# Econ-Friday Ranting 08/21/26

> On 'P2W' style systems, how they relate to Perceived Progression, and why players often seem dissatisfied either way

Author: Azherae
Date: 2026-08-21T15:32:22.000Z

Here's the basic reason why people believe that games with just a Sub Cost will be better than games with things like the WoW Token, Speedups, the Lucent System, or what we are about to see in Aion 2. It's also the reason why they return/cling to True Classic MMORPGs and don't always stick with Modern Classic type. Readers who feel that the below is correct without further explanation can skip straight to Today's Example.

"The basic premise of a game that is built around Sub cost is that it cannot overly favor only the top players and must provide fun and true progression options for all its dedicated Fans."

Ashes of Creation promised things like Economy, Scarcity, Dynamism (of Nodes) and Meaningful Conflict. The 'no P2W' aspect was very important there because of an Explicit thing, and two Implicit ones. If the game doesn't have the 'worst' kind of P2W, the kind where you can buy unlimited numbers of things normally earned in the game, from some Cash Shop, then Scarcity is real instead of just 'for the poor'. Games like Throne and Liberty and Aion 2 also don't have that 'worst kind of P2W' though, and those games use models like the Lucent system, so it's possible to have Scarcity be real while still having what many people will call P2W. This is the 'Explicit' thing.

Implicitly, a 'lack of P2W' would imply that Competition would be Optional or at least Diverse. You can't build a subscription-based monetization schema, only reward 10% of your players with fun gameplay, and expect to keep raking in that sweet subscription money. Together, this Implicit and the previous Explicit have a 'child' from the logic. All players must be able to earn something.

Not 'have things'. **Earn** things, because "I remembered to login for my handout this month" isn't 'gameplay', and it's also not 'Scarcity', and it's absolutely not 'Optional' once we start talking about Competition. A 'Returning Player Handout' doesn't get anyone I know to log back into a game because they want the Handout or 'think it will make them Competitive', it only removes that sting of "I wonder how far behind I am now? Eh, forget it, not worth the time..."

So when a game is 'F2P with Optional Transactions', players look at it and 'wait for the handouts' (because those are the way that games with top heavy Competition retains average players) and then for low-quality games they eventually realize 'Oh this is actually a chore and I can't Earn anything even with the level of power the Handout gives me'. Subscription-based games can also absolutely work like this in the same situation, too much top-heavy Competition or limited Earning methods **is** the '[color='red']**red flag**[/color]', it's just that saying 'this game will be Subscription based, like the old days!' also can get some players to believe 'this game will also give me Earning options like the Classic games do'.

### Why Isn't Progression Enough?

It used to be, for many, but the market was still dominated by games with the ability to Earn your stuff, for a long time, and once you claim your game will have an Economy, then you will get players who expect that Economy to be part of the Progression, expanding the playerbase to people beyond what many call 'no-lifers' and 'whales'. Many players don't even want the 'pity' that comes with 'Everyone's a Winner', but the understanding of how this actually plays out is very different from how it's presented in the shallow form.

If the general experience of playing a game indicates 'you, as a player with limited time or GuildMates, can never be a Winner at anything', most people stop playing it, but older games didn't 'say' that. They gave you the realization 'I can't win at fighting, but those who can literally don't have time to get good at Fishing, so I'll go sorta-win at Fishing and trade my Wins with those who are good at fighting'. This approach still 'loses players', of course. If players are absolutely only interested in being the best at fighting, and they aren't, they may leave, but progression Handouts don't help here either. Only providing more diversified spaces to be competitive in, ever seems to do anything.

### Today's Example: Runes in Throne and Liberty

This section will also reference the concept of Legendary Weapons in Ashes of Creation, as a 'counterpoint', so bear in mind that Ashes of Creation gear had Durability, whenever it is mentioned.

Throne and Liberty has made great strides in creating the types of Content Diversity that lead to players understanding 'well I can't win at X so I'll just go do Y', but it's struggling with the specifics of Earning Power/progression, and much more importantly, 'not overly favoring its top players'. By moving lots of progression out of 'get this precise gear' and hiding 'strength gained by constantly playing' behind Runes instead of Levels, TL has created a partial illusion; that newer players don't have to Race to enjoy content and can just Chase what they feel like. [The last time I referenced this](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/64234?page=3#511235) was just a basic touch on [color='yellow']**Chase Items**[/color], but for a dynamic game that moves some of the Progression into the more abstract space, we need to look deeper.

To get bias out of the way as usual, my concept of a solution to this is the same as always. Clamped Content, various levels, Rune Values set to max out at some appropriate number. Top players would get their advantages simply from knowing what combinations to choose, and this could then be instructive to others (or at least easy to copy).

The actual problem, right now, is related to how certain Rune slots have 'just opened'. Previously, players could only put Runes into Accessories, and now, they can place them into almost all Armor, so entire new avenues of 'strength' are opening up, for all players, and that means a [color='red']**Race**[/color] has begun. One of the things most players in discussions around Ashes of Creation seemed to agree with, was that people with less time to play should be able to find value in the game. Many PvP players were looking for some situation in which they could PvP and not have to automatically assume that there would be some wild disparity in strength between characters.

Having a Legendary Weapon in Ashes of Creation was implied to be a stage/level of power where that wild disparity would appear. A player could theoretically 'enter a local tournament' with their Legendary Weapon and use it to win, and as of the end of development of that game, there was no indication that there would be any way to 'set the rules of the tournament' so that this wouldn't be possible. Depending on how it was obtained, it might not be possible to sell or maybe even Trade this Legendary Weapon, so it wouldn't necessarily even be subject to direct RMT. I believe that players would still have complained about any player who used RMT to build up their character or influence and then obtained the weapon, being able to then always use it, because that is the type of connection the mind makes when the player 'looks for a way to interact with that character that isn't loss or subservience' and doesn't find one.

There is basically no way for Lucent to convert directly into more powerful Runes (at least, not in a massively unbalanced way, BattlePasses affect it, but everyone can theoretically buy exactly one Battlepass, so they are otherwise equal). Most of the time, Lucent doesn't even convert particularly 'indirectly' into more powerful Runes either. What players are being 'robbed' of, is their options for interaction. Even if one can progress by entering the Battlegrounds, for example, why do so when the winners get rewarded more, especially if you know that if the Battlegrounds doesn't actually happen, they can't simply win the Race by existing?

As noted, TL does actually provide content for Progression that can be considered fun for most of its playerbase, and interestingly, the group that gets the least of this, is the 'up and coming' PvP player, because with no 'Level Brackets', they find it harder to progress via PvP. The 'basic premise' given at the start of this Rant doesn't hold up, for them, and the process that limits the 'P2W' complaints doesn't help because of how the system is built out. These players can't 'convert Lucent into Rune Progression', and this is definitely a good thing for the game, but since so little content is provided for them to achieve that progression by playing, the combination of being 'the ones left in the aftermath of the snowball' and 'knowing that they are better off paying to skip the Progression phase in any way they can', leaves a strange feeling.

"It is possible to spend all your money and still lose."

This is a good fact. It is what most non-whales want to be true, when they decide to semi-competitively engage with an MMORPG that has any form of 'P2W', 'P4C' or RMT. The issue is that there is one more word 'hidden' in that line, at the end. 'Everywhere'.