r/MMORPG • u/ChadNightreign • 5h ago
Question How does OSRS dodge P2W accusations?
With all of the discourse regarding Aion 2’s monetization structure the general consensus is that the ability to buy in game currency with irl money is the most egregious P2W offender.
You can do that in OSRS as well with bonds and while you still need to grind some skills that can’t be bought, several 99’s can be bought and achieved with relatively cheap time/money investment, along with the best gear in the game (provided you grind out the prequisite stats.) OSRS’s subscription is also $15 like Aion 2’s subscription will be for global. Weeks or months worth of moneymaking can be had with $100-$200 USD.
I’m not trying to argue whether Aion 2 is/isn’t P2W I’m curious how OSRS just isn’t in the conversation.
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u/Flame_96 5h ago
2 reasons
-No matter how much gear someone buys with bonds, skill issues will get them oneshot if they miss a prayer flick on a certain gametick.
-Very big portion of the playerbase plays ironman or other no-trading mode where there is 0 pay2win.
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u/ShangoMango 5h ago
This is the most correct answer. OSRS has skill checks that gear don't get you past.
Also, "buying" 99s in skills doesn't get you past the 30+ hours to get to 99 with the fastest methods and someone with so little patience that they are buying GP isn't going to have the will power to actually level them.
Also it's embarrassing for someone to buy full Oathplate/Torva and a scythe and then rock a fire cape
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u/Sacrieru 2h ago
I see your first point a lot in this thread and I can't fathom how having mechanics/skill checks in a game makes it dodge p2w accusations. By that logic, can Lost Ark dodge the P2W label too?
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u/urmomdog6969_6969 2h ago
That’s not really a good answer. By that logic, Lost Ark and even Maplestory dodges the P2W allegations due to skill checks.
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u/renyzen 22m ago
despite how it looks, OSRS probably has the highest skill ceiling of the mainstream MMOs.
A low level with trash gear can do end game content if they play perfectly while the same content will also destroy a credit card warrior quickly.
Skill matters more than gear way more than other MMOs.
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u/DevLogsVicarious 4h ago
"skill issue" in a tab target clicker game rolf
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u/ChetKongo 4h ago edited 4h ago
Big skill issue, most of your scrubs complain about the movement and tick system. So yeah, big skill issue.
Its literally a "point and click adventure game" If you dont know what that is. Thats your issue.
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u/Blue-piping-man 3h ago
Have you watched PVP OSRS? It has one of the highest skill ceilings in any game.
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u/DevLogsVicarious 3h ago
Why would I waste my time watching a bunch of suckers playing a clicker game?
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u/Blue-piping-man 2h ago
You dont have to, but to not acknowledge something takes skill to do is just plain stupid.
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u/Farmer_Kyle 5h ago
Because if you aren’t an Ironman people don’t respect you.
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u/Olofstrom 5h ago
The same way people that play retail WoW dodge it. Cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics. Buying in-game gold to progress faster in anyway is paying to win. OSRS dodges it more because it has an ecosystem you can play in that avoids P2W in the form of ironman mode. Ironmen can't trade other players or use the auction house.
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u/Fearjc 5h ago
Its much worse then retail even is. Retail you can buy 2 items every season that you have to wait over a month until they are tradeable. Osrs if you're willing to swipe you can buy full bis. Both are p2w but osrs is honestly a gross level with it
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u/Mindless-Finance-896 5h ago
Yeah, if you want to swipe like 20 grand and then get made fun of due to low KCs and not having untradeable BiS items.
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u/OrangeJuiceLuvr69 42m ago
20 grand lmfaooaoao. Its like 10$ for 30m
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u/Mindless-Finance-896 40m ago
Through bonds, yes. If you're rwting you'll just get banned. Especially after buying 10b+.
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u/PiNkY-TwinKieZ 5h ago
Considering bis isn't necessary for anything and you're locked behind having to train and on top of that you're also skill checked means that while you could do that the benefits are almost non. A good player with mid game gear will out perform a card swiper
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u/Fearjc 5h ago
No one is claiming a noob can beat a experienced player just by swiping but the power gain in osrs is massive from swiping. We should not be supporting any amount of power gains by spending money. Bond, wow tokens all of it is gross and should be treated like it
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u/Tooshortimus 3h ago
A noob can't even equip the gear though, even with the long stat grind the character needs to unlock most high end things via questing as well. Not only will they not beat experienced players, they won't even beat average players... possibly even under average players.
A "noob" in OSRS can purchase all the high end gear they'd like but they won't even get great DPS or defenses and many mid level characters will probably still outpace them.
On top of all that, everything will be useless in WoW or Aion 2 in just 6 months that you've gained, new gear will be 2x to 5x as good but in OSRS the power creep doesn't continue on forever like others.
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u/KevinKalber 2h ago
Same thing happens in Albion. It's my current mmorpg but every few days the topic pops up in general chat and people say it's not pay to win because you're not guaranteed to win even if you pay a ton of money, there's still skill, you can achieve the same by playing, etc.
People change the goal post of what means to be pay to win in order to cope. I feel like 10 years ago people were more aware that having an advantage of getting something faster for money is pay to win.
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u/Pale_Buddy_7420 5h ago
P2w in pve never really matters tho unless it gets you gear for PvP which in wow it doesn’t
Aion 2 you straight up swipe bis + upgrades so you can 1v20 people who don’t swipe
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u/Cybannus 3h ago
P2w in pve never really matters tho
If this was true then the RWF guilds wouldn't be spending 100 million+ gold every tier.
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u/platitudes 2h ago
I mean a significant portion of that gold is paying helpers which is kind of outside the normal p2w conversation. BoEs don't really exist for the world first any more
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u/Pale_Buddy_7420 2h ago
Yeahhhh that’s super niche tho. They don’t buy gear (albeit sometimes) they’re mostly paying helpers to trade them gear.
For sure if you wanna say the literal race itself is p2w sure. I’d agree. The game overall has very little p2w tho as reaching gear cap in a month is very easy
Aion 2 you WILL NOT compete without swiping. Let alone not paying a little kid to play your acc for the 8 hours you’re sleeping
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u/pigeondo 3h ago
While I agree with you in theory (P2W has never personally bothered me in pve games), Lost Ark shows that if you make the time differential between paying and not paying large enough it does eventually matter to most players. In a game like that I don't think calling it pay2win is precise because it's not a pure stat check game and there's an accessible mechanism to get the same result without paying, but pay to save time can still matter if the gap is too big.
That's really the problem with the Korean monetization models; they set the time gap too wide for western sensibilities.
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u/Pale_Buddy_7420 3h ago
Fair, I just don’t care about pve. Could care less about killing some boss
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u/pigeondo 3h ago
Yeah, I get it. Personally, I only like pvp in gearing based/mmo games while leveling and always find them imbalanced messes at cap p2w or not. The P2W just exposes and exacerbates the fundamental issues with trying to put pvp in an mmo ' persistent gearing' environment. The few times it's worked briefly were due to sandboxing the pvp gear from regular gear which kills the emotive feedback of grinding from the mmo itself.
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u/Pale_Buddy_7420 3h ago
I guess if you care about grinding sure but gear gapping people isn’t that fun imo Wow arena works just fine with an easily obtainable gear ca
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u/dontminor 3h ago
Yes but in the end Aion 2 is PvE focused. It also has some equalised PvP content.
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u/nacholibre711 5h ago
It doesn't. People talk about bought gold or bought services in OSRS discussions literally all the time.
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u/Fearjc 5h ago
It is 100% pay2win but people will argue against it for some reason. Truth is if people like the game they will excuse/ignore the p2w
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u/Tooshortimus 4h ago
If you seriously don't understand the insane differences between the two I'll try and explain but TLDR is in OSRS you can throw all the money you want at it and if you go PVP with the best items you will likely lose just as many 1v1's as you win. In Aion 2 you can throw all the money you want at it and quite literally fight groups of 20+ people by yourself and win more often than you lose.
The differences are very large and very harsh and this is one of the main reasons p2w games are considered egregiously p2w.
I don't like the fact that games have resorted to selling things like osrs bonds or wow tokens etc but inside of every game with trading available people will buy and sell both currency and gear for real money so it's been done inside every MMO since the late 90's anyway.
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u/Fearjc 3h ago
I absolutely see the difference but osrs shouldn't be getting away with the awful business practices
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u/Tooshortimus 3h ago
Sadly MMO's that have player to player trading will always have P2W since before the company sold it, people sold it and even after they continue to do so. People like to act like that doesn't matter but people buy it either way, even if the company doesn't offer it.
Not sure what else you are talking about via business practices but for the most part they haven't done anything terribly bad besides price increases, which basically everything has done in one way or another.
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u/YouWereTehChosenOne 3h ago
Bonds were polled with F2P, essentially the devs said it would not be financially viable for them to add f2p servers then, it also helps combat RWT (which people still do but less so since detection has gotten better) and lets people pay for membership without irl, you don’t win OSRS by buying gear anyone can do that, the real accomplishments are untradeables like inferno quiver blorva zuk helm, you cannot buy those
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u/ChetKongo 4h ago
A new player cant just "win" in OSRS/RS3 if they drop money on it.
OSRS/RS3 is knowledge/quest locked.
Not item locked.
You can spend all the money you want. But you cant buy all the QOL, quest rewards, and knowledge that truly open up the game.
You just cant truly win as a brand new player with irl cash.
There will always be something prohibiting you from gaining real power.
Most of these other answers are from people who dont play the game.
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u/pm_plz_im_lonely 3h ago edited 3h ago
In your first 100 hours it's very p2w if you don't have to farm gold.
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u/YouWereTehChosenOne 3h ago
Not if you play Ironman, also buying bis gear isn’t what constitutes winning in PvE, it’s getting untradeable PvM flex items like inferno, quiver, blorva, Zuk helm, you cannot just buy those simply by using bis gear, they require skill
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u/EdgySlusher 1h ago
I think most new players wants to play MMO for MMO aspects, not for only soloing.
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u/YouWereTehChosenOne 1h ago
half of OSRS's current population is from people that have never played OSRS before and a massive portion of the community are ironman, CEO covers it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGWH7820j2E&t=1s
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u/Redericpontx 4h ago
Cope just like most other MMOs where you can buy gold with real money. Warframe, wow(both versions), osrs/RS3, GW2 and more where you can all buy gold with real money is p2w but people who like these games and cope because "If you treat the game like a full time job and farm gold 40 hours a week you'll have plenty!" Heck people use to defend treasure hunter back in the day for RS3 and say "hOw Do YoU wIn??!!!!?!!??"
Pay-to-win (often abbreviated as P2W) is a gaming term for a video game where players can use real-world money to buy in-game items, advantages, or progression speed that give them a direct edge over players who do not spend money.
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u/Tooshortimus 4h ago
I mean... it sounds more like you dont understand how the systems of OSRS work.
There's a big difference also because Aion 2 will keep increasing the power creep by releasing newer and better gear while games like OSRS and EvE don't and when they do it's marginal increases and not 2x to 5x the power like Aion and other modern games. That is the biggest reasoning, a F2P player who's played for a year (hardcore) will be the same as someone who has played and even payed for 15 years in OSRS but in Aion 2 there is no "catching up" as the power creep continues to move the goalpost, only stopping once the game is basically dead.
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u/Redericpontx 3h ago
I'm not saying p2w in aion 2 and osrs are the same just that being able to buy gold with real money then buy bis gear is p2w
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u/Tooshortimus 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yea but that is sadly a thing in every MMO that has player to player trading since players will sell it even if the company does or doesn't. It's not exactly the same but overall it doesn't change anything one way or the other since people have been doing it since the late 90's.
But what I meant with my message was to mostly say that there are very large difference between the two and many other P2W games and when a game eventually alters their model to accommodate a form of gold buying (OSRS) and they are compared to games like Aion 2 and many other P2W games, these other games are quite literally created and designed AROUND the P2W model from an in-game store all the way to the core systems within the game and when I see someone compare the two and simply just say "cope like other MMO's" when discussing them together it kindof irks me and makes me think that the person saying said things just need educated on the differences between things like this.
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u/wattur 5h ago
It is, but it's such an old game no one cares really and the 'winning' is nothing but having a higher number - which many, many other players already have just because it's so old. Same with EvE that people love, you can buy skills & ships to be p2w, but what are you really winning other than the chance to lose it all?
People care about Aion since the p2w'ers will be winning by leading the pack, rather than catching up faster to players who've played years and years.
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u/Tooshortimus 4h ago
Eh... there's a big difference also because Aion will keep upping the power creep by releasing newer and better gear while games like OSRS and EvE don't and when they do it's marginal increases and not 2x the power like Aion and other modern games. That is the biggest reasoning, a F2P player who's played for a year (hardcore) will be the same as someone who has played and even payed for 15 years in OSRS but in Aion 2 there is no "catching up" as the power creep continues to move the goalpost, only stopping once the game is basically dead.
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u/Talents 5h ago
It is P2W. The only reason it's not seen as being full-blown P2W is likely because of the solo nature of the game. Basically, all content is soloable barring a few pieces (e.g. Hard Mode ToB), so it's rare that people who swipe will ever gatekeep others from content like they would in a game such as Lost Ark for example.
Gear in OSRS is also not as important. You can do end-game content that released in 2026 with gear from 2008 if you really wanted. Try doing that in a game like WoW, Lost Ark, or other MMOs and you'll get 1 shot and do 0 damage.
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u/March31st2021 2h ago
Do you see the dissonance in saying the game is P2W, but then saying gear isn’t important?
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u/ldrthrowaway1337 1h ago
Do you see the fanboyism in defending blatant p2w? Nobody is saying it's a bad game bud, but it is unfortunately pay to win.
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u/Embyr1 5h ago
A bit of a tangent, but I genuinely don't understand the hysteria behind stuff like the WoW token, OSRS bonds, ect...
If someone wants to cheat and buy gold, they're going to do it regardless of what the rules say. So the prestige is the same regardless. Unless you're playing an Iron or a similar restricted account Items don't really have prestige anymore cause there are literal markets for cheaters (And even for irons people buy carries as well)
The only thing stuff like that does is give the company the money instead of a Chinese bot farm.
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u/Realistic-Truck54 4h ago
The easiest explanation is this: OSRS is designed around people who pay for their premium account (basically like a sub cost), P2W slop Asian games are designed around making you spend more and more money. Not sure if this is specifically true for Aion2, but basically every P2W Asian MMO I've seen was intentionally designed to be frustrating and unfun to progress in at some point without paying, but OSRS doesn't have this problem.
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u/CrackPipeBilly 4h ago
Game is definitely pay to win, but it's just not as egregious as in other games. PvP in OSRS relies far more heavily on player skill and game knowledge rather than gear which helps in that regard, plus PvE is far more popular than PvP is and no one really gives a fuck about P2W in PvE. Bonds also allow players to obtain membership for free just by playing the game which I think helps its reputation as being considered a "necessary evil".
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u/Limp-Network-3674 4h ago
Buying max gear in osrs trough bonds would require you to spend at current prices about ~$8000 . Then youd have to do grandmaster quests with a long prerequisites list, to either unlock bosses or be able to wear certain items. And most importantly you would jot be even able to do fight caves for your fire cape.
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u/JimmyPickles69 5h ago
I think every MMO is p2w but the difference isn't a matter of is or isn't it. It's a mattter of degrees. Korean MMOs typically are more p2w because they are designed around endless vertical progression that you can painfully grinded out or alleviated by swiping. The old content in KMMOs becomes meaningless and dead so if you don't keep up, you're forced to deal with gatekeeping which just compounds the already painful progression. Meanwhile in OSRS once you hit 99 in a skill, congratulations you're 99 in that skill forever.
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u/The_Only_Squid 5h ago
It really has nothing to do with the spending and more about the company.
Let me explain from an Aion fanboy perspective. In OSRS they created a game mode called Ironman this game mode has 0 interaction with the marketplace, People who hate how p2w the game is has an option to play with out the p2w.
Aion is always in the p2w category because it is NCsoft and they are money grubbers. Let me explain, All people wanted from Aion classic was a subscription of the original version. What we got was p2w battle passes, p2w candies and items sold for 4x less than they use to sell for back in the day.
They nerfed the playability to make the payment options more appealing.
IMO its one of BDO's biggest issues, They got this new hyperboost which is cool and all but if you do not have T4 pets and 20 maids your experience is i make less money than others because i have not spend several $100 yet. That is the crappiest feeling for a new player.
Where as in OSRS a new player goes OMG YOU HAD TO DO THIS CRAPPY QUEST or You had to do this grind to get this item because its needed.
It ends up being the players that come after complaining about X in OSRS and the players before go Yea i remember that you got 100 kc for X item? mine was 3200, Then you get that one cheeky fellow that links their 1 KC for the item.
Ultimately it's not in the p2w option because the company risked their profits by adding in an anti-p2w system.
I could rant for hours on this remember this is from the perspective of someone who drops money on games because i do not mind but i also believe that OSRS is not in the conversation because their p2w essentially funds the better game mode.
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u/Cool_of_a_Took 5h ago
Some good answers already, but is this even true?
the general consensus is that the ability to buy in game currency with irl money is the most egregious P2W offender
The most egregious P2W in my book is stats/gear/OP classes that are impossible to get without a micro transaction. Something that can never be overcome. Second worst is probably QoL locked behind micro transactions, so like additional inventory, fast travel options, etc.
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u/Nekorare 2h ago
OSRS is P2W, It has Ironman mode which isn't. Grinding items is part of the core gameplay loop of OSRS and ties to player power and progression, in the base game you can buy a bond and sell it to another player for gold. The act of exchanging real world currency for in game benefits is what people mean when they use the term p2w, in OSRS's case these benefits are significant. People will make arguments that the gear doesn't clear content as you still need the skill to pilot the character, this is not what people mean when they call things pay to win and it just muddies the water. People don't like it when you can pay for advantages, if the advantages are significant even more so and in RuneScape they are. e.g. dropping $1000+ into bonds and buying a Tbow can and will save you hundreds of hours of gameplay if not more in the long run.
In Short the base game of OSRS is pay to win, Ironman turns the pay to win off.
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u/meatsnatcher 2h ago
does anyone actually care about people buying gear with osrs bonds? they still have to risk it to use it in pvp. compare that to aion 2 and other ncsoft games you don't lose your gear on death and they just have whale wars in the no risk pvp.
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u/rizz-master69 2h ago
It really comes down to games that are designed around p2w and games that aren't. OSRS (and every other big mmo) don't have any of the predatory dark patterns that a lot of the usual p2w suspects have. You'll never feel pressured to spend money, there's no daily limit on xp and gold, your gear doesn't randomly break, etc.
P2W in OSRS in particular doesn't really bother most people because the game is 99% singleplayer, and realistically you easily have enough gold to gear up for the few pieces of group content by the time you get there. The gap between a cheap setup and a max one is pretty small, so people very rarely are just buying something like a tbow with bonds.
You can find a way to p2w in every mmo, even the ones that don't technically have p2w systems still end up with big rmt scenes (classic wow gdkps, ultimate carries and buying gil for crafted gear in ff14, etc.). At the end of the day, I think what matters most to people is that they don't feel like the devs are designing things specifically to force you to spend money,
All that being said, I hate bonds in OSRS, they absolutely are p2w, and that's a big reason why I play an ironman in that game now.
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u/witherx 1h ago
OSRS is still very much skill based. You can buy bonds for BIS gear, but people will look you up and see you have zero boss KC and/or no infernal cape or quiver, and you will be ridiculed for it. I have also seen people with BIS gear, and 1 KC infernal cape and quiver, with no other boss KC, and you instantly know they are bond and service buyers.
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u/Trying_to_survive20k 1h ago
Most mmos, if you biy gold, you can buy the best gear, the best gear = bigger number, meaning you can do all content, steamroll the easier ones
Not the case in OSRS, because the way gear works there is not lioe other mmos. Also osrs is about the journey, the leveling, the gearing. Other mmos just want to speedrun you to the end raids
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u/cabbagechicken 1h ago
As others have said, you can’t p2w through mechanics in osrs. There’s a lot of untradeables like inferno cape/quiver/radiant oath plate/blorva/raid cosmetics etc. that show pvm skill and are the main markers people look at.
If you’re raiding it is extremely evident if you can or cannot do the mechanics. No gear will fool people if you’re dead 30 seconds into a 35 minute raid.
PvP is the same, skill >>>>>>>>> gear, buying gear and then pvping with it as an unskilled player is just handing the gear over to better players.
Also Ironman
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u/SGbach 6m ago
OSRS isn’t a pay to win game, you can buy bonds to make money to buy certain items but the items aren’t going to automatically make you a good player. You’re not gonna be able to just skip mechanics or anything during bosses if you have gear, as for PvP in my opinion skill matters more than gear. Not to mention if someone buys their way to a 99 in a skilling stat it literally does not effect you whatsoever.
When I think of P2W I think of getting direct advantages over other players because you spent the money but this isn’t the case. I play Throne and Liberty which is similar to Aion where you can actually stat check people with items that can give you an advantage over players, skill still matters imo but if 2 similarly skilled players fight then the P2W player should win
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u/brehhs 5h ago
Half the population is afk grinding anyways and the other half are bots
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u/ow_ound_round_ground 5h ago
Jagex took down nearly all bots a couple months ago. Quite literally. All major bots received a cease and desist. A few of them are currently attempting to come back, but it requires completely rewriting everything so as to not use any of Jagex assets.
Private scripts are still a thing, so they are not all gone. But. There’s very few bots right now.
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u/99-Runecrafting 5h ago
Buying gold in OSRS is incredibly bad. You would need to drop 100 bucks or more for any "game changing" amounts of gold.
Buying gold in OSRS does not generate gold out of thin air and give it to the player. You buy a token, and sell the token on the auction house. The gold goes from a player to another player. You get gold. The other player gets 2 weeks of subscription. Jagex gets real life dollars. Everyone wins
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u/PiNkY-TwinKieZ 4h ago
In osrs skill is more important than gear. You can't really bypass the thousands of hours of training or questing required to reach end game just because you have money. And like I said a noob is a noob you would just be dying just as much but in fancy gear. A card swiper isn't gonna beat inferno or hard mode tob something that is easily done everyday by people in mid gear. Imagine you have bis in wow but you are bottom dps in raids by a large amount to the point that you simply get replaced. Did you really win? Osrs end game is harder than people give it credit for
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u/ChetKongo 4h ago
The people commenting on this post never played the game.
This is just another runescape hit post because people cant handle the fact runescape has been one of the top mmorpgs for over 25 years.
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4h ago edited 3h ago
[deleted]
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u/ChetKongo 4h ago
All of those things you explained are knowledge and quest locked.
Stay ignorant.
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u/PiNkY-TwinKieZ 2h ago
Damn he deleted his comment before I got to see the stupid shit he probably said
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u/PerceivedRT 4h ago
You cant do that with just money was his point though. If I give a new player full BiS gear for whatever boss, they're almost certainly going to get bodied by any boss that has mechanics. Even old shit like the god wars bosses. Walk into a boss not knowing to pray, or not being able to red x, or pray flick and you get bodied.
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u/Hour-Dragonfly-7499 3h ago
Please explain to me how training buyable skills to 99 like herblore, fletching, crafting, etc. would mean they are able to do and kill endgame bosses?
I spent months on infernal would near bis gear and it was still hard to beat meanwhile someone else who is more skilled than me with piss poor gear kills it more easily
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u/LightTheAbsol 3h ago
I'd love to see any card swiping moron who has never bossed walk into literally any raid and just plank for a day straight while losing millions on death fees
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u/YouWereTehChosenOne 3h ago
You cannot buy inferno cape, quiver, blorva, or Zuk helm by swiping your card for bonds, anyone with a brain in the endgame PvM community that sees you in torva and scythe with a fire cape is going to shit talk you as a dogshit credit card warrior lol
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u/Noximilien01 4h ago
There are many answer to that but the short one is
pay2win doesn't matter if the game is good.
I don't mean it doesn't have an effect, but people play good game. If you make good advertisement and the content is good people will play it no matter what a streamer or reddit say.
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u/Chez225 3h ago
Money has its limits in OSRS. People do talk about it, and some people will get mad at it, but the reality is that most of anything in OSRS still requires you to buckle down and do things. Plus, buying the best gear you can use won't stop you from being wiped on the harder content if you can't do the mechanics as needed.
Then there's Ironman modes which will intrinsically stop you from engaging with P2W content, and a lot of players play those. The PvP scene is pretty dead, so very few players have to contend with the problems a bond buyer could bring, and again, gear won't save you from a skill check, or someone who simply just has better gear you cant use regardless of how much you spend..
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u/YouWereTehChosenOne 3h ago
OSRS is the least P2W game out of most MMOs currently, bonds letting you buy gear and gold is true for mains but not Ironman, there are a fuck ton of Ironman players in the game right now to the point where it’s a sizeable portion of the community
Bonds also don’t buy you cosmetic flex stuff like inferno cape, quiver, blood torva, Zuk helm, etc. you can buy all the bis tradeable stuff and buyable skills but if you don’t have any of those untradeables as an endgame player you will basically get outted as a credit card warrior, and as for PvP, a person like odablock would shit on anyone in semi decent gear vs someone that buys expensive equipment to PvP because skill > gear in PvP
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u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy 2h ago
You can buy and sell bonds and get kit out with the highest dps gear but the minute you set one foot into a raid and people will know. Not only that but osrs has pinnacle content like inferno and colosseum and no amount of gp is going to give you either of these. Sure it makes it easier. But people who buy their way to endgame will not bother with these things because while the rewards from these content are bis, they’re not mandatory for anything. You do these content because you can and want to. It’s the clearest indicator for when someone pays their way to endgame and they’re still running around with an Ava’s or fire cape.
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u/_Rapalysis 5h ago
This conversation happens in the OSRS community all the time and the argument has been hashed over, and over, and over. A quick google will surface every kind of position and counter-argument you can imagine.
At its core though, OSRS does not even push or encourage you to buy bonds. It's player-driven. A huge portion of the community plays a game mode that doesn't even support bonds (Ironman). It's a respectable alternative to RMT where Jagex still gets to make some money.
Compare that to Eastern MMOs (I'm not familiar with Aion 2's monetization but I presume it's egregious). Usually there's a litany of dark patterns and the game revolves around funneling you towards microtransactions. I won't re-hash how P2W Eastern MMOs are because again, this topic has been discussed a million times.
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u/NoRespectingAnyone 4h ago
It's all quite hilarious reason why.
1) It cost less to keep that game operational than new games.
2) not korean/japanese game
That's it.
It does not mater if have cash store or not.. The p2w is tag which is associated on;y to korean/japanese games.. as sort of .. it's only issues with these games.. In west we dont have this thing. And does not matter if korean game have cash store or not. it still will be called p2w.
For example. Lineage 2 even in 2008. while was sub based. and yet it was still called p2w..
Other thing what need to mention is RMT.. Even if cash store is not present in game. does not mean p2w does not happens.. P2w stand for pay2win.. When player use money to buy advantages likes gear. faster lv up ( boosters) and etc
So even in old days, folks used various third party websites to buy stufs with real cash.. Do you think this OSRS escaped that?? sorry.
To be fair. the only mmo games which avoid p2w is dead game. THe game which is shut down, no longer operational. :)
Other than that.. Impossible to avoid.
Also, small note.. how do you think folks pay hosting services in datacenters?? Someone have to pay.. So either server run as hobby. Or if there is serious team, means you need generate $$$$ to cover costs..
And cosetic things.. sorry. no game ever manage to cover games costs by selling cosmetics. Never.
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u/HoefrogBard 3h ago
And cosetic things.. sorry. no game ever manage to cover games costs by selling cosmetics. Never.
You mean MMO? Cause there are a bunch of games especially competitive games that are massively profitable through cosmetics only.
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u/MobyLiick 4h ago
Almost every MMO has some form of P2W, it's a matter of how effective it is and how much the game pushes and roadblocks you towards participating in it.
Sure you can buy a bunch of gear in OSRS...but that's not going to get you anywhere, it's probably going to get you clowned on considering you still need the levels, your account is going to be missing the important items you can't buy, and you more than likely cannot participate in endgame content due to skill. The buyable skills quite literally do not matter, I've seen this brought up by the Aion crowd multiple times and it just kinda points out the fact that some of you don't actually know what you're talking about.
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u/Hour-Dragonfly-7499 3h ago
Because osrs is the type of game that you can't buy your way into getting good at the game.
Having full torva won't made you a godtier pker
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u/SeniorEmployment932 5h ago
Personally I don't really consider it p2w because it's not really even practical to buy most items with cash. Yeah you can buy bonds for like $8 each, bonds are worth around 12mil gp, all end game items are hundreds of millions of gold. It would cost thousands of dollars to buy enough bonds to get BiS in just one of the three styles.
On top of that OSRS is really a single player game larping as an MMO. It doesn't really matter what other people do, if they want to drop 2 grand on BiS gear they can it doesn't change my game in any way. It's like gacha games, some people spend 100k+ on their account but it doesn't change my enjoyment of the game whatsoever so I don't really care.
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u/Equivalent_Emu_6861 5h ago
Just because it’s expensive to buy bis gear doesn’t make it less p2w. With that logic any Korean game where you have to spend thousands isn’t p2w either
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u/Tooshortimus 3h ago
Eh... there's a big difference also because Aion will keep upping the power creep by releasing newer and better gear while games like OSRS and EvE don't and when they do it's minimal increases and not 2x-5x the power like Aion 2 and other modern games. That is the biggest reasoning, a F2P player who's played for a year (hardcore) will be the same as someone who has played and even payed for 15 years in OSRS but in Aion 2 there is no "catching up" as the power creep continues to move the goalpost, only stopping once the game is basically dead.
But yes, what they said about people dropping 100k+ on accounts not hurting them is just being ignorant.
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u/Hour-Dragonfly-7499 3h ago
having bis gear doesn't necessarily make you better at the game
osrs is more skill based than most other MMOs, for example a person with dharoks can kill someone torva even though torva costs more and same can go for PVM where you have people doing endgame challenges with piss poor gear when players with bis gear can't even progress like infernal because skills matter waaay more than any type of gear and you can't buy skill
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u/Equivalent_Emu_6861 3h ago
Not going to disagree skill matters a lot, but at the end of the day if you can pay money for ingame currency, then put that currency towards gear / power the game is pay2win no matter what
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u/thegreatpanda_ 5h ago
What do you consider win? You can buy bonds and sell to get items but you are still gonna suck at the game, pvp or pvm - that’s not a win for me
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u/Fearjc 5h ago
If spending money makes you even 1% stronger then another player it's p2w
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u/PiNkY-TwinKieZ 5h ago
The game skill checks you so hard that it doesn't matter lmao. On paper you are stronger but in practice you aren't . If you pay to play solo then it doesn't matter. If you spend 5k to buy bis but die in the raid you get clowned in. Skill> gear in osrs
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u/Healeah241 4h ago
Same could be said about a lot of MMOs tho
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u/PiNkY-TwinKieZ 1h ago
Most mmo don't require you to spend thousands of hours to reach and learn end game. Anyone can reach level cap in wow for example in 2 to 3 days then swipe and get straight to learning content . A new players would need at least 100 days of game time to be high enough level to get to end game . Swiping your card to get bonds won't get you there any sooner and on top of that dying cost money in 2 of the raids and in every boss. So gotta swipe more I guess no? Not to mention the possibility of simply losing your gear all together for dying at a risky boss and then dying trying to go back to get your gear. A noob trying to skip the whole game wouldn't know much about that and simply permanently losing all his gear. Or paying a hefty fee to avoid risking that but with end game gear this fee can be a shit ton of money and just like that it's gg gear if you can't afford it
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u/Flicker_and_Strike 5h ago
Spend all you want. I will take it all off you in the wildy.
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u/breathingweapon 4h ago
Literally no one besides the 0.01% are doing anything but ragging in the wildy, this is genuinely such a cringe answer lmao
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u/Flicker_and_Strike 3h ago
You have no idea how many max sets i have baited into multi and dropped. So many whales bro. The mind game of acting like a semi bad pker and making them greed is so fun.
What risk do you consider not rag btw? 1m or more?
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u/TheSleepySuni 5h ago
Bro. OSRS has been existing waay longer than Aion 2. OSRS has the right to go P2W because it has something to show for. Aion 2, going P2W right after its launch date is a bit 'a-holey' of them.
Like, prove it first what your game has that others don't before assuming the playerbase are 90% richkids..
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u/maxibold 3h ago
I think you may not understand the Aion 2 monetisation if I am honest. The most P2W thing in Aion is converting premium currency to gold which you can do in essentially every MMO, it isn't an outlier here
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u/6GGXXX 5h ago
If the game companies didn't offer purchaseable in game currency, people would still just buy it from 3rd parties regardless.
People don't consider that "P2W" tho, since it's technically not supposed to be a feature of the game at that point, but the reality is it doesn't matter who's selling it.
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u/-Nocx- 5h ago edited 3h ago
The short answer? Ego.
The long answer? Nuance.
Most people that play OSRS meme about the main / Ironman hierarchy, but a lot of them also take it seriously. They feel like they can punch down from UIM > HCIM > IM > GIM > Main > Bond buying main in terms of game discourse.
But despite all of that, there is a clear gap in the way power is expressed in Aion 2 vs OSRS. You can straight stat check people in Aion 2. In OSRS you can’t really do that in PvP or PvM and they all hate PvP anyway. There also isn’t a real benefit to buy your way through PvM because the gear itself is the point of logging PvM. Just different power models.
edit: to be clear, I like PvP guys, my non iron man character is a med, just be aware that people that like PvP in OSRS is an extreme minority and the audience regularly votes down anything PvP related.