As pretty much any gamer knows, free MMO games are rarely truly free. Servers and new content cost money to create, and developers aren’t running a charity service. Therefore, they need to monetize their games to pay for those things and to pay for their time. Unfortunately, a most games give insurmountable advantages to big money spenders that free players simply cannot achieve. This is pretty frustrating, even gamers willing to spend money, because it means everyone has to pay just to keep up. The ideal system encourages players to spend by providing options to supplement a fun activity, rather than putting that fun activity behind a paywall (commonly referred to as a pay to win or p2w game).
Below is a list of games which should offer fair, free to play content for gamers of all genres, ranging from tank simulator fans to lovers of cute JRPG style MMOs. So which free to play MMO games best eschew pay to win in favor of a fair, freemium model? Read on!
Star Wars: The Old Republic
In Star Wars: The Old Republic, the pay shop is setup for convenience and access to content. Certain costumes are available only by paying money, but they do not enhance the character’s power. Most players who pay will choose the subscription model as that’s what Bioware incentivizes the most. Paying for the subscription permanently unlocks the credit cap (which can be removed temporarily by free players) , gives players EXP faster, adds rest EXP, and adds unlimited access to special content such as Cartel Warzones and Space missions. However, there are plenty of other options for advancing through both PvP and PvE outside of this special content. Free players can get really far into the game without noticing restrictions and even when the decision comes to possibly pay for the game, it’s not very expensive. In some ways, Star Wars offers a really, really long demo for free players and a subscription simply unlocks maximum fun.
Sounds good? Play Star Wars: The Old Republic here!
Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 follows a similar model to Star Wars, encouraging free players to switch to paid by offering more convenience and more content. Unlike Star Wars though, players only need to buy the full priced game once to gain access to this content rather than pay a subscription. Most of this content becomes unlocked by the time the player reaches higher levels such as World vs. World at level 60 where hundreds of players fight hundreds of other over keeps, castles, and supply points and at level 30 an automated ‘looking for group’ feature. These are always free for paid players. Those who buy the game also gain access to daily login bonuses, world transfers, more inventory spots, and more characters slots. Anyone can also buy gems to gain access to cosmetic content as well. Guild Wars 2 is fun from start to finish, which is ideal for any game, free to play or otherwise. Within a few hours, players can decide whether purchasing the game is worth it to upgrade their experience.
Sounds good? Play Guild Wars 2 here!
Armored Warfare
Those who have played World of Tanks before will be happy to see another tank simulator MMO enter the market without p2w game features. Although World of Tanks offers the same end game platform for free and paid players and isn’t a bad choice, there’s a lot more of a grind involved to get to and stay at the top. Armored Warfare doesn’t have as many premium features that players have to pay for in order to compete in top tier combat. The thing that World of Tanks players view as most pay to win is premium ammo, and that’s not something Armored Warfare sells. Of course players will gain access to better tanks faster in Armored Warfare, but the economy in the game is a lot more fair compared to its closest competitors. Instead of worrying about paying in game money just to use their tanks effectively, players in Armored Warfare can instead look ahead to which tanks they want next.
Sounds good? Play Armored Warfare here!
TERA
TERA is such an anti p2w game that players who don’t care about costumes won’t even see much of a difference between paid and free play until end game. The company seems to make the majority of its money off of costumes and appearance changes, especially for its cuter character models. While there are some really great cosmetic options that may make you jealous, none of those give any statistical bonuses. In the end game, players who pay will essentially have higher drop rates for equipment compared than their 100% free to play counterparts. So free players will need to clear more dungeons or grind for more gold to make up for the RNG differences compared to paid players. But it’s a great system that simply saves paid players time without providing any permanent advantage. TERA really gets the time = money equation right and avoids paying to win. Additionally, better equipment only goes so far because TERA’s twitch based combat means player skill counts for as much as player equipment.
Sounds good? Play TERA here!
Lord of the Rings Online
Lord of the Rings Online offers a really great free to play model for those who hate pay to win games. Instead of focusing on convenience, the company chooses to focus on providing content to players. This content can be unlocked individually for those who prefer to take their time. For those who play more regularly, a subscription will be more efficient. All of the expansion areas such as Moria and Helm’s Deep and mode games such as monster play must be paid for with real money. Players who spend money will also level up a bit faster, but this has no impact of long term strength capabilities. There are several small benefits for becoming a paid player as well, but access to the entirety of the game world is the biggest boon for those who decide to pay money. Lord of the Rings is something that really can be enjoyed by purely free players, especially those who play more casually.
Sounds good? Play Lord of the Rings Online here!
League of Legends
Although League of Legends’ status as an MMO is debatable, given that players only interact with 9 others at a time, it does offer a great free to play model. As a MOBA, players take on the role of a single champion for roughly a 30-minute 5v5 match. These champions gain levels and buy items in the confines of an individual game, which do not persist between games. The player’s account does level up to give access to runes and masteries, which slightly boost the champion’s strength. However, players are always matched against others around their same level so there’s no benefit in a competitive sense to paying money to level up faster. Where the game really makes money is off of skins for champions to change their appearance and from buying the champions themselves. Every champion can be purchased with real money or in game currency. And the champions that cost more aren’t necessarily more powerful. It’s entirely possible to play League of Legends competitively with a relatively small roster of champions. More champions does provide more variety which can be part of the fun for some in a game like this. League of Legends is absolutely not a p2w game and is a very fair game to play completely for free.
Sounds good? Play League of Legends here!
Astro Empires
I’ll start by saying Astro Empires is by far the most pay to win game on this list. However, it is the most fair out of all of the empire building browser games out there that I could find. It’s mainly on this list to provide an MMO browser strategy game that isn’t pay to win for those interested. Whereas most of these empire building games give you straight power for cash, Astro Empires simply caps your maximum strength until you pay for premium time. What’s the difference? Well in a browser empire MMO, like Wartune for example, players can build armies, structures, and resources as fast as they want by paying money. Players can literally finish buildings instantly that take free players over one day of waiting to finish. There’s no cap to this ‘instant building finish’, and it’s easy to see how much of a pay2win game scenario this creates. In Astro Empires, players simply can’t expand their empire past a certain point without paying. So to grow into a massive empire, players much spend money. However, players can’t spend tons of extra cash to get ahead like they can in a game like Wartune. The premium time isn’t too expensive either, and the game can be played without limitations for long enough to get a feel for the game. There’s no fully fledged empire building MMO where free players can truly compete with paid players, but Astro Empires seems the least egregious of the bunch.
Sounds good? Play Astro Empires here!
Crossout
Crossout blends Mad Max’s post apocalyptic world and crazy vehicular customization with instanced action combat. Game modes range from two team, capture point PvP to ‘survive against hordes’ PvE campaigns. Clan combat should appeal to hardcore players especially as Crossout is moderately sized and competitive.
This MMO walks a fine line when it comes to premium currency. Everything in the game is absolutely obtainable through in-game play and a reasonable (meaning not obsessive) play schedule. That said, players can spend real money to progress faster. While doing so may be fun in the short term, everyone eventually ends up in a ranking tier appropriate for their skill level and vehicle strength. I’d actually argue against spending anything more than $20 for the first few months of play. You’d only be artificially increasing your rank instead of learning to play the game against people of your own skill level. And at some point, that’s going to lead to frustration which sort of defeats the whole purpose of playing free MMOs or games of any kind.
Sounds good? Play Crossout here!
Warframe
Warframe is an example of a game that chooses to do free to play by giving players quicker access to more options and more content. Similar to MOBA champions, Warframes differ in the role they offer to a party and their playstyle but aren’t necessarily stronger than one another. They also must still be individually mastered through in game play so players will not simply be able to reach the top through paying cash. Similar to Guild Wars 2, the premium currency can be sold/traded between players. This allows all players to purchase equipment components and the convenience driven items that comprise the majority of the cash shop. Free players may consider acquiring top tier equipment to be a bit of a grind without paying money. However, Warframe offers a ton of interesting missions that can be completed solo or as a group. Reaching the top is certainly faster with money in Warframe, but all players regardless of spend will cap out at the same power level. If you are more about the journey than the destination, Warframe is a solid sci-fi, action based MMORPG.
Sounds good? Play Warframe here!
Wildstar
When Wildstar launched, it did so as a subscription only game without fully realized content true to their vision. As the game has grown and recently gone free to play, things are a lot better all around. Most importantly, free players in Wildstar will barely notice what they’re missing by not paying. Advancement in this game comes at a fair rate, with plenty to explore and do without having to repeat the same content (until end game raiding, like any MMO). However, paying money will help the player level up faster. Premium players’ biggest bonus is lowered reduction from crafting based overcharging. Basically, when crafting a player can pump up their weapon strength even higher by overcharging it. Failure will result in a loss of materials, which will need to be gathered once again. Overall, it’s just another way to limit the time sink of Wildstar but doesn’t impact long term power. Wildstar doesn’t gate any of their content behind a paywall, and the game can easily be played as a fully fledged free player for as long as one wants.
Sounds good? Play Wildstar here!
Conclusion
The path to delivering a fair non-p2w game lies in offering visual customization, gameplay variety, and decreasing leveling grind. There’s plenty of money to be made in this route as some of these titles are the most popular of the free to play genre. It’s a lot easier to develop a successful game long-term when it’s not just paid players having fun. And these 10 free MMO games that aren’t pay to win should give everyone plenty of options to find something enjoyable to play.
first of all i tried SWTOR you can not even get access to storage space in that game without hitting a paywall and the only game that i have found to play that has a fair system that is multi player and has a good community some how missed your list and that is war frame all in game items that are not cosmetic can be achieved in game even the pay currency can be farmed easily by spending some time in the free trade channel no auction house here to manipulate strictly peer to peer trades and DE aggressively protects its players from gold farmers trying to spam out your trade channel honestly War Frame is the one FTP that seems to be doing it right
The best part of SWTOR is the story and a lot of it can be paid completely for free. As stated, SWTOR is a bit more like a really long demo that can be enjoyed 100% for free. I understand the arguments against SWTOR, but I stick by it.
However, I didn’t give Warframe enough credit when I wrote this article. I looked into it a bit more and replaced one of the games on the list (Nosgoth) with it as Warframe is a better choice. Thanks for your input!
eh-em… Warframe is Pay to win game… Because you need to craft a lot of stuff and crafting 1 peace of armor or weapon takes weeks without paying platinum coins ( You can get platinum coins with real money or if your really lucky there is 0.1% chance you will get 50 plat free from daily reward, you can also trade plat.) In conclusion I can say if you think you can wait 10-15 days for each armor and weapon and pet and what ever peace then Warframe is not pay to win… But if you don’t have patience, then this game is pay to win for you…
10-15 days? what are you going on about? I’ve built frames in 4 days. Im an completely f2p account and have around 14 warframes, 20+ primaries, 15+ secondaries and 10+ meeles, all well modded and with potato included. I can solo the hardest content in the game and my account only has 200 hours clocked in, everytime I see someone saying “warframe is p2w” I consider it a flat out lie, hell, I even have a lifetime total of 1000 platinum (in-game irl money currency) just by grinding and trading prime stuff. Pretty easy game, but it burns out from time to time tbh
Warframe is not pay to win, if you drop good mods from missions you can sell them for plat “for a good price” and relic helps you to drop prime parts, you can sell them for plat too, idiot.
All of these games are pay to win. Any game where you can advance faster, save time, become more powerful or DO ANYTHING THAT ENHANCES GAMEPLAY IN ANY WAY that’s not purely aesthetic, is a PAY-TO-WIN model.
Sure there’s no end-game master items in these games that give a permanent advantage, but exp bonuses and all that crap make it to where you have to pay money to “keep up with the joneses”. Without paying in these games you inevitably fall behind or the game becomes a life suck just so that you can stay caught up with your friends and still be able to play together. Or to stay caught up and stay competitive with your peers.
This article is very misleading and I hope someone writes a better version that is more accurate. Keep in mind that I do realize that hosting/running games like these is NOT cheap, which is why pretty much only two models exist: Pay to Play or Pay to Win. As much as I hate the former, being that most subscription games cost more than Netflix, one cannot argue that it is not the best model for the active MMORPG gamer. Everyone there is there for the same reason and has no way of paying their way to the top (whether it be permanently or just faster).
Both of these models are upsetting though because of course the “poor” gamer is left out of both of these equations. Bottom line is most people can’t devote the kind of time, effort, equipment, and maintenance costs involved in running these without making some sort of profit. Truly free MMORPGs are pretty much a thing of the past – We’ll just have to get used to it.
That being said – These are great “freemium” game options – It’s mostly the article title that’s misleading. The body isn’t as much so.
That’s a fair opinion. However, I don’t agree mainly because I somewhat equate time value to money. For the most part, people will find themselves with one or the other but not both. In my mind, pay to win necessitates paying money in a freemium game to reach the top. Paying money to lessen some of the monotonous grind, which is partially where these games in, perfectly fine to me.
I typically look at pay to win more in regards to the destination than the journey. If a player can’t realistically reach the top status without paying or if a maxed out character can be purchased, then that’s pay to win IMO. Tyler Bro just posted an article talking about the nature of pay to win here – https://www.mmobro.com/2016/07/09/enemy-pay-play-not-pay-win/. I think a poignant excerpt from it is: “It’s the endlessness of it that’s the problem. I don’t mind paying for a certain specific item or service. I can even live with paying to overcome a certain restriction or to unlock a certain feature. But when you reach the point when you’re playing the game with your wallet more than your character, that’s when everything starts to break down.”
I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down. As much as I understand that time=money (In fact, Time > Money because time cannot be refunded), I just don’t like either model.
So I went the Buy to Play route (is that what it’s called?) when The Elder Scrolls Online dropped its subscription. I loved it! It was really fun at first and reminded me of some of the older scrolls games I used to play. The missions became repetitive, but overall it was a good game (with killer PvP too).
Everything was going good at first – We leveled together, went through dungeons etc. Then one of my dear amigos noticed the experience boosts in the store. Well a handful of people in our group starting using those so that they could save some time and lose out on some grind. Sure enough, in a month’s time – Everyone using them was too far ahead to play with myself or the others because the level gap widened too much. Everything was working fine before because we all played relatively the same amount of time, so no one was really outgrinding each other, but the experience boosts turned our friendly race into leaving some of us in the dust.
What was the end result? Now, one person remains (not me) playing the game out of the 10-20 of us that were playing initially. Several of us didn’t even bother buying expansions because we were just tired of playing at this point and couldn’t play with our friends anyways.
Not only did Bethesda (or whoever runs that shit show, no offense to Morrowind because it’s still greatness) lose out on players in its community and money from the people who were paying to win and would’ve paid for a badass mount with no attribute bonuses, but we lost out on the full experience of the game. To reiterate, even the people paying to win stopped playing because they paid, won, and couldn’t play with their lower level comrades! Ironic no? They were buying the aesthetic cash shop items to begin with anyways! Shear a sheep forever, don’t cut its bloody head off! Pay to get ahead in a game just to drop out because you’ve sacrificed community for time?
Why not just take the time sacrifices out? This is the same real world works. People are always leveraging time against us and it’s just not right. Time is our most valuable asset, and if casual gamers need an outlet that isn’t such a time suck, then just make games that have higher exp rates (this is how private servers come about). In other words, make games that aren’t so damned grindy?
The reason you shouldn’t be able to pay to get ahead in a game is because the sacrifice is always community. You’ll never be able to evolve the game’s market or community to a stable position where prices are reasonable and players know one another. The only games I’ve ever played for decent lengths of times where I knew lots of people and the market wasn’t outrageous were games without cash models that give players shortcuts on time, items with attributes, etc.
Sorry for the super long reply. I really enjoyed Tyler’s article as well btw, though I obviously don’t fully agree with it heh.
today i learned league of legedns is pay 2 win.
hahahahahaha
This is so stupid, sorry. It’s the common “OMG they want money, it’s P2W!!!111!!1”-QQ without any understanding what P2W actually means: getting a significant advantage concerning game mechanics non-paying players can’t or hardly can get.
Having to spend less time on grinding, so on, is NO pay to win, it’s just a time saver – every player can achieve sth, but some get there faster. That’s no game changing mechanic. Game breaking mechanics that are p2w are those like gear, skills, buffs, any other advantages, that you can get only by paying for them OR, what’s the most conservative view, by massive and excessive grinding (eg. 1000+ hours for a single item) that you can skip by paying.
lol ?really ?
1000+ hours, and u can ‘try’ new hero, new ability, that maybe imba to other heroes.
‘wow, it doesnt make any sense, all lol heroes are balance!!1!1!’
so if all heroes are balance, why should i pay, i do rather play another moba that all heroes are free since beginning, so i know all the abilities of any heroes
pay = have more abilites, if not, thats just a stupid concept, and u the player and buyer just little above averge of stupid..
sorry i must say. if u dont get what i say, read again.
sorry for my english.
This is an old post. But I have to throw out my experience on this. In all games that have some sort of PVP, you will have a huge advantage if you can get to max early. You will then tackle the end game content first. You get the best items first, and you will probably always be ahead of most of the community ad long as there is new content, new pvp gear to buy etc. Even the knowledge you get from the terrain gives you an advantage. In some games this even out over time. But as soon as a new DLC is out the race is on again. For instance in SWTOR you get access to better pvp gear, and even though they have a pvp scale mechanism, you still have some bonuses from better gear and better skill that gives you advantage.
In essense Time advantages = more time for end content = more experience, more pvp bonuses etc.
So no matter how you turn this those that pay still end up as winners – mostly (not taking subjective skill into this).
There’s multiple “P2W” models.
One is pay to get great gear.
The other is pay to get any content beyond a certain point.
Take Guild Wars 2 for example – once you hit level 80, and you’re determined you’re not going to pay any money, then that’s it for you. There’s no more story. You can complete all the map exploration you want, but in the end it won’t really matter because your character is no longer able to advance. Just enjoy that epic song at the end of the final mission and walk off into the sunset.
League of Legends only sells certain things for “real money”.
XP Boost : which doesn’t matter.. because the game doesn’t become competitive until level30. At which point you can’t purchase it anymore. There is no way to see this as an advantage, in fact.. it does the exact opposite.. If you’re a (NEW) player, and you XP Boost straight to 30. You are going to be much worse at the game than other level30’s.
(This is XP for your ACCOUNT, not in-game, despite some low-levels actually thinking it will make you level faster in-game, it does not.) (applies no in-game advantage)
IP Boost : which doesn’t matter.. You get enough IP just from leveling 1-30 to get 2 full level 30 Runepages, multiple Champions, and even more Runepages if you wish. The game isn’t Pokémon, you’re not really suppose to get (all the champions, and all the runes). Therefor, IP boosts are simply for the collector type of player.. (I myself, have every champion.. How does this give me an advantage? It doesn’t.. I don’t even play half of them..) (applies no in-game advantage)
Purchasing Champions : which can fall under what I just said about IP Boosts. You’re not meant to actually collect / and play them all. If you are, you’re playing the game wrong. (applies no in-game advantage)
Purchasing Runepages : You can’t with (two) Runepages. You can also purchase Runepages with IP, (so you don’t have to use real-money). Some people like to think that having 20 Runepages gives an advantage.. I have 20, all it does it force me to fix them once a month.. I realistically use probably 4 Runepages. (applies no in-game advantage)
Apart from those four things, the only other things you can purchase in League of Legends are cosmetic.
Champion Skins : applies no in-game advantage, simply makes the champion look slightly different, or with a different theme.
Ward Skins : applies no in-game advantage, simply makes the ward look slightly different, or with a different theme.
Profile Icons : applies no in-game advantage, simply puts a different icon on your profile.
The vast majority of what they sell is simply cosmetic or to speed up your leveling process, which doesn’t actually matter.
I’m searching really hard to find a game that is not pay to win, but until now i haven’t had any good luck! So, I can express my opinion about guild wars 2 which is not a pay to win game but your in game facilities are really poor without buying the new expansion Heart of Thorns, such as limited character creation (exactly two character spots), limited inventory/bank space, limited World vs World (basic pvp in GW2) maps, limited use of portals from a capital city to another, not having access to all the dungeons from the end of the game, and so on… Anyways I abandoned playing this game and now I’m giving a chance to Neverwinter which you can find on steam!
Good luck fellow players!
A game I honestly miss and enjoyed playing was Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 and 2 on the Original xbox, and Phantasy Star Universe. What made the game awesome was the bubble chat and how people actually interact with each other; love or hate. What was awesome was trading actually meant trading. No Soul Bound items upon equip if you didn’t want to trade you can sell items to player using in game money no cash. The only thing was after PSO version 1 they decided to start a member subscription monthly. This game is huge in Asia!! But overall I enjoyed this very much. Wish PSO 2 would come to north America
Agreed. Phantasy Star Online was and will always be the best MMO series. It was good on Dreamcast, Gamecube, XBOX, PC, and PS2. I only wish the North Americans would be smart enough to give it a chance so that we could enjoy PSO2 servers here.
GW2 is pretty much p2w. Seeing as the you can pretty much get unlimited money by selling gems (what you buy with real life money), then just buy a legendary and almost all the mats to your ascended gear.
gw2 is NOT p2w, there are a lot of means of gold making, ascended equipment is equal to legendary equipment in terms of strength, people who use real money only gets to spend less time farming than those who don’t, you say “unlimited money from selling gems(real money) to in-game currency”, only true if you have unlimited money IRL xD
heck, ascended and legendary is only 5% stronger than exotic(very easy to obtain) in terms of stats, equipment won’t even matter in spvp, even in wvw, who cares if you’re 5% stronger against 50vs50vs50 or more
I quit MMORPG-ing because of the WoW cloning that ruined them. I quit WoW for switching from grind to PTW.
Give me a game where:
You pay (a fair low economy friendly price) to join, then all of it is grind reward based or free, from customization to levels and equipment.
I’m there.
But make it a standard fantasy game with the orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, and humans we all love and not a limited wtf like Guild Wars.
I agree the company needs to make money, but they don’t have to fleas the public and make 20 billion over production cost and 8 million over monthly upkeep.
At some point they have to be good to their consumers again or the industry will eventually fade away.
Step one is limiting corporate management.
Well there are only a few games that are not Pay too Win, the list is this. Path of Exile, Ryzom, SWG EMU, Istaria, Aldos online sub only server, Everquest P1999, and thats it. P1999, and SWGEMU actively ban people for real money transactions, and keep it free 2 play, and only work on donations. Path of Exile isnt really a mmmo, Ryzom is the only sandbox MMORPG that is not pay too win, and Istaria is more of a theme park, but is also not Pay 2 win. I did not get far in Aldos, because it seemed to be just another copy of WOW.
WoW is not pay to win you are wrong. its pay to play 15 a month which is nothing i might add, There is nothing in the shop In WoW that makes your toon stronger at all, you can buy a few mounts they don’t add anything to your toon and silly battle pets that don’t make your toon stronger. stop spreading this misinformation.
The path to delivering a fair non-p2w game lies in offering visual customization, gameplay variety, and decreasing leveling grind.= garbage, look at any mmorpg that has been out for 20 years…. they arnt easy, they arnt visually stunning, its all about it being hard , hard to get anything makes getting it satisfying . eq 1 been out over 22 years still coming out with expansions, wow is deing because they are using your foolish concept . dont be a pay to win retard play games that have more then 4 factions , play a game that has more things to do then hit a few buttons and hit end game cap in less then a week
I wouldn’t equate grinding to difficulty.
Everquest has only been out 18 years and I played for 14 of those. Will always be the best MMO ever made…. you can’t top perfection but you can surely degrade and that’s what it has done as the years go by. But it will still always be the best just because of what it once was
STUPID ARTICLE. ALL OF THIS GAMES ARE P2W.
You can buy a item from the store with real cash, then sell them for in game gold.
That make all the games P2W.
Why world of warcraft isnt on that list? This list is a f**king joke. Really.
Wake up people. Stop spending money with this kind of games.
Dont waste your time playing the games above.
Play Age Of Mythology, Dota. CS.
UMM YOUR RERTARDED YOU CANT SELL ANYTHING LEAGUE OF LEGENDS AND ANYTHING YOU BUY CAN BE EARNED BY PLAYING THE GAME SO ITS NOT P2W YOUR JUST A FUCKING IDIOT WHO BELIEVS WHATEVER HE READS
World of Warcraft is not pay to win, its pay to play. There is nothing in the end game shop that you can buy in that game that will make your toon stronger, just mounts and silly pets. Gold in wow won’t not buy you victoy in a raid you can’t buy the best gear with the end game currency which is gold. You have to join a raid and comeplete it and hope the RNG god is on your side and you get a drop that upgrades your toon. the way MMO’s should be not the pay to win crap like Neverwinter.
I kind of chuckled a bit when you said aura kingdom wasn’t pay to win. Sure most of the stuff in the market are comsetic, but there are also upgrade scrolls in there that cant be obtained for free. Hell i spent 1000$ dollars and sold costumes and in-game upgrade scrolls for gold to obtain the best gear available(a year ago and it was +20, now +30 i hear). Soloing dungeons became easy and at that point tankers and healers were useless in a party when there was a geared carry. Grinding for gear(equipment recipes) is pathetic(drop rates are horrendously low). There are two types of players in AK. One that spends money through credit cards to get Eidolon’s(their stats make some classes incredibly OP) and gear(some classes can solo the hardest dungeons by themselves) and the f2p ones that are content with garbage gear and can barely function past lvl 70. I’ve watched friends struggle and quit because they realized how without any monetary input they’d be burdens for other players in high level dungeons.
It’s been a while since I’ve played Aura Kingdom. It’s a shame that it’s gotten to be that p2w. This article is due for an update anyway so I’ll keep that in mind for when I get to it.
Took longer than I wanted but I’ve removed Aura Kingdom in favor of Crossout.