Cohh's Thoughts: Is Lost Ark Pay2Win (P2W)?

#LostArk #GameReview #CohhCarnage

[FangVantino]

If there is any type of competitive leaderboard for PvE then I 100% say that any form of pay to skip progression or speed up progression is also P2W.

[AssoSiaa]

BEST example of streamer who got paid a SHIT TON and tells his "fanbase" his "true" opinions about a game he got paid for.

[Kreeshawn]

Doesn't this game have a PvE trade economy? If it does then you are directly affected by people who chose to pay to win

[BuzzaB]

In a pve game I'm more concerned if it is pay to skip, and if so how egregious are the road blocks/ forced grind to encourage that.

[DrasticSkuba]

My opinion for Pay to Win: it's either
1) what you pay for puts other players at a disadvantage, due to competitive stats or an in-game economy (such as paying for currency used in trade markets)

2) The game has been made unbalanced to the point that natural progress is extremely slow in order to make purchasing the only way to make real progress

[tomaslaaperi]

4:04 kinda not the case tho. Someone who has paid money to become stronger in the game will be invited much more often to PUGs and other group content in the game. Which means that NOT PAYING puts you at a disadvantage to progress as you will be invited AFTER those who have paid for power have been picked. As they are stronger, and therefore a more valuable team member than you.

[uberkull]

Simple. You can exchange in- game currency for currency you can only buy on the cash shop, and therefore exchange cash shop currency for in-game currency. You can buy actual materials on the cash shop that is required to upgrade your end-game pve gear. So, if you have cash, you can bypass farming for any currencies that you would normally meed to farm endless hours for in the game. That is absolutely P2W for all pve content.

[larsschulze]

It's so hilarious when people make up terms like pay for convenience or pay to skip... lmao anytime u are able to buy something not cosmetic in nature its p2w. There is no mid tier or low tier u buy shit boosting ur character bolstering his stats gather wealth etc etc it's all p2w. If u told this people 20 years ago they would have stopped talking to u cuz ur clearly in denial and arguing with that is pointless

[hhectorlector]

Saw your vid on Asmon’s stream. Good stuff.

[Dotoku.]

"5% of the game isn't pay to win, so I don't consider it pay to win." How much are they paying *you*, Cohh?

[CasmsVR]

Even the ark delopers recently admitted the game is pay to win and they will work on fixing it. Thanks Coh for being a shill.

[noyz]

you start adjusting your green screen, then with a lesson on p2w history.... and I am already bored... just answer can you buy any non-cosmetic item with real money in-game?? yes or no it isn't that hard.. thumbs down.

[jiujitsujudas]

As an ex server first raider in wow, paid pve advantages ruin it for me. How can you meaningfully progress and compete in raid tier content when other groups can pay to steamroll it with paid premium gear. Paying players to carry you at least rewards the players who put in the effort to attain that level of gear and skill. But paying a company to skip or accelerate systems of progression really begs the question if that system was conceived to be just annoying enough to get you to pay; in order to attain a baseline level of comfort that should have been in the game to begin with. All of this at cost of feeling like you've truly earned something in that games world, and a nagging feeling that this game is worse because of planned discomfort.

[Jimsonization]

I also consider P2W mechanics that makes playing without real money purchases - really uncomfortable

[MrBrightside]

As someone who's played mmos for awhile, the idea that you aren't competing against people therefore it's not p2w is really silly. In PvE content you are ABSOLUTELY competing against other people for spots. Your gear score is incredibly important and if you can buy more materials to upgrade your gear you absolutely are going to have a huge advantage when getting into endgame PvE content.

The idea how that isn't pay to win is pretty ludicrous to me.

[blacklily]

I think cohh wants P2W to be defined as pay money and a raid boss is instantly defeated, as literal as it sounds.

[XxKidnoffxX]

''If you feel that paying progression is P2W, so Lost Ark is P2W''

To be honest, that's the exact definition of the 'modern' P2W... We don't really see games selling exclusive OP stuff and unbalanced stuff for PvP now. The new P2W, is what Lost Ark is doing. Even if you can lvlup and farm for all the stuff normally. When someone is able create a new character and pay real money to get max level and can buy all the best stuff and become god tier in 5 minutes... That's the new P2W for me.

And the real F2P, is when the shop is cosmetics exclusive, like PoE (and yes some QoL, like bigger stash). Everyone is equal in-game and lvlup normally and play normally.

[Dravakar]

I am a bit disappointed about this video. Well, no that is not correct. Because your opinion is as valid as mine of course. It's more correct to say, i can't follow your reasoning and i think you reasoning is in conflict with itself. My definition of pay to win is, you can not, with a reasonable time investment, achieve the something close to as someone who just pours money into a game without a ceiling (a fixed subsciption of around 10-15 bucks a month for example imo is a fixed financial investment ceiling, that is not pay to win). you are correct that pvp is equalised, but pve in endgame is increadibly pay2win. why is that?

let's look at gear progression. in lost ark you upgrade your gear with materials you have to farm and the farming is limited per week. the higher the upgrade, the higher the cost (and chance to fail the upgrade). the math has been done on the russian servers. in order to upgrade all gear slots + the weapon slot to level 25, a free 2 play player would need around 136 weeks (around 2, 5 years). in that time, new gear would already be available and your upgrading would have been useless, effectivly meaning a f2p player can never max out even 1 character. you can however bypass that material limit with real money. in fact you can pour so much money into the game, you can finish fully upgrading a characters gear in less than a week. if this is not "1 player winning over another player simply with money" i don't know what is. and keep in mind, lost ark does have raiding pve endgame. so with money, 1 person will win over another in the raiding competition. not because he is better at raiding, but because he threw more money at the game. so even under your definition, that p2w would be literal, you are excluding the fact that there is winning in pve content too and you ignore (imo) that in lost ark you win in pve content by throwing money at the game. This is what disappoints me. You limit the factor of "winning" to the pvp part of an mmo.

[godmodeon]

This guy's opinion doesn't mean shit when he blew his reputation on Cyberpunk (because he was obviously biased as a sponsored streamer who literally had a cameo in the game).

I remember how adamantly he shilled Cyberpunk, even while his game was chain crashing on release as everyone was. So RIP any weight to any opinion you levy ever.

(and this is compounded by the fact you spend 7 minutes in this video beating around the bush disingenuously when the answer is just 'yes. as much as any game can be p2w, it is'.)

[Lctl]

Sorry Cohh. I fundamentaly disagree - and even some things you say in the video contradict your view of it.
I know you're being Neutral here and I AM NOT TRYING to convince you either.

BUT.

Fundamentally, the game allows for constant and no-cap progression through real money buy-ins.

You can Buy crystals and trade them for Gold, which in turn can allow you to buy Stones and gear faster/easier from the AH.
You can buy Card Packs.

You can essentially grow stronger than someone who doesn't swipe the card.

Then, you can get invited to groups faster/easier. Which means - you WON the game VS those people, even in PVE.
You can then farm that content MORE AND FASTER, which allows you to control the AH more efficiently

It's a snowball from there.


Again, I respect your view about everyone's view being DIFFERENT in terms of P2W - but Lost Ark, as good of a game as it might be, Is indeed P2W.

And that's not me saying it's a bad game. It's just that we should (imho and my perspective ) be transparent about it and the fact it IS P2W.

Now, HOW MUCH P2W it is and how much IN YOUR FACE it is, now that's a spectrum that might vary from person to person