Bro, have you ever have slight idea that those "godgamers" actually just lucky ? Not all of them, but good amount is. BDO Arena not the place where you can carry your team 1 vs 3, simple  not gonna happen.

But here is completelly different situation. When player perform very good at premade  and completelly "sux" at random matching, clearly its   the problem of random matching that put together impossible teams. Even at progame stage there is enough examples where progamer locked into trash ranking while hes team playing on main stages.

But i'm totally understand your point, your "godgaming" simple based on luck, not on skill, ofc you want to prorect your luck at all cost, because when you'll have to face proper teams you have no chance.

arena is tiny minigame within the game.

try pressing pearl shopbutton and ull be greeted by hexa outfit pack sales and loyalty gifts for those that have spent 30k pearls in last month.

draw your conclusions from that.

Arena battles may not be Pay 2 win, but gear progression outside of that in a timely manner most certainly is.

You win not only the gear you are aiming for, but conveniance, and more time to progress other things in game.

In a game focused around grinding, conveniance and not being artificially held back is the win.

would you consider rich people in real life winners? Well that same sort of income disparity can be represented in this game as well because time is money and you can spend money to skip time (which is funny to me because you're buying a solution from the people who created the problem so they could sell the solution.) It might not be as aggressively tuned as Diablo Immortal which has clearly defined class disparity in its community, but if you can't catch up to a giga whale despite putting the same time in and making the same choices minus spending money, you will always be outgeared to the point where it makes a considerable difference and you will always be their content, just like in real life.

Is that pay to win, it's subjective. Objectively it's predatory and toxic to the game community as a whole.

depend you have rich people because they become rich by themselves

and other are rich, because parents or they won lottery 

so yes steve job, bill gate, elon musk, are winner

I think there is some truth to what you are saying dissection.

Overall I say they are moving in the right direction with the game.

There is p2w, but that pertains to uncapped content.

While 3v3 matchmaking is rng, it isn't the sole factor in a win or loss.  Everyone is operating under the same pretext.  Yes, there is some group que shenanigans.  Yes, I agree there should be a group que.  Keep in mind that their que system is BRAND NEW.  They might be tweaking the ai or doing some back end stuff.  Who knows?

Anyways, it would be a great discussion if people weren't so easily triggered and think for a moment.

Wheather BDO is P2W or not I don't really care. Issue I have is what bad game decisions were put into the game because PA want to increase sales on something in their cash shop? Answer is a lot of bad game decisions were put into the game so they could. No auto loot without cash shop pets, limited inventory without cashshop inventory expansions, limited inventory carry weight without carry weight cashshop items, near impossible odds to get a T8 coursior horse without buying horse skill reroll coupons, near impossible odds to get a T4 fairy with good skills without buying fairy skill reroll coupons. No processing from storage without buying a processing outfit off the cashshop. an even in early days of the game having deaths on your horse affect your horse stats thus forcing people to buy horse death reset coupons if their horse dies to much. These are just a few systems in the game an 1 that was in the game that suffered from just pure bad game design because PA wanted to sell cashshop items more than making a fun and enjoyable game experience.

This is what happens when you design a game not in a way to make it fun but in a way that you can increase cashshop sales, how many people recall the disaster that was Deus Ex. That Franchies was completely ruined by cashshop sales, one of the best and first open world sandbox franchies all because Square Enix wanted more money via day 1 cashshop purchases of skill points, weapon lootboxes, and game changing items like secret unlocking door keys that could only be obtained via cashshop purchaes. Image wanting an alteranative ending for the open world sandbox game you already paid 60 dollars for, well you can but only if you buy a key from the cashshop for 5 dollars so you can obtain the information or item you need to unlock the alternative ending to the game.

Well, the issue is that "P2W" is a totally outdated term given the current situation but everyone wants to give and enforce their own definition, spoiling the entire discussion.

It happens everytime, it acts like a Godwin point when we talk about games.