This makes zero sense. There is not one single thread of logic to that idea. Typically, especially in the most aggressive pay to win models, very few are in the top tier. So, your argument works backwards.
How does it make zero sense? You dont provide a counterpoint.
So if it’s pay to win, and people are paying for the gear, but it doesn’t make them a top player, then is it really pay to win?
Think before you speak.
Corruption gear. 
Isnt corruption gear soulbound? Because look at the website, only being able to buy like 1 piece of gear means nothing.
It’s a mild form of pay-to-win. People arguing these pointless semantics for hours are missing the point. Here it is: buy token, sell on AH, use gold to buy BiS 475 corrupted gear. You now have a tangible advantage over the vast majority of the playerbase.
The counterargument is that you can buy them with gold. Can you really? I would argue that upwards of 90% of players at least cannot afford to drop 500k or more on bracers. So, at the very least, you are getting an advantage over any player who is unable to spend large sums of gold on gear.
Btw, I agree that this really does not matter that much, with one caveat. It matters A LOT in arena. A player with multiple 475 pieces of gushing wound will do massively more damage due to poor balancing by Blizzard.
It’s a horrible situation. Corrupted gear should have always been BoP. That seems obvious. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me to hear later down the line that it was an oversight for 475 BoEs to be able to corrupt. The items are just too powerful.
I’m sorry but this is not a good take. The means are different, yes: buying/selling gold online in the past could get your account permanently suspended. And I have had guild mates that got perma-banned. But they were back online and raiding with us on a new account in a couple of weeks. And now anyone can buy gold through Blizzard without fear.
The means are different. But the ends are the same. There is no significant difference in outcomes. It’s pay2win. And that’s always been true.
All that said, while I used to be much more concerned about gold selling/buying when I was raiding and doing battlegrounds, now I’m largely ambivalent as it doesn’t really affect me in anyway.
I disagree. It’s quite a good take. Before gold buying and boosting was against ToS. Now it’s legal because Blizzard can profit from it.
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I would say in its current state I do not care. I remember playing games like Grepolis where you could be at a unwinnable disadvantage if you didn’t do RMT. There are games like Archage where you can get packs to advance you quickly. Games like Runescape have evolved to the point where I could, theoretically, just purchase Keys and roll some of the best weapons/armor in the game or literally, and using loyalty points/coins can get the best “optional” items to help in boss kills/farming.
I would say being able to purchase a Token which can potentially (but unlikely) sit in your inventory unsold is no where near P2W enough for me to ever care. I guarantee if there was no Corruption effects on gear 90% of people wouldn’t give a damn that I can go buy Mythic BoE’s. So ShadowLands will be a fine expansion as long as they don’t introduce any corruption.
My problem with saying its P2W is many people will not say it was before Corruption, but will jump on the bandwagon that it is now. So I will agree with your “degrees of P2W” as I see it to be true.
I think saying WoW is P2W is a bit much, but as you say with degrees technically all games can be P2W. So I would place WoW far below a Mobile Game with predatory P2W models, and would not see it as needing money for advancement NEARLY as much for the time investment needed.
Right. Was there a point in there somewhere I’m missing?
I agree you don’t understand what pay to win means and you make up a definition to fit your narrative!
The point is that gear isn’t exclusively available through real life money.
In other “pay to win” games, it is.
Here is my counter point.
Pay to win is a guarantee. I.E. you pay this you are guaranteed to get that.
This entire system, in WoW, is based around players.
Does a player A) have that item, and B) want to sell that item.
If either A or B are false, well, you got the money but you can’t get the item.
Blizzard is not selling you the item. A player is. Some other player benefits from this transaction and in turn either does something incredibly stupid with the gold or passes it off to other people.
Is it kind of a gray area? Yes.
Is it true pay to win? Nope. Still contingent on players.
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Not exactly, but Gold gives you WAY too much power in light of the Corruption system currently.
There have never been BoEs worth literal tens of thousands of DPS (or, rather, such a huge percentage of one’s DPS) until this patch, and anyone with a few million gold to spare can easily obtain pieces that are on their own worth 10% of your DPS, each, if not more.
“Pay-to-win” is a bit subjective, because what’s “winning” in this game? But to say that this isn’t a massive issue would be a colossal understatement, because gear means less than nothing unless it has a good Corruption that makes it worth the gold equivalent of several hundreds or thousands of dollars.
A few edits here and there:
In literally any other patch this would absolutely be the case, but in light of the Corruption system this is far from the case.
A Tier 3 Masterful piece would be worth roughly 10k DPS for me in pure single-target and a tremendous amount more in any multi-target situations, scaling drastically with target count, without any regard of what that piece’s item level is.
I would equip a 410 ring if it had a Tier 3 Masterful Corruption on it, and it would be substantially stronger than either 460-465 ring I have equipped right now. Now imagine what a 475 piece, with a 475 piece’s stats and itemization and a Tier 3 Masterful Corruption, would do to my DPS. Now multiply that by 3, which is the maximum number of BoEs I can technically equip that can have this Corruption. Suddenly three BoEs are worth about a third of my DPS or so, and closer to half of my DPS (or even potentially more than half of my DPS) in AoE or cleave.
A tank buys a 475 Twilight Devastation Rank 3 shield. That Corruption alone is worth upwards of 40% of that tank’s damage in pure single-target, and more than 75% for the heaviest AoE scenarios.
This comes into play with other classes, too: Demon Hunters would go ballistic over having a Tier 3 Infinite Stars Corruption on a 475-ilvl piece, especially since item level does matter for Corruptions like Infinite Stars and Gushing Wound. A Demon Hunter running Rank 6 Infinite Stars (from two BoE pieces) can do an astronomical amount of damage, and 40% of that damage comes from Infinite Stars because Demon Hunters naturally have a considerable amount of passive Haste.
I don’t agree with the term “pay to win” in this scenario, but the good Corruptions are so astronomically powerful and so absurdly dependent on RNG to even obtain that you’re still giving Gold way too much control over player power. And this has never been seen - and likely will never be seen again - in the history of WoW because there’s never been a single BoE that has been worth this much in terms of player power.
You havent a clue.
You need to be able to win, which you cant in wow.
You also need to obtain advantages which cant be achieved without €$, which you cant in wow.
You #*"@" have clearly never seen a p2w cash shop or are just trolls.
This is a pretty bad circumvention of what the token was meant to do.
Yes, yes it does. Because a bad player with rank 5 TD is doing to do 20% more damage in a m+ passively. Without corruption and things to buy, that 20% would have to be gained by skill. Further, a top tier player vs a top tier player is an even match. A top tier player who bought BiS corruptions wins any contest vs one who didn’t get incredibly lucky or pay. Literally paying to win. Limit would not have gotten world first without having paid. Now, in this case, both of the major players did the same thing, so it evens back out, but the both HAD to pay. If one didn’t pay to win, it would have been an automatic loss.
So, why don’t you,
Because I did provide a counter point. Literally the entire post after I said it makes zero sense is the counter point. You should think again before you write, then think more, then think again, then phone a friend, then realize you needed to make one, then think some more before you write.
Don’t engage. He’s a troll.
Well, seeing as I’m able to describe mine, describe why, give examples, counter your points, give examples of that. And you just say something stupid with literally zero meaning… hmmm, I wonder which argument is more likely to be right.
Just stop talking to me. You add nothing to any conversation you’ve ever participate in.
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I agree you did incorrectly! I have already defined what pay to win was.
Your described narrative is wrong so keep trying!
No, and I agree you have added nothing but false information!
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Your another one who would pretend there is no such thing as pay to win, because there are zero multiplayer games in which there is a permanent objective win. It does not exist. Blizzard shills gonna shill I guess.
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