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GW2: How to kill a game making it pay 2 win


cursE.1794

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Meanwhile most mmo's increase the max level with each expansion, rendering ones character useless and not even able to participate in any kind of end game w/o buing the xpac. I can asure you a core build vs a xpac build will fare better than someone 10 levels below their oponent. While I agree balance isnt at its peak, this is far from p2w.

 

Seriously, if you want to play a game you should pay for it. That goes for everything. You want an apartment, but you dont want to pay for it? Well tough luck.

 

If you think buying an xpac every other year for ~€50 with no monthly fee is too expensive, then you probaply should'nt sit around at home playing games all day in the first place.

 

Stop whining about gw2 being p2w or stop playing. Simple as that.

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> You can buy stronger skills for your character and the only way to pay for it is real money. That's the definition of pay 2 win. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, I'm blaming them for killing the combat while trying to do so.

 

This is BS. It’s pretty stupid how many people complain about p2w when they don’t even know what it means. GW2 is not pay to win. It is far from it. In fact, it very friendly to people that don’t own the full game.

 

Buying an expansion, and related items, is not pay to win. It is buying the full game (buy to play). Games progress and offer new content. GW2 does this trough expansions.

 

It’s like saying level cap expansions in other games are pay to win. Being a higher level and having access to the related higher level gear and abilities gives a clear adavantage (more so than elite specs), but is still not pay to win. Why? Because it is part of an expansion, which most games require to be able to play end-game, and thus included in the definition of the full game. If you don’t own the full game, then you get left behind.

 

GW 2 Elite specs have some advantages over core, but not to the degree that people often claim and nothing to the degree of level cap increases on other games. Core specs are still viable and played by many (even those who own both expansions). Even if elite specs were actually required to play end game it still would not be pay to win because it is part of the expansion. I would t like a move like that, but it still wouldn’t fit the bill of p2w.

 

Pay to win would be a micro transaction that allows you to equip a nose ring that gives you additional stats and the only way to get that nose ring is a micro transaction and not tied to an expansion.

 

People really need to learn what pay to win is in the sense of most mmos. GW2 isn’t even close to pay to win. It just sounds like people don’t want to pay for the full game.

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This question again... ALL MMORPGS are P2W/P2P (by OP's logic)

 

How is GW2 different from a game like WoW... other than WoW forcing players to buy new expansions for end game contend, while you technically never need to pay a dime to play GW2? If we're getting technical here, GW2 is never P2W.

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Not to long ago the base game was not free to play. It was B2P.

 

A short time before HoT, GW2 became F2P. But the expansion was and still is B2P.

 

The deal was solid, pay a 1 time price to buy the expanded content. But there was one issue, it wasn't just expanded content players got, the package included new "Elite" skill specializations. Even the name "Elite" would indicate that there was some kind of advantage, afterall the core game did not have elite traits or trait lines. (elite skill yes)

 

Obviously you should have to buy the expansion to play expansion content, but are you guys seriously ignoring the fact that in most cases the new specializations give a distinct advantage over the masses ,save a few highly skilled players on novel builds?

 

I don't consider it to be "winning" to play expansion content. But when the expansion content includes skills and traits that are superior, while coincidentally nerfing some of the previous specs that would have been obviously competitive, the P2W claim become increasingly believable.

 

Honestly I hope the next expansion just focuses on content and straight up leaves out a new specilzation. Honestly the could spend that time rewaorking and fixing what they have already done.

 

**tl;dr You should have to pay for expansions, and that is reasonable. If expansion include skills and traits that grant dominance in competitive game modes, the P2W argument is not unreasonable.**

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1. It's buy to play, Elite specs are generally better and make the game more complex. If you're free to play, don't expect to be on the same level as players who buy an xpac. Xpacs get you a whole ton of value for not a lot, so they're 100% worth.

 

2. Despite what I just said, core specs without Elite specs are still viable. Power Mesmer, Burn Guard, S/D Thief, Fresh Air Ele, and Core Warrior are all very much viable compared to their Elite Spec counterparts and can take you to at least Plat 2.

 

3. If you do hit such a high rank that core builds are holding you back, consider just getting the xpacs. At this point, you must have been playing the game for awhile now, and you've gotten a lot of value for being a free game. Just buy the xpac at this point and the huge amount of content at a low price point. For a forum that complains about literally everything, you see very little people complaining about the value they paid for on the expansions. That is more than reasonable.

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> @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> **tl;dr You should have to pay for expansions, and that is reasonable. If expansion include skills and traits that grant dominance in competitive game modes, the P2W argument is not unreasonable.**

 

It's not fair because Physicians who trained to become Psychiatrists can be pretty useful in combat but not as much as Physicians who trained to become Surgeons. And if the people who picked Psychiatry want to train to become Surgeons the government won't subsidize it.

 

Personally I think medicine has become Pay2Win. The people who design and update medical specializations should stop focusing on new work and fix Psychiatrists so they do everything better. But I'm not going to pay them to do it because screw them for purposefully making it so Surgeons are better in combat.

 

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> You can buy stronger skills for your character and the only way to pay for it is real money. That's the definition of pay 2 win. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, I'm blaming them for killing the combat while trying to do so.

 

Bohoo...

Seriously, that complaint is old... You guys bought a broken record or what?

By that definition, any game that doesn't give all it's content for free is pay to win.

 

By your standard, WoW is P2W, because not only does it have worse restrictions for those that don't buy expansions: no classes, lower max level, worse gear. But also you **can't** play without paying (well now you sorta can).

Any game out there with expansions does the same or worse. And weirdly enough you choose to harp about it here.

 

You know what was GW2's mistake? Ever making core F2P, then there would be no whiners.

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> @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > **tl;dr You should have to pay for expansions, and that is reasonable. If expansion include skills and traits that grant dominance in competitive game modes, the P2W argument is not unreasonable.**

>

> It's not fair because Physicians who trained to become Psychiatrists can be pretty useful in combat but not as much as Physicians who trained to become Surgeons. And if the people who picked Psychiatry want to train to become Surgeons the government won't subsidize it.

>

> Personally I think medicine has become Pay2Win. The people who design and update medical specializations should stop focusing on new work and fix Psychiatrists so they do everything better. But I'm not going to pay them to do it because screw them for purposefully making it so Surgeons are better in combat.

>

 

Surgeons in combat

 

 

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > > @"cursE.1794" said:

> > > You can buy stronger skills for your character and the only way to pay for it is real money. That's the definition of pay 2 win. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, I'm blaming them for killing the combat while trying to do so.

> >

> > Sorry to burst your bubble but this isn't the definition of pay to win. The problem is, people love to look at words literally even though terms are often not the same as the literal definition of the words. In the case of pay to win, it was intended to indicate games where the cash shop (not expansions) sold the greatest power.

> >

> > Typical example would be level cap. Almost every game has the level cap go up in an expansion. Guild Wars 2 does not. This means in almost every game you're more powerful with an expansion, even games that charge a monthly fee. If you meet me in WoW on a PvP server in the open world and I'm max level and you're not, you're going to die. It's not even much of a contest. There really is no way to compete.

> >

> > At least in WvW and SPVP in Guild Wars 2 there's a chance. By your definition, every MMO is pay to win and the actual definition loses it's meaning.

> >

> > Take other games where you have to buy potions with cash and the people who can spam the most potions are going to win any fight 90% of the time. That's the very definition of pay to win. You can look it up in wikipedia and get more specifics. There's plenty of actual research you can do. Your definition of pay to win is just taking some words literally as if that's how they were originally defined. That's not the case at all.

>

> Here's an example that proves you wrong: In WoW, if you didn't buy the expansion, you could not play pvp at max level but you could still play pvp at lower levels and there it wouldn't make any difference if players had the expansion or not. So expansion players and vanilla players, when mixed together, had the same chances. In Guild Wars 2, expansion players and vanilla players are mixed together, in spvp as well as in wvw, but the expansion players have a huge advantage which comes from paying real money.

>

> Again, pay to win means that paying players have an advantage over not-paying players, especially in competitive games. I did look it up, this is a widely shared definition. It's even considered pay to win if the time it takes to gain the same advantage by simply playing the game is out of scale.

>

>

 

Does WoW have open world PvP? It does right? So you don't have to play PvP in an arena. A high level character coming across your low level character can still kill you. Fact. PVP doesn't just exist in arenas in WoW.

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> You can buy stronger skills for your character and the only way to pay for it is real money. That's the definition of pay 2 win. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, I'm blaming them for killing the combat while trying to do so.

 

The "pay-to-win" argument usually only really applies to F2P games, which try to induce payment solely so that players feel a competitive advantage (often at extortion-like rates). The truth is that GW2 is a very large MMO that doesn't have a subscription model, and needs to fund itself in some way, shape, or form. Expansions are not focused on "just" adding new subclasses, but expanding the story as a whole. Of course that affects gameplay.

 

The thing is... you don't need to buy it to actually win in competitive game modes. There are several "meta" builds out there that are core-only. Your options are significantly more limited (because you didn't opt to EXPAND your game), but you aren't restricted in any way. I find it hard to argue that a $30 expansion which adds a ton of story, content, and expands the universe is an unreasonable ask. Would you rather pay $15/mo and not get anything new out of it?

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > > @"cursE.1794" said:

> > > You can buy stronger skills for your character and the only way to pay for it is real money. That's the definition of pay 2 win. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, I'm blaming them for killing the combat while trying to do so.

> >

> > Sorry to burst your bubble but this isn't the definition of pay to win. The problem is, people love to look at words literally even though terms are often not the same as the literal definition of the words. In the case of pay to win, it was intended to indicate games where the cash shop (not expansions) sold the greatest power.

> >

> > Typical example would be level cap. Almost every game has the level cap go up in an expansion. Guild Wars 2 does not. This means in almost every game you're more powerful with an expansion, even games that charge a monthly fee. If you meet me in WoW on a PvP server in the open world and I'm max level and you're not, you're going to die. It's not even much of a contest. There really is no way to compete.

> >

> > At least in WvW and SPVP in Guild Wars 2 there's a chance. By your definition, every MMO is pay to win and the actual definition loses it's meaning.

> >

> > Take other games where you have to buy potions with cash and the people who can spam the most potions are going to win any fight 90% of the time. That's the very definition of pay to win. You can look it up in wikipedia and get more specifics. There's plenty of actual research you can do. Your definition of pay to win is just taking some words literally as if that's how they were originally defined. That's not the case at all.

>

> Here's an example that proves you wrong: In WoW, if you didn't buy the expansion, you could not play pvp at max level but you could still play pvp at lower levels and there it wouldn't make any difference if players had the expansion or not. So expansion players and vanilla players, when mixed together, had the same chances. In Guild Wars 2, expansion players and vanilla players are mixed together, in spvp as well as in wvw, but the expansion players have a huge advantage which comes from paying real money.

>

> Again, pay to win means that paying players have an advantage over not-paying players, especially in competitive games. I did look it up, this is a widely shared definition. It's even considered pay to win if the time it takes to gain the same advantage by simply playing the game is out of scale.

>

>

 

WoW expansions introduce new classes and races with other boni that can be used in low level PvP, so yes WoW is pay to win with your definition.

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> Step 1: Release an expansion and introduce new subclasses. Make sure the new subclasses are ridiculously overpowered compared to the old ones, but not by simply increasing some numbers. Make sure the new skills turn the entire combat system into a complete mess. Since the old classes can't compete anymore, everyone has to buy the addon, making it pay 2 win.

>

> Step 2: Repeat step 1

>

> Step 3: No further steps needed, the game is already dead.

>

> We're currently somewhere between 2 and 3.

 

You are the reason why we didnt have here f2p before. Once game was b2p all knows how it works. This salty poor kids beaten by pof spec, whining , even he cant handle his char properly. F2P players are like ... wtf you bought the full game, exp ... so game is pay to win model... lol.

Go ask ur grandma for cash, buy it... dont be cheap-ass.

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> @"Legendary Defender.5631" said:

> > @"Sombra.3246" said:

> >

> > > You're the one spreading misinformation by saying there are no advantages you can buy with real money. The new specs give you a clear advantage over players who didn't buy them.

> > How am I spreading misinformation?

> > GW2 was never completely F2P to begin with. They introduced F2P so people can try out the game and see if they like it before they invest and buy the game and expansions. This is not P2W this is B2P like I said in my earlier post.

> >

> > There are no advantages you can buy with real money if you own the game and expansions. Saying otherwise is a lie and complete misinformation by your part.

> >

> >

> >

>

> IF this is true, then why are scourges firebrands and spellbreakers the most played class in wvw? It's cuz they're specs are far more powerful then base specs and they are especially more overpowered in blobs as they are being used. Right now blobs consist of nothing but scourges, fb's and sb's with the occasional ele for healing and pugs running mesmers and soulbeasts. If these specs weren't overpowered then nobody would be playing them. The only way to get these classes and specs is to...........you guessed it...... you buy the expansion. You're paying for the overpowered classes therefore its pay to win. YOu can be apologetic all you want for anet and make excuses but remember being apologetic and making excuses is why the game mode is in such a poor state at the moment. Esp pvp and wvw.

 

Most of the previous specs felt clunky.

Have you ever played Berserker.

It felt good awful.

Even core warrior felt better than that shiet.

Spellbreaker I adore (besides my ele and ranger babies respectively), because it felt like an actual combat class. It felt right for the combat system gw2 has. Not some half ass clunk sh it like Daredevil or chronomancer or even later specs like Firebrand, scourge.

 

There's a certain flow/vibe that some specs have that other's don't. In my personal opinion that why people had mained classes like Engie/ele/rev/war because those specs just feel right. Everything else just feels..out of place. some of the eli-

 

Nope a lot of the elites feel sluggish and just wrong. I don't blame it on the passive gameplay, I'm more blame it on animation or lack there of in some cases.

 

But that's just for me. There needs to be a finesse with a spec to attach me to it. Make it feel like I'm in a quasi-fighting game. And a lot of the newer specs just doesn't give me that same excitement. They can be strong, but if they are not enjoyable or exciting what's the point?

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Get a job. Work one hour. Buy the expansion. You are paying to play and with the hours you spend in game you get plenty of bang for the buck. If you do not want to pay for the expansions , it your choice. You can still play the content you did pay for and will get all the same boosts to those Core specs that those that buy the expansions get.

 

Go out and buy a Movie Ticket at a theater If you DO buy a ticket to see "The Fantastic Four" it hardly means you can watch that and then be entitled to watch "Star trek". All you paid for was "The Fantastic Four" and its content and that all you entitled to see.

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Some people really have no clue about what P2W is and how a real-life business works. You don't even have to pay a monthly fee to get constant content and other updates and you complain about buying a 20-30 dollar expansion every few years. Get a grip man.

 

GW2-s payment system and F2P component is so much better than any proper MMO out there.

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> @"cursE.1794" said:

> Step 1: Release an expansion and introduce new subclasses. Make sure the new subclasses are ridiculously overpowered compared to the old ones, but not by simply increasing some numbers. Make sure the new skills turn the entire combat system into a complete mess. Since the old classes can't compete anymore, everyone has to buy the addon, making it pay 2 win.

> Step 2: Repeat step 1

> Step 3: No further steps needed, the game is already dead.

> We're currently somewhere between 2 and 3.

 

You and the other who keep crying about the game being P2W need to understand something. GW2 is not free-to-play and was never free-to-play. The only reason they let you try the game for free, with all those limitations, is for you to decide if you like it or not before spending money on it. WoW has the same system but far more limiting, they let you play until lvl 20 and I would not consider buying WoW expansions or pyaing subscription "being P2W". GW2 was always Buy-to-Play and all the veterans know this. We bought the core game and we bought the expansions too. If you do not want to buy an expansion, then you are limited. In World of Warcraft, if you miss an expansion you will be 10 level behind everyone else. So no, buying an expansion (30$ each year is really a cheap amount of money) or paying a subscription is not and will never be considered P2W. The elite specs were announce since HoT and with each expansion they will add new specs, is their way of "developing new classes".

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> @"cursE.1794"

 

Do people seriously expect to purchase the game once and have access to all future content for 5+years?

If you don't have either expansion, their current combined cost/price is **less**

than the cost of the original game at launch and also **less** than the HOT expac at launch.

 

The game has remained sub free and to access **everything** the developers are asking for a small input every ~2 years of just a few £s. It's rather disappointing to see people under appreciate the shear quantity of content added to the game and diminish it to "just a new elite spec". It should be noted that elite specs were **part** of the package with each expac.

 

Core specs still function fairly well if you are able to gear and play them appropriately, yes they are not often meta, but they are not obsolete. If you're really that bitter about people beating you with elite specs, just purchase those expansions yourself and you'll see that the difference isn't that huge for many professions.

 

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Most mmos, including wow, will not even let you play at level cap if you did not buy all expansions up to and including the latest/current one. If you buy base wow + 5 expansions but are missing 6th expansion, you're capped at lvl 100 while people with 6th xpac are lvl 110. The power difference is: Lvl 110 characters can solo/duo a lvl100 25man raid boss. GW2 lets you play at max level and max equipment even if you did not buy expansions, with very minor disadvantages for core players being new specializations are generally better but only marginally. ANet probably made elite specs a little better than core because they're trying to offer a little bit of that feeling of power increase from expansions like in other mmos while still maintaining their original idea of no gear/level progression after reaching max lvl/gear once.

 

And please support the games you like to play by buying expansions / cosmetics, whatever is within your means. The devs need to earn a living too, shareholders in game companies would also like to invest their money in a company that generates a competitive return on their investment. And shareholders can be ordinary people too, like your grand mother.

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> @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > > **tl;dr You should have to pay for expansions, and that is reasonable. If expansion include skills and traits that grant dominance in competitive game modes, the P2W argument is not unreasonable.**

> >

> > It's not fair because Physicians who trained to become Psychiatrists can be pretty useful in combat but not as much as Physicians who trained to become Surgeons. And if the people who picked Psychiatry want to train to become Surgeons the government won't subsidize it.

> >

> > Personally I think medicine has become Pay2Win. The people who design and update medical specializations should stop focusing on new work and fix Psychiatrists so they do everything better. But I'm not going to pay them to do it because screw them for purposefully making it so Surgeons are better in combat.

> >

>

> Surgeons in combat

>

 

The fact you posted this before Googling three words indicates you are probably aren't Anets intended demographic.

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Step 1. Pay the ridiculously low price for an MMO expansion and support this franchise. You're not meant to have everything if you don't support the game by at least buying the expansions. It's such a trivial amount for such a large amount of content/changes, we're not here to play everything for free or else we will never see a GW3.

 

You can more than enough for free to decide if you want to invest time+some money into this game. The essence of P2W does not exist whatsoever, even with gear itself, we have free gold farming methods that make 15-20g/hr, ultra easy farmable trinkets, achievement weapons, everything to get your to the top gear in a few weeks or even a month+ at a slow pace. Oh and the gear you make will be top stats for all of GW2.

 

There's nothing to complain about, expansions need incentives to make money. The price is shockingly low compared to other MMOs.

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> @"babazhook.6805" said:

> Get a job. Work one hour. Buy the expansion. You are paying to play and with the hours you spend in game you get plenty of bang for the buck. If you do not want to pay for the expansions , it your choice. You can still play the content you did pay for and will get all the same boosts to those Core specs that those that buy the expansions get.

>

> Go out and buy a Movie Ticket at a theater If you DO buy a ticket to see "The Fantastic Four" it hardly means you can watch that and then be entitled to watch "Star trek". All you paid for was "The Fantastic Four" and its content and that all you entitled to see.

 

I get what you are saying but very bad example. The new Fantastic Four was a shitty piece of crap movie and many felt entitled to a refund.

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It's great how you guys build up a straw man by implying that I'm too poor or not dedicated enough to buy the addons. I own both of them. I criticize that in order to force people who are interested in wvw/spvp only to buy them too, Arenanet introduced the pay to win principle and therefore killed the combat in this game which has become a total spam fest. I want Arenanet to make money, but I think killing the game for a short boost of sales is a bad long term solution.

 

Since there is also a lot of confusing going on, I challenge you to give your own definition of pay to win. I bet that none of you will be able to give a definition that, at the same time, a) makes sense and b) does not apply to Guild Wars 2 regarding spvp and wvw. A lot of arguments I've seen here have the structure "well, then why don't you just buy the op stuff?". I mean, come on guys, really?

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> @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > > @"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

> > > > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > > > **tl;dr You should have to pay for expansions, and that is reasonable. If expansion include skills and traits that grant dominance in competitive game modes, the P2W argument is not unreasonable.**

> > >

> > > It's not fair because Physicians who trained to become Psychiatrists can be pretty useful in combat but not as much as Physicians who trained to become Surgeons. And if the people who picked Psychiatry want to train to become Surgeons the government won't subsidize it.

> > >

> > > Personally I think medicine has become Pay2Win. The people who design and update medical specializations should stop focusing on new work and fix Psychiatrists so they do everything better. But I'm not going to pay them to do it because screw them for purposefully making it so Surgeons are better in combat.

> > >

> >

> > Surgeons in combat

> >

>

> The fact you posted this before Googling three words indicates you are probably aren't Anets intended demographic.

 

I don't use google.

 

Also your comment/reply to my post was convoluted.

 

I gave an appropriate response to a post that makes no reasonable connections or parallels to my stance on the issue.

 

But if you think buying skills/specializations for a competitive edge is the way to go and okay, then I can say you ARE Anet's intended demographic.

 

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