to me it seems quite oposite, that people who think wow is p2w somehow think ff is not despite having the same feature...
its pointless to argue, if people want to shit on game bcs they personaly dont like it they will find reason, even make some up
like a saying in my country goes: "who wants to beat the dog will find the stick"

[Dhrizzle]

Actually, you CAN farm it in game now because you can buy a game token with gold. But it's clear you will do mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging the game has blatant p2w elements.

Or some of us are aware of games that have mechanics where paying cash gives players a level of power that can not be matched by non-paying players and understand that this is what constitutes being "pay-2-win."

There are games that let you pay-4-power, there are games that let you pay-2-skip and games that let you pay-4-convenience and it is perfectly fine for you to think those things are bad and wrong. But deciding to lump them all under "pay-2-win" just because you like the emotional impact of the phrase despite it already having a distinct definition just robs nuance from the conversation.

An example I mentioned earlier in this thread is Mechwarrior Online. The game lets you buy Battlemechs for either C-Bills (ingame currency) or MC (currency bought with IRL money.) Nobody really had a problem with this, the grind for a new 'mech wasn't really hard and being able to buy one for cash was seen as a decent way to skip a grind and monetise the game. They also had pay-4-convenience mechanics like extra slots to store additional 'mechs and timed boosts to cash/XP grinds. Again not many people had an issue with these.

Added to this were the Hero Mechs. These came with a built in cash boost for grinding which again was seen as a convenience thing. However they also allowed for unique loadouts which is where things started getting a little hazy. For the most part the 'mechs were quirky and fun, allowing you to play in a slightly unique style. For the most part they weren't overpowered though and players could get similar results from other chassis. The Yen-Lo-Wang Centurion didn't have an advantage over Hunchbacks for example, and the Ilya Muramets I considered the worst of the Cataphract variants and I'd go out of my way to take them down for an easy kill (pay-2-lose mechanics.) Others however like the Boar's Head Atlas excelled in the niche they filled and there were grumbles that it was a pay-2-win 'mech. When the devs got their shit together 'mechs like these started to be tweaked to be more in line with other variants of the same chassis, though some Hero 'mechs still tend to be dominant on the field.

Another thing that came up was consumable items, things like cool-shots (let you cool your 'mech down and shoot more) and artillery/air-strikes (area denial/armour stripping/core finishing items.) Originally the idea was for you to buy packs of these with real money while c-bills only getting you an inferior version. This was obviously pay-2-win and the community firmly rejected it. So the devs made some changes and after jumping through a few hoops a non-paying player could get consumables on the same level as someone who's buying them for cash.

Then came the Clans. For those not familiar with Battletech lore the Clans are warriors from beyond the Inner Sphere (the main space civilisation) who managed to better maintain the ancient tech of the now-gone precursor empire. This means clan-tech is simply better in almost every way than that of the Inner Sphere and while the devs did have some ideas to balance the two differing groups for a long time the clans had a significant edge. Add to that each battle was Clans vs. Inner Sphere and there was no way of buying Clan mechs without using real cash and the game not only featured blatant p2w 'mechs it was also a full on p2w games as pretty much the only way to get a victory, especially for PuGgers, was to shell out the cash to get the better 'mech and a place on the winning team.

Since then clan mechs have become available for c-bills and the game has had a lot of things added on to it including additional IS tech and most mechs now have a series of quirks that puts them closer together in terms of competitiveness. It isn't perfect and there may be grumblings about some best-in-class Hero 'mechs still being p2w but that isn't the perception of the game as a whole.

As a whole the game threaded (not always successfully) the differences between paying-2-skip, paying-4-convenience, paying-4-power and paying-2-win, but the nuances are completely lost if you declare any in-game enhancement bought for cash to be pay-2-win. That hero 'mech with a special setup that allows it to core any other in one shot while being immune to damage? No different to paying for a 'mech that anyone can grind in a couple of hours, or an XP boost that lasts 24 hours. No-one would be able to discuss whether a particular 'mech or mechanic is going too far because the phrase used for "going too far" has been stretched to cover practically every MTX in the game.

[Ivanstone]

Viewing it as "pay to lose" is nothing more than avoiding calling WoW p2w. Also, there are pets on the WoW shop that are much stronger than others. Lil Ragnaros is one of the most powerful minipets in the game last I checked. So all you're doing is peeling back the curtains to help reveal even MORE reasons WoW is p2w.

Lil Rags is a pretty good pet. I just checked all the Rematch teams I use him on and discovered that I just use him as a generic elemental against generic mechanicals.

Twilight is a better pet that's shop only but anyone with a wowcoin can get it. Its how I got it. Come to think of it I haven't payed real money for a game expansion since the coin was introduced.

[TheRevenantHero]

You can't buy token with gold from blizzard, you're buying it from other players on AH, blizzard don't take your gold as payment, it's an anti-inflation gold sink

It's pretty much the same thing. You claimed you can't buy WoW time with anything but real money but that's 100% false.

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It’s not an advantage because you have deprived yourself of playing the game. If the level boost came with a permanent statistical advantage then you would have an argument.

As others have done, you are just trying to redefine what the word "advantage" means to avoid saying WoW is p2w.

[Dhrizzle]

Lil Rags is a pretty good pet. I just checked all the Rematch teams I use him on and discovered that I just use him as a generic elemental against generic mechanicals.

Twilight is a better pet that's shop only but anyone with a wowcoin can get it. Its how I got it. Come to think of it I haven't payed real money for a game expansion since the coin was introduced.

New hot take:

The WoW token stops the game from being pay-2-win because things that could previously only be gained with IRL cash can now be bought using gold that was grinded in-game.

[TheRevenantHero]

Or some of us are aware of games that have mechanics where paying cash gives players a level of power that can not be matched by non-paying players and understand that this is what constitutes being "pay-2-win."

There are games that let you pay-4-power, there are games that let you pay-2-skip and games that let you pay-4-convenience and it is perfectly fine for you to think those things are bad and wrong. But deciding to lump them all under "pay-2-win" just because you like the emotional impact of the phrase despite it already having a distinct definition just robs nuance from the conversation.

An example I mentioned earlier in this thread is Mechwarrior Online. The game lets you buy Battlemechs for either C-Bills (ingame currency) or MC (currency bought with IRL money.) Nobody really had a problem with this, the grind for a new 'mech wasn't really hard and being able to buy one for cash was seen as a decent way to skip a grind and monetise the game. They also had pay-4-convenience mechanics like extra slots to store additional 'mechs and timed boosts to cash/XP grinds. Again not many people had an issue with these.

Added to this were the Hero Mechs. These came with a built in cash boost for grinding which again was seen as a convenience thing. However they also allowed for unique loadouts which is where things started getting a little hazy. For the most part the 'mechs were quirky and fun, allowing you to play in a slightly unique style. For the most part they weren't overpowered though and players could get similar results from other chassis. The Yen-Lo-Wang Centurion didn't have an advantage over Hunchbacks for example, and the Ilya Muramets I considered the worst of the Cataphract variants and I'd go out of my way to take them down for an easy kill (pay-2-lose mechanics.) Others however like the Boar's Head Atlas excelled in the niche they filled and there were grumbles that it was a pay-2-win 'mech. When the devs got their shit together 'mechs like these started to be tweaked to be more in line with other variants of the same chassis, though some Hero 'mechs still tend to be dominant on the field.

Another thing that came up was consumable items, things like cool-shots (let you cool your 'mech down and shoot more) and artillery/air-strikes (area denial/armour stripping/core finishing items.) Originally the idea was for you to buy packs of these with real money while c-bills only getting you an inferior version. This was obviously pay-2-win and the community firmly rejected it. So the devs made some changes and after jumping through a few hoops a non-paying player could get consumables on the same level as someone who's buying them for cash.

Then came the Clans. For those not familiar with Battletech lore the Clans are warriors from beyond the Inner Sphere (the main space civilisation) who managed to better maintain the ancient tech of the now-gone precursor empire. This means clan-tech is simply better in almost every way than that of the Inner Sphere and while the devs did have some ideas to balance the two differing groups for a long time the clans had a significant edge. Add to that each battle was Clans vs. Inner Sphere and there was no way of buying Clan mechs without using real cash and the game not only featured blatant p2w 'mechs it was also a full on p2w games as pretty much the only way to get a victory, especially for PuGgers, was to shell out the cash to get the better 'mech and a place on the winning team.

Since then clan mechs have become available for c-bills and the game has had a lot of things added on to it including additional IS tech and most mechs now have a series of quirks that puts them closer together in terms of competitiveness. It isn't perfect and there may be grumblings about some best-in-class Hero 'mechs still being p2w but that isn't the perception of the game as a whole.

As a whole the game threaded (not always successfully) the differences between paying-2-skip, paying-4-convenience, paying-4-power and paying-2-win, but the nuances are completely lost if you declare any in-game enhancement bought for cash to be pay-2-win. That hero 'mech with a special setup that allows it to core any other in one shot while being immune to damage? No different to paying for a 'mech that anyone can grind in a couple of hours, or an XP boost that lasts 24 hours. No-one would be able to discuss whether a particular 'mech or mechanic is going too far because the phrase used for "going too far" has been stretched to cover practically every MTX in the game.

The nuances are nothing but deflection and trying to avoid calling a game pay to win. If you can use real money to buy any kind of player power then it's p2w. Period. As a result, WoW and FFXIV(and pretty much every other MMO for that matter) is p2w. It's just WoW's community that vehemently argues against it. All other communities pretty much accept that the games have pay to win elements. But it's heresy to claim WoW is p2w on these forums.

[Ivanstone]

As others have done, you are just trying to redefine what the word "advantage" means to avoid saying WoW is p2w.

No you just don't know how to apply the word advantage in regards to WoW. Saving time is desirable but doesn't confer any in-game advantage.

[TheRevenantHero]

No you just don't know how to apply the word advantage in regards to WoW. Saving time is desirable but doesn't confer any in-game advantage.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/advantage

Saving time is, by definition, an advantage if you're doing it just by dropping some money.

[Charge me Doctor]

It's pretty much the same thing. You claimed you can't buy WoW time with anything but real money but that's 100% false.

It's not the same thing, as you have to have players to provide you with these finite tokens which they've bought with their battlenet balance. You're not buying tokens for gold from blizzard, you're buying them from players

[Dhrizzle]

The nuances are nothing but deflection and trying to avoid calling a game pay to win.

No they're not. I clearly pointed out how the nuance aren't about avoiding calling the game pay-2-win but rather looking for when the MTX cross a line and become pay-2-win because they confer power or advantage that can never be matched by non-paying players. Some 'mechs were called pay-2-win because they crossed the line. At one point the whole game was considered pay-2-win because of the way the clans affected everything. 24 hour C-bill boosts and the ability to save a couple of hours grinding weren't called pay-2-win because they didn't give the same sort of advantages, and using the phrase would just leave us with no way to distinguish the more powerful mechs when they were released.

If you can use real money to buy any kind of player power then it's p2w. Period. As a result, WoW and FFXIV(and pretty much every other MMO for that matter) is p2w. It's just WoW's community that vehemently argues against it. All other communities pretty much accept that the games have pay to win elements. But it's heresy to claim WoW is p2w on these forums.

Maybe this forum just has older players who experienced actual p2w mechanics being pushed a lot and saw them being stripped down to the various mechanics we have today, and we're less likely to be influenced by YouTubers stretching emotive language for clicks.

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https://www.dictionary.com/browse/advantage

Saving time is, by definition, an advantage if you're doing it just by dropping some money.

Yet when you compare two characters, one played normally and another boosted before being levelled to cap, there's no difference between the two of them. Paying cash was convenient for the boosting player but it didn't put him in a position to win.

[Ivanstone]

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/advantage

Saving time is, by definition, an advantage if you're doing it just by dropping some money.

Not in the context of an MMO. Efficient time use will allow you to accumulate more decorations in WoW but even if you pay for carries you still have to put in the time to, ya know, be carried. After obtaining "the best gear" from getting carried what have you obtained? Decorations. Fancy loot is meaningless if you're not actually using it and you're going to have to restart the process after every new patch.

[Daymanmb]

Then you don't know how it works then. In neither of options game maker is selling gold to player.

Yes they are. Does Blizzard make money off of the transaction? Theyre selling gold.

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Not in the context of an MMO. Efficient time use will allow you to accumulate more decorations in WoW but even if you pay for carries you still have to put in the time to, ya know, be carried. After obtaining "the best gear" from getting carried what have you obtained? Decorations. Fancy loot is meaningless if you're not actually using it and you're going to have to restart the process after every new patch.

Saving time in an MMO is absolutely an advantage. MMOs are time sinks that are grindy. Paying to bypass the grind is an advantage.

Having progression soft reset on the patch cycle, only encourages more token sales.

[Ivanstone]

Saving time in an MMO is absolutely an advantage. MMOs are time sinks that are grindy. Paying to bypass the grind is an advantage.

Having progression soft reset on the patch cycle, only encourages more token sales.

But what are you grinding? Raids? Has a lock out. PVP? Conquest cap. M+? The best gear comes from the vault.

The Insane title is one of the most grindy things in game and confers absolutely no advantage onto the player. Anything that increases player power is gated and if you’re not actively utilizing that power all you’ve obtained is decoration.

[Daymanmb]

But what are you grinding? Raids? Has a lock out. PVP? Conquest cap. M+? The best gear comes from the vault.

The Insane title is one of the most grindy things in game and confers absolutely no advantage onto the player. Anything that increases player power is gated and if you’re not actively utilizing that power all you’ve obtained is decoration.

Youre hung up on the wrong things and youre a tough shell to crack, so lets try a different approach. Did the TBC lvl boosters have any advantage over Alliance Shamans and Horde Paladins who were unable to also boost? Were not talking player power, so get that out of your head. Were talking about paying real money to bypass a grind, which in and of itself is an advantage, especially in an MMO.

[Ivanstone]

Youre hung up on the wrong things and youre a tough shell to crack, so lets try a different approach. Did the TBC lvl boosters have any advantage over Alliance Shamans and Horde Paladins who were unable to also boost? Were not talking player power, so get that out of your head. Were talking about paying real money to bypass a grind, which in and of itself is an advantage, especially in an MMO.

You keep on failing to say how a grind translates into player power.

Getting 500 mounts in game? Yeah that's a grind. I've done it. Paying for it certainly saves a lot of time. But how is that an advantage? Does that 500 mounts give some hidden buff in game? In an actual P2W game, those 500 mounts would give me an in game buff.

Are you one of those people who think the purpose of raiding is to get gear?

[Ekis]

You keep on failing to say how a grind translates into player power.

Getting 500 mounts in game? Yeah that's a grind. I've done it. Paying for it certainly saves a lot of time. But how is that an advantage? Does that 500 mounts give some hidden buff in game? In an actual P2W game, those 500 mounts would give me an in game buff.

Are you one of those people who think the purpose of raiding is to get gear?

You're deliberately avoiding their arguments. Yes, the primary purpose of raiding is to get gear, when mounts were added as prestige from clearing the hardest content, that became an additional carrot on the stick. In a game like WoW where showing off mounts and gear (especially to indicate completion of a difficult or time-consuming task), having that mount that only a few Mythic players can obtain when the content is current IS an advantage.

Again, time-saving is the primary advantage in a game where completion of any significant task requires a time investment. You aren't getting those mounts without a significant time-investment when the content is current or waiting until it's able to be farmed solo or in a group composition that's drastically smaller than what it took when it was relevant, so that's an advantage. Not to mention, many of those prestigious mounts dropped 100% of the time when the content was relevant, and now you get a signficantly lower chance at getting it meaning you've essentially either got lucky on something that used to be guaranteed or you (again) invested time.

Bypassing the grind to get those 500 mounts in your example does not disprove what he's saying. And player power is not associated with mounts you farm later when the content is no longer relevant.

If I bought a boost through Mythic Antorus to get that mount + red sickle from Argus during Legion when the content was current, it displayed a prestige that other players would not be able to obtain without significant time-investment, skill, or a decent group. Nobody's reaching max level and clearing the hardest content of an expansion upon dinging by themselves with poor gear to boot, so by paying you're essentially skipping the entire grind to get that over the next player who otherwise couldn't.

Again, "paying to win" doesn't mean you're paying to be the best, you're paying to be better than the next guy who couldn't or otherwise wouldn't. It's an obvious advantage.

[Ivanstone]

You're deliberately avoiding their arguments. Yes, the primary purpose of raiding is to get gear, when mounts were added as prestige from clearing the hardest content, that became an additional carrot on the stick. In a game like WoW where showing off mounts and gear (especially to indicate completion of a difficult or time-consuming task), having that mount that only a few Mythic players can obtain when the content is current IS an advantage.

No people keep making stupid arguments. They have their pet theory and hand wave all arguments to the contrary.

The primary purpose of raiding is to slay dragons on the internet. You gear to raid, not raid to gear. Any additional decorations you've obtained is just a bonus and I stopped assuming that a player's decorations is a meaningful indicator of game ability a long time ago. My guild's officers don't pay attention to a player's decorations. They do pay attention to their performance when they step into a raid for the first time and to a lesser extent their M+ ability. Every heavy PvP or M+ player I know keeps a list of friends who are good at each. Well decorated players with minimal skill get put on ignore.

Again, "paying to win" doesn't mean you're paying to be the best, you're paying to be better than the next guy who couldn't or otherwise wouldn't. It's an obvious advantage.

You can't pay to be better than the next guy in WoW. You can pay to have more decorations than the next guy but that's not even remotely the same thing.

If Blizz decided to remove lockouts or currency caps in game I would concede the argument but I can't see that happening any time soon.

[Ekis]

No people keep making stupid arguments. They have their pet theory and hand wave all arguments to the contrary.

The primary purpose of raiding is to slay dragons on the internet. You gear to raid, not raid to gear. Any additional decorations you've obtained is just a bonus and I stopped assuming that a player's decorations is a meaningful indicator of game ability a long time ago. My guild's officers don't pay attention to a player's decorations. They do pay attention to their performance when they step into a raid for the first time and to a lesser extent their M+ ability. Every heavy PvP or M+ player I know keeps a list of friends who are good at each. Well decorated players with minimal skill get put on ignore.

This is a weird argument. Of course you gear to raid, but you raid to get gear. Otherwise why put loot on the final raid of an expansion? That gear doesn't help you raid once the next expac drops. And I've been a hardcore raider for a majority of WoW from TBC up to early BFA so I know what we look for in those circles. How exactly are you paying attention to their performance without previous logs or trialing them? And if you are trialing them, are you just trialing any and every guy that says they're "skilled" even if they're rocking greens and gear not suitable for their spec?

In case you haven't caught on, "decorations" may not equal skill but they highly indicate it. Without an ability to see their performance from either logs or actually bringing them in beforehand, you may have two players that may be equally skilled. One has greens and blues, and the other has gear already from the raid instance. You mean to tell me, you're going to give priority to the guy who has less "decorations"?

This doesn't even work in the real world. If two candidates were applying for a position in your company, you're going to hire the guy who has no experience over the one who does? They both have a degree (the game), but one actually has experience in the position (even if they were bad at their job a.k.a. actually unskilled or got it due to nepotism or something similar).

You can't pay to be better than the next guy in WoW. You can pay to have more decorations than the next guy but that's not even remotely the same thing.

If Blizz decided to remove lockouts or currency caps in game I would concede the argument but I can't see that happening any time soon.

Yes it is, this is purely semantics. You can call it decorations, gear, badges of honor, cookies, doesn't take away from the achievement of obtaining them when relevant. In fact, it's many a player's desire to complete that relevant content to show off those "decorations".