This vid goes into more depth about the real money mechanics. This streamer argues that he personally find it to be "Pay for convenience" but he also acknowledges that others might disagree.
NOTE: In PvP all gear is equalized. Meaning that no matter how far ahead you might be from other players in PvE, when you get into a PvP match everyone is on even ground, so any advancement in PvE content/loot will have no bearing on PvP play.
Only watched the vid once but I'll try to break it down.
Theres 4 types of currency.
Gold and silver. You get this for just doing stuff. Quests, grinding, etc. Gold is more valuable and the main means of interacting with the auction house in game.
Crystals. heres where interpretations start to come in. Crystals are a more exclusive form of currency and can be purchased with in-game gold. It hasnt been officially announced but on other regions you can get it in game through log in rewards/dailies, etc so the assumption is that it will remain so for US launch. Crystals can be spent on in game shops for quality of life items. Shorter cooldown on fast travel, resurrection feathers, etc. Crystals are also used in game to purchase certain mats for item upgrades, including upgrades that are necessary for progress. You can choose to acquire all of these item up[grades by questing, but it will take a bit longer. NOTE: The devs point out that one of the reasons for this feature is that it keeps people from gaming the auction house to buy up all the important mats and then sell them at rocket high prices. The in game store gives a flat value to these items that are required for PvE progress.
So basically, you can use your in game gold to purchase crystals, and with crystals you can purchase quality of life and item upgrades. The item upgrades for progression occur naturally during the game, but if you use crystals you can acquire them a bit faster.
The final currency is royal crystals, and this is the only currency available to purchase with real money. This is the currency for things like skins, cosmetics, etc. You can also purchase crystal packs, and as we just established, crystals can be used to acquire certain mats for PvE progression that would take slightly longer to acquire just playing the game and questing.
So some people would call it p2w. For me personally, I dont really care if someone pays money for something that affects their own personal game, especially something that I'll get anyway. P2W for me has been a big issue in anything competitive, like PvP. If someone wants to pay real money to avoid a bit of grind, I couldnt give less of a shit. Most of the streamers I've seen that have talked about how the crystal currency works say it's not intrusive and doesnt break any balancing issues. But we'll see.
