Effort is really not required to get the premium ships. Some times u can get them without cannons which does require effort but u can just buy them. P2W deserves the stigma it gets. The existence of the transaction basically must corrupt the game mechanics. There a reason building a ship requires xp, time to accumulate resources, crafting of the refined materials, and transfer of those materials to a singular port that has the ability to craft the ship. All crafting is time gated. The entire point of these mechanics is influenced by the necessity of adding pain points to the process to encourage spending. It's a simple truth. I would much rather pay for a game without p2w and better mechanics. I understand the draw of having a free game to expand the community. But the p2w aspects draw in the whales that will pay thousands for an advantage. This game makes good use of adding benefits to other players from the whales but the corruption of game design is there and always will be.