I'm here to defend PoE against any accusations of being a "pay to win" game

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Stash tabs are pay to win. They're also a permanent, diminishing returns purchase, which makes the p2w more palatable — but classy p2w is still p2w.

That's still pretty minor.

The greater point here was to point out how much worse others are.

There's plenty of free to play games more pay to win than PoE, and there's also plenty of pay to play games that are.

If stash tabs is GGG's biggest pay to win offense, then that's the equivalent of getting a speeding ticket when Tales of Arise is a serial killer.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Stash tabs are pay to win. They're also a permanent, diminishing returns purchase, which makes the p2w more palatable — but classy p2w is still p2w.

That's still pretty minor.

The greater point here was to point out how much worse others are.

There's plenty of free to play games more pay to win than PoE, and there's also plenty of pay to play games that are.

If stash tabs is GGG's biggest pay to win offense, then that's the equivalent of a parking ticket, when Tales of Arise is serial murder.

Everyone can make dull analogies.
You just admitted that PoE is P2W.

/thread

PoE is absolutely pay2win.

I admit, I'm a freeloader, I haven't sunk a cent in this game (directly, not counting electricity and internet bills). But a friend lets me use a few tabs in his guild, and without those, I would have thrown in a towel long ago.

Win in PoE is essentially about being able to utilize your time and drops effectively and farming enough for your next build before you go crazy from it. And I'm losing a lot there. I've barely scratched the real endgame-I've progressed to the point where I can fight Sirus, Elder and Shaper for the first time in this league before losing interest, and at that point, even with using the guild stash tabs and over a dozen mule chars, my stash is overflowing with all the quickly changing stuff that I can't keep elsewhere because it needs to be at hand. Divination cards, incomplete currency stacks, maps, scarabs and so on...

The efficiency chasing crowd that constitutes most of the top players would probably have collective heart attacks if they find out just how many potential sources of income I lose. I can't keep white and yellow maps for 3 for 1 recipe because I don't have the room, can't effectively do chaos/regal recipes because I don't have the room where I could keep items before completing whole set, have to vendor many potentially sellable items, in fact I rarely sell things to other players because without premium tabs, it's one helova pain in the ass, even if I can dedicate a little room to it.

I can't even imagine someone playing this to endgame without buying tabs. Maybe if you're only playing one SSF char per league and know exactly what to keep and what to throw away. Otherwise you just won't have the room.

These threads always devolve into the same false dilemma: P2W or F2P. As if there is only black and white, and there is no gray. This particular thread makes the mistake of assuming that because there is worse examples of P2W out there, POE can’t be. Something being more drastic in P2W does not remove the possibility that a less drastic approach might still be P2W.

I personally think POE doesn’t fit nicely in either camp because of the dramatic drop off in benefits once you meet a certain threshold with stash tabs, which is in the area of what it would cost to buy a AAA game. A person who spends $60 will have a noticeable advantage over someone who spends $0, especially in a trade league. A person who spends $6000 will have a negligible advantage over someone that spends $60; if any at all.

GGG needs to monetize their game. The benefits of paying drop off dramatically after what you would usually spend on a game. Because of that, it’s much closer to a pay to play model, with the added bonus that you can still access everything without spending a dime. It’s more akin to games that are free with ads, but you can pay a fixed price to get rid of the ads in my opinion.

This is a lot more about what defines the term than about the game. PoE is what it is. You can define P2W one way to make PoE indeed P2W and you can define it so that it's not. So this is more about "you" than it is about the game.

I've stopped caring about this years ago. IF PoE is P2W, which it very well might be depending on your definition, it's such a small amount of P2W, and done in such a way that we're talking about a permanent upgrade with serious diminishing returns - at a very low cost, that it doesn't really create a problem.

Why people are so hellbent on making this black or white, I do not know. But P2W is always a scale, and PoE is so far down low on that scale, that classifying it as "P2W!!!111" on the same level as real P2W games where you can buy direct power, is unfair.

you are so naive, bro.

stash sales have nothing to be with the P2W, the real trouble comes with the CURRENCY market they run in the background.

why do you think they are pushing the difficulty harder and harder even though the best leagues for the community were those that were rewarding it doesn't make any sense to push the difficulty so much in a game where a league only last 3 months and also where a large part of the user base never come close to end game, this is the biggest incentive they have to push the difficulty.

think about it
1 generate currency is free when you control the database
2 is not Ilegal
3 its not against TOS (when they do)

the only drawback is the community won't like it at all if they run it openly so why not run in the background?

I know a bunch of idiots that would not expend a penny in skins or stashes but would expend 2k in gear.

I can live with it when is moderated but when is the only objective of the development I'm quite done with it.

Not really a good argument to say "look, they are worse". Maybe you are right, probably you are right (I can't judge, don't know the other game), but that doesn't prove that PoE isn't P2W, it just proves that P2W (if prevalent) isn't quite as bad in PoE than in that other game.

Paying real-world money for stash tabs provides you with real, tangible benefits in-game, which I would say is the definition of pay2win (pay money for in-game benefits). Is it bad? Probably not. Is it pay2win? At least if you follow a pretty strict understanding of pay2win, it certainly is.

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Char1983 wrote:

...but that doesn't prove that PoE isn't P2W, it just proves that P2W (if prevalent) isn't quite as bad in PoE than in that other game.

...And that's all that needs to be proven IMO. We're in 2021. TONS of games are P2W. Hell, if you we look at the mobile market, 'most' games are P2W - especially in the F2P area.

Is paying ~10$ for stash tabs worse than a AAA priced game, that charges AAA prices for their expansions? Not in my opinion. That's why we should always look at the whole monetization model, and not just classify a game as "P2W", putting it in the same box as all other P2W games. People are too fond of boxes, and unable to se nuances these days.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Stash tabs are pay to win. They're also a permanent, diminishing returns purchase, which makes the p2w more palatable — but classy p2w is still p2w.

This.

Only "really, really" important if you want to get to endgame fast and trade much.

Playing casual and non-compettitive it´s just not that important.

But not being able to get stash tabs by playing (like you get catalysts/reactors/frame slots etc. in Warframe by playing/trading or playing only (Nightwave e.g.)) is clearly ptw.

Of course in Warframe you have xp booster packs etc which you can buy (never did). But I prefer that system compared to not being able to have enough stashes or char slots if you don´t pay.

You cannot really call something "free to play", if people only get basic things for invested money and not for invested time.