Guild Wars 2

Is GW2 P2W for you?

You can buy gold officially,
You can get the best gear with RL cash,

But the game is hella fun!
And I love this game!
But I think is a little P2W.
And what you think?

Your post looks like a poem….beautiful.

No.

lol..

not. at. all.

GW2 is far, far from pay-to-win, since you’re not (realistically) locked out of the best gear in the game unless you pay cash.

Heck, even if you could straight up buy Ascended gear with gems, it still wouldn’t count since getting Ascended gear is relatively easy.

If being able to buy gear from other players combined with the ability to buy in-game currency with real money was the requirement for pay-to-win, that’d make a huge, massive majority of all online games pay-to-win, which simply isn’t true.

No.

RMT will gladly sell players gold for money. The difference is ArenaNet can actually get a cut of that business by providing a legit means to do so and on the flip side, sell gems for gold to players, the same gold other players are buying with gems. Circle of life.

Can players achieve the exact same thing with no RL cash?

What do you win? A loss of gameplay hours?

I don’t know exactly what P2W means when it comes to games, but have always treated it as meaning a game(mmo) where the highest power comes only from spending real cash. If you didn’t spend cash or grind an insane amount you could never be at the same power level as someone spending cash.

So no, gw2 is not P2W.
GW2 has pay to avoid a lot of grind for power, but it’s less than what I would consider P2W.

you can pay for gear but not skill.
this game depends a lot more on skill than gear.

also… gear is so easy to get without spending real money that paying to win kinda makes you a loser.

theres no end game, so you can’t win anything by paying

It’s pay to win. I had to pay money before they let me play the game and post on the forums! \o/

If I haven’t paid I wouldn’t have 13 characters, hours I spent playing, chatting with friends and guildies, doing jumping puzzles, teaching Teq a lesson, exploring, getting achieve points, doing the story lines, etc, etc, etc,

It’s a scam I tell you, a scam!

/s

No OP. Guild Wars 2 is not pay to win. Objectively. It’s not a matter of opinion. Happy to hear you like the game though.

Vicao.5068:

Is GW2 P2W for you?

You can buy gold officially,
You can get the best gear with RL cash,

But the game is hella fun!
And I love this game!
But I think is a little P2W.
And what you think?

When you level a new char to level 80 via PvE, you have enough golds (money) to buy a complete stuff (all pieces, including trinkets) EXOTIC for that character. When i uped my first char on my new account, with 0 gold, i bought a complete berserker stuff once 80.
Exotic is nearly (at 5%) the best stuff in the game.

How is it P2W?

Definitely not . . . thank God.

Pay to skip the gameplay.

I mean you could buy everything up and then what do you have left to do? It’s the same as paying some guy to beat a video game for you.

The only thing that comes close to P2W here is the mech unlimited mining pick and that is a far, far, far cry from being P2W so:

NO!

Oh and by “get the best gear with RL cash” you mean skins? O.O

Getting an advantage on your goals through real life money does not define pay to win. Pay to win is when you literally cannot progress further reasonably without spending money.

Pay to win – not at all.

It’s easy to gear the way you want with the best gear simply by playing the game. There is nothing that one needs to buy to be geared with that is superior to gear acquired through regular gameplay/crafting.

Cash for gems for gold simply speeds access to the same stat gear everyone else has access to as well as skins (no effect on gameplay) and fluff. You could say its “pay to speed to end gear”, but that’s not a very long trip and everyone arrives at the same destination.

No it is not P2W. Your assertion is laughably incorrect.

As someone who has spent more money than I intended on gems, I can safely say I have never spent them on anything that has helped me win.

Guild Wars 2 is Pay2Skin not pay 2 win

Asking if it’s pay to win ‘for you’ is just unnecessary hedging. There is no reasonable definition of pay to win that applies to GW2.

Westwater.1095:

Getting an advantage on your goals through real life money does not define pay to win. Pay to win is when you literally cannot progress further reasonably without spending money.

or spending money gives you some excessive advantage over others.

Guild Wars 2 is the most P2W game available.

It’s a fact since it’s launch.

And Anet will not change this.

Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not after tomorrow.

No, you need to look up what pay to win means.

I feel like anyone who tries to use the term “pay 2 win” incorrectly, say for Guild Wars 2 or a similar clearly not P2W game, should be forced to play non stop matches of Combat Arms for about 3 months without being allowed to spend money. When they finally stop crying at the end of those three months, I bet they would never use the term incorrectly again.

If you see P2W strictly as including the ability to buy the best equipment with real life money then yes.

But if you did then you’ve basically just wasted your money because unlikely genuinely P2W games it’s extremely easy to get exactly the same equipment (or even more choices) without ever spending anything.

So it’s not really pay-to-win so much as pay-to-win so much as pay-to-be-equal with people who spent 50 hours or so playing the game.

You can pay to get better at this game, but there is literally nothing to win here with money.
There is no gear treadmill. Exotics vs Ascended are like what, 5% difference?

I’ve been doing WvW and dungeons(not fractals) for about 95% of my playtime and I’ve never needed/wanted ascended. I have ascended trinkets that I essentially got for free from laurels, then I made a backpiece to complete the set. In WvW, I’ve dueled people with full ascended vs my exotic/ascended mix gear and I’ve easily beat them.

I got some ascended armor and weapon drops, but it was some crappy combo that I didn’t use.

I guess the only thing that’s pay to win is to look better, using cosmetic items. But I mean, that’s not really winning.. is it?

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is, because you technically can’t win if you can’t play after failing to pay for your subscription.

You can get the best gear and win without paying anything extra in GW2, if you think that’s P2W you seriously need to download a F2P MMO to experience what P2W really is.

Pandaman.4758:

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is

Uhhm, no. WoW is a pay2play MMO, not pay2win. There’s a difference between P2P and P2W.

Oh, and I don’t think GW2 is P2W except for one thing, and that’s the Watchwork Mining Pick.

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is

Uhhm, no. WoW is a pay2play MMO, not pay2win. There’s a difference between P2P and P2W.

Oh, and I don’t think GW2 is P2W except for one thing, and that’s the Watchwork Mining Pick.

Finish reading the sentence first

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is, because you technically can’t win if you can’t play after failing to pay for your subscription.

People are always arguing about if games are p2w or not. The thing is we shouldn’t have to argue about that because it shouldn’t exist.

Guild Wars 2 is not Pay to Win.

Guild wars 2 is Pay to Enjoy.

I’ll have to disagree and say that Guild Wars 2 is NOT P2W. The only money I’ve spent on the game, is actually buying the game itself. I’ve never bought anything from the Gem Store or bought gold etc, and I have no problem beating other players (unless of course they’re a better player than me) in the game when fighting other players, or doing anything in the game.

P2W means you literally pay money to stand a chance in say, PvP for example. I can’t say that Guild Wars 2 requires you to pay money to stand a chance against other players.

Pandaman.4758:

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is

Uhhm, no. WoW is a pay2play MMO, not pay2win. There’s a difference between P2P and P2W.

Oh, and I don’t think GW2 is P2W except for one thing, and that’s the Watchwork Mining Pick.

Finish reading the sentence first

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is, because you technically can’t win if you can’t play after failing to pay for your subscription.

Ok, I get what you mean, but not being able to play means neither winning nor losing. When you pay a monthly subscription for WoW, either through your bank account or through those gamecards or through those WoW Tokens, you are on the same level as others who do that and you don’t have advantages. P2W does not define not being able to play the game.

Oh I thought this was a poem at first. It’s not p2w. You only pay for outfits n stuff. And even then you can just trade gold for gems.

Frankly, considering how poor the gem to gold conversion is, it would be very inefficient to convert real cash into gold.

Couple that with the general ease of earning gold in GW2, and I’d say that it errs more away from P2W, than it does towards it.

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is

Uhhm, no. WoW is a pay2play MMO, not pay2win. There’s a difference between P2P and P2W.

Oh, and I don’t think GW2 is P2W except for one thing, and that’s the Watchwork Mining Pick.

Finish reading the sentence first

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is, because you technically can’t win if you can’t play after failing to pay for your subscription.

Ok, I get what you mean, but not being able to play means neither winning nor losing. When you pay a monthly subscription for WoW, either through your bank account or through those gamecards or through those WoW Tokens, you are on the same level as others who do that and you don’t have advantages. P2W does not define not being able to play the game.

I could just sit here and explain the joke to you, but not worth the effort. Instead have a disapproving Tommy Lee Jones.

Pandaman.4758:

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

Kaligos.7285:

Pandaman.4758:

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is

Uhhm, no. WoW is a pay2play MMO, not pay2win. There’s a difference between P2P and P2W.

Oh, and I don’t think GW2 is P2W except for one thing, and that’s the Watchwork Mining Pick.

Finish reading the sentence first

WoW is more P2W than GW2 is, because you technically can’t win if you can’t play after failing to pay for your subscription.

Ok, I get what you mean, but not being able to play means neither winning nor losing. When you pay a monthly subscription for WoW, either through your bank account or through those gamecards or through those WoW Tokens, you are on the same level as others who do that and you don’t have advantages. P2W does not define not being able to play the game.

I could just sit here and explain the joke to you, but not worth the effort. Instead have a disapproving Tommy Lee Jones.

Oh… now I get it… I feel so dumb…
Sry for not seeing it through.

Whoever says gw2 is a p2w game, has never played a truly p2w grindy game.

Nice bait post

Nothing is P2W in this game

Stat wise, no. However, this is Fashion Wars 2, so yes.

Gw2 is not pay 2 win simply because here is nothing to win.

Fiddlestyx.9714:

Stat wise, no. However, this is Fashion Wars 2, so yes.

Does some skins can only be acquire with real life money?

What are you talking about? The best gear in the game is ascended and that you must craft yourself. You can’t buy that from the tp. And exotic gear is so easy to get it’s not even funny. It’s more p2skin like others have said. Though keep in mind anything you can buy with money in the gem shop, you can also buy with gold by converting to gems.

Ehhh, GW2 is many things, but I wouldn’t even begin to consider it a P2W. Spending RL cash gives you… boosters? Skins? None of these really help you beat anyone in PvP or WvW. It doesn’t make you more desirable for PvE groups, except for the eyes of misguided elitists who think that having the best skin means you’re the best player (lol).

No, regarding gems, they’re subject of price shifts with the “stock” of gems.
So you can make some profit with buying gems and turning them into gold, but you can make more gold if you turn your gems to gold if you make the transaction at a right moment. And you can get less gold out of your gems and so on.

Gem store offers small temporary bonuses (some which will be removed upon entering PvP classified maps) and fashion. These don’t give players advantage over another.

Buying gold from gold sellers can prompt ANet to reverse your account, if they spot you buying from them and having sudden unusual surge of gold.
Of course buying gold from gold sellers can result your account being stolen by the same gold seller company, since they always use stolen accounts to advertise their business when ever possible. And well, people with too much money and always thinking “I can just pay more money to get back in” will propably just overlook the loss of their account and buy a new one, then proceed to use their excess of money once more to get back into the same level, repeating their cycle.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Can players achieve the exact same thing with no RL cash?

That does not really matter, in many many games that are usually considered P2W, you can get all the stuff in game. It just usually required a lot of time and boring grind.

In all honestly, saying something would not be P2W or bad, just because you can grind for it ingame is a really bad excuse that you could then use to dismiss everything with the current model because you can always grind gold for gems so everything is fine then. That, however is ofcourse not how it works.

You can get Ascended gear with gold now?

It really depends on what you consider P2W, many people consider Pay2Kill, P2W and in that case I guess you can’t consider GW2 really P2W.

However, for me for example, winning is getting a cool skin, or a cool mini. In that case you could consider the game P2W as for getting those items you have a clear advantage when spending money. In fact for many items the only way to get them is spending money, or grinding gold. You can’t get them in-game as a drop.

Biggest problem with this is that people might not want to keep spending a lot of money on gems so eventually fall to grinding, ending up finding the game boring / getting burned out, and leave.

But who knows, maybe with HoT they go back more to a B2P model instead of a cash-shop model.
We will see.

P2W in terms of getting awesome skins, not so much for gearstats