Before it could be seen semi-pay2win when people paid boosters to get heroic raids or even mythic raids like they do nowadays.
But now, after the introduction of BiS corruption gear it has become very clearly pay2win. For example a prot warrior without any Twilight Devastation might do 40k dps on pack pulls, and after getting td rank 4 he might be doing 140k dps. A huge dps increase. (And in the future even higher ranks as cloak gets upgraded)
BiS corruptions provide a significant dps increase for many classes, and it is very imbalanced. You can have the same gear without corruption and do only 60% of the damage, and in the future it will be even worse.
BOE mythic drops with high corruptions are selling for million. You can see plate td3 (twilight devastation rank 3) corruption items sell for 2.7million gold.
2700000/160000 =16.8 => 17 WoW tokens = 340euros
The WoW token value has dropped from 200k to 160k, which is a clear indication a lot more tokens are bought for gold.
Min/maxers obviously need different corruption for different specs and different fights, because TD would be trash in pvp so now they will have to buy %vers corruption for PVP and %haste for arms, and so on.
I donāt really see why these things would make the game pay 2 win, almost all these things are players helping other players, not Blizzard selling BiS gear in the shop.
I agree that the corruptions play too big a role and probably exacerbate the āproblemā but overall thereās nothing new here. People with a lot of gold were always able to buy great BoE gear. Itās just that corruption amplifies how much better that gear is now.
Itās also not too uncommon for balancing to get wonky late in an Expansion, already you see the focus of many players is on Shadowlands.
And i doubt thereās a sizeable amount of players shelling out hundreds of euros for gear pieces.
Youāre right about the wow token price tanking due to popularity, but that could just as easily have been fed by things like:
a large amount of returned players due to Covid.
many people wanting to get the remaining amount of gold together for the brutosaur mount prior to its slated removal
many returned players due to having just bought Shadowlands with boost.
I donāt really see the direct link to BoE corruption gear.
I agree that the corruptions play too big a role and probably exacerbate the āproblemā but overall thereās nothing new here. People with a lot of gold were always able to buy great BoE gear. Itās just that corruption amplifies how much better that gear is now.
That is exactly the whole point with this thread. Before buying BOE was a mild upgrade for very good players at best.
Now if you have bad RNG you are doing half of the dps than the person who has lower ilvl, less skill, but just the the best corruptions.
I personally have been using a 410 td 1 rank ring because it just sims much higher than my 475 ring, as I dont have twilight from other gear.
That really isnāt pay to winā¦ If you are on about the transmutation of real life money to in game benefit you have to remember it is not a direct one. At worst what you describe is exploiting the in game economy in a way that is perfectly permissible and legal.
-If- the person had just actually bought the gear with real cash, that would be adding a pay to win element to it.
As that is not what is happening however, the game is not pay to win.
there are too many factors that may influence the drop in gold price for the WoW token at the end of an exapansion. I suppose that a drop in price would be expected even if we didnāt have the BoEs with corruptions available at the AH.
How hard is it for you to understand that those items are being bought for gold that someone has earnt in game. The item itself has also been acquired in game.
I farm some gold, you farm some gold.
You decide you need a lot more gold to be able afford that corrupted BoE you desire, so you plan to buy a wow token with real money.
I on the other hand am frugal and use some of my gold to extend my sub for next month.
The wow transaction is basically me trading you some of the gold i farmed, in return for you paying my sub (and kicking in some extra coins to Blizzard).
All the gold involved has been player farmed.
In this example it was farmed by you and me, but it could have just as easily been farmed by you yourself (if you spend more time ingame), or your whole guild could spend one evening on Project-get-Jaya-some-new-corrupted-boots.
It doesnāt really change the situation.
As far as the BoE item is concerned real money played no role.
Perhaps you dont understand what pay-to-win means in general?
Pay-to-win games are games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.
People buy boost like they buy bread in store, just to avoid discrimination by fake elitst based on rio score.
Do you really think that all those boost companies will work 24/7 if no customers? So many boosted people yet some people think rio score is relevent measure and keep discriminating, and encouraging people to buy even more boost, i cant blame them anyomore, because rio score game become almost unplayable for regular player. What else for poor souls than to buy boost so discrimination stops.
Being able to buy an item that gives you an advantage that isnāt available through normal gameplay. Thatās P2W.
No thats not what it means at all. You clearly you dont understand what it means in general. It does not have to be an unobtainable item.
An extreme example of a pay-to-win game is Supercells Clash of clans where you can instantly upgrade your castle for tens of thousands of dollars, while it takes other people a few years.
Taken from google after asking āwhat is pay to win in gamingā
The term refers to the concept of not progressing any further
until you pay . When you pay , the game rewards you like crazy and makes you overpowered against other players who want to enjoy the game they played for. Two great examples of a pay to win game are Fifa Ultimate Team and Clash Of Clans.
Coincidentally I have played Clash of clans since release, only spent Ā£30 and I am nearly completely max lol
Letās be frank, players consider most forms of MTX to be P2W (correct or not) if a transaction can give a player a direct advantage over you, tokens can do that, I can completely understand why many consider WoW P2W, no imagination required.