Why is this game so pay-to-win

yes i see what you mean so i guess the correct term i should have use was "Pay to play"or "cash-grab" ,(games stating to be Freetoplay but have energy bars and good stuff for real money only) . Not this game,this is real Free to play, of course some good things could be bought with real money but why? most of everything is obtainable through grinding. Pvp isn't the core game and frankly isn't as rewarding as killing hordes of monsters with the chance for rare gear (so i win lots in PVE), so if said Players want to pay for a game where they can kill each other while making rude gestures,than i highly suggest EDIT

 

lol,EPIC
well put

 

$100-400 per character is plenty. If you're going to spend money, don't spend more than that.

 

OK i'll bite. Can you quantify how or why you believe this. Sounds arbitrary to me.

 

I've seen people use "pay to win" to refer to PVE only, in that in some free-to-play MMOs you can pay money to avoid defeat against PVE bosses. You and your guild can pay money to get buffs and gear so you can be one of the "elite" guilds to take down a game's most powerful boss. You can pay money so your character is stronger so you can solo mobs that otherwise would require 2 or 3 people. Those are just generic examples and I'm not at all saying they apply here.

That also seems like a rather large range.

 

Damage+defense, maybe a mount or a pet.

 

Whine, moan, groan ... and ya still here ... They must be doing something right ... Watch "The Gambler", the one featuring John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg, not the one featuring Kenny Rogers ... John Goodman tells it like it is ... If you need any better understanding of certain opinions ... by all means watch it again because you missed the point of watching the movie.

 

About 2½ years ago - after having played DSO for about 3-4 months, I started a new character, payed 99 euro and gemmed him up for pvp. I won about 95% of all my fights. I believe that, at the time participants for arena fights where randomly choosen, and apparently very few gemmed up.
DSO has since changed the balancing for pvp selection. My first pvp character is now lvl45, but I've created a second character, and did the same wiht him. However now I "only" win about half my fights on average. (and I mean *average* - long streaks of winning follows long streaks of loosing)
This might be a coincidence, but it seems to me that DSO has succeeded very well in balancing pvp.
I can image this is frustrating for some - to pay maybe 1000s of euros, and still only win half the fights, because you a grouped with weak players and face only strong opponents. And the free to play who just started pvp also wins about half of his games.
This is just my personal experience and I cannot support this in any way. But I'd be curious to hear your experience with pvp.

 

Because at that time there were less players then now and very few were paying players.
Now it is different ... lot of players are P2P.
The game is pretty much well balanced when it comes to pvp ... the only thing that is breaking the game balance is the money.

 

Ironic - I use to lose PvP matches a lot, until I payed, now I don't lose anymore.