This is a question I’d like to see the answer to. Off the top of my head, I know of two people who have purchased carries. One of them I don’t think even counts. He’s a world class player who’s been HoF and plays with HoF people. He sells carries regularly. So why does a player like that BUY a carry? He can’t be bothered to grind-gear alts. When he decides he wants a new alt, he’ll just buy a heroic carry with guaranteed drops, and have a solid set of gear to start with hitting higher end m+ rather than dealing with pugs doing…gear appropriate…content.
The other guy…well he counts, and is probably the kind of player the OP is referring to. He’ll buy an AOTC carry to have the achievement. I personally don’t see the point, but if he’s willing to spend for it, why not? It doesn’t hurt me if he buys an AOTC. It’s not like AOTC is some elite club or anything.
Beyond those two though, while I am sure I know others who HAVE bought carries, I don’t know of any who openly admit it. I doubt most of my friends group would actually even do it, maybe because most of us get it anyways. Those who don’t do it, don’t care enough to pay for it. So my guess is, the amount of people who buy their KSM and AOTC so they can ‘brag’ about being KSM or AOTC is really very small.
Have you heard of these things called the in-game store or the WoW Token? And don’t come in here with that smug “show me the data” garbage. You think that the services channels and group queues wouldn’t be crammed with sales advertisements if they weren’t happening? Come on.
Why are you insisting on limiting pay to win in terms of paid boosts/carries? You do know that there’s huge numbers of players who don’t give 2 shakes about M+ or raids and their endgame is cool transmogs or mounts. Those folks can just buy off the store too, unless you want to pretend that the store isn’t popular or that the auction house doesn’t exist.
Edit: Paid level boosts, paid gold, paid everything. Give it up, WoW is pay to win.
Sure, buying stuff from the store is not challenging content and never was. But there is not “winning” when it comes to transmog. That doesn’t affect gameplay, so there is no “winning”. Calling buying transmogs pay to win when there is no way to win transmog is terrible logic.
Also, you’ve still never clarified what a huge portion of the player base is. Are you going to keep avoiding that claim?
If it makes you enjoy yourself more, why is it NOT playing? I’d argue that things like KSM and AOTC are mostly meaningless, so who cares?
My hot take on it is that mediocre players want to be able to flex on bad players, and paid carries makes it harder for them to do so. I have no sympathy for that.
Boosting is a big reason i no longer pug in wow, cant trust the metrics that show your player skill outside of log checking which is tedious to do. Would rather heal my guildmates i know than pugs xD
Well, my opinion is that implement a m+/raid selling system(gold/or another in game currency)just like crafting order.
Since we all know even RWF guilds are doing rmt shady things and blizzard ain’t willing to lose their subscription income, why don’t regulate it.
Anyway the toxicity, hypocrisy and greed of those self-proclaimed non-rmt “true gamers” are no better than those boosters or boostees.
I’ve saw not only once, those frostmourne leeching dipsh1ts organizing “Aotc-only-quick-clear” raid, then kick every caster who doesn’t have spymaster trinket right before the council boss.