I'm not off track. FUT was always like this. FUT's 2nd go around, in Fifa 10, they added premium packs that would have higher drop rates for rarer cards, as well as In Form cards like Team of the Week, which were only available for a week, and had better stats than the normal version of the card.
Here's a link for a kind of reference on the pricing at the time (Fifa 10 Ultimate Team Review). The key difference between then and now, is that year after year, EA toyed with adding new kinds of cards/packs (Team of the Year cards & League Premium Players Packs), increased prices, and continued to tweak the odds in their favor.
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You could, in theory, unlock every player in FIFA without paying. I linked an article that showcases how nearly impossible that actually is though. That article is based on the modern release of the game, where EA has added an astronomical amount of variants for every player, but it was still highly unrealistic back in the day. EA's main argument tends to be, that there's a marketplace that you can trade/buy cards. As it is now, the estimates for filling out a best of the best dream team, it would take in the 10's of thousands horus (~22k according to the pro in the article) range of in game playing to acquire. Based on the difference in total cards, you'd likely be looking at something more like 1000-3000 back in the earlier days of FUT.
Rift started straight up selling entire raid sets, legendary/artifact questline progression, upgrade components, and all sorts of gear for money. It was bad lol.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.
Lol, I mean I've already stated my opinion. And also my opinion why I don't think other people's opinions on this subject will change. And then I even followed it up with a lengthy explanation of why I felt like most of the discussion is just semantics (only to get caught up in a semantic argument about the semantics of...semantics). I think I've pretty well covered this subject about as thoroughly as I possibly can.
I earn boost payment in less than an hour of working. Takes me tens of hours to get to 58 and I only care about end game content.
So having the opportinity of boosting is great. Just makes those unemployed people mad that someone does something in less than an hour while it takes a week of nolifing for them.
I believe you're conflating someone else's argument with mine, cause I never mentioned anything about paying being the only way to progress. I've said, these kinds of games actively hinder your ability to progress. All of these games that we've discussed give means to progressing without paying a single dollar, but it's practically impossible to get where you want in any reasonable amount of time without paying (see the ~22k hours in FUT now to get a top end team).
I understand your viewpoint. A grind exists in both situations, so it's apples to apples in your eyes, which is a totally fair opinion. However, for people like me, the finer details matter. WoW leveling is pretty much predetermined and you can go however fast you are capable of. If you want to push 16 hours a day, WoW isn't doing anything to stop you. It's not putting up roadblocks or temporarily stopping you from playing. You can level in 150 hours playing by yourself or you can level in probably 20-30 (maybe less) with your friends power leveling you.
This is not how things work in a game like CoC or FUT. They are actively hostile to your progression. You need 50 pieces of this armor fragment to craft your next upgrade for your hero? Well, you can get it from this mission, but you can only run it 5 times a day, and doing that costs 75% of your mission energy. Oh, and there's only a 20% chance that the fragment will drop. You wanted more chances? Well, you can buy some mission refreshes for gems, that will give you 5 more attempts, but they will cost you more each time. You can do the same with your energy. Oh shoot, did you still not get what you needed? Well, there's a pack in the store that gives you 5-50 fragments for only $5. You only got 10 fragments from that pack? Well, you could spend $25 dollars on this pack that includes a 25 of a variety of components or $50 that has 50 of a variety of components, some gems, some gold, and some other consumables.
That is why I see a fundamental difference in a game like WoW and a game like CoC and FUT. Blizz isn't cutting your legs from underneath you to gouge you on the back end. The leveling game is there, 100% open, no restrictions.
Therein lies the key difference in our viewpoints, plain and simple. I've thoroughly explained what my viewpoint is and where it comes from, and I assume you see what my point is but we simply disagree at a fundamental level. That's perfectly fine for me, because I don't think either of us are right or wrong. I don't think there is really a right or wrong "definition" of P2W, if I'm being honest.