Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Jester Joe]

Then why try and use it as an insult? If people that don't play still offer valid input then why would me having done Nya'lotha even matter? You contradict yourself right away. You always have some excuse ready for why you are not wrong or didn't actually do something when everyone can see your posts and insults. Weird huh? the wandavision thing is actually another mod my bad. They fall back on semantics, strawman, and other similar insults just like you do which is why I confused the two.

It wasn't an insult. The only one who's been constantly belittling everyone and mocking them for daring to question anyone was you.

Pointing out a lack of first hand experience might cause you to underestimate something isn't an insult. Discussing experiences isn't an insult. Sharing what I've experienced and telling you it isn't an insult.

On the other hand, you can't make it past a single post without attacking me directly. And honestly it's just draining at this point, and there's a reason why there's plenty of people disagreeing with you and calling you out on it.

Notice how you qaulified it as stat wise. I didn't include a qualifier like that because the best in slot gear is not always the best item level gear. It has been something that has existed since 2004. It has got better over the years and Blizzard has tried to make item level be the only thing that matters. But they haven't always gotten that right. But to be fair if two items had the same exact corruption but different item levels then the higher item level would be better.

Outside of raids having some unique effect on a weapon or piece of gear, BiS gear has for the most part been determined by stats. That's why I included the stat qualifier, since you even said "item level doesn't always matter". It could be something as silly as a socket on a ring even nowadays.

I don't know what relevance the second part has, but that's just another situation caused by the same core issue, corruption was all that mattered in the end. Stats didn't. Item level didn't. The only time you'd replace a piece of gear was if they shared the corruption you needed.

Corruptions were a huge power swing. I never stated otherwise. I only stated that the bis gear was not the only viable gear. There were other viable corruptions then the best one for your class. Blizzard was doing a lot of hotfix balancing to both buff and nerf. With the later changes to the system it got a lot better but there were still more then one viable corruption. Everything else is you trying to argue things I never disputed.

To which I said, I would love to see proof of people clearing the mythic raid without their BiS corruptions. I get there's trickle down effects that cause people to latch onto what the WF race does, but at the time of the WF kill, the average item level of Limit was already pretty much at the cap you could get.

If the WF raiders needed that edge to kill the boss even while geared out of their teeth, of course people below them will also require similar. But there's also oddity groups who like to prove that they don't "need" that kind of stuff, and try out nonsensical stuff to prove a point.

But again, I don't recall many, if any guilds doing that with corruption.

[Semihagez]

Everyone has the same oppurtunity in the game to make gold and buy a BoE item. You can't buy a BoE is there are no one is selling a BoE. Everyone has the same oppurtunity in the game to make gold and buy a BoE item.

Not if the BOE item cost 10 million gold on AH. That's like saying everyone has the same chance to to buy a private jet no matter what your income level is. That is completely utter nonsense.. Most people do not have 10 million gold lying aroudn to buy a BOE. That's where real money wowtoken comes in.

Each token bought is gold that someone had to make somehow in the game. I have never once equated pay to win to equal chance to spend real money. Of course everyone has the equal chance to spend real money duh. I have several times stated that pay to win is buying power. A token doesn't cause you to buy power it just gives you the chance to do everything that gold allows.

Gold is what allows you buy power and you can do that regardless of spending real money or not. The argument you think I am making isn't even semantics so that is why it makes zero sense to you. It is all a misunderstanding on your part.

This is flawed because BOE items gets priced at a point where it's impossible to obtain that much gold by doing only daily activity if you expect to push for world first in every new raid. When people put brand new mythic BOE on AH, they price it to force world first competitors to purchase gold to obtain it. In another word, guilds like Complexity have already embrace the fact that paying for shit tons of gold to buy BOE at whatever the price is just part of the race and most importantly, Blizzard is supporting them by giving them real money to gold system instead of creating an environment where you can't boost your ilvl using real money for world first.

[rhorle]

It wasn't an insult. The only one who's been constantly belittling everyone and mocking them for daring to question anyone was you.

Lol What? I haven't mocked or belittled anyone. Disagreed? Yep. But insulted anyone for daring to question? That is rich coming from the person that tried to gate keep responses in a forum thread based on who was quoted in a post. And a bunch of other arrogant crap that you've accused me of while doing yourself. You are the one that can't make it past a single response with out attacking me. If you find it draining then only you have the power to stop doing what you don't like.

Just like the experience bit. You bring up my experience then call you talking about your experience "trash" you didn't like. Weird if it is perfectly fine to talk about it right?

Outside of raids having some unique effect on a weapon or piece of gear, BiS gear has for the most part been determined by stats.

Which Corruption is gear with a unique effect. Which is why it being BIS has nothing to do with the stats but with the effect. Just like trinkets. You included the stat qualifier only after arguing about BiS. Of course if you qualify it by stats, and not the entire item, things change. You moved the goal posts in your favor so you could be right instead of actual going off of the statements I made.

Stats and Item level mattered if the corruption was equal on the item. That isn't something I've ever disputed but you seem to think I have.

To which I said, I would love to see proof of people clearing the mythic raid without their BiS corruptions. I get there's trickle down effects that cause people to latch onto what the WF race does, but at the time of the WF kill, the average item level of Limit was already pretty much at the cap you could get.

You also never said you would love to see proof. Stop trying to rewrite history to paint yourself in a better light. What you said was you won't be able to find a log. Are you saying you have no proof to that statement? If the item level was already at the cap for limit then why even detour into item level and stats on gear when it wasn't a factor for World First guilds anyways?

No one needs to be as geared as world first raiders in order to clear a raid. World first raiders do things for speed and not for what is required to clear the content. You don't need every possible advantage to clear the content. Does it help? Sure. Is it required? Nope. World first groups are the "oddity" groups. They try every different combination they can think of in order to get an edge. Are there times that Blizzard has encounters over tuned until its cleared? Sure.

They don't like to hot fix or change the world first race while it is still happening unless they need to. A point of note because I was looking at 8.3 hotfixes. They actually buffed Void Ritual after the first N'zoth kill. That is one of the corruptions you early stated the WF guilds had to stack in order to clear the content. And Blizzard thought it was actually under performing. So it likely wasn't required for the content but it simmed as best for the tactics of the guilds that used it.

It still doesn't change that no one needed to buy BIS TF Corruptions to clear the content. They didn't have to spend billions like a poster claimed in order to do so. You didn't have to be perfect if you were not a world first raider. Perfection is what the world first race is all about because it needs every advantage.

[Jester Joe]

Lol What? I haven't mocked or belittled anyone. Disagreed? Yep. But insulted anyone for daring to question? That is rich coming from the person that tried to gate keep responses in a forum thread based on who was quoted in a post. And a bunch of other arrogant crap that you've accused me of while doing yourself. You are the one that can't make it past a single response with out attacking me. If you find it draining then only you have the power to stop doing what you don't like.

The only thing you keep pointing out as an "insult" is me saying perhaps you didn't spend much time playing Nyalotha. Which wasn't intended as an insult, and I explained multiple times how it isn't.
If you still feel insulted, well, I apologize. Again it wasn't intended to be one.

But I will point out you mistook me for someone else, and instead of even trying to apologize for that you just proceeded to basically dismiss it as "You're just as bad of a person as them anyway!".

Just like the experience bit. You bring up my experience then call you talking about your experience "trash" you didn't like. Weird if it is perfectly fine to talk about it right?

Literally no idea what you're trying to say here.

Which Corruption is gear with a unique effect. Which is why it being BIS has nothing to do with the stats but with the effect. Just like trinkets. You included the stat qualifier only after arguing about BiS. Of course if you qualify it by stats, and not the entire item, things change. You moved the goal posts in your favor so you could be right instead of actual going off of the statements I made.

Because what I originally responded to was you saying you never needed BiS gear in WoW. It's not goalpost moving, it's the same point I had from the start, corruption was a whole different ballpark of power levels, to the point that it broke ilvl mattering in any regard. Slap on that 445 piece despite having a 470 just because it has the corruption you need. Stats outweighing ilvl isn't nearly as bad as corruption was.

Stats and Item level mattered if the corruption was equal on the item. That isn't something I've ever disputed but you seem to think I have.

I was agreeing with you saying that. Not sure where you're thinking that I was disagreeing.

You also never said you would love to see proof. Stop trying to rewrite history to paint yourself in a better light.

Again, you make this about attacking me, but then for some reason feign ignorance when that's pointed out...

What you said was you won't be able to find a log. Are you saying you have no proof to that statement? If the item level was already at the cap for limit then why even detour into item level and stats on gear when it wasn't a factor for World First guilds anyways?

I didn't say you won't be able to. I said I doubt it. So yes, I would still love to see proof.

I would doubt you'll find many, if any, Mythic N'zoth kills that didn't stack BiS corruptions.

Again, please refrain from putting words in my mouth.

No one needs to be as geared as world first raiders in order to clear a raid. World first raiders do things for speed and not for what is required to clear the content. You don't need every possible advantage to clear the content. Does it help? Sure. Is it required? Nope. World first groups are the "oddity" groups. They try every different combination they can think of in order to get an edge. Are there times that Blizzard has encounters over tuned until its cleared? Sure.

I would like to agree in an ideal world, but time and time again it's been disproven. People copy what WF guilds do, which makes it the norm at that point. And rarely does Blizzard leave something genuinely overtuned, we already saw the aftermath of when they had to nerf KJ because it was literally impossible.

They don't like to hot fix or change the world first race while it is still happening unless they need to. A point of note because I was looking at 8.3 hotfixes. They actually buffed Void Ritual after the first N'zoth kill. That is one of the corruptions you early stated the WF guilds had to stack in order to clear the content. And Blizzard thought it was actually under performing. So it likely wasn't required for the content but it simmed as best for the tactics of the guilds that used it.

I might have mixed it up with Echoing Void, but there was a corruption that Blizzard specifically didn't touch until after the WF race was done.

It still doesn't change that no one needed to buy BIS TF Corruptions to clear the content. They didn't have to spend billions like a poster claimed in order to do so. You didn't have to be perfect if you were not a world first raider. Perfection is what the world first race is all about because it needs every advantage.

You don't have to if you're not WF, no.

But if you want to be competitive, you do have to push that extra bit out. Spend billions might be excessive since gearing out a single toon is different than an entire guild roster, but the power of BoEs is definitely strong.

That doesn't change though that you did at the least have to make an effort to GET the BiS corruptions. There were other mindless ways like grinding constant M+ of course.

[Ryzeth]

You two need to get a fucking room, jesus christ.

inb4 infracted.

[Master Guns]

I mean, you can never "win" in an MMO by any sensible measure. Should we be OK with Blizzard selling full mythic sets in the store? Because after all, you aren't "winning" anything by wearing a full mythic set, are you?

Then what the hell is "pay to win" in WOW lol?

[crusadernero]

In many ways it is P2W, the difference now is that its Blizzard that controls it and gets the money. Instead of everyone complaining about goldsellers, we have people defending Blizzard selling gold.

Smart move by Blizzard really. Instead of doubling down on illegal goldselling & bots, they just introduce wow token and turn the playerbase against eachother. So now we have debates like this going on instead of pointing fingers at Blizzard.

Question: would the 5 mill bronto in BfA have that pricetag if wow token wasnt in the game? I bet alot of people got that mount by just buying gold. Blizzard put a insane pricetag on something, tempts people buying token. Blizzard makes money. While players argue against eachother. Its quite funny.

[Samuraijake]

As the only thing brought as "not bis" in your argument. And yet you think I have to twist and put words in your mouth. Lmao. If you didn't care for the kind of trash that is a epeen contest over clearing raids then why did you bring it up in the first place as way to try and insult me? Lol. This is just like the time you called everyone nerds for talking about wanda vision after you gave your two cents. You insult to deflect then try to make yourself seem superior.

BIS gear is BIS corruption. Best in slot never meant highest item level. But hey I'm twisting words or putting words into your mouth or some such. Blah Blah. Right? I have never stated that corruption was not stupidly unbalanced. So how could I forget that? Blizzard did a lot of work to get corruption into a decent system. That still doesn't change anything that I said.

- - - Updated - - -



Gold only buys things that other players offer up for sale. It is not more pay to win then it was prior to the token being introduced.

They asked if wow was pay to win.

[sam86]

Just because you refuse to accept facts doesn't make them feelings. If you can spend money to gain an advantage in game over players NOT spending money then it's pay to win. Period.

100% Pay to win, you can buy wow tokens, sell them for gold, then purchase items to make you stronger. That's the definition of pay to win.

again true and i don't understand why ppl consider defending otherwise

Remember when P2W meant you literally were unbeatable compared to people who wouldn't pay, or that you literally couldn't win without paying?
I remember.

and what happened to all those games? they died
The current model of P2W games on phones is best accurate to describe pay to skip or save time, all p2w games use money to save/skip time, but nothing in any game isn't available for all players, the free player just spend 1502 hour more to get it
The model of literally put best items behind money and u can get it only with money is dead since years, now u get it by spend cash now or spend hours farming or wait for long cds
And p2w isn't pay to get the best possible, any advantage is p2w
And since u 'remember', do u also 'remember' when games were pay its price get full game?

- - - Updated - - -

In many ways it is P2W, the difference now is that its Blizzard that controls it and gets the money. Instead of everyone complaining about goldsellers, we have people defending Blizzard selling gold.

Smart move by Blizzard really. Instead of doubling down on illegal goldselling & bots, they just introduce wow token and turn the playerbase against eachother. So now we have debates like this going on instead of pointing fingers at Blizzard.

Question: would the 5 mill bronto in BfA have that pricetag if wow token wasnt in the game? I bet alot of people got that mount by just buying gold. Blizzard put a insane pricetag on something, tempts people buying token. Blizzard makes money. While players argue against eachother. Its quite funny.

ppl complained about the 20k mount in wrath and 200k mount in MoP and they were way too much, back then player mentality was almost no one hoards gold, why would u? 99.9% of playerbase use gold just for raid maintenance (consumables/repairs), only the 0.01% of top hardcore raiders get gold to buy day 1 best of everything, and they used gold sellers for that and were exposed (and then blizz ban them for 'cheating' in raid mechanics, not even for gold)
Boost service didn't exist, even if 1 member of ur guild is a goblin gold collector u can't convince 8 other ppl to waste their time of doing nothing to boost someone in a raid for 'gold', what they do with 20k extra? buy condoms? what was there in wow to buy with gold?
I still remember gamespot review about Cata, how instead of blizz admit they fucked up, they attacked community saying that's what playerbase wanted, since that day playerbase was divided and never renewed
U can't use excuse 'but a payer wanted that', i'm sure if we make a vote now about next race u'll find someone who asks for murlocs, does that mean wow should do it? check the cereal internet voting meme in south korea, ppl LOVE to troll on internet, they will vote pickle cereal over chocolate just to fuck publicity up
At least they actually admit they fucked up with gutting in BFA, and yet some playerbase still defended it and claim it wasn't wrong even after blizz admit it IS

[Malania]

You two need to get a fucking room, jesus christ.

inb4 infracted.

lol was about to ask them to take it t the bedroom.

[crusadernero]

again true and i don't understand why ppl consider defending otherwise


and what happened to all those games? they died
The current model of P2W games on phones is best accurate to describe pay to skip or save time, all p2w games use money to save/skip time, but nothing in any game isn't available for all players, the free player just spend 1502 hour more to get it
The model of literally put best items behind money and u can get it only with money is dead since years, now u get it by spend cash now or spend hours farming or wait for long cds
And p2w isn't pay to get the best possible, any advantage is p2w
And since u 'remember', do u also 'remember' when games were pay its price get full game?

- - - Updated - - -


ppl complained about the 20k mount in wrath and 200k mount in MoP and they were way too much, back then player mentality was almost no one hoards gold, why would u? 99.9% of playerbase use gold just for raid maintenance (consumables/repairs), only the 0.01% of top hardcore raiders get gold to buy day 1 best of everything, and they used gold sellers for that and were exposed (and then blizz ban them for 'cheating' in raid mechanics, not even for gold)
Boost service didn't exist, even if 1 member of ur guild is a goblin gold collector u can't convince 8 other ppl to waste their time of doing nothing to boost someone in a raid for 'gold', what they do with 20k extra? buy condoms? what was there in wow to buy with gold?
I still remember gamespot review about Cata, how instead of blizz admit they fucked up, they attacked community saying that's what playerbase wanted, since that day playerbase was divided and never renewed
U can't use excuse 'but a payer wanted that', i'm sure if we make a vote now about next race u'll find someone who asks for murlocs, does that mean wow should do it? check the cereal internet voting meme in south korea, ppl LOVE to troll on internet, they will vote pickle cereal over chocolate just to fuck publicity up
At least they actually admit they fucked up with gutting in BFA, and yet some playerbase still defended it and claim it wasn't wrong even after blizz admit it IS

back then you could atleast somewhat put it as a reasonable goal to save up for those mounts. I dont think most people hoard gold and have millions laying around. I remember the expensive mounts over the years and all of them were at high prices, but 5 millions is insane and way out of order. But players accept it for some reason. It got that price for 1 reason only and that is the token.

I have never really hoarded gold at all, but I have always had what I needed for everything. I would at times save up if I wanted certain mounts/items, but 5 millions is crazy. Dont tell me everyone who got that mount actually farmed for it.

[Lochton]

You can buy gold with RL money. Gold can be used for anything in the game... including high level boes found in the world.

Yes its pay to win.

Technically, you are not buying gold, though.

And if that is all the requirements, then it was P2W since the start.

[Delever]

back then you could atleast somewhat put it as a reasonable goal to save up for those mounts. I dont think most people hoard gold and have millions laying around. I remember the expensive mounts over the years and all of them were at high prices, but 5 millions is insane and way out of order. But players accept it for some reason. It got that price for 1 reason only and that is the token.

I have never really hoarded gold at all, but I have always had what I needed for everything. I would at times save up if I wanted certain mounts/items, but 5 millions is crazy. Dont tell me everyone who got that mount actually farmed for it.

To be fair here while I do think the token is p2w the price of the brutosaur is not 5m because of the token. It is like that because of the permanent shit damage that the garrison did in WoD that fucked the economy for a long time to come. The token does not generate gold that does not already exist. These mounts were put in as an attempt by Blizzard to reduce the massive amounts of gold that players were hoarding by dumping the gold on these mounts and then nerfing the garrison.
The token damages the economy in other ways however for the average player. The massive amounts of gold hoarded by rich players are now being distributed among players without so much gold while rich players are still controlling the market, thus making the average price for everything go much higher as gold is more accessible and it starts losing its value. Players that are new to the game and do not buy tokens to sell for gold have a much harder time accumulating the basic gold needs in this inflated market through legitimate means.

Last point about p2w and the game being p2w since 2006. While this point holds some merit you have to at least realize how different it is for the game to be p2w unintentionally by practices that the company not only did not support but actively tried to combat (and failed) versus the company now being the ones engaging in said practices and making it legal.
While people did buy gold before from 3rd parties, it was overall way less frequent than it is now and while boosts existed the demand was also not as high. With gold buying being legal now there is a lot more people buying gold and boosting has skyrocketing.
An easy but anecdotal way to see this is to compare how the trade chat has evolved since the introduction of the token. Nowdays the tradechat in populated servers is 99% boost spammers that you need to use an addon to filter out which most people do not do. Boosts get advertised so much and so often that the chat scrolls faster than a popular streamer's twitch chat. Previously trade chat was used for selling items cheaper than AH, guild recruiting and finding pugs for content outside of LFD/LFR.

While WoW might have always had ways of being p2w it was never endorsed by blizzard until the introduction of the token and to a lesser extent level boosts. And this is where the difference lies.

- - - Updated - - -

Technically, you are not buying gold, though.

And if that is all the requirements, then it was P2W since the start.

Please please PLEASE dont go into technicalities. What is the purpose of the token if not to buy gold then? There is no other purpose as it is not worth buying a token to use it for game time with real money since it is the same or even more expensive than buying a sub or a card at a retailer.

The current p2w model has changed significantly from the past. Games that directly made you a god by buying things all died because the average player could not keep up with it. So the p2w model has shifted toward the mobile market trend of paying to be a zoomer (aka save time). They cleverly mask p2w schemes by making power gains indirect through their means because they know there will be people defending these practices while nobody would be defending direct gear purchases.
*insert think Mark meme template*

[Lochton]

Please please PLEASE dont go into technicalities. What is the purpose of the token if not to buy gold then? There is no other purpose as it is not worth buying a token to use it for game time with real money since it is the same or even more expensive than buying a sub or a card at a retailer.

The token is there to provide a secondary method of game-time as well as give people the option to earn gold from it.

Some people either are unable to afford the game-time with real money, unable to buy game-time with real money, or have enough gold that they just wish to save the real money. Believe it or not, that is the purpose of the token.

And before the token was there, you could use TCG to almost the same extent. Sell rare items purchased for real money to earn gold.

If people are so sure that the token is P2W, then the TCG items are as well, which just changes the overview of the game to have been P2W since October 2006, instead of since the token came in 6.1.2 (if I recall).

TCG was just an exclusive club of P2W compared to P2W now, where everyone can have it, before, you had to be lucky in real life to score big in-game.

I have my own view of what P2W is, others have theirs, but I enjoy looking into the overall facts as well.

[Cuppy]

It is tho, especially in a game which doesn't have a clear-cut end goal that everyone shares, if someone cares more about looks then for them getting cosmetics that they cant get without paying in some form is p2w.

I dare you name a game you think is NOT pay to win.

[Ryzeth]

lol was about to ask them to take it t the bedroom.

It's made more sad by the fact one of the ones acting like this is a mod...

I dare you name a game you think is NOT pay to win.

Pong.

[Cuppy]

Pong.

Not surprised at all that you came up with something like that, but guess what?
I offer boost service to this game, so you can actually beat it completely with money if you let me play, so you know.... its kinda.... pay to win :/
I also offer customization to the paddles, but only with real money so... its kinda.... pay to win :/
And in the end, you had to buy this game with real money so that also makes it kinda.... pay to win :/
Greedy fucks, nothing seems to be free when you take a certain viewpoint

[Ryzeth]

Not surprised at all that you came up with something like that, but guess what?
I offer boost service to this game, so you can actually beat it completely with money if you let me play, so you know.... its kinda.... pay to win :/
I also offer customization to the paddles, but only with real money so... its kinda.... pay to win :/
And in the end, you had to buy this game with real money so that also makes it kinda.... pay to win :/
Greedy fucks, nothing seems to be free when you take a certain viewpoint

So, ignoring the blatant ignorance of this post...
a) Not sure what you mean by "not surprised" seeing as I'm not the person you were arguing with to begin with.
b) Cosmetics are not pay to win.
c) Needing to buy a game is not pay to win.

Feel free to try and make up your own definitions of pay to win- all the while trying to argue random, irrelevant semantics over said definitions- though. That certainly won't make you seem more ridiculous.

PS. You said to name a game that isn't currently pay to win, which I did. Not to name one that couldn't be made pay to win (even though your current 'ideas' don't actually do that).

[Feindy]

yes it is
anything you can buy with gold you can buy with money

[loadedaxe]

What are you winning. Time savings? And yes this topic has come up multiple times and always ends the same. The only people complaining about tokens are the ones that can’t afford them. If Blizzard released the names of people buying them you would be shocked, and most would be from people that shame the idea on forums.

If they took it away, people would again be complaining about gold sellers and mass amounts of bots. There is no perfect solution, but the one in place currently is working.

Watch what you wish for, you just might get it.