I can understand your arguments, but
first:
if its neglectible - why they do it?
second:
if you are a new player and look in the Store, you will get deterred.
As a #1 Hater of the “Burnout Leveling Up Process” (my name of the system) the number one item I need is PowerPass too.
But I think and should have a cost of $10,00 USD to Vern, and in the future, you can increase the price for the other continents like is now in RU Version, and when we get there, the $50,00 sound reasonable for Papunika 1302 Gear Level or ilvl if you prefer, if this price of $50,00 become true in Vern, I will never touch one of them, and I will still playing with just one char because the Burnout level… kill my mood and I will be left without options to skip it because the overprice cost of the item in my opinion.
Agreed. I’m just little worried they might follow example of some other MMOs, where boosts tend to be very pricey, but those as I pointed out, usually have much longer leveling. Not to mention having alts is considered normal part of the game in Lost Ark, it is less optional than in some other games. I’m fine with leveling my first character myself, seeing the world and all, should be fun. I doubt it’s as much fun the second time though, I’m virtually certain I would hate to do it 3 or more times :D. So I hope they will start with much lower price compared to WoW for example, but it is fair to increase whenever you are skipping way more content, like in case of the Papunika powerpass.
I also tried the RU version since and the boost prices are very good there. There is no way in hell we’re getting Vern for 300 RUB == 4 USD in the west though, because the popular believe is, that we are so much more wealthy right … . Except the median wage in my country is exact same as median wage in Russia (EU btw), so it’s not like we can actually pay 10 times more, “west” is not just US of A 
EDIT: actually I’m too lazy to re-check, but maybe it was 500 RUB? That’s still just 6 bucks and 73 cents though
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Actually whenever I already checked the median wages of Russia and my country, I also checked USA. Surprisingly the median wage in USA is just 2 times more, so if we only take one of the wealthiest countries in the west into account (which is still kind of a d*** move), the Vern pass should be just 13 USD, give or take. So let’s see how greedy Amazon gets here
People are too easily baited by Mari’s shop thinking that’s where P2W is, reality it’s not even scratching the surface with its small amount of resources.
The biggest issue with store in RU where I play is ability to turn $$ into gold with some intermediate steps - this in return allows you to purchase select choicest gear, all mats you ever need for upgrades, consumables and more.
From what I read about this business model - I see them hush hushing this tidbit very well and for a good reason. They made some unimportant changes to Beatrice Blessing and Pets, but that’s just gravy - the meat is in $$ to gold via shop - not a peep about that one.
I’m not even talking about shop potentially holding cards and jewels, like in RU, which are a major power boost by themselves for the people who whale.
Like frankly, they could have just removed Mari’s Shop altogether and the game would still be a massive gacha that will generate insane $$ from micros - I’m not even sure why they bother with that bait.
If I get your point, this is double-edged sword though. I could get gold by buying skins and selling them on the player market if I’m not wrong. So that’s pretty easy conversion of cash into gold and then gold into mats. The problem is, that if you make all skins account bound, they will be completely exclusive to people who spend cash, it would no longer be possible for F2P player to get them. And that somehow feels even worse, because why do I even care really, that someone did this? They will get to the most recent content faster … do I care? I believe P2W can pretty much exclusively manifest in a game that has some sort of competition and paying makes you win that competition, hence it’s P2W. But gear won’t matter at all in competitive PvP and PvE is not a competition, so where is the P2W?
That’s my belief too. WoW is technically P2W game, Blizzard literally sells gold to people (you buy WoW token and sell it for gold on market, the UI is even showing you real time how much gold it’s worth at the moment … ) and you can buy BOE gear from latest mythic raid (or heroic before mythic launch). And unlike in Lost Ark, that gear even matters in competitive PvP and PvE is also competitive - you have your Mythic Dung competitions and races to World First etc. You can’t buy every single item that you need, but you can give yourself pretty serious boost. It’s pretty expensive though, you don’t get all that much gold for your buck … and that’s it. Literaly end of story. The amount of people who actually do it, even though it’s technically possible, is so little that it just doesn’t matter.
You can earn gold ingame while playing AND can swipe some more on top of it.
Net gain - more power, easier carry runs for even more gold, more gear to access and defeat hardest raids.
It all compounds. It’s a snowball - selling carry runs is a thing both in KR and RU and people who swipe boost themselves in the beginning end up with much more gold simply due to that.
Yep, exact same thing as WoW. The items you cannot buy, you can get by paying for carry runs. But as pointed out, in WoW you can actually use that gear to “win”, which makes it more pay to win, although nobody really claims it has a huge pay to win problem. In Lost Ark, I’m still waiting for you to elaborate, what is it that I’m winning, by getting higher GS faster? In which competitive content will I beat other players by having higher GS by swiping?
Yes, but I’m trying to understand. You’re defending one piece of shit practice by saying “look that company that was about to give CEO 200 million USD, while firing CSR employees and having higher ups harassing women at workplace and melts down right now does it too”?
I’m not sure that’s something in Lost Ark’s model favor there.
No, you are not trying to understand, you are trying to muddy the waters so you don’t have to answer my very simple question. A fundamental question that must be answered to discern pay to skip and pay to win.
You are the one rolling in with unrelated whataboutism and I’m muddying the waters?
That’s hilarious, mate. 8/10.
I’ll try again. In which competitive content will I beat other players by having higher GS by swiping?
All hardmode raids, GVG.
Heck you can also farm gold much faster by selling guardian boost runs known as “bus service” in KR.
Are raids something you compete in? Like there are leaderboards in which I won’t place, because someone swiped? Is GvG big part of the game, is it bad for me that my guild will have harder time to win, because we don’t swipe? The fact that you can make gold by making carry runs I’ll kinda disregard, because that’s not the point here. The point is that we are talking pay to skip, whenever I pay to skip some content … and that’s all there is to it, I don’t get to leverage that to d*** all over F2P players. The first two might qualify as P2W though.
I disagree. Why remove the ability to buy some Mets and boost the character if you do not have the same time to play as a free-to-play player?
One thing is some people do not use the cash shop because they don’t want to use it or can spend money, other things prevent who’s are able to do so.
If you do not want or can, don’t lock/block the other people’s choices, focus on your game, and let the rest.
Oh and btw, s***all over Blizzard won’t help you here. My point about P2W being present in WoW, while not being considered a concern at all, is firm as a rock. Even though WoW is actually waaay more P2W as I pointed out, because you can leverage the advantage you bought in literally ALL the content - there is competitive PvE and PvP which is not normalised unlike in Lost Ark.
There is difference between “some mats” and dozens of % boosts to your characters power above whatever F2P player can realistically get.
Here’s the thing - if Mari’s Shop would have been the only way to get more character power - that would have been MUCH better, because that one is both limited and not sufficient for major edge.
Having effectively unlimited gold, on the other hand, that’s a whole other ballpark there.
Let me ask one thing, did you ever play this game in other regions before the NA Version, Depending on your answer I will explain the next one important thing,
Yes, in RU.
Waiting for you to explain how card packs and jewels are not gacha.