Has WoW become more " pay to win"?

[Celement]

Oh no, not this again. This topic is pointless to discuss here.

Yeah I'm getting that vibe now. It stayed on topic a little bit then someone mentioned the circle jerk and it started.

[arkanon]

Yeah I'm getting that vibe now. It stayed on topic a little bit then someone mentioned the circle jerk and it started.

Unfortunately, this is a situation where there really is only 2 sides - those who think it is P2W, and those who think it isnt. Very few people are capable of stating their honest opinion. Mine is as follows - yes, WoW has multiple P2W features, some more obvious than others. They are very good at hiding it though, by adding 1 degree of separation. You dont buy gear, you buy gold, and then buy the gear. You dont buy gear, you sell a token and use the gold to pay another player to carry you. etc etc

To be fair, that has ALWAYS been possible to some extent, but only to those willing to A) Risk losing their account by purchasing gold "illegally". B) Those willing to put in HUGE hours farming to obtain the gold to purchase the runs. The token just gave them a legitimate means of obtaining the gold to make the purchase.

The typical defense is that Blizzard dont create the gold, someone has to buy the token. But part of the genius behind all this, is myself and many others played for "free" by using the endless stream of gold obtained through carries to..............pay for our subscription, and buy whatever the fuck we wanted in game. At this point, Blizzard NEED the wheel to keep turning, and it didnt take long for many people who sell a lot of carries to get to the point there was basically nothing left to purchase with the gold..........thankfully Blizzard added mounts with a pricetag completely unheard of in the history of the game, and yet people rushed out and bought it straight away..............suddenly needing to get back to selling carries to get the coffers topped back up.

Whats interesting about the diablo immortal release, is it has reignited a completely different discussion - is having P2W elements even a bad thing? My opinion has remained unchanged - im not happy with how gearing and gear acquisition is done in wow, but i accept it and it doesnt directly impact me in a negative way. But i accept there are some who ARE negatively impacted by it, and i acknowledge their POV even though its different to mine. I think the only people I completely disagree with are those who have either no understanding of what P2W actually means, or, choose to ignore it because they dont like it.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I think the P2W in DI is fucking disgusting and the game is below average in the first place. Its at best an average mobile game, and a pathetic PC game, and thats before taking P2W into account. Its D3 lite, the only thing, the ONLY thing it has going for it is it plays on mobile. But be very clear, they COULD HAVE just released D3 on mobile for $25 and it would have been a HUGE success, but wouldnt be making them $1m a day like DI.

EDIT2: I dont like the gearing system in wow, I dont enjoy the progression, I raided mythic for many years (no race for world first or anything) and dont think the P2W features of wow are what has killed the fun for me personally. Sure, some got gear WAY above their paygrade, but it was always painfuly obvious, even in heroic, who those players were. The gear they had obtained was genuinely only useful for flexing in main cities - even out in the world a "real" pvper would fucking shred some P2W clown. Thats the major difference to something like Diablo Immortal - some random moron can spend $75-100k on the game, and go 40-0 in pvp. Try that shit in arena, and youll get fucking stomped in 30 seconds and mocked.

[Relapses]

Perhaps it's because the situation isn't clear cut.

Nothing has changed in how players can progress, except that it has become easier for those with excess income to acquire gold, and for those with excess gold to get around the rules and regulations to buy services to have an increased chance at advancing their characters (with M+, there's never any guarantee).

But these people always existed, and would still exist even without the wow token. The big difference is that the WoW Token system has also enabled tons of people to play the game without dropping a dime, even on a subscription service, if they put in the time and play the auction house.

I'm more than aware. I've gone in depth on this topic more than a few times; it's why I advocate for currency wipe. I know that this won't happen but if Blizzard were actually interested in reducing the "P2W" in the game, that's an easy, clear cut first step.

[Skildar]

some streamers have criticized the game for being pay to win and we've since been seeing a lot of posts-topics like yours.

That's what I don't like with the situation. It pains me more to see people follow trends than the fact that one very convulated way of getting some rare boe for real currencies exists. Especially when the game isn't designed around this way of getting gear.

[ArenaDk]

no its literaly pay money to get everything you want,but people for some reason shortcircuit because theres a middleman involved

I want rank 1 gladiator without doing anything. how much gold and where do I pay ?

Also where do I pay for mage tower ?

[melzas]

I want rank 1 gladiator without doing anything. how much gold and where do I pay ?

Also where do I pay for mage tower ?

Well, while I dont think WoW is pay to win, mage tower is probably a bad argument. Sinking gold into pandaria crafted set, old enchants, gems and consumables actually makes mage tower A LOT easier than running into it with your average shadowlands geared character.

[ArenaDk]

Well, while I dont think WoW is pay to win, mage tower is probably a bad argument. Sinking gold into pandaria crafted set, old enchants, gems and consumables actually makes mage tower A LOT easier than running into it with your average shadowlands geared character.

I was promised i can buy anything and win

[Coldkil]

If there is an official/inagme way, direct or indirect, to buy character power with real money, it's p2w.

Given this, ot all dependa on how much the p2w aspect has consequences on the gameplay loop and the difference between payers and non payers.

In WoW there is p2w due to the token. The fact is that p2w/boosts are just a symptom - if most players actually cared about doing content, it would be much less prominent. Instead a lot of players don't care about the game itself but just about getting their reward through the path of least resistance.

Basically, shit players make for a shittier community this a shittier game experience. We called this upon ourselves.

[Gaidax]

I think it depends on how casual you are. The more casual you are the more pay to win it probably is, because the more benefit from boosting you get.

If you raid and clear mythic already like me, then there is no use for boosting or (pretty shitty this tier) BoEs or anything. So practically any sort of gold to power conversion is gone anyway, except maybe legendaries, which are one time expense and pretty cheap now anyway.


IF we go by pure definition, then WoW is P2W, however. One can claim that as of 2k22 it's a tamest there is really, but that all.

[DechCJC]

I was promised i can buy anything and win

By that logic, even Diablo immortal isn’t pay to win, since money doesn’t literally beat the game for you or get to the top of the leaderboards.

But, like I said earlier, I digress. Everyone has their own opinion on the definition of winning and it makes this entire discussion nothing short of asinine.

[Echocho]

Is more P2W than most games. You can buy an endless amount of gold for real money with which you can buy anything in the game, including mythic clears and gear from there.

[Lochton]

It feels like it's been a slow steady road since the introduction of the token and the removal of most mobs dropping crafting mats beyond meat and cloth.

The changes to crafting in dragon flight seem another extension to this. Rather then getting easily made consumables they are now going to be multiple qualities in a community that has proven time and time again they only accept the best last seen with leggos?

It just feels like over time they either want to push players towards boosting or doing trivial mission boards in order to get items that used to be more readily available by farming. There is a chance I'm over thinking this but it feels like they are designing parts of the game around moving tokens rather then being enjoyable.

Here we go again... No, WoW has not become more Pay 2 Win, unless you count the ability to trade with another player for gold/game-time as Pay 2 Win, then yes but if the token is P2W, then the trading cards are as well, and WoW has been P2W for a LONG time.

[Gaidax]

I think we're way beyond semantics now - I too used to be on the fence, but really it's simple... can a player buy gear for $$ and get decked out just from and leapfrog past people who don't do it and put the same effort in the game? If yes, it's the end of the story.

Vast majority of MMOs are pay to win, WoW is not much different there.

You could say that it's a tamer P2W, because the systems don't support and encourage excessive bullshit there like in Lost Ark and the likes - you don't have pseudo-limitless progression with honing, gems and other BS newer games employ to keep the hamster wheel spinning, you have your static shopping list and you're done for the content patch.

Another thing to WoW's credit is that decking out in top gear is actually possible just fine for a player that does not pay a dime besides sub. It's not like DI or Lost Ark where it's "possible", but you need 10 years of F2P to do so. Here if you raid mythic proper - you got it and even if you don't you still can eventually get real vast majority of it.

But still, it's P2W, so there's that.

[Celement]

I think it depends on how casual you are. The more casual you are the more pay to win it probably is, because the more benefit from boosting you get.

If you raid and clear mythic already like me, then there is no use for boosting or (pretty shitty this tier) BoEs or anything. So practically any sort of gold to power conversion is gone anyway, except maybe legendaries, which are one time expense and pretty cheap now anyway.


IF we go by pure definition, then WoW is P2W, however. One can claim that as of 2k22 it's a tamest there is really, but that all.

Even then with mission tables and the new crafting table I'm seeing more and more terrible phone menus sneak into the game. Add to that how content bare dragon flight is so far and it feels like a patch with shitty systems then an expansion launch.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Hey it's this thread... again. What you people couldn't go 1 whole week without talking about this again?

[ellieg]

On the flip side I really want to play classic wow but it feels even more pay to win. Gold buying is extremely rampant. Gdkp runs are the norm for pugs and all it does is xfer bought gold around. The average player is 100x richer than they ever were back then. Unless you're in a guild, or a geared player getting a cut of the gdkp, you basically have to buy gold to get any sort of gear. As a side effect of this, all the good players are in these runs getting paid, which lowers the average quality of the player in the soft reserve/normal runs

[Khaza-R]

Hey it's this thread... again. What you people couldn't go 1 whole week without talking about this again?

My thoughts exactly.

[nvaelz]

Times change, put on your leather gear and mad max it if you don't wanna join some "team" doing m+ boosts for useless gold that doesn't get you anything, or you can do classic content and gdkp.


Was thinking about this one thing. Back in the day if someone had good dps or was healing or tanking good in a dungeon people on average were happy about it. Nowadays it's required that you do well and if you suck you are hated. Good times ahead?

[Palapop]

how is getting everything ingame by using $$$ not p2w?

Because you can get everything the same WITHOUT using RL currency.

If you could get some extra powerful and rare item ONLY with real life curremcy (and not by playing the actual game)- then that would be pay to win.

Get the difference now?

[Goat7]

It feels like it's been a slow steady road since the introduction of the token and the removal of most mobs dropping crafting mats beyond meat and cloth.

The changes to crafting in dragon flight seem another extension to this. Rather then getting easily made consumables they are now going to be multiple qualities in a community that has proven time and time again they only accept the best last seen with leggos?

It just feels like over time they either want to push players towards boosting or doing trivial mission boards in order to get items that used to be more readily available by farming. There is a chance I'm over thinking this but it feels like they are designing parts of the game around moving tokens rather then being enjoyable.

You are not over thinking it at all.