Here me out... how many people will spend money just to get a full set at least once? I will I know, why? Cause it looks cool, and I have disposable income cause I don't buy anything but groceries and pay bills.
But a lot of people see this as pay to win, but hear me out why I think it's not.
What level do you need to be in order to use this armor? Forty right? So odds are most people have a full set of gear that is to what they want for play style. I know I have armor for shotgun ammo, and hand cannon loader gloves for each class... as well sniper loader for PvE.
I have to say, most people (who aren't new) already have the gear they want. I know a lot of the 'Top Tier' players have already mid maxed their load outs to how they want.
And some people said "As long as the armor had static rolls, they should be fine." But Bungie put that to rest saying that they won't be.
But I have to ask this, as I stated before, how many of us already have gear that has the perks we want? The armor really isn't going to be any better or worse than what you could get just pulling things from engrams or doing the events.
I can only see people making a 'pay to win' if a new player got them. But then what? They still have to go for the grind of getting high light gear to throw into the gear they paid for.
So where is the win factor?
Who will spend that much money on gear till they get the 'perfect' roll? Who knows how much that would cost.
I honestly can say that unless weapons get introduced into Microtransactions, then it's pay to win. Because who knows... just throw money at the game till you get the god roll hand cannon or shotgun.
But until then, I don't think this is really a 'pay to win' feature.
As for the rep boosters, Bungie just wants us to get the new gear and Y1 weapons they brought back easier. They want us to enjoy the game without spending a month to grind for one rank to be disappointed it wasn't what we wanted.
Can you blame them? We've all complained about the nose dive rep took... and they brought back the rep boost from Nightfalls, but... people were still unhappy. So this is Bungie saying "Hey we bumped it back up, AND gave you a reason to want to do it!"
Also... is it really pay to win, when they'll make it so you can get these Sterling Treasure boxes three times each reset? If you just wait, you'll get them every week... the pay feature is for those impatient for that sweet sweet Taken armor...
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The reputation boosters are the issue really. As you say the gear being low light etc means there isn't any advantage. However the rep boosters are different, they do affect how quickly you can get other high level gear. Pay to save time is pay to win, that's how most micro transactions work. They don't normally give you something you couldn't get anyway through playing, they just give you a faster way to get them.