General

It's a P2W game because every ad says "play for free" which means they're gonna take your money somehow just like with other MMOs

@easilydone: That's what I'm trying to say. Many people have accepted Reboot because it's the easiest option out of it besides quitting.

But what I'm trying to say that these problems still exists in other worlds, and we shouldn't be blocked of that conversation. Everyone gets it that Reboot is better in some form and definitely less pay to win.

@darksword: Every other world are dying, it's a structural change, people aint buying into the dusty business model anymore.

@rockywasthere: Yeah, Reboot. ONLY IN REBOOT. -cough- Re-bot -cough-

There's something called every other world. You can get that through your thick skull.

no it isn't
we have reboot now
get it through your thick skulls

@risastolemyhart: Yes I know. I played since the very beginning.

I remember when Potentials first came out, a lot of people were pumped for it.

I did admit that there is some Pay2Win
But I think that the whole Pay2Win is starting to ease out a little bit? Well for the regular potential aspect.
I admit that there's not much easing out for the Pay2Win aspects of bonus potential and gachapon/marvel machine/event exclusives.

Please don't hate me for my little opinion

p2w? What exactly are you winning?

lol there are actually people who think MS isn't p2w in the slightest. B..b..but it's not an argument they can win! It's all a matter of opinion!

The time Maple was the least p2w was in beta and a few years thereafter. There was only Gach, Hyper teleport rock, exp and drop boosts etc which were mostly pay for convenience. Pay for convenience is still a form of pay to win. Compare a player who buys exp coupons and one who doesn't. One can level faster, become stronger faster (equip higher level items and 5 stats per level), and access to level restricted content faster. Although damage was barely a core aspect of the game back then.

"Recently, Maplestory is giving out more and more ways to relieve this "Pay2Win""

What you don't seem to understand is Maplestory did not start as a heavy pay2win game. Cubes and % increase potentials broke the game, then they powercreeped a dozen more notches because why not. All these items you can get for free through grinding reward points only exist to counter the pay2win items they implemented. B..but pay2win doesn't exist! If you're also not counting Marvel or Philo books that require no in-game effort, but a simple click and luck.

"Players who had these rings before would find themselves in an unfair treatment because they paid big mesos or money for the rings."

Nope. They had all the time since the moment they purchased it and reaped its' benefits (extra stats / buff). Go buy a brand new car, and then proceed to ask for a refund a year later. Because a new and better model came out and your model's price has become cheaper.

"Now imagine this on a massive scale with a lot of the godly items in Maplestory"

I don't know if you are blind, but Maplestory is well past that. Because of pay2win items like cubes and equip enhance scrolls from the cash shop. Also Nexon's monkey balancers, a decade of hackers, dupers, meso selling sites all resulted in GMS's broken economy. Players who did 9999 lines were considered godly in 2005, now KMS players can hit 99,999,999,999 damage per line fully buffed. A fresh new player can close the gap between a 1mil range player in a single day depending on how much he intends to spend on this game.

pay to win =/= pay for convenience. keyan22's arguments circle around the loophole of his personal definition of what is pay2win. Just read his posts. "Time is not money unless you spend that time getting money. You don't get paid every second you take to type a sentence do you?"

Sure, if there is no such thing as opportunity cost, which is completely valid within this context. Farming meso/RP to increase range. Doesn't even refute that time is money. Sun lotion doesn't prevent you from sunburn, because you will not always be exposed to the sun.

the game torwards endgame perfet equips is paytowin. Can you "win" decently by not buying nx? of course u can. but if u wanna be hitting like 1b-10b lines ur gonna have to buy nx or somehow buy the perfected equip from someone else.

@keyan22: On that note, it's much like the casinos. Sure, someone will hit the jackpot, but in the end the casino always wins.

Sure, someone will get lucky and get that perfect lined weapon without spending so much money on cubes. Or they may get lucky and get a Frenzy Totem from only a few Philosopher Books. But the rest are already either willing enough to hand out their money or they're addicted. That is how Nexon gets you.

Pay for convienence

It's not an argument anyone can really win, it is an argument of opinions, I was just trying to open up peoples eyes to certain things, and maybe change someone's views, the only real winner is Nexon, they get all the money some of the people are willing to throw away.

Yes, it is p2w. It's called poweer creep.

the post wouldn't have really caused anything if the OP didn't act so c0cky towards others, or coulda just made a video showcasing his equips and more people will be like wow nice job instead of him trying to argue pay2win or not. But the OP originally had the motive in wanting to argue, so cant blame that.

i can solo pretty cool bosses and i can count the nx cards ive bought, theyre only 2
sure i got hundreds of maplepoints from forum contests that helped me bpot my weapons, but its still a fact i havent taken a single bill from my wallet to fund in this game, that money i have used went to looks

Paying to win is only a shortcut.

If you define p2w as @readers said, "paying for items or content that will give a special advantage over others", all those special items can be acquired over time without paying (even if against the ToS).

Does p2w exist in the game? No, not really. As long as you put in the effort to work for it, you're not forced to pay to win.
BUT, the fact that a free to play player relies on paying players, that can be considered as p2w. It's all about your perspective.

Yes, the game is pay2win and has been like that since gachapon came out. The only issue is that the game is becoming more and more "pay2havefun"

To keep this brief as I can: The problem is that P2W as a concept is heavily contested in terms of its meaning, although generally speaking it refers to paying for items or content that will give a special advantage over others.

There was a period of time back in 2006-07 when the only NX items you could buy from the Cash Shop were cosmetic and store permits. Pets costed the same as they do now, except you had to buy an Item Magnet and an Item Pouch separately for your pet in order to auto-loot things which costs more NX. Given that there weren't as many items back then as there are now, the benefits of owning a pet over not having one weren't that strong.
Then later on they started to bring in 2x EXP coupons, Miracle Circulators, Cubes, etc. According to those who have witnessed this progression of MapleStory over time, the game has slowly become more and more P2W. The benefits of having more NX to spend, and even more $$$ in order to skip what would otherwise be a tedious process, started to accumulate more and more.

How you feel about this depends on whether or not this is an issue to you. To the OP (Keyan) of the link posted above; they may be okay with this and may not see it as an issue (and therefore will not define it as P2W as such). To others, however, they may not be willing to spend that much time, even if it's just a few months or a year to acquire that same level of progress. Especially when you can use other services outside of the boundaries of Nexon's ToS that enable for one to purchase such progress with $$$, whether it be mesos, items or accounts. However, how that falls into P2W as I've stated is still hotly contested.

Who cares if its pay2win, if you dont like it then dont play. The only reason the game still exists is because there are people paying for it. Theres a trade off in this game, and that either you spend your money or your time. I much prefer to spend my money tyvm, i only have one life and id rather not spend ages getting something when i can just pay for it.

@rtyu: Sorry, I just wanted to let my opinion out there because I just read all the comments on the thread I linked. Lol

@littletlk:
Yes it is pay2win
But i see that Maplestory is kind of easing out that aspect with all the new ways to get cubes and such.
They can't just drastically make everything non pay2win.

Although I would love to have an LGR or Hilla's/Magnus Rage, I guess I can't, but I'm ok with it.

Of course it's pay2win.
It's a free to play MMO that's lasted 10+ years.