Pay to win???

[Besame]

The recruit-a-friend friendship circlet provides buffs to xp and crafting. Looks like a pay to win item to me and shame on FF

[Martin_Arcainess]

Yeaaaaah like you can carry that ring into Alexander Savage and your contribution to the raid was so awesome because of that Ring what Boosted your exp until LV30.......

[ADVSS]

so does the original moogle hat for ourchasing the CE. I think its fine, its only to level 20 ish anyway the novice network gear gives a similar if not better bonus anyway. Sure this tightropes that line, but its nothing compared to story skip/level skip potions we'll be seeing soon

[Alistaire]

You missed April Fool's Day by a longshot.

[Tint]

there are more things you can pay to win for. with the additional retainers you will have an advantage on the market board. you will have 160 spots on the market board, instead of 40. so you can list an sell way more items, wich leads to more gil in your pocket ^^

and yeah, nobody cares about that game, but you can buy a bunch of minions from the cash shop and merchandise stuff wich all have their unique stats and skills in Lords of Verminion. they are maybe not better than the minions you can get for free in game, but they can allow you to use tactics wich people who don't pay real money can't use.

[Elamys]

Pay to win is when you can pay real money for the best items in the game, often where it's not obtainable by anything OTHER than paying cash.

Additional retainers I don't consider to be pay to win as gil is hardly used for much in this game. Yes, there is crafted gear, but it's certainly not the best gear. Materia is obtainable through methods other than the MB. You also make enough gil to buy necessities with only a little bit of selling. Having more sales slots means you just need to be smarter about what you're selling. I have all 8 retainers and I'm pretty much a full time crafter and hardly use more than 3 of my retainers to sell at one time. I have the additional retainers for storage, which is more of a QoL thing; I don't need to hang onto all this crap, I just want to because I'm lazy.

As for the minions, nearly all of them were available in game at one point for a seasonal event, meaning many people got those minions without paying a dime other than their subscription fee. I also don't know too much about Verminion, but it seems to me most of the best minions for it aren't cash shop. And, as you said, nobody cares about this minigame, which offers no rewards beyond bragging rights or the cosmetic rewards from MGP.

This game is not pay to win. For an actual pay to win game feel free to reference nearly any mobile game, or Maplestory.