Educating Players on P2W (As a Lost Ark Player since 2018 CBT)

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.

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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.

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Copium, that’s all you can do.

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.

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Dang, not being acknowledged by you, whatever am I going to do now. Totally makes game not P2W now. You have defeated me with you amazing arguments.

What a circus.

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KR’s best lol, DIZGUZTANG!

Pesky twitch kids and their meme’s. Tell him to get off your lawn next!

O wait … I actually find it hilarious.

1 x 5, the person speaking on then said “oh ok 50%”… where in the world does 1 x 5 = 50%?

I think he was on the same wavelength well enough to recognize that when the other guy said 1 x 5, he meant to say 1.5, and translated that as +50%.

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“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.

Nice copium.

This vid would be educational: What makes a game 'Pay to Win'? - YouTube

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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Ah, the usual copium soaked excuse… “Pay2skip”… “Pay2progress”.

Please, do continue explaining how it’s not p2w, it’s mildly amusing.

It’s like, whom are you even kidding, mate?

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It’s not a matter of opinion, though, and this is the problem. People don’t seem to understand that P2W in LA isn’t some sort of abstract concept. It is definitively, and inarguably, P2W. If LA isn’t P2W, then no game is P2W, because purchasing power through RMT is the fundamental P2W mechanic in 100% of P2W games.

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i can’t blame players getting mad over the cash shop since they have been burned by so many other games who went full p2w

Pretty much this, anything else is just copium and mental gymnastics.

And I don’t even understand why people jump out of their skin to defend it - it’s in every poster’s best interest here to cap and reduce the existing P2W aspects of Lost Ark for the Western launch.

That’s why Amazon already did some changes, but those are not enough. I, personally, came to accept that P2W systems are so tightly integrated in Lost Ark that it would be impossible to be rid of them to any significant extent - it does not mean, however that I should be jumping out of my skin trying to make something shitty look like diamonds.

The game is good, but its monetization schemes are not in the slightest. It’s not a “sacrilege” to want to improve those to make the game better.

You don’t need to worry, Amazon will have more than enough $$ even if they reduce it a tad or/and add some reasonable caps.

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Not only do P2W mechanics not offend me, I absolutely love Lost Ark and play on the RU servers. I have already purchased the Platinum Founder’s Pack for NA/EU launch, as well, and I occasionally spend money on the in-game cash shop to try things out.

But this is why you all lose this argument every time. You can’t stay focused on the facts and instead resort non sequiturs and ad hominem attacks.