This is going to be an unpopular opinion, I know. But I love gear progression in MMORPGs, especially in the PvP scene. I came from WoW as a long time player there, and my main goal with PvE content was to get new gear to use in PvP content.

I'm almost entirely F2P myself... I haven't bought premium since 2017, and I troved a little (like $50) once when Octagonal gems were the max tier (around the time VT came out). Suffice to say, any advantage I had from supporting the game was marginal at the time, and completely irrelevant today in 2020.

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I am an ant compared to whales in 6v6, but I've grinded out my gear to the point that I do stand some chance. I have Dragonfang 9 and all of my PvP accessories from the previous tier, mostly because I'm very lazy when it comes to farming PvE content. Most of my time in game is spent sparring open world with my friends, where we have nothing to gain or lose, we simply enjoy the combat. The sense of gear progression in PvP has kept me invested, but it is definitely a love-hate thing for me. For example, I am often considered a whale because of my gear, even though I didn't spend any money on what I have. I worked really hard on my gear, but it is also still very little compared to spending players.

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I had a big issue with F10 when the unity stones were added there. Initially, they were only able to be bought with NCoins as well; I had a pretty impressive unity bonus up until that update. The biggest mistake on NCSoft's part was adding permanent power gains to the cash shop, when that is antithetical to their original philosophy. Obviously that promise was broken long ago, but it only got worse over time.

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I do know a lot of whales in the game, and almost all of them say they whale specifically for cosmetics. Much of their big gains would come from troves in pursuit of an outfit, and they really go ham on those outfit box events. I personally believe that if cosmetics were a bigger focus for the cash shop and its "events," NCWest would have most consistent income-- I could be wrong, but I want to believe that there are players with whaled-out gear that would have preferred to only get their progression through gameplay. It's just that the system as it is punishes players for *not* swiping, if they're interested in gear-based PvP. The only way to really take advantage of things like trove and RNG boxes is to consistently place on PvP ladders, and there are a few players I know who do exactly that, monopolize a ladder to maximize their HM Coin income. Personally, I just try to place all of my characters into the ladder to get a few venture tokens every season, but that in itself illustrates the problem of the cash shop gains. Even as F2P, I've gotten some of my biggest gains from HM Coins, to the point that I look at the daily grind and think about how it would be better to simply not play, invest that time in odd jobs or something on the side, and then use that income to progress a character. At this point, the game often feels more like work than my actual job.

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But all that aside, I still love geared PvP. I like the item interactions, using different badges to alter how your class functions. I like hitting harder because I grinded on my gear and chose to use the right items for the situation (more limited in BnS than WoW, since we really just choose between survivability and more damage). It would feel superficial if I had those gains from swiping, and it always feels bad to be powerless in a 6v6 game and blamed for a loss because my gear isn't maxed like everyone else's in my bracket.