Putting Abilities behind a payable upgrade such as season pass is pay to win.

They are also unlockable for free by completing the season pass.

Maybe he was referring to the new loadout Shark? This is indeed pay to win. The season pass however is free to earn the upgraded abilities.

I’m just stating that because you can pay to upgrade faster is pay to win. Sure you equal out eventually. But you pay, you upgrade sooner than those who play. So it’s pay to win. Even if it’s not permanent. 

I would definitely rather it was only cosmetics in the season pass, just because then arguments like this don't make it onto the radar and eat up dev time. 

Either the no-lifers have an uncontested advantage in that they unlock the best skills first AND have the benefit of much more experience, or they add in tier skips and people cry that it's "pay to win". 

People wanted a reason to play the game last year and the year before so that is what they have done now. It's orange abilities and they force you to have to get rid of one of your blue perks and switch it out for a lesser gold one. It really isn't a "pay to win" feature. Just put in the time and you will unlock it.

i have 4000 hours in every nhl for the last 3 years. I still think putting abilities behind a pay wall isnt a good look but i can understand and agree with MostlyHubris​. There are way more pressing issues than this. Buffing defense is way more important.

Putting something behind a pay wall means the ONLY way to obtain said item is through actual money. That is not the case with the battle pass. It is completely free and you can unlock everything in it for free. Up until this game, there were items locked behind a paywall of needing to buy the pass but never were the premade builds that you got each season. Those were all unlocked once you played one or two games.

using your logic because I can play and make as many coins as i want, hut isnt pay to win because i could just play and get the best cards. or I can pay for the best cards in the game and skip hundreds of hours. lets just agree to disagree because anytime i can pay to skip hundreds of hours for a better team/ability, that's paying to win to me. obviously not to you

But that better ability comes at the cost of something else so it really isn't pay to win. A pay to win feature would be something like you getting +20 x factor points so now you have 120 vs a regular players 100 where you can now have three orange perks instead of being forced to only use 1, maybe 2. The free player doesn't have this feature and it is only available to the person who pays. THAT'S the meaning of pay to win. 

In the end it is a feature that many games do where you can play the game and put in the time or if you are like John coming home from a hard days 9-5 job, your time working can be invested into skipping the monotonous parts of grinding you don't have time for in order to get those unlocks and even the playing field.   

Nah I get what you're saying. I just mean... if you have to win to progress the season pass, then casual players have almost no chance to get it done vs. hardcore players, who will not only get it done faster but also make it even harder for casual players to win or even enjoy themselves losing. 

I get what you're saying about the pay to win thing. That's why I'd rather eliminate the perception completely and just have cosmetics in the season pass rather than things that can affect the outcome of games.