I'm back from Lost Ark

[Driavna]

Honestly that's a lot for dailies alone, and actually doing the raid content is an enormous ladder that lets be real here ties into the irl cash shop.
Would you not say that getting geared and actually involved in raiding in Lost Ark is SIGNIFICANTLY more time-consuming + has RNG elements tied to the shop too?
Alts are also a pretty big deal in Lost Ark, obviously the MSQ especially from the start in FFXIV is going to be a huge time investement but I view that as a separate thing because it's not really part of the endgame.
In FFXIV I can just buy the crafted gear off the market board and be ready to go and it's not even expensive.

If you actually want to do the hardest endgame content then there's some pretty huge walls you'll run into in Lost Ark that are incredibly time consuming and full of whales.

Lost Ark content will always be relevant to your character ILVL so in reality you can progress at whatever pace it suits you while having fun. Honestly, it's more a mentality problem of "I want it now" than anything else. MMO's were supposed to be a long term hobby and some still enjoy meaningful progression.

[Kolsykol]

Lost Ark content will always be relevant to your character ILVL so in reality you can progress at whatever pace it suits you while having fun. Honestly, it's more a mentality problem of "I want it now" than anything else. MMO's were supposed to be a long term hobby and some still enjoy meaningful progression.

I really feel like we're just talking about different things and from different povs, I mean to some extent this is true in FFXIV too..
I am mainly talking about doing the current endgame raiding content and getting BiS seeing my numbers go up and feeling like my character is '' done '' which is what I am the most interested in.

The whole P2W thing is a touchy subject matter and everyone has different views on what it is and isn't and how much time they're willing to invest and what their goals are etc.
But to get the equivelant experience in FFXIV but in Lost Ark I just think it's true that it's way more time consuming.
It's not directly equivelant because they're different games tho.

It's the same with GW2 for example you can just buy the gear on the market board ( there's other gear too for specific content tho ).
So yeah I'd say that GW2 is even less of a time investement and that's also one of the major draws of the game.
In the end of the day Lost Ark is designed around people logging in every day and spending a couple of hours at least and if you want to actually do the equivelant of getting full BiS in FFXIV in Lost Ark then yeah you're going to be pushing much harder.

The numerical difference is also significantly higher between people who do that and people who don't than in FFXIV which is something I do care about too.
I like feeling as if the main thing that is influencing my performance is my ability to play gear isn't a hurdle I want to spend too much time on and also not something that I want to make an enormous difference.
But then you have other people who rly enjoy that, people in BDO for example who enjoy emptying their wallets or completely no-life:ing the game so that they can stomp low geared players with a blindfold on.

I feel like a game that had whales complaining that they have nothing to spend their money on is hard to describe as p2w.

This is because the game is behind in EU/ NA so yeah.
It'll become more true with time I think, but what you're describing is more indicative of how slow they are with releasing the content in the West.

Edit: In the end of the day I think that yes Lost Ark is P2W.
To what extent is a different matter, I'd also say that GW2 is P2W but to a very small degree.

There's degrees to this the question is moreso where Lost Ark lies rather than if it is.