is this game PAY to WIN on endgame content(PVP), can you buy power?

[Desklosed]

As a player who is planning to play free and sometimes buy stuff i really need, like bag slots and similiar minor things.

I have a very serious question, Are you at disadvantage at higher levels if you dont buy from store?, i saw many stupid stuff you can buy, like raid gear and some shard, skill unlock things i dont know what they are, and many other stuff.

Can you buy power, power in a way of buying powerful stuff while spending 0 effort to get it, like just spend money and get stuff that give you advantage while not doing anything really.

I have a character lv10 and saw many people spamming chat with RAX exhange thing, i read some stuff about it and was pretty sad.

Can someone explain/convince me is this game worth playing if you are competetive PVP type, i plan to play as warrior.

I don't want to spend hundreds of hours while someone just can buy the things I earned, with no effort/no time spent, i percieve that as terrible balance.

Can anyone enlighten me? or i shall just uninstall.exe like i do on every f2p mmorpg

[Seatin]

As a player who is planning to play free and sometimes buy stuff i really need, like bag slots and similiar minor things.

I have a very serious question, Are you at disadvantage at higher levels if you dont buy from store?, i saw many stupid stuff you can buy, like raid gear and some shard, skill unlock things i dont know what they are, and many other stuff.

Can you buy power, power in a way of buying powerful stuff while spending 0 effort to get it, like just spend money and get stuff that give you advantage while not doing anything really.

I have a character lv10 and saw many people spamming chat with RAX exhange thing, i read some stuff about it and was pretty sad.

Can someone explain/convince me is this game worth playing if you are competetive PVP type, i plan to play as warrior.

I don't want to spend hundreds of hours while someone just can buy the things I earned, with no effort/no time spent, i percieve that as terrible balance.

Can anyone enlighten me? or i shall just uninstall.exe like i do on every f2p mmorpg

From a PVP perspective:

The best PVP gear can only be earned.

You will need to prestiege to the max PVP rank, earn the PVP currency (Marks and Favour) to buy the gear.

You have no option to buy the best PVP gear with credits.

Take a look in the ingame store to see for yourself.

[Dynalon]

There are no items in this game, which could be obtained only trough the cash shop, except for additional bag slots, SL souls, character slots, crafting skill slots and even then, there are people who will trade you these items for ingame currency (they send you unlock as gift and you pay them) or you buy a REX in auction house for ingame currency, use it to get credits (shop currency) and buy whatever you want.
You can buy potions which speed up leveling, gaining notoriety with factions etc. you can buy even T1 raid gear from shop, but the best gear can only be obtained from drops in raids.

PvP here sucks, classes are not balanced, you can easily die in 2-3 seconds to some builds, defense against CC skills is almost non existent (break free every 50s with 3s immunity ..., with so many stuns, silences, snares, roots and other crap), then there is a stupid idea, which ruined pvp in almost every mmo I know of - pvp gear, which boosts your stats in pvp. Open world pvp sucks because you can just run into level 20 area with level 60 and slaughter everyone (I would like to see those guys doing this in Lineage ...), without any penalty or consequence. Then there are warfronts, either it is because of MM, lack of healing, premades or other reasons. Similar is the conquest, which is level 60 mass pvp, it lags like hell, due to the fact how rift engine is optimalized ...

But Rift is not a PvP game, its mostly about PvE and level 60 content is done very well.

[Desklosed]

There are no items in this game, which could be obtained only trough the cash shop, except for additional bag slots, SL souls, character slots, crafting skill slots and even then, there are people who will trade you these items for ingame currency (they send you unlock as gift and you pay them) or you buy a REX in auction house for ingame currency, use it to get credits (shop currency) and buy whatever you want.
You can buy potions which speed up leveling, gaining notoriety with factions etc. you can buy even T1 raid gear from shop, but the best gear can only be obtained from drops in raids.

PvP here sucks, classes are not balanced, you can easily die in 2-3 seconds to some builds, defense against CC skills is almost non existent (break free every 50s with 3s immunity ..., with so many stuns, silences, snares, roots and other crap), then there is a stupid idea, which ruined pvp in almost every mmo I know of - pvp gear, which boosts your stats in pvp. Open world pvp sucks because you can just run into level 20 area with level 60 and slaughter everyone (I would like to see those guys doing this in Lineage ...), without any penalty or consequence. Then there are warfronts, either it is because of MM, lack of healing, premades or other reasons. Similar is the conquest, which is level 60 mass pvp, it lags like hell, due to the fact how rift engine is optimalized ...

But Rift is not a PvP game, its mostly about PvE and level 60 content is done very well.

Thanks, objectivity is greatly appreciated.

In short stay away from rift if you plan to do PVP on a high lvl. Ive got to say i played rift till lv16, around 3 hours or so, was enjoyable to some small extent but if i wanted to play Pve mmorpg, LOTRO is the way to go for me.

[Desklosed]

From a PVP perspective:

The best PVP gear can only be earned.

You will need to prestiege to the max PVP rank, earn the PVP currency (Marks and Favour) to buy the gear.

You have no option to buy the best PVP gear with credits.

Take a look in the ingame store to see for yourself.

Thanks! But ive gotten much more 'enlightenment' unfortunately in a negative light from the post below yours, that balance in PVP is atrocious.

Also ive figured out that you must buy some sort of warrior skill unlockement from storm legion expansion(I need to buy SL too) to be viable in pvp, sad sad, cant sell in auction too, must unlock with credits(which is not too much of a big deal).

I don't know if you guys as community complain about pvp, but you should if aren't.
No criticism = game stays the same, from my experience.

[Slipmat]

if i wanted to play Pve mmorpg, LOTRO is the way to go for me.

There is nothing locked to you as a F2P player in Rift, nothing, every zone, every warfront, every dungeon, every raid is accessible with no restrictions, none.

Try and swift travel from Bree to Rivendell, oops, sorry, you need to buy the Adventurer's swift travel pack, want to do quests in this zone, hurry now to the shop and buy this Adventurer's questing pack, LoTR Online (F2P) is a joke and a total shadow of what it was when even Codemasters ran it as a sub based game.

[Asharoth]

Thanks! But ive gotten much more 'enlightenment' unfortunately in a negative light from the post below yours, that balance in PVP is atrocious.

I would wait until you have quite a few more people respond before making judgement calls. That poster may be right, but he also may be bitter and twisted because he got his e-peen hurt once, gather a few responses and the ones that are agreed the most will be close to the truth.

(Dynalon I'm not saying you're wrong or bitter or anything, just advising him to do his research well before deciding)

[Dynalon]

Also ive figured out that you must buy some sort of warrior skill unlockement from storm legion expansion(I need to buy SL too) to be viable in pvp, sad sad, cant sell in auction too, must unlock with credits(which is not too much of a big deal).

Well technically you dont have to spend any real money, you just have to buy one REX trough AH (or from someone), spend those credits and AH will unlock. I think this is actually very nice way to limit gold selling to minimum.

[Desklosed]

There is nothing locked to you as a F2P player in Rift, nothing, every zone, every warfront, every dungeon, every raid is accessible with no restrictions, none.

Try and swift travel from Bree to Rivendell, oops, sorry, you need to buy the Adventurer's swift travel pack, want to do quests in this zone, hurry now to the shop and buy this Adventurer's questing pacry k, LoTR Online (F2P) is a joke and a total shadow of what it was when even Codemasters ran it as a sub based game.

You are correct on that actually. But Ive played lotro to lv31( not much i know) i grinded a lot for turbine points, to unlock bags and 1 big area but didnt feel it anymore, so quit ..mostly because i overgrinded the monsters for TP but i liked the vibe/atmosphere, maybe too naive who knows but had some fun.

I really like 'on the way' raids, the rifts here and how it is easy to get into party but im not interested in pve. LOTRO indeed is much more restrictive than here that is true, especially in PvE terms/comparison.

[Desklosed]

You are correct on that actually. But Ive played lotro to lv31( not much i know) i grinded a lot for turbine points, to unlock bags and 1 big area but didnt feel it anymore, so quit ..mostly because i overgrinded the monsters for TP but i liked the vibe/atmosphere, maybe too naive who knows but had some fun.

I really like 'on the way' raids, the rifts here and how it is easy to get into party but im not interested in pve. LOTRO indeed is much more restrictive than here that is true, especially in PvE terms/comparison.

Just to add since can't edit anymore.

I said i prefer LOTRO as pve because when i remember how it was, just lovely; great vibe, positive radiating atmosphere in lotr spirit kind of like, very solid sounds, the things PvE game need, i mean for slight immersion if anything, that i don't feel here or i just dont want to grind for Pve anymore i can't say.

[TehNova]

Heyo,

All I do is PvP.

I do not have SL souls, and I'm still doing fine and I still enjoy the game for its PvP content. Of course that being said, I have only one character that I really play and it is a rogue.

I played back when it started (2011) and recently started playing again (end of 2013). But, no matter where the game is, I still find this game very enjoyable PvP wise.

Yes, classes are unbalanced, but having all classes balanced is too ideal for any game and that probably never is going to happen to satisfy everybody.

Yes, Tempest do OP damage- but in my experience, they are also squishy as hell so there's always that trade off (survivability vs. damage)

A lot of people QQ on forums, and really (in my honest opinion)- if they just learn to play the game, learn to focus the heals, the higher DPS first, then clean up the little guys, then everything should be alright.

I like the game how it is, unbalanced classes has never been a problem to me (Rogue has had it's own moments of being unbalanced) and strategy can always win. It's just how you play in my opinion and how you strive to coordinate with your teammates to win.

All in all, it's a great game PvP-wise and PvE-wise. I can't find any other game out there that has this type of PvP and it definitely has potential to grow in the future (as long as Devs put it into priority).

Cheers and Happy gaming!
Sheathe

[Nitzi]

As a player who is planning to play free and sometimes buy stuff i really need, like bag slots and similiar minor things.

I have a very serious question, Are you at disadvantage at higher levels if you dont buy from store?, i saw many stupid stuff you can buy, like raid gear and some shard, skill unlock things i dont know what they are, and many other stuff.

Can you buy power, power in a way of buying powerful stuff while spending 0 effort to get it, like just spend money and get stuff that give you advantage while not doing anything really.

I have a character lv10 and saw many people spamming chat with RAX exhange thing, i read some stuff about it and was pretty sad.

Can someone explain/convince me is this game worth playing if you are competetive PVP type, i plan to play as warrior.

I don't want to spend hundreds of hours while someone just can buy the things I earned, with no effort/no time spent, i percieve that as terrible balance.

Can anyone enlighten me? or i shall just uninstall.exe like i do on every f2p mmorpg

I'd say that this game has one of the best F2P models out there, you won't find anything that are pay to win, more things that boost your gain of different things, like currency, gear tokens, reputation etc. You'll also find a lot of "fluff" as wardrobe/transmog items, mounts, pets etc. You can buy various gear packs, these are the "starter kits" in other words the first gear set you'll get to use even if you grind towards it your self, these are however quite pricey compared to the grind you have to do to get them, especially the PvP one.

To buy things in the store you'll have to either buy credits for real money or you pay in-game currency for a REX which upon use will give you credits as well, so everything in the store can be bought without using any money at all. To access the auction house you can either use a REX or buy the smallest credit pack, this is mostly a fix to get rid of bots on the auction house. The main thing you'll want from the shop is the 4 souls that came with the expansion pack, these are used in many popular specs however you can play competitive without them and it's a 1 time buy for your whole account.

Every MMO got some imbalance in their PvP, no exception in Rift, some specs and some classes are superior/inferior in different patches, but overall it's quite solid. You wont have any disadvantage compared to someone that have spent millions in the store in PvP except perhaps the 4 souls I mentioned above.

I enjoy PvP on all 4 classes, love that anyone can bring anything to the board and you can't rule off anyone as a minor threat just looking at their spec.

[Lithium1]

Thanks, objectivity is greatly appreciated.

In short stay away from rift if you plan to do PVP on a high lvl. Ive got to say i played rift till lv16, around 3 hours or so, was enjoyable to some small extent but if i wanted to play Pve mmorpg, LOTRO is the way to go for me.

I came from LOTRO to RIFT and have the opposite perspective.

In LOTRO I raided the top content, and then felt completely abandoned by Turbine disregarding competitive pve group content in their future designs. They spent a year on "big battles" and it has largely failed as group content. It's a bunch of solo mini games with a teeny bit of cooperation. The rewards are weak and uncompelling and only require doing the same thing over and over. They have announced that in 2014 they won't even put out an expansion. Why? To fix bugs they say. Ouch...

Now I am in Rift and the top 3 reasons:
1. New Raid content is heavily part of the plan in Rift. Even if you don't raid and play casually it is important to realize that the energy and "carrot on a stick" aspect it maintains contributes positivey to casual PvE as well. T3 raids are coming yet few guilds can even do 3rd bosses of T2. It's up to us to play smarter. Not up to Trion to nerf it.

2. Features. There is a HUGE contrast in what Trion has been able to implement vs what Turbine fumbles and spends months failing to measure up to. It's probably good Lotro abandoned the housing upgrade they promised for 2 years because they don't seem capable of coming up with good ideas nor programmers to improve what they have.

3. Rift's F2P model is night and day with Lotro's. Rift also doesn't nag the heck out of you. It doesn't gimp you and only give you a portion of the game.

[garyoak99]

Are you at disadvantage at higher levels if you dont buy from store?,

No, and this is coming from someone who, like you, thought I needed credits in order to compete in PvP as a level 60 warrior.

The warriors I fear the most in PvP don't even have a single point in Tempest as Champion can be used to substitute for that soul easily! They destroy my Tempagon warrior with ease because they get within range and then pull me into their melee attacks.

My fears about these Paragon/Warlord warriors are further strengthened by players in Conquest complaining that the pulls are overpowered! Everything else that has been said about Myrmidon gear (best endgame PvP gear) is true because I can't buy a single piece of that Myrmidon gear with credits even though I have a REX in my bag!

I have no choice but to grind my way to Prestige rank 80 and then buy Myrmidon gear using in-game currency like EVERYONE else!

[Uruketo]

As a player who is planning to play free and sometimes buy stuff i really need, like bag slots and similiar minor things.

I have a very serious question, Are you at disadvantage at higher levels if you dont buy from store?, i saw many stupid stuff you can buy, like raid gear and some shard, skill unlock things i dont know what they are, and many other stuff.

Can you buy power, power in a way of buying powerful stuff while spending 0 effort to get it, like just spend money and get stuff that give you advantage while not doing anything really.

I have a character lv10 and saw many people spamming chat with RAX exhange thing, i read some stuff about it and was pretty sad.

Can someone explain/convince me is this game worth playing if you are competetive PVP type, i plan to play as warrior.

I don't want to spend hundreds of hours while someone just can buy the things I earned, with no effort/no time spent, i percieve that as terrible balance.

Can anyone enlighten me? or i shall just uninstall.exe like i do on every f2p mmorpg

Hi Desklosed,

I play as a warrior myself. I am a casual PvP type but I was curious how viable a PvE person would be in Rift's PvP environment. I was constantantly getting rolled in WF's, even as a tempest. As one poster noted we (Tempests) can put out a lot of damage but we are also squishy.

To further test what could make me more viable in PvP I dueled with another L60 Warrior. We found that gear played a large role. Even the lowest level PvP gear was better than higher level PvE gear. Also specing in the War soul made a huge difference. So in theory, if I spent all my PA in the War soul tree, wore all PvP gear with PvP runes I would be rocking in PvP. Although specing in the War soul would be terrible for my PvE activities.

That said there is no way to purchase PA levels, you have to earn those through natural leveling, pvp, questing, etc. The low level PvP gear can be earned with time or purchased for real $. Someone could suck terribly at PvP and earn enough currency to purchase the low level gear if a moderate amount of time was spent in the WF's or CQ.

With that in mind, I wouldn't fault someone for spending real world money to skip some or all of the monotony. They still need to put in the time to gain prestige level 60 to upgrade the gear to a much better version of it. A better player (along with gear and spec) will get there faster. The currency they earn along the way can be spent on missing pieces or put towards the upgrade parts for pieces. It could also be spent on dimension fluff too but I don't think that is the point of this thread.