Israel.7056

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> Deflecting isn’t helping you, nor does it make you look you know what you’re talking about.... I’d suggesting thinking more and spend less time trying to spin-doctor and play the semantics game.

>

> You’re certainly not ahead here or close to convincing anyone, let alone the devs, that server transfers are indeed “pay to win”... But I guess we are all entitled to make stuff up and redefine things to suit our argument right?

Lol alright bud I've clearly spent a lot more time on you than you deserve.

Again better luck next time.

> @"Kirnale.5914" said:

> Time ofc does matter more or less. There isn't a clear definited time when thing becomes pay to win. When it takes years to farm and someone can get ahead of you in for example 1 minute, then that ofc **can** be considered pay to win, you are correct here, because the time difference is too great. At the same time, it means this game is all about pve grinding, instead of showcasing your skill in the competitive scene. You wouldn't see me in WvW, but rather in PvE all the time to get my gear, it will quickly become a PvE game rather than a competitive game. WvW would be dead empty this way.

To me these stipulations about time and dollar amount are arbitrary.

> Transfering wouldn't help you either.

Untrue.

>The profits through transfering is nonexistance

Irrelevant.

>there is no real tier gated item that makes you stronger or anything of the sort in tier 1.

Irrelevant.

>Nowdays people transfer to get to learn a different community, to receive a different experience, to follow a certain commander that left the server, to leave a certain tier that they got sick of, to go to 'international server' from national ones, to get away from a toxic community, to play with people who prefer the same style(ppt, ppk or both; roaming/zerging) or they just went with the flow (guild transfer, mass transfer like we had in the past) etc.

Irrelevant.

> The definition of p2w might be questionable, but gw2 is definitely not p2w, otherwise you would see people complain the the pvp/wvw forum through all the years, which isn't the case.

I think gw2 definitely has p2w elements but it's relatively affordable compared to other MMOs.

People have complained about this problem for years often in very circumspect language i.e just talking about population imbalances and coverage as a general problem without explicitly linking it all to transfers and then transfers to pay to win and once they banned matchup threads it became much harder to talk about this problem in anything but the vaguest terms because we can't specifically refer to instances of this happening in game without talking about specific servers where it's been most egregious.

Also I think more people are just generally starting to think of pay to win more along the lines of how I see it which is good imo. Words can change in the way they're used over time.

> @"Kirnale.5914" said:

> I said "1000s" of hours, not exactly 1000 hours, there is a difference in context there, read carefully before you point that out.

Ok fine still arbitrary.

>And the point of it was to say that no matter how much you farm, you cannot gain it.

So even if the player is given the option between say thousands of hours of work or a thousand dollars today you don't see that as pay to win? To be consistent you would have to say no because technically the item is farmable albeit months or maybe even years of work to get.

To expand on this a little from personal experience. I used to play this game called Aion and I spent almost three years building one toon and I never got to BiS because it was heavily rng based and I just never got lucky the way I needed to and it still took thousands of hours to even get to where I was which wasn't very good. Then some people started selling BiS items for real money and the company allowed it and this one guy spent like 10k to suddenly have every BiS item in the game. To me that was paying to win because he outgeared pretty much everyone and he paid for that advantage. I mean the guy literally paid money to have the ultimate competitive advantage in game. By your definition though that wouldn't be pay to win because technically the items were acquirable in game but wouldn't you have called that paying to win?

>If outfits were to give you 10% more stats and the only way to receive it is by paying 20€ or $, then that clearly pay to win.

To me this is a difference in degree rather than kind.

>And no, pay to win is not okay in a competitive scene.

That's your opinion I don't personally take any issue with it I just don't play games that I can't afford to compete in. Some people have a lot more disposable income than I do and that's fine.

>If games like CS or Dota were pay to win, they wouldn't be as successful as they are nowdays.

Perhaps but so what?

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> Want to make a case for Anet by stating server transfers are "pay to win" then YOU need to clearly prove and lay out why. I'm not the one making the claim, YOU are. And basically all you are doing is providing some vague and redefined definition of "pay to win" to reinforce some strawman argument here. You can get philosophical all you want, but in essence you are reaching here. You are attempting to create a narrative to make anet look bad for a service they provide to their players. But you don't look at it that way, you look at transfers as some money grab scheme by anet so players can declare themselves the super cool winners of a gw2 wvw match up ego wars and some green, blue and badges "stuff" items...

No you didn't ask me to prove why it was pay to win you asked me to demonstrate what one gets for winning. In doing so you tacitly conceded the principal argument. I don't have to demonstrate anything more to you as you've already conceded the point.

I'm not trying to make Anet look bad. I have absolutely no issue with them making money. But I'm also not going to pretend that that's not what they're doing here. Every thing businesses do, every service they provide, every product they produce is a potential way to bring in revenue. This is no different.

You may not personally care enough about winning to pay to win but it doesn't mean others don't, won't and haven't. This has been going on for years now, everyone knows it, stop trying to obfuscate the truth because you feel the need to defend this company against what you perceive as an attack of some sort. This is not an attack at least not from me.

As i said before if you want to start a thread about a different discussion about what one gets for winning you're welcome to and I will more than gladly post there but you lost the principal argument with your initial post. Should be more careful next time.

> And no, you want to accuse anet of creating a server transfer system that is designed for "siphoning real money from wvw players", so you don't get to change your position here and pretend it was out of some innocent observation… You are being petty, and ultimately accusing anet of some carefully planned cash grab scheme on customers. Sad.

I haven't changed my position you just assumed something about my position that was never there to begin with. I also haven't accused them of anything except making money and by extension being a smart business.

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> What competitive advantage?

> Seriously, illustrate where being in a T1 server (assuming you're not blocked by the "server full" algorythm).

Who said anything about t1? I didn't. More semi clever moving of the goal posts. Now it's not just winning a matchup but winning the t1 matchup. Clever.

The competitive advantages one can get from transferring are myriad and diverse and so appeal differently to different players. For some it's access to an easier matchup or in many cases to an almost guaranteed win, that's the most obvious form of pay to win. But sometimes it's to be paired with guilds they'd rather fight with than against or it's access to better pugs so they can run open and demolish everything in their path every time they play. Sometimes it's to have access to 24/7 coverage so they can k train most of the day. There's something for everyone.

> Well, its called what it is... It's a Moderation Fee, a cost imposed on an action that would otherwise be free if it wasn't likely to be abused to prevent such abuse.

Lol lovely euphemistic language. It's a fee that siphons money from players when they transfer around. An ingenious way of taxing players for their willingness to pay to win.

Transfers, free or paid, are going to be abused no matter what I don't know how anyone could be so naive as to think otherwise and I doubt they were so naive as to think otherwise. There's no price some people won't pay to win.

If they had been serious about creating a competitive environment they wouldn't have allowed transfers in the first place and they would have moved guilds around manually to try to fill coverage gaps. But that would've taken time and players would've made a big fuss over the imposition and I think they also just realized that they could make a lot more money off paid transfers. Good for them.

> If gamers weren't lazy bastards, nothing in the server transfer system would entail any kind of advantage, since ideally we'd be spread even. The only reason there's any apparent advantage, which isn't one by the way, is because players are lazy and will cluster on the winning team, instead of carrying their server to victory.

It's not an issue of laziness it's an issue of efficiency and humans are very good at identifying efficient paths to victory. Why work hard to win when you can just pay to transfer to win?

> You can't call it P2W, since it was never designed to give an advantage, that advantage is entirely created by the community, and the devs are actively working on ending that advantage, actually.

It doesn't matter what it was intended to do. What matters is what it does. Perhaps they were foolish enough to think that people wouldn't pay money just to win easy. I tend to think they're much smarter than that and they just realized an easy way to monetize WvW players.

> Also, being on a T1 server brings no inherent advantage at this point. Also, this day and age, being on the #1 server is no different from being in the #12 server in terms of bling, prestige or any other metric. You might have more access to zergs, or you might just have better access to a larger queue and wait times for access to the content.

I never said anything about t1. This is more clever moving of the goal posts.

Although to be frank t1 history is mostly the story of one particularly infamous server that overstacked hard early on and continues to reap the benefits of that to this day. I should know I was there for almost three years.

Again the question of what one actually wins for winning is not relevant to this discussion. What matters is that one can pay to win.

> You basically have no argument, besides a edgewise, and personal interpretation of a very loose term.

I don't really see that you have an argument honestly, you haven't made any compelling objections here although presumably you think you have.

> @"Kirnale.5914" said:

> For me, it's a simple term: To gain something **unique**, that you cannot ever farm even with 1000s of hours gameplay, that **puts you above other players if you attain it.** If there was such a unique item to win in T1, then transfers would be easily p2w. But even with that kind of reward, it is still questionable whether it is indeed p2w or not, since you can simply farm gold to transfer instead of using real currency. Currently, the only thing you gain is 'better" gaming experience and more lootbags. But since more gold doesn't help you win against other players, transfering wouldn't result in a p2w aspect. You gain x-times more gold in pve anyways. 'Better' gaming experience really depends on the person. Some like it in tier 5, other prefer it in higher or even top tier server, it really depends on what you are looking for. In my case, T4-T2 is the better choice, since you can play against a different server setup each week.

>

> Just seriously, what people considers pay to win nowdays... last time it was even about buying expansion = p2w....

The essential characteristics of pay to win are conveyed effectively in the term itself:

1. Costs money

2. Gives competitive advantage

That's really all there is to it. The added hurdles you've stipulated here are arbitrary. Why 1000 hours? Why not 5000? 10000?

I think more people are beginning to wake up to the realization that all online games have some amount of this sort of transaction present and that the difference between games is in the degree to which pay to win is prevalent and the cost to stay competitive. So everyone just needs to be clear with themselves about how much money they're willing to spend going in.

Games are businesses first and foremost. I don't begrudge anyone for trying to make money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pay to win in video games. Just call things what they are.

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> By transferring to a winning server, as the game is designed, then they would be part of the winning party.

> Whether or not winning in WvW actually means anything, is another issue.

Hallelujah!

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> No no, if you are claiming server transfers are pay to win then it is your responsibility to clearly articulate exactly what someone wins... Without that you have zero argument...

Clever. Subtly moving the goalposts again. They win the matchup but that's not what you were asking. You were asking what does one actually win for winning the matchup. That's a different question. You're a little clever I'll give you that but not as clever as you seem to think.

> Ok, so that’s the clearest argument you’ve presented... “They made a smart system that's been very good at siphoning real money from WvW players.”... So now let’s ask @"Gaile Gray.6029" for her perspective on the matter, and the accusation...

Lol yikes dude that wasn't an argument or an accusation it was a factual claim. If she decides to post she could either say "yes we've made money from selling gems for transfers" or "no we haven't made any money from selling gems for transfers" in response. That's all.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> No no, how about you clearly articulate what 1 person truly and meaningfully “wins” for transferring over another instead of deflecting and making strawman arguments.

I've already demonstrated why I don't need to do that in this thread. If you want to make another thread about it I'll gladly make a list for you.

> And if you feel so strongly about this pay to win junk then why don’t you try to come up with a real argument so we can get the devs to change their supposed “pay to win” scheme made for players so they can suck money from them... Really, it’s not me you have to convince... not like you could with your poorly thought out arguments.

I don't personally have any problem with pay to win in video games. I wouldn't necessarily tell them to change anything.

> Let’s see exactly what you would tell a developer in charge of this? Hmmm?

They made a smart system that's been very good at siphoning real money from WvW players.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > @"Israel.7056" said:

> > > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > > So you have no real argument... as expected.

> >

> > Actually it would seem that you don't have an argument that's relevant to the actual question at hand since you already effectively conceded the OP's point and then proceeded to try to distract everyone with a moving goalpost fallacy.

> >

> > The OP's argument can be stated as follows: players can pay money to transfer> transfers can be used to move to a more favorable matchup and/or an easily won matchup> paid transfers are a form of p2w.

> >

> > Your response could be stated as follows: yes players can pay to transfer > transfers can indeed be used to move to a favorable matchup and/or easily won matchup > paid transfers are probably a form of p2w> it doesn't matter if transfers are p2w because one doesn't win anything particularly valuable for winning a matchup.

> >

> > You see? It moves the goalposts by attempting to recenter the discussion around a subtly different question than the one that was actually asked.

> >

> > I do think there are enormous benefits both material and immaterial to being on a winning server particularly one that's steamrolling the opposition as I have been on two of them in the time I've played this game but that's not what this thread is actually about.

>

> I like how you deflect and can’t answer the hard questions...

>

> You’re free to keep trying so hard and grasping at straws to make up some augment, but you’re not looking good so far...

If you want to make your own thread to discuss that topic you're free to but please stop trying to derail this one with irrelevant arguments you're not adding anything constructive or useful to the conversation.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> So you have no real argument... as expected.

Actually it would seem that you don't have an argument that's relevant to the actual question at hand since you already effectively conceded the OP's point and then proceeded to try to distract everyone with a moving goalpost fallacy.

The OP's argument can be stated as follows: players can pay money to transfer> transfers can be used to move to a more favorable matchup and/or an easily won matchup> paid transfers are a form of p2w.

Your response could be stated as follows: yes players can pay to transfer > transfers can indeed be used to move to a favorable matchup and/or easily won matchup > paid transfers are probably a form of p2w> it doesn't matter if transfers are p2w because one doesn't win anything particularly valuable for winning a matchup.

You see? It moves the goalposts by attempting to recenter the discussion around a subtly different question than the one that was actually asked.

I do think there are enormous benefits both material and immaterial to being on a winning server particularly one that's steamrolling the opposition as I have been on two of them in the time I've played this game but that's not what this thread is actually about.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > @"Israel.7056" said:

> > > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > > This thread is a ridiculous...

> > >

> > > 1. The system is changing anyway so I don’t know why all the QQ about servers and stacking and transfers is going on...

> > >

> > > 2. You win nothing of substance by transferring to a better server, except for maybe a better experience... Reward track stuff and skirmish tickets are time and participation gated, it’s not like you “win” anything just because your server, most with links, gets anything for being the mighty 1st place winner.

> > >

> > > Sad.

> >

> > This is a sort of clever moving of the goalposts argument so points for that.

> >

> > It's wrong btw if you've ever been on a winning server, particularly one that's steamrolling as I have been, you know that everything is easier and you get more stuff with much less effort than you do otherwise.

>

> “Moving goalposts” from the person who came up with a new application for a phrase to suit their flawed and shallow argument... right...

>

> And no, sorry, but if you are going to make up an argument that transfers are “pay to win” then it’s your responsibility to clearly state what you do “win”... You should spend less time trying to redefine “pay to win” and more time defining what you think you “win” by transferring and make a rational argument.

>

> “More stuff” lol you can’t even define “stuff”... like what? Greens and blues and badges of honor are winning something special? I get more valuable rewards on dead maps faster than your “stuff” junk bags on busy maps... Players don’t win anything by being the match winner either, unless you know about some super special winners rewards that none of us don’t?

>

> Is the next argument going to be that buying extra bag slots and permanent salvaging tools are also “pay to win” because you can stay on the battle field longer and collect and hold more “stuff”?

You moved the goalposts by tacitly conceding the argument and trying to change the focus to be about what is actually won by winning a matchup rather than whether or not one can pay to transfer to an easily won matchup in the first place and whether or not that counts as p2w.

There are tangible and intangible benefits to being on a winning server but that's not what the thread is actually about.

A slightly clever tactic but an obvious one. Nice try better luck next time bro.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> This thread is a ridiculous...

>

> 1. The system is changing anyway so I don’t know why all the QQ about servers and stacking and transfers is going on...

>

> 2. You win nothing of substance by transferring to a better server, except for maybe a better experience... Reward track stuff and skirmish tickets are time and participation gated, it’s not like you “win” anything just because your server, most with links, gets anything for being the mighty 1st place winner.

>

> Sad.

This is a sort of clever moving of the goalposts argument so points for that.

It's wrong btw if you've ever been on a winning server, particularly one that's steamrolling as I have been, you know that everything is easier and you get more stuff with much less effort than you do otherwise.

Was dumb to just assume sor would automatically get a link no matter how many people bandwagoned over. I got sucked into this following my friends so I guess I'm a part of this too but it still makes me laugh to see how hard everyone fairweathered when winning wasn't easy anymore.

Definitions are descriptive not prescriptive. The meanings of words can change over time as people use them in different ways. It may be that at one point p2w had a much more narrow usage but I tend to agree with the OP's more modern usage as it's the way I have come to personally use the term and the way I hear the people I play with use the term. Any competitive advantage of any form that can be purchased with real money in any way is what is more and more being called p2w. I think paid transfers certainly fall into that category.

It's a psychic reward more than a material one but there are some distinct material advantages to being on a winning server particularly if they're k training a lot and running over most of the fights. It all adds up over time.

You're gonna get disagreement with that definition but yes I agree with the definition and your characterization of transfers.

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> the problem is that not every effect gets cloaked, so it would affect fashion for deadeyes..therefor no.

> and if you want more people to vote..dont make it a public poll :)

Lol what a gw2 way of thinking of things. Fashion>all.

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> Unless of course, you were referring to the thread as a whole and not just due to the quote chain; I guess the forum's notification system is pretty kitten in that regards.

>But I was kinda arguing the opposite that siege disablers have not been successful despite the lack of any dedicated person, or at least not that severe of a threat.

I was referring generally to the argument that they're countered by reflects, blocks etc. The first person to present this argument was the second respondent in the thread and the response got 10 upvotes. It has been echoed by several other posters in the thread. I said granting these sorts of arguments actually bolsters the argument against siege disablers being "disproportionately effective."

> I dunno where this even came from.

It was a direct response to your smugly worded strawman. I didn't say anything about being "surprised" that they were efficient. I said I agree with the OP that they're "disproportionately effective" at their current supply cost.

> You claim that the cost/benefit ratio is clearly off, but I'm arguing that that's not inherently an issue because by design the siege disabler is supposed to be very cost efficient against siege, otherwise nobody will use it.

Presumably there is some price point where they would cease to be worth using but I doubt it's 20 supply or even 25 supply and since individuals cannot hold any more supply than 25 we are never going to find that price point. They are clearly worth using repeatedly at 15, people spam them at almost every single offensive attempt I'm ever a part of I don't think increasing their cost will cause that to stop it will just eat up the supply of the objective they are camping a bit faster, which seems only fair to me.

> I think dedicated countering is sort of a hyperbole. It's not like say, stealth, where you can legitimately argue that very few anti-stealth abilities exist, and those that exist are on long cooldowns, used on uncommon classes, or are just plain impossible to land. Combine with alleged counters also being counterable themselves and having almost no risk involved (the worst is usually just a stalemate) in it is a pretty easy argument to show it is degenerate gameplay. (Of course, Anet doesn't care, so think about how strong your point has to be.... ) In fact, I think it's closer to the opposite.

> Instead, reflects are on firebrands, the most commonly seen class in the game. Mesmers and Revs are also common, though I have to admit I am not sure if that hammer 4 really stops it. Also possible on eles and engineers. Projectile hate is just simply a useful to have in any fight and is not just dedicated to stopping shield generators. And that's not even counting blocks.

> It's just very hard for me to assume that something that is literally crapped out is an unfair burden at all. I guess you could argue that Wall of Reflection is sort of going out of your way. But, I could even argue that less classes have access to true invuls/stealth to actually toss the disabler.

The idea of "dedicated" to me simply means that someone is having to spend cds purely to prevent this one item from being used successfully. There is tremendous value in that. For instance let's say I build 4 rams and each ram needs an operator and if they're spaced out properly it might take 4 firebrands to spam reflects on them to prevent them from getting disabled. That's 8 people who have to stand by the gate just to make sure the rams don't get disabled, 8 people who are going to be in terrible position if the enemy pushes out. Little things like that can make a big difference when the fight actually happens.

I also don't know if you play on EU but on NA firebrands are not the most common class, revs and scourges are. Pretty much every group I know of on NA runs one fb per group so a 30 man guild group is going to have 6 fbs. So in other words it can take more than half of a group's fbs just to protect a few pieces of siege. That's huge, tremendous value.

> I mean just simply proving it with an actual game experience. Like the last time you couldn't take an objective because of it. Just something as simple as that.

I don't record my gameplay so anything I tell you here will be purely anecdotal but I can think of literally hundreds perhaps thousands of attempts at this point that have been stalled out by disablers long enough to make the attempt pointless.

I can also tell you that from an offensive perspective speed and surprise are everything during occupied timezones (timezones where the enemy has enough people to defend things) because defense in this game has literally every other conceivable advantage in the game. They have defensive siege, buffs, tactivators and tons of supply in upgraded structures. Most of the stuff that gets taken during occupied timezones gets taken in under 3 minutes or it doesn't get taken at all. 1 minute can easily mean the difference between a successful attempt and a fail.

Sounds nice in theory but would be a colossal mess in practice.

Like for instance do they still allow people to queue as guild groups?

What do you mean by "important?"

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> The "strawman" would be in your previous post about mine.

In that post I steel manned the argument about reflects countering siege disablers by completely granting it I never said anything about being "surprised" about how efficient siege disablers are nor did I respond to any argument about what is implied by their name.

> You claim that the cost/benefit ratio is clearly off, but I'm arguing that that's not inherently an issue because by design the siege disabler is supposed to be very cost efficient against siege, otherwise nobody will use it.

Ok but the initial proposition of this thread was that they're too efficient for the effect that they have and the work required to counter them. It seems to me that if you have to have people dedicated to countering them that that should be factored into their 'benefit value' not just the value that they have from disabling siege. This is why I said that if the OP grants the argument about reflects it actually bolsters his initial proposition rather than weakening it.

> Maybe if you could prove it, say, a simple thing, such as keeping siege disabled for a few minutes and more importantly how that really fits in the grand scheme of WvW itself.

Not exactly sure what you're saying here it's a bit of a word salad imo.

> I don't see anything that compelling that suggests that it is making objectives that much harder to take.

I do but that's a somewhat different discussion in my view.

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> Something explicitly labeled as a "siege disabler", which name implies it is a counter is a siege makes it a surprise that it is cost effective against it?

>

> Hmm...

Hmm a smugly worded strawman that attempts to shift the goal post hmmmm

Probably playing other games gw2 wvw isn't great for roaming playstyle

> @"juno.1840" said:

> > @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> > Oh no pressing 5 is hard. :/

> >

> > Wall of Reflection is 30s cooldown and lastst for 10s with no trait. Even if you don't have perfect timing, there's a ton of leeway.

>

> Actually there's no leeway there. I'm beginning to think everyone that says use reflects actually doesn't use reflects. You need 100% up time **and** hope the disabler doesn't have unblockable... you know, that attribute that allows the disabler to go through reflects...

>

> Too easy to use, too effective in stopping a very large force using a very small force. It stops 100's of supply of siege for the low cost of 10 supply.

Well let's say that you grant the claim that every piece of siege dropped just requires one guardian just to spam reflects on top of it to hopefully prevent disables. That doesn't refute your initial complaint in my view it bolsters it.

Theyre acknowledging that the threat of these things to an offensive attempt is so severe that they might actually require several people purely dedicated to protecting the siege as well as people dedicated to manning it. All of this for an item that costs 15 supply to use.

The cost/benefit of these things is clearly off.