P2Progress is even worse than plain p2w since it means the devs designed the game in a way that you want to spend money (e.g. making certain things as uncomfortable as possible) instead of designing it in a way where every1 is equal.
Also just because there are no obvious competitions (like world first with price money or whatever) doesn’t mean there are no things to win. People will still care for world firsts. People still care who has the highest ilvl on the server. People still care who has the highest ilvl in their circle of friends.
Also if we take real life as an example many people even try to win in their day to day life. E.g. who has the bigger car. Who get’s more money on the job. There are many things besides simple 1vs1 where people try to “win” against other people.
Todays p2w mechanics are just not that straight in your face anymore since the companies got smarter in hiding them behind other things and designing their games around it.
If you compare todays games to past games every kind of microtransaction is kinda bad, even pure cosmetics. Back in the days we got multiple armor sets in games while only paying the base games price. Todays games usually only have 1 or 2 for the same base games price and you look like a peasant most of the time. It always comes done to how much you can tolerate personally.
That doesn’t mean i think LA is p2w. Well, i think it is and the game would be better without maries shop, but as described nicely in the starting post it is not as bad as some people might think.
Of course that is bloody the case. All the “pay2progress” people are just a bunch of copium slurping fanbois.
Guess what, you can take every game and say “herpa derp it’s pay2progess” too, if you twist it hard enough.
Of course it’s bloody the case in LostArk - by paying you literally have more stats at a given time than a F2P player. Now you could say “but hey if F2P player has 500 alts and spends hours without end daily grinding gold - they may get to same level as whale”, but that’s simply not how reality works, because said whale can do just the same and still be considerably ahead.
People say “but uuh nuuh, you can still do raids as F2P, DPS not important blah blah”, which is a bunch of nonsense. Guess what - having 30-50% more damage and most importantly HP is a huge advantage, especially in said raids where with that extra HP you can survive a lot more fuckups than otherwise.
Lost Ark is a game where $$ buys you power. There’s that.
I will play Lost Ark, the game has some great stuff in it, but people who think it’s not P2W simply delude and convince themselves.
That’s practically what I’m talking about right there.
Take every P2W game and you have fanboys “hurr durr what do you win???”.
Going by that line of reasoning no game is P2W and all peachy, after all - so what that this guy who tossed a bunch $$ is 50% more powerful than you, right?
It’s really this simple: can you buy power for $$ in Lost Ark? Yes.
You attacking me as a person only means I’m right.
It’s really simple - in between Jiudau and Saintone plainly saying the game is P2W and some random forum nobody - I’d go with Jiudau/Saintone.
It’s simply the reality - the most you can argue is the extent by which it is P2W. But plainly said - you get boosted ilvl with $$, which in turn makes your character considerably more powerful than it would be otherwise unless if you maybe live in the game - typical mobile gaming tactic.
Trying to deny that reality just raises eyebrows. It’s like the guy in OP who says outright it’s P2W, but then starts doing these cute mental gymnastics pirouettes how apparently it’s not.
"LA and P2W are inseparable. LA’s core systems are that closely related to P2W. We have to spend some money unless we spend some months just earning that gold or something. And even though it costs some money, LA is popular game because it is fun. Simply spend money and play and enjoy it. There’s no meaning denying what’s evident. "
So yeah, no point denying obvious, but still does not mean LA is “bad” or anything.
To fully enjoy Lost Ark and all the endgame content, you don’t have to pay a single dime. If you don’t try out or play the game because you are afraid it is P2W, you will be missing out on one of the best MMORPG experiences and games ever. That is your call.
Literally the words of top LA player in Korea right there.
But sure he probably does not know what he’s talking about, right…
So yeah ~50% more power than F2P character that plays his ass off. No way for F2P player to hit gear level of whales. $$ = power, that’s a fact. The rest is just copium.
He states exactly how much more powerful whale character is, that is 50%. And quite frankly given the difference between 1530gs and 1582 - that’s understatement given the stats boost.
And said 1582 is impossible by any means but $$ outright.
“P2W originaly has in mind, that you can cash for an advantage over other players, like buying a weapon with 20% better stats exclusively for real money and that is not realy the case in LostArk.”
That is exactly how it works in LA. You pay and you can upgrade your wep to levels a free player cant. IE, upgrade wep so it gives 20% more stats. They were just clever and didn’t put the wep directly on the store. instead just the upgrading materials to give you that same advantage.
Everyone should watch this video before even start talking about what they think p2w is. P2W was a term that refer to advantages in pvp, but since mobil games got more more relevant, the monetization got more and more complex, the term P2W shifted more and more to every game with simply a cash shop. It comes down to what we get in the cash shop and how expensive it will be to just buy everything instead of spend hours of times to get it. This video shows pretty well how companies manipulate players in spending money.
The beta showed me pretty well how fast u can snowball yourself up to be the first one clearing all the content in the first time gate and have better gear than every f2p player. How is this equalizied? We will see when they announce prices. The game is technically P2W, we just don’t know yet how much P2W.
This is by no means an excuse, but the vast majority of games not only MMO’s have these pay to advance quicker features. Hell even Ubisoft throws that shit into their Assassins’ Creed games…
I am not saying it is right in the slightest but that is how the gaming industry has shifted.
Your friends will not find a MMO that doesn’t have things like this really anymore. Perhaps FFXIV? I would say New World but that is a shit show.
That’s why instead of pretending and doing mental gymnastics, people just need to come at terms with it and that all.
Like I will play LA, will toss some $$ at it and I won’t go ahead deluding myself that it does not offer major power advantages for people who spend $$.
Yes it’s 2k21, can’t have it all, something has to give.
I like Korean players mindset about it, they don’t go this bullshit denying reality - they just say, yeah and so what - it’s a hobby it’s ok to spend some $$ for a hobby. Life’s unfair.
My mindset is if someone wants to drop 20-100k on a game to be number 1 let them. They are funding the game far more then I can and giving it longevity.
Minus the part where their ability to spend and outperform you … invalidates any sort of achievements in the game you might make. If anyone can buy it, it holds no value.
world first … “best player” ect … none of those things matter if you can pay money to upgrade gear.
So the gains in game longevity you might reap from having that funding, is immediately invalidated because in doing so, you have destroyed all sense of gear progression and competition.
This is exaclty why pvp and hell modes are gear equalized. Ok … but what about the other 99% of the game you blew up in the name of profits?
Bruh, just responding to let you know you’re 1000000% right. Every time I make this same argument on the LA subreddit, it gets downvoted into oblivion. Copium at its finest.
I play on the RU server and it’s obvious within mere hours of being level 50 that this game is not only objectively P2W, it’s also fundamentally P2W. They make everything in the game such a slog that you’ll either end up spending real money or no-lifing on alts for years to come. It’s as P2W as any other game because trading RMT for power is 99.9% of all P2W games.
Also, “BuT WhAt dO yOu WiN?” is the most ignorant and braindead response in this entire debate. As if to say you can’t win in a video game without competitive metrics or human opponents. This is all just willful, stubborn ignorance and gaslighting.
