Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

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.

And what required a lot of time and boring grind that you can buy with RL cash? The most expansive gem store item is 1000 gem which can be bought with 113 gold or around 6-12 hours or gameplay depending on what you do. That’s not a lot of time.

Draknar.5748:

You can get Ascended gear with gold now?

Well, technically speaking, you can buy most of the mats you need to craft ascended gear with gold, aside from the bloodstone dust, etc, but that stuff drops like rainwater in a monsoon anyway, so it’s a bit of a moot point.

Fred Fargone.3127:

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).

In PvE, winning = getting a reward (like that skin). So in that case, being able to buy a good skin can very well be considered buy to win. Just depends from what perspective you look at it.

considering you can buy gems for ingame gold, there is no way you could ever define GW2 as a P2W as there is not a single item you can’t get without spending any cash on the game (beside the obvious initial purchase of the game)

Thaddeus.4891:

Devata.6589:

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.

And what required a lot of time and boring grind that you can buy with RL cash? The most expansive gem store item is 1000 gem which can be bought with 113 gold or around 6-12 hours or gameplay depending on what you do. That’s not a lot of time.

I never make 113 gold in 6-12 hours. (dungeons, world-bosses and EotM would) but doing these things, just to get the gold to then buy those items you like.. and then again for the next item, and then again for the next item.. that is grinding, and will for a lot of people soon turn into being boring.

it’s not only about skins.
Overall it’s P2W and mods should stop playing FBI and CIA with those censoring attitude.

GummiBear.2756:

considering you can buy gems for ingame gold, there is no way you could ever define GW2 as a P2W as there is not a single item you can’t get without spending any cash on the game (beside the obvious initial purchase of the game)

Usually, people consider a game pay to win when one player can get an advantage over another, simply by spending real cash. It doesn’t necessarily mean that something is available to one group of players, and not to another. It just means that one group has a definitive advantage over another, relative to how much money they can spend.

So, depending on how you look at it, you could actually see GW2 as a pay-to-win game, because if someone has money to spend, they can get some advantages over players who don’t have money to spend. For example, I could pump a load of cash into the game and buy a legendary straight up, just by converting gold to gems while another player who cannot do that, might have to work months on acquiring the same item. In a way, it does diminish the prestige of the legendaries themselves because people can acquire them with zero gameplay effort under the right circumstances.

One of the two players in this example has a clear, albeit rather expensive advantage over the other as far as acquiring items is concerned.

Now, the real question here is whether you see cosmetic items as something worth stressing over as far as player advantages are concerned. Another player with ascended gear would have the same kinds of stats as someone with a legendary, so the disparity is less obvious than it would be in any other game where a player might get an actual stat or gameplay advantage for spending money.

Some people will consider it pay-to-win, because the prestige for players in GW2 is in cosmetics rather than stats. Others won’t consider it pay-to-win because cosmetics don’t give you any actual gameplay advantage. It’s all about perspective.

For me personally, this is how I see it. If ANet didn’t have the option to convert gems to gold, then people would look for other avenues to buy gold, such as gold sellers. If they really wanted to buy in game items with real cash, they’d find a way no matter what, unless ANet removed the option to send other players gold or items altogether (which would cause other bigger issues). The gem conversion is a small, necessary evil to help reduce the use of gold sellers and thus diminish their presence in game.

It’s fairly Grind2Win, currently. Because of ANet’s enforced rarity, some items are wildly overpriced (no, not just precursors).

And while one can trade gems for gold, you get twice-over screwed for it.
First, market rates make it so you can’t easily flip gems. That’s kind of necessary, but it’s a ~30% reduction in value from purchase price.
But what’s more infuriating is how players can buy gems in exact numbers with exact amounts of gold, but you can only buy gold in round numbers designed to cheat you out of gems and force an uneven number. It’s kittening insidious, and they know it.

Devata.6589:

Fred Fargone.3127:

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).

In PvE, winning = getting a reward (like that skin). So in that case, being able to buy a good skin can very well be considered buy to win. Just depends from what perspective you look at it.

You get tons of rewards in PvE all the time. You win at PvE all the time? Kinda diminishes the “win” of any skin you might buy. Besides, is it even a reward if you bought it? P2W is not about buying a certificate that says you won. P2W is about buying the tools that enables you to beat others more easily, and therefore win.

If some rich millionaire participated in the Olympics, paid $1Bn and just walked to the little pedestal with “#1” written on it… do you think people would consider him having won? Because I sure wouldn’t. I suppose someone might, but… no, just no.

GummiBear.2756:

considering you can buy gems for ingame gold, there is no way you could ever define GW2 as a P2W as there is not a single item you can’t get without spending any cash on the game (beside the obvious initial purchase of the game)

Getting something easy with spending money, while it takes a long and / or hard way (usually grindy) to get it in-game, is also considered P2W. So no, just the fact that you can get it with ingame-gold does not mean you can’t have P2W, it’s just a easy excuse to try and dismiss any type of P2W.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Devata.6589:

Fred Fargone.3127:

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).

In PvE, winning = getting a reward (like that skin). So in that case, being able to buy a good skin can very well be considered buy to win. Just depends from what perspective you look at it.

You get tons of rewards in PvE all the time. You win at PvE all the time? Kinda diminishes the “win” of any skin you might buy. Besides, is it even a reward if you bought it? P2W is not about buying a certificate that says you won. P2W is about buying the tools that enables you to beat others more easily, and therefore win.

If some rich millionaire participated in the Olympics, paid $1Bn and just walked to the little pedestal with “#1” written on it… do you think people would consider him having won? Because I sure wouldn’t. I suppose someone might, but… no, just no.

Following you logic but applying it to defeating the competition.

If some guy participated in the Olympics, both a car (the tools that enables you to beat others) and drove to the finish… do you think people would consider him having won? Because I sure wouldn’t. I suppose someone might, but… no, just no.

No, imho in PvP winning is getting the kill or match, in PVE it might be killing the boss, but it very well might also be getting the reward.

nacario.9417:

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

but if I am not wrong, there already are sinister and nomad stat items (e.g. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forgotten_Band) you only can get from buying and playing living story 2 and who knows what new stats you will get only when you have bought HoT

sure it is not like in this other mmo where you have to upgrade your armor and weapons for money to be strong enough to actually play the dungeons on your level
and hopefully it will never be like that in gw2 but yeah that you have to actually pay for living story 2 to get some items you otherwise can not get is still there

Devata.6589:

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.

You don’t get to do this. The term has an actual meaning, you don’t just get to decide that it means something else because you feel like it. For a game to be pay to win, there must be an exclusive advantage that you can only get by buying it with cash. Skipping grind does not, has not, and will never qualify as pay to win. Purely cosmetic items have not, do not, and will never qualify as pay to win. It’s not a matter of perspective or opinion.

Games that are guilty of being pay to win exist, they are abominations, and using the term loosely just weakens its proper usage.

Pay to win, by definition, can not exist in a game where cash shop currency can be obtained with a method other than spending money in real life. Secondly, to be pay to win, the advantage would have to be unavailable by any means in game other than the cash shop.

How to make Guild Wars 2 pay to win:

First, remove the ability to buy gems with gold.

Second, add a new tier of gear, let’s call it Super Ascended +1, give Super Ascended +1 gear say a 50% stat advantage over Ascended gear. Release it exclusively in the Cash Shop. They can get bonus horrible people points by making it an item rental rather than a purchase, so that for only $40 you can have the best gear in the game for 7 days!

^THAT IS WHAT PAY TO WIN ACTUALLY MEANS. By all means, say you wish it were easier to obtain cosmetics without spending money. Say it takes too long to grind gold for gem store items, say whatever complaints you want, but please, please, please stop using the wrong words to do it. It just invalidates your complaints.

Tao.1234:

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.

Arch Age just turned in it’s soon-to-be-grave.

Maja.6372:

nacario.9417:

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

but if I am not wrong, there already are sinister and nomad stat items (e.g. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forgotten_Band) you only can get from buying and playing living story 2 and who knows what new stats you will get only when you have bought HoT

sure it is not like in this other mmo where you have to upgrade your armor and weapons for money to be strong enough to actually play the dungeons on your level
and hopefully it will never be like that in gw2 but yeah that you have to actually pay for living story 2 to get some items you otherwise can not get is still there

I also find myself unable to aquire items in games that I don’t own…

I don’t buy as many gems as I used to. Mostly since they got rid of mix-n-match clothing.

For the first year and a half of the game, or so, I had a self-imposed monthly sub fee of $10. Every month my calendar would remind me, and I’d buy $10 worth of gems. Save them up, spend them on things as I saw fit. Worked out rather nicely.

I also play FarmAge. Really enjoy the farming and commerce aspect of that game. That is very much pay to win, even if you aren’t even doing any combat or PvP, it can get very expensive to keep in fun things.

This is a very dumb post. If you want to experience pay to win check out Archeage, literally thousands of dollars are spent monthly by the top players in that game and they have to continue spending as new items come out to keep their position at the top of the food chain.

Gw2 is as far from p2w as I have ever seen, great job in that department, plenty of other stuff to complain about though =).

Tao.1234:

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.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

He’s never played archeage or anything like that apparently.

GW2 isn’t P2W, simple as that. It has stepped on the line a few times, but otherwise it is not P2W.

P2W means you can purchase something with only real money that those who don’t spend real money can’t have, that gives you an advantage over others. Usually this is a stat advantage. There is nothing in the Gem Store like that.

Though, at a time, there was. There used to be Strength & Armor boosters in the Gem Store. Items that gave you higher stats that at the time, were only available via the Gem Store. But they got removed and added to BLC Chests instead. Then of course, the Watchwork Mining Pick. The pick that could get you extra sprockets over regular mining picks, that was only available in the Gem Store. Which while it wasn’t a stat advantage, it still gave you an advantage over others.

But in the end, nothing will ever be P2W as long as the Gold to Gem conversion exists. That of course doesn’t give the excuse to put higher stat gear in the Gem Store only though. But the option is there because of the Gold to Gem conversion.