Is Dbd a "pay to win" game? My answer is...

Accesing the best stuff earlier is still p2w. I could play nurse as a new player, but without some meta perks (which many happen to be licensed), I will be on a considerable disadvantage to another player who buys those characters for easier access to perk.

I can currently theoretically unlock hyperfocus (not ENTIRELY behind a paywall). But the question is: considering I'll probably have to wait 2 years to, won't I be at a disadvantage to someone who simply bought the dlc?

And to bring my point again: if nurse would be nerfed, what would happen then? Blight, spirit, aritst, plague, oni, ph, etc are all paid. Huntress, the next best free killer after nurse, comes behind many paywall ocs and even licensed characters. Isn't that p2w?

The funniest thing about this argument is it can be debunked with one game series... Mortal Kombat/Injustice. It is literally a game you pay to buy comes with a roster of fighters, and then they release DLC which costs extra not only bringing in additional characters licenced from outside their game, but you also have to pay for extra characters that they hold the licence to, like when they put MK characters in Injustice and vice versa, or when they add additional DC characters into Injustice.

There is a development cost involved in creating content, and you have been spoiled by the fact that there is an in game way to unlock content instead of having to buy it outright.

There is zero requirement to buy any licensed characters for perks or otherwise to allow you to have good chance at winning.

Theoretically, most of the content is free, so I'm not sure it's pay-to-win, but there's definitely a two-tiered system where the experience for "free" players (or, you know, players who only bought the base game) is deliberately a lot more tedious and draining than the experience for players who pay to accelerate the process of collecting characters, perks, and cosmetics.

There is such a thing as games where all of the abilities / character classes are unlocked by default, and you're just collecting emotes and cosmetics -- this is not like that. It's somewhere in between a system where everything's available and one where it's all behind a paywall.

I mean I just bought every killer in the sale on a new account for like £40 and the game cost £5 so I really can't see how you could class a game that costs less than a new premium title pay to win.

Maybe it's just the fact that I've been playing mmorpgs on and off for years and seen people literally spend thousands of £££s in real p2w games, but I really can't see why a game that costs so little would be p2w. You wouldn't even need to buy all the killers for meta perks you could probably get away with 5 purchased killers to unlock every perk you need to play the game at the highest level. So you're looking at like £20 (including the game cost) in the sale to do this. It's hardly a number that is outwith probably 95% of the playerbase.

The fact that you can use in game currency earned through playing to purchase said killers/survivors would also make it pay for convenience (unlock things faster) over p2w, but I wouldn't even put it in that category because it costs so little in both aspects (money or time played).

Any game with any elements that effect gameplay that can be brought is pay to win. It's more of an argument on how p2w it is, which dbd isn't that p2w at all in my opinion

This game is far from pay to win.Try a mobile game after $1000s of dollars it's my pleasure to pay DBD for anything really and most of the perks that are paid other then bbq & chilli aren't really that great.

P2W isn't about total dollars spent, its about locking balance behind a pay gate. Thats why this game toes the line so precariously, as it is not P2W by most standard definitions, but its nuances start to push it over the line very easily. As others have stated, by paying up front you are always putting yourself at an advantageous situation above others who don't (whether it be due to time to unlock, current meta, or synergy necessity) but "the best" option is free. It doesn't matter that nurse is arguibly the least accessible killer in the game, she's the most available so clearly everything is ok. It doesn't matter that the CoB/Overcharge synergy got "solved" by nerfing overcharge and leaving CoB untouched, Ruin and Corrupt getting bottomed out in favor of Eruption and Deadlock, these things still don't cross the most strict definition of p2w.

But boy are they trying to.

Blight, Spirit, Plague etc are all paid. The option of shards isn't favorable for your point, since that requires either grind or paying to skip the grind. And when the grind is required to win (as in, the best killers with a now nerfed nurse is a paid one), skipping it is p2w.

And for the record, perks can win you games. It's not that they are required for winning, but they provide an advantage. P2W isn't solely about being impossible to win without paying, it's also about paying providing an advantage.

The DLC for this game is so cheap and goes on sale pretty often. I know everyone isn't in a position to drop money on this game everytime a new chapter comes out, but when (the nearly monthly) sale for this game happens, you can get the older chapters, like the Halloween Licensed Chapter for $3.50 which comes with a Killer and a Survivor, it's even cheaper for the chapters that come with one. That's less than a quesadilla at Taco Bell. It's just hard for me to see how most people over the age of 18 would struggle to get together 4 dollars every few months.

I think that's a bit of a grimy way to think about it. Many of the strongest perks are paywalled off and not everyone plays killer or is going to play the same killer in every game, in which the rest of the strongest killers are also paywalled.

This game is definitely pay to win to an extent and I don't really get why we pretend it isn't TBH.

This is not a pay to win game due to the shrine of secrets alone. You get rewarded in dbd the more you play and the more you want to learn on how to actually play the game on both sides.

Yea, I swear it's like everyone wants to scream pay to win the second a game has any kind of additional DLC or something. Hell, people call another game I play Pay to Win even though it's mostly a PvE game and even then, the PvP aspects of the game levels are boosted to match up. The only thing you pay extra for beyond the ongoing PvE content is cosmetics... So basically it would be like if DBD just gave every killer free including licensed killers, their only money from cosmetics, and people would still say its pay to win.. cause uh.... I need this certain outfit to hide from the killer.

P2W isn't exclusively locking wins behind a paywall. It is also granting advantages in gameplay to people who paid. If they were to make trapper the only killer unpaid, by your definition, it wouldn't be p2w, because you can still 4k as trapper.

Also, when characters granting you a power that makes you more likely to win are locked behind either a tedious grind or a paywall, that is also p2w. You can't possibly say that in the hypothetical scenario of Nurse being paid, a new player who pays for her will not have bigger chances to win than another new player who doesn't pay for her and instead grinds for hours.

Its kinda sad that the concept has been so abused in other games that people have been continuously shifting the goalposts to what is and isn't p2w. There is no concrete definition of the term in any major dictionary, its usage is colloquial by nature. The majority of people's specific definitions of it are all equally valid, as the only established constant behind them is to have a paywall be an aspect in game balance. Whether it be temporary/mandatory, subtle/egregious, unlockable/purchasable, as a concept it has had applications in all of these fields. The underlying factor is that the end user is encouraged to spend money to create/keep/maintain an advantage over not spending money.

Most people are right when they say that DBD is/isn't P2W, since the term has no strict established definition, yet most arguments both for and against it are consistent with how the term has (and continues to be) applied to many other games. The real concern is that since it does have some valid arguments based on the usage of the term, it is thus toeing the line in the eyes of how its practices are received by the userbase. Even when things aren't as bad as they are in many other games (and again, there are only a handful of problematic concerns imo) it will inevitibly cause the end user to make the comparisons and start conflating business practices. "it might not be as bad as dungeon keeper, but its still worse than league of legends" and so on.

Also the financial shaming is pretty gross if I'm honest. A few bucks might not mean much to a lot of people, but to others they might have already cut out a lot of their excess spending and are playing games like DBD specifically because they don't have additional funds to purchase other games or additional content. The reason why paid cosmetics paired with free content updates is such a well received metric is because it allows the end user to support games financially on their own terms, not forced ones. Someone who may have spent plenty on DLCs and skins in the past when having more stable income may not have the spare funds to keep up with the current viable meta now.

Nobody should be hiding behind a non-existant definition saying it either is or isn't p2w. The important thing is for both sides of the argument to step back and consider the business practices involved as to why people would think one way or the other, and consider their grievences and reassurances on equal terms.

You can unlock perks with shards when BHVR lets us. You either have to pay for licensed DLC or wait weeks and weeks because of how the shrine of secrets is set up. Let's not pretend money isn't a factor to how well you can do in the game coming from someone with every DLC. Soul Guard has never appeared in the shrine. Lethal Pursuer has never appeared in the shrine.

It can be many months between times strong licensed perks appear in the shrine which can otherwise only be obtained through paying. If the shrine wasn't a weekly rotation with only 4 perks this argument would be fair, but it's extremely disingenuous the way you say it right now.

Personally speaking I have no problem with the way killers are set up (other than the fact that there is no possible way to access Demogorgon's gameplay if you didn't own him before), it's like a fighting game in that new characters are naturally going to be paid. The perks however are extremely defining of how well you can do and definitely skirt the line of P2W. It's 100% something that can be fixed though without changing the business model of the game at all.

I think the term "Pay to Win" isnt the correct term for DBD. Is DBD P2W...no its not in the traditional sence. Pay 2 Win generally means you can pay extra to get a huge advantage in game. Now yes buying the DLC does give you an advantage in some ways however because its DLC I don't think its fair to call it p2w.

By saying DLC is Pay to Win you have to class any game that has optional DLC a Pay to Win game. For example games like World of warcraft can be played at any DLC level so its optional however buying the DLC gives you more of an advantage (higher level, more classes and so on).

Ark survivival evolved is another game with optional DLC. If you own just the base game you will be at a sevear disadvantage on official PVP servers because you won't have access to the other maps to get the new dinos and so on.

So yeah you get an advantage buying new content but just because you have access to more things doesnt mean you will always win. As mandy said the Nurse is free and regardless of perks in the right hands she is a powerful killler (not the strongest overall but strongest in the hands of really good nurse players).

Personally i think you have a skill issue or have become entitled. Some killers take way more time to process there abilities and others you can just pick up and play. You could even say the same thing about survivor perks. If you see these things as pay to win in DBD you are completely blind since the game has always been based on procederal generation in the first place.

Just play the game and stop complaining. You players are getting ridiculous, not the devs or anyone elses fault that you're too lazy to earn.

It's not p2w. It's pay for fun/variety. Nurse - free, Blight/Artist - shards, Plague/Dredge (based on killrates they are top 3) - shards aswell

This isnt pay to win. this is the cost for the game plus all DLC in the game. The game is still about skill not "i have these perks i get an instant escape/4k"

If there was a way to buy a 3rd or 4th health state as survivor...thats pay 2 win.

Or pay for a weapon for all killers that are insta down m1 attack...thats pay 2 win.

Simply paying for created DLC is not pay 2 win and people need to get off their high horse who complain about the cost of a game. If you can't afford it then don't play it. if you don't like that also don't play it. This is a company out to make money and if they didnt charge for DLC that they spend months upon months on then the company would go out of business very quickly and we would have no game to play.

I understand, you just want to be handed things in an pvp game while others will have to work for it(which is actually fun you shod try it). You could always play single player games, those will actually work with your schedule. DBD has one of the most fairest models i have seen in a long time and actually rewards you for sticking with it. You could be richy rich in DBD and lose consistently because you dont play the game enough. Looks like youll have to play the game some more.