I miss playing MMO’s, but micro transactions ruin any sense of progression for me.
Any mmo’s out there that fit the bill?
Cosmetics are fine, as long as you can’t just turn around and sell said cosmetics in game.
Really think you should give FFXIV a deeper thought beyond just looking at the store and finding the level skips.
Even if you were to buy a skip, there’s still a considerable amount of game in front of you to play. They are only meant to get people to modern content without having to (to some people) slog through hundreds of hours of older stuff. It’s not a p2e micro-transaction by any means — far from it.
I agree with this whole-heartedly, there’s simply no way any reasonable person would consider skipping story content as buying power in the context of how FFXIV works as an MMO.
It lets players jump right into the new content without worrying about dozens or hundreds of hours of prior story they may or may not want to play through to get to the latest content at the same level as everyone else starting out, that’s all.
Counterpoint : if it was just that, it’d be free.
The money makers here want you to play their game. The more time you invest, the more money they make in subs. If you want to skip all that game and thus, in some ways, get all that progress done without having to pay all that sub, you’ve gotta fork over some cash.
You don’t cost them anything for not playing part of their game, and you don’t owe them anything.
If your interpretation of why they do this is right, it meand they want you to believe that “modern content” is a reward for playing through the rest. Nobody should think like that. Playing the game is the reward for playing the game.
It’s like if Netflix made you pay an extra as you start watching a series on season 4, because you didn’t pay your subscription through the three previous seasons.
Absolutely, it’s absurd to conflate XIV’s level skips with being able to buy gold in other games.
XIV was actually my first thought re: the OP’s query.
Hopefully you understand why I was a little suspicious!
But I tried it out, and holy moly it feels like a different era. My brain can’t compute the fact that I just got a free to play game (Just have the demo, which honestly sounds like a ton of game) and it’s not trying to sell me anything in game? The tutorial was all about game play in universe, and never once told me about premium currency? My ui doesn’t have 5 different things? Crafting doesn’t involve long cool downs that I can 5 gems to speed up?
Like it feels like a different era of game, thank you for being persistent! I’ve only played a couple hours, but so far it feels like it’s going to become a comfort game at the very least.
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Palia might not be the kind of game you’re looking for, but it is an MMO in development, and has this to say on the matter:
- Palia will monetize cosmetic items
- Palia will not monetize things you earn through gameplay
That, along with the rest of their messaging, reads to me like they don’t plan to make it a pay-to-win game.
Guild Wars 2 basically makes it impossible to buy power – once you’ve purchased all the expansions, at least. Which is incredibly impressive considering there’s an official way in-game to trade real-world cash for in-game gold.
That’s one of the benefits of having gear be horizontal, you can get a build geared from a fresh account in a few days, and then there’s only minor optimizations you can make (there’s a gear rarity that’s higher than the readily-accessible exotic gear but basically you have to earn it, and then there’s legendary gear which is there for fashion and qol because you can change the stats on it at any time).
I see you can buy gems, are gems nothing?
Gems are the premium currency and what you can turn into gold by way of the black lion trading company. They’re almost entirely used for cosmetics or convenience items, because a lot of the stuff in game that you spend gold on that WOULD be a power boost is almost always associated with a resource that cannot be purchased with gold, and usually you get the lions share of the gold you would need by way of working towards whatever those resources are.
There’s other quality-of-life upgrades available in the gem store (real world money store) like infinite gathering tools and inventory expansions. That’s what I spent my IRL money on. But yeah, not really accurate to call that a “power” improvement.
Can you buy fractals infusions or other equipment upgrades with gems or gold, or do you have to acquire them through fractal dailies? I never had enough friends to do the fractals content.
You can buy agony infusions which are required for higher tier fractals but they’re so cheap in gold no one should spend real world money on it and you’ll earn it naturally if you’re climbing the fractal ladder normally. A lot of guilds even give away the agony infusions if you are struggling to gain them. I recommend trying fractals at T1 even in LFG, you’ll usually find other new players to fractals who are willing and expecting new players to it, but it won’t hurt to watch a video if you’re nervous
Gw2 really does a good job limiting power so you hit max power quickly that you really are just buying convenience.
This is pretty much only possible because most actual power is account bound and as you can hit near power cap so quickly, you’re generally skill/knowledge bound instead of power bound
If the game has any way to trade, it’s possible to buy power. Wow Classic or Guild Wars 2 are probably your only really options.
It is not a normal suggestion because the base game is probably the most pay to win mmo that has lasted more than a year or two. But both versions of Runescape (both old school and Runescape 3) have a game mode called ironman mode.
Ironman mode is an official account type that you can create where you can not trade other players items or money. Everything is earned and gathered yourself. If you want to make a bow you need to gather the flax to spin a bow string and chop logs to fletch an unstrung bow and then string it.
It is a slower mmo with most skills in the game having methods to train where you don’t need to pay much attention and you can mostly watch youtube.
Both games also have very mechanically different and difficult combat encounters you can work your way up to.
Maxing out every skill in the game takes year(s) to do and there are hundreds of incredibly unique quests that in my own opinion set the bar for mmo questing. There are no kill 30 boar quests or fetch quests (really) they are mostly very in depth stories with character archs and so much lore if you are into that.
Would recommend OS over RS3, because much as I love archaeology, RS3 is overmonetised (I think most of the community agrees with that?), and that seems like a big part of what OP wanted to get away from.
I agree with guild wars 2 (and guild wars 1) just like what the other commentor suggested
But old school RuneScape iron man mode does this as well in a different way by blocking you from the auction house and trading so you can’t buy anything and you must earn it all yourself
Clan Lord. It’s a place that’s special in my heart. I’ve been playing on and off since 2001.
Phroon you were always my favorite healer.
Not sure if it’s my cup of tea, but that is a really good answer!
Whoa what? ClanLord is still going? I was playing that in the 90s!
Yup! The GMs are a lot more active recently, adding things to the game continuously. And now there’s regular scheduled events where the GMs push stories and interaction to a level we haven’t seen in a decade.
Oh wow that’s sick! I may have to get back in to it.
When I was playing it was still in beta and I was in Jr. High. I only quit because when they started charging money I couldn’t afford it and my parents certainly weren’t paying for it.
As an adult now I can totally afford it but I’m not sure my lifestyle allows me the time for it any more.
I was a healer named Hashak. Probably won’t ring a bell, but 🤷🏻♂️
The game went to no monthly fees a long time ago. They only charge for new accounts and characters. If you have an old account you can just log in and play. There’s a player run news and link site here, that has a link to ‘Clieunk’, a client for modern macs and news since 2001. Though we haven’t always been the best at sending in news.
Starwars: The old Republic.
Totally free for eight excellent epic stories with no pay wall to overcome or excessive difficulties without subscriber benefits.
Subscription unlocks more content.
Microtransactions are for cosmetic only, and there’s plenty of cosmetic options without them too.
Keep meaning to check these out before it dies (how healthy is it? / how long do I have?).
The game was just reassigned to a new studio for maintainance, it’ll be around for a few years yet.
If you’re interested in games that aren’t MMORPGs, Path of Exile fits your criteria for monetization. You can only purchase cosmetics and bank storage upgrades. It’s an online ARPG but it’s mostly single player.
It is pretty much unplayable without the bank storage upgrades though. Given the amount of time they can save you, you may as well say that they are power.
Right but there is no whale bait that impacts your sense of progression. All you really need is a one time purchase. Maybe $30 max to get all you need to out of storage and trading?
FFXIV.
Not sure about ESO and SWTOR. I know WoW has the token market that technically counts as turning money into power by selling tokens and buying clears.
SWTOR definitely has purchasable power, since you can sell cosmetics from the real money store on the ingame auction house for ingame currency. With that, you’ll be able to buy gear enhancements on the auction house, that are required for endgame (VM operations, etc.)
Some of the best gear in ESO come from their paid DLCs and Chapters. Technically locked behind a paywall, but you’ll still have to farm the gear yourself.
The microtransactions themselves only offer cosmetics, consumables (that aren’t more powerful than the craftable options), and utility stuff (race-change tokens, and skipping some of the skillpoint grind).
There is a player market for exchanging Crowns (microtransaction currency) for gold, and another player market for buying raid clears with gold. Raiding (called Trials) offer some of the best PvE gear. You don’t need to buy clears if you’re skilled enough to run those Trials and can find groups to do it with you.
If you just want to enjoy the game without worrying about min-maxing your build, all the base-game and craftable options will do you just fine.
Hmm these look sus:
https://store.finalfantasyxiv.com/ffxivstore/en-us/product/804 https://store.finalfantasyxiv.com/ffxivstore/en-us/product/822 https://store.finalfantasyxiv.com/ffxivstore/en-us/product/809
Maybe they’re not so popular, or in context not worth that much, but levels and money usually are no-nos for me.
As others have said, the story skips are kinda awful.
Plus, I gotta say that it doesn’t really make a difference. They don’t give anyone an advantage over anyone else and don’t impact the way you experience the game at all. If you don’t like them, just don’t buy them.
At worst, you’ll run into some guys who are really bad because they skipped a huge portion of the game to get to modern content. But it doesn’t give them any edge over you by any means.
Again, I can’t stress enough how these affect other players 0%.
Replying 19 hours later but…
Yes, FF14 does have options to skip story or (most) character levels. They are, like others have stated, primarily targeted towards players who are levelling alts (which the game by nature doesn’t really need as much).
FF14’s story is amazing, but it’s long and not necessarily something you want to repeat.
And while this is effectively buying levels, FF14 is not designed as a pay-to-win game. The amount of experience required to reach maximum level is balanced for someone who is playing the game legitimately – unlike P2W games where requirements are artificially inflated to encourage you to spend money. You will get most or all of the experience you need to hit max level just from following the storyline and a moderate amount of side quests (on one class anyways.)
That said, many FF14 players say that fashion is the true endgame… and there are a lot of nice-looking items on the store. So I suppose it depends on what your definition of “winning” is. 🙃
Runescape was like that for the longest time and tbh k dont think bonds really impact my experience all that much
Ironmen stand alone. No trading with other players means no way to p2w.
Yep, OSRS ironman involves so little non-social interaction with other players* that their power from bond gold is almost irrelevant.
(* outside cooperative and competitive minigames etc.)
