Is this pay to win

[Cetra]

2 minutes ago, deadmesa said:

Anyone who thinks it is is just bad at the game and/or lazy. Period.

Anyone who thinks it isn't is either ignorant or in serious denial.

[deadmesa]

1 minute ago, Cetra said:

Anyone who thinks it isn't is either ignorant or in serious denial.

There isn't an argument for it being p2w. I welcome you to try.

[Cetra]

2 minutes ago, deadmesa said:

There isn't an argument for it being p2w. I welcome you to try.

I've already explained this above.

Step 1) Buy NCoin.
Step 2) Sell NCoin to another player for Gold via Gifting in Cash Shop
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all gear from Gold obtained from gifting people cash shop items.
Step 4) Stand around in chat with all the best gear.


Future method:

Step 1) Buy Ncoin
Step 2) Put NCoin on Exchange Market for Gold
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all Gear
Step 4) Stand around bored with nothing to progress in.

Ban Method:

Gold sellers.

[Enamour]

2 hours ago, Cetra said:

I've already explained this above.

Step 1) Buy NCoin.
Step 2) Sell NCoin to another player for Gold via Gifting in Cash Shop
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all gear from Gold obtained from gifting people cash shop items.
Step 4) Stand around in chat with all the best gear.


Future method:

Step 1) Buy Ncoin
Step 2) Put NCoin on Exchange Market for Gold
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all Gear
Step 4) Stand around bored with nothing to progress in.

Ban Method:

Gold sellers.

 

By this logic, every single game that I can think of right now is P2W. 

[Els]

You call that P2W ? There are games that offer extra stats, better gears if you pay. That is P2W. Blade & Soul isn't, if you spend time you'll eventually get everything (except the cosmetics from the cash shop, that should be made tradeable until you equip it, so non-paying users can get them in a sure way instead of paying someone some golds and then them gifting you the costume).

[LiriC]

it's not pay to win .. it's spin to win.

 

See what I did there ?

[Els]

But but, summoners don't have spin to win, well their cat does.

[Hisa]

Nope, it's pay2get*cricket*ed by ncsoft.

 

Don't donate to this game until ncsoft decides to fire some people.

[Luffs]

On 2/15/2016 at 0:59 PM, FF8Games said:

I just wanted to ask is this pay to win? Because i'm new to this game

 

It will go P2W once they merge up most of the servers in the future.. approx a year and a half to two years from now

[Waterstream]

Let me first touch the topic of selling cashshop items to other players and therefore obtaining ingame money. This is a concept that to some degree can be applied in nearly every MMO in existence. If this MMO uses some kind of tradable currency that is requiered for certain character progress then it is trivial to convert you real life money into character progress. This would be the case for Blade and Soul's gold system for example. There are on the other hand some games that do not provide methods to do this directly, since they do not requiere any tradable currency to progress. Those games in most cases requiere to clear and/or farm certain dungeons/areas/bosses to progress your character. This may include dungeons that are supposed to be cleared by a raid and have a certain gear requierement, which is supposed to force you to obtain certain other gear first and spent time on it. In my time in such game I encountered a different method of money converting. The concept of selling raidspots. A decently geared raid could easily compensate for 1 or 2 persons not contributing to the overall dungeon clear and thatfore carry some people willing to pay for the slots while giving some certain drops. If you spin the concept further you realize that there is no way to prevent people from gaining an adavantage in terms of gear in a Multiplayer game as long as there exist people willing be paid for certain services.

This is therefore existent by default in MMO's and I would not consider it something the characterizes a game as pay to win.

 

Let me now tell you about some real pay to win concepts. Some years ago I played a MMO that I like to use as an example for p2w nowadays. I will give a certain list of advantages obtained by the cash shop.

-100% increased life and mana

-50% decreased incoming damage

-50& increased damage dealt (note this are true multipliers at the end of all other calculation)

-by stacking several items that could come close to 80% crit chance and 100% increased damage.

-100% increased drop chance on items (note: some bosses would be quite likely to rarely drop anything without using this)

-100% increased exp ( i a game with over 100 level where it would take a 3 digit amount of hours for one level after a certain point)

-immunity to exp loss on death (otherwise you would lose 1% of the exp needed for the next level up)

-upgrading your equipment had a chance to destroy the item and would take forever if you would not spent money on some items increasing the chance and protecting your item.

(note upgrading weapons for example would increase there damage by about 120%)

This are direct adavantages a non cash player could not obtain. This might by an extreme example but I thought it would be worth bringing it up here to remind people that the situatuin we currently oberserve in Blade and Soul may suffer from some elements from my former paragraph, but this concepts are hardly avoidably and therefore should not be an indicator to drop this game just for this reason, since NCsoft does not provide any direct power increases for paying players.

[Els]

8 minutes ago, Waterstream said:

Let me first touch the topic of selling cashshop items to other players and therefore obtaining ingame money. This is a concept that to some degree can be applied in nearly every MMO in existence. If this MMO uses some kind of tradable currency that is requiered for certain character progress then it is trivial to convert you real life money into character progress. This would be the case for Blade and Soul's gold system for example. There are on the other hand some games that do not provide methods to do this directly, since they do not requiere any tradable currency to progress. Those games in most cases requiere to clear and/or farm certain dungeons/areas/bosses to progress your character. This may include dungeons that are supposed to be cleared by a raid and have a certain gear requierement, which is supposed to force you to obtain certain other gear first and spent time on it. In my time in such game I encountered a different method of money converting. The concept of selling raidspots. A decently geared raid could easily compensate for 1 or 2 persons not contributing to the overall dungeon clear and thatfore carry some people willing to pay for the slots while giving some certain drops. If you spin the concept further you realize that there is no way to prevent people from gaining an adavantage in terms of gear in a Multiplayer game as long as there exist people willing be paid for certain services.

This is therefore existent by default in MMO's and I would not consider it something the characterizes a game as pay to win.

 

Let me now tell you about some real pay to win concepts. Some years ago I played a MMO that I like to use as an example for p2w nowadays. I will give a certain list of advantages obtained by the cash shop.

-100% increased life and mana

-50% decreased incoming damage

-50& increased damage dealt (note this are true multipliers at the end of all other calculation)

-by stacking several items that could come close to 80% crit chance and 100% increased damage.

-100% increased drop chance on items (note: some bosses would be quite likely to rarely drop anything without using this)

-100% increased exp ( i a game with over 100 level where it would take a 3 digit amount of hours for one level after a certain point)

-immunity to exp loss on death (otherwise you would lose 1% of the exp needed for the next level up)

-upgrading your equipment had a chance to destroy the item and would take forever if you would not spent money on some items increasing the chance and protecting your item.

(note upgrading weapons for example would increase there damage by about 120%)

This are direct adavantages a non cash player could not obtain. This might by an extreme example but I thought it would be worth bringing it up here to remind people that the situatuin we currently oberserve in Blade and Soul may suffer from some elements from my former paragraph, but this concepts are hardly avoidably and therefore should not be an indicator to drop this game just for this reason, since NCsoft does not provide any direct power increases for paying players.

The example you talked about is real p2w. But for most people, they call a game p2w if you could get any kind of progress through paying.

[HMint]

38 minutes ago, Els said:

The example you talked about is real p2w. But for most people, they call a game p2w if you could get any kind of progress through paying.

As Waterstream pointed out, you can always gain progress by paying real money. If anything else fails I could pay someone else money to level up my char and farm me gear.

 

The question therefore is not if you can do this, but is it directly implemented into the game's mechanics?

And is it possible to gain an advantage ingame by paying money, that you can not otherwise at all?

 

[Arathos]

2 hours ago, Luffs said:

 

It will go P2W once they merge up most of the servers in the future.. approx a year and a half to two years from now

pretty sure next summer or at least by the start of lv50 update. we're not in 2005 era anymore lol MMOs die quickly and by the time this one does NCsoft will force cash items to ensure stable profit. this is how it goes in this world.

[Strider]

You can pay to win, it just depends on how you want to look at it. For instance selling NCoins to other players in game to get your self a fat coin purse. Some people may not view this method as pay to win but seeing as the gold made from selling NCoin is more than likely going toward gear upgrading....

 

When the Pure White Bundle came out I saw people asking to buy NCoin at a rate of 100:1 (100 NCoin per 1 gold.) which would translate into 20g for the Bundle in game.

 

Long story short. You can't buy gear from the shop but you can sell NCoin to acquire the gold to then acquire the items you need to move you along your upgrading pains a lot quicker. I.e. Soulstones, Moonwater Trans Stones, the gold it self, etc.

 

Some of the items you need for Breakthroughs (equipment mostly) you will have to get on your own as they're unable to trade but that part shouldn't be as hard as getting let's say 110 Soulstones and 7 Moonwater Trans Stones for ONE breakthrough. Current market rates puts these items at about 66g by the way plus the gold you need to breakthrough as well which is 18g.

 

Final answer: YES. You can pay to win.

 

At least that's the way I see it.

[Akamu]

23 hours ago, AlcatelOneTouch said:

Ppppplleaseeee, 
Tomb of Exile cross-server party few hours ago:
Premium Summoner LVL 35  = Blight Staff, maxed
Non Premium Summoner LVL 45 - HM 1 = Blight staff, not maxed. (a bit more HP thou, cause I guess he already have the better Soul Shield from Moonwater)

If this is not obvious P2W I don't know what is... consider the gold drop, that guy prolly have 50% more Gold than the lvl 45 guy. So yes,  A LOT of Money. 

Also, there are still no non-premiums in Hogstead. I can even provide evidence with screenshots. 

Beautiful example of somebody who is inept, or they play a different way. Not everyone worries about maxing gear until they're level 45.

I haven't spent a cent, but my gear has been maxed and evolved to the limit of my level. So what's your excuse? I didn't even have to grind; I used my brain. Blight Staff aren't even that expensive. You could easily kill Deva at level 45 for one hour and have plenty of money for upgrading. Also, maybe that's your server? Or maybe it's simply that people who are willing to play more are willing to pay more? Screenshots wouldn't prove anything.

Use your brain.

[Poochyena]

16 hours ago, Cetra said:

I've already explained this above.

Step 1) Buy NCoin.
Step 2) Sell NCoin to another player for Gold via Gifting in Cash Shop
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all gear from Gold obtained from gifting people cash shop items.
Step 4) Stand around in chat with all the best gear.


Future method:

Step 1) Buy Ncoin
Step 2) Put NCoin on Exchange Market for Gold
Step 3) Profit & Upgrade all Gear
Step 4) Stand around bored with nothing to progress in.

Ban Method:

Gold sellers.

I see more players just making money off of moonwater stones. I made 22 Gold in 1 day just from selling mats and dalies. It's really not pay to win

[Cetra]

14 hours ago, Enamour said:

 

By this logic, every single game that I can think of right now is P2W. 

 

7 minutes ago, Poochyena said:

I see more players just making money off of moonwater stones. I made 22 Gold in 1 day just from selling mats and dalies. It's really not pay to win

I disagree, I also feel you're just making excuses for the game.  There are MMOs that you can't gain gear through currency or buying gold, might want to look into more games.  Hey, if you're reached the point where this type of garbage is acceptable to you then by all means keep playing.  I'm not trying to convince anyone to stop, I'm simply stating that for me this is pay2win and removes a huge part of what's fun about an MMO.  I think it's pretty sad we've reached a point where you can just buy your gear instead of actually playing an earning it, and some players defend those methods.  Why grind anything at all when you can just buy it all?  To me, this makes a game completely shallow and you never know who really put in any work for nearly anything they own in game.

[Poochyena]

1 minute ago, Cetra said:

 

I disagree, I also feel you're just making excuses for the game.  There are MMOs that you can't gain gear through currency or buying gold, might want to look into more games.  Hey, if you're reached the point where this type of garbage is acceptable to you then by all means keep playing.  I'm not trying to convince anyone to stop, I'm simply stating that for me this is pay2win and removes a huge part of what's fun about an MMO.  I think it's pretty sad we've reached a point where you can just buy your gear instead of actually playing an earning it, and some players defend those methods.  Why grind anything at all when you can just buy it all?  To me, this makes a game completely shallow and you never know who really put in any work for nearly anything they own in game.

No i played elsword, if you want to hear pay to win, go to that game. Literally anything you want in that game via costumes that are perm, anything to enhancing a weapon you HAVE to spend money. I know what pay to win is. At least in this game, the wrost thing you do is grind. Google elsword

[Cetra]

Just now, Poochyena said:

No i played elsword, if you want to hear pay to win, go to that game. Literally anything you want in that game via costumes that are perm, anything to enhancing a weapon you HAVE to spend money. I know what pay to win is. At least in this game, the wrost thing you do is grind. Google elsword

I'm not going to google it because I believe you, I understand some games are far worse.   But by that logic you're saying that just because you had it worse elsewhere that you're willing to deal with it here.  It's like settling for a less abusive relationship rather then a non abusive relationship.

[Poochyena]

12 minutes ago, Cetra said:

I'm not going to google it because I believe you, I understand some games are far worse.   But by that logic you're saying that just because you had it worse elsewhere that you're willing to deal with it here.  It's like settling for a less abusive relationship rather then a non abusive relationship.

I've played many games that are grindy, and many games that are pay to win. I just feel out of all (Which is a lot) that' I've played, everything i've done at this point I've earned from doing my dailies and working on my professions. I personally haven't had to spend any in-game money to actually make any money. I've upgraded my sword to awakened siren, soon to be pirate which is i think the highest it can go. And i'm sitting on 52 gold atm. I guess everyone's experience with the game is different. My opinion of "Pay2win" is something or a service that you pay for to gain a stupid advantage over players. An example, i'll use elsword again.

In elsword if you want to try and get a weapon between +9-11 it could cost anywhere from literally, and I mean literally 100$-2000$ some players having busted even more. And to PvP in that game in the high ranks (SSS- Star Rank being the highest) you needed Ice burners, which were 1$ a pop with a costume piece that had a .2%-4% chance to give you a piece of costume that's perm usually with a ridiculous stat increase depending on the weapon or clothing piece some giving you so much as a 40K HP increase which is a HUGEEEEE AMOUNT. People would sell these in-games for inexcusably insane amounts of money that a regular free player would have to grind for at least 4-5 months to get 4 piece of an 8 set. All the high end PvP were players with +10-11 weapons that could kill you just by using 1 skill, which sometimes took 20 seconds.

That is pay to win. Here, the pvp is normalized so the weapons level doesn't count. Upgrading the weapon can be done, this is a korean MMO keep in mind, they have to grind in most of their MMO's. That's why there are so many MMO's from korea they refuse to release in NA, mainly due to people making mass complaints about having to grind to get things in games, which I feel is...eh at most. I'm usually not a fan of grindy games myself, because I don't think endgame stuff should be so much of a chore. I'm not saying I'm excusing it, i'm saying I don't feel like the game is exactly Pay2win. At least not by my definition.

TL:DR Explained how bad it was with elsword (Read the underlined section if you want to skip to it) I don't feel this game is as pay to win yet.

[Enamour]

27 minutes ago, Cetra said:

 

I disagree, I also feel you're just making excuses for the game.  There are MMOs that you can't gain gear through currency or buying gold, might want to look into more games.  Hey, if you're reached the point where this type of garbage is acceptable to you then by all means keep playing.  I'm not trying to convince anyone to stop, I'm simply stating that for me this is pay2win and removes a huge part of what's fun about an MMO.  I think it's pretty sad we've reached a point where you can just buy your gear instead of actually playing an earning it, and some players defend those methods.  Why grind anything at all when you can just buy it all?  To me, this makes a game completely shallow and you never know who really put in any work for nearly anything they own in game.

 

How is that even an excuse? In every game I can think of you can use some way to sell the product you bought with real money (ncoins, w.e they used in GW2, EMP in Tera, you get the point) to make money, which by your previous statement, would equate to being pay to win. I think you read too far into my statement as a statement is only a statement (observation rather) without sustenance. I did not insinuate (any ideas) nor ask about your view points, I simply made an observation.

 

You're free to disagree with the other person or whatever you may, but how exactly am I wrong by applying your definition to other applications?

[Zarec]

Until this game has has items in the store you can only get with real money that give you a stat advantage over someone in game that they are unable to get, then no.

 

We do not have that system in the game (this isn't a Perfect World managed game).

 

Please lock the thread, the answer has been given.

[Cetra]

28 minutes ago, Enamour said:

 

How is that even an excuse? In every game I can think of you can use some way to sell the product you bought with real money (ncoins, w.e they used in GW2, EMP in Tera, you get the point) to make money, which by your previous statement, would equate to being pay to win. I think you read too far into my statement as a statement is only a statement (observation rather) without sustenance. I did not insinuate (any ideas) nor ask about your view points, I simply made an observation.

 

You're free to disagree with the other person or whatever you may, but how exactly am I wrong by applying your definition to other applications?

Personally I find it funny how beaten some people are in the game community that they've reached a point that they not only condone RMT, they make excuses for it.  That's fine if you choose to think that way, it's not up to me to decide what's right nor wrong for you.  For me, I have no interest in games where the company supports the idea of opening your wallet as an optional way to level your gear.  With what you find acceptable, I see no reason NCSoft shouldn't just offer True Pirate weapons and Accessories in the cash shop.  Why not?  If you can buy gold, which in turn just allows you to buy everything you need the only difference between buying it outright and the way the game is now is having to click the craft button lol.  If you're paying for convenience, why not just have the option to buy all the end-game gear.  That is what essentially what people are doing, make it even more convenient so I don't have to gather the materials from the marketplace and hit the craft button either.

[Cetra]

43 minutes ago, Zarec said:

Until this game has has items in the store you can only get with real money that give you a stat advantage over someone in game that they are unable to get, then no.

 

We do not have that system in the game (this isn't a Perfect World managed game).

 

Please lock the thread, the answer has been given.

 I agree, p2w confirmed.  Thx chief.

[Enamour]

1 minute ago, Cetra said:

Personally I find it funny how beaten some people are in the game community that they've reached a point that they not only condone RMT, they make excuses for it.  That's fine if you choose to think that way, it's not up to me to decide what's right nor wrong for you.  For me, I have no interest in games where the company supports the idea of opening your wallet as an optional way to level your gear.  With what you find acceptable, I see no reason NCSoft shouldn't just offer True Pirate weapons and Accessories in the cash shop.  Why not?  If you can buy gold, which in turn just allows you to buy everything you need the only difference between buying it outright and the way the game is now is having to click the craft button lol.  If you're paying for convenience, why not just have the option to buy all the end-game gear.  That is what essentially what people are doing, make it even more convenient so I don't have to gather the materials from the marketplace and hit the craft button either.

 

I'm asking where in my post did I ever take any stance? Quote me. All I said was that by your standards, most games are pay to win. Where are you getting this other stuff? I'm actually quite perplexed and I feel like you're getting something out of nothing.