Where Winds Meet launches with the two most loaded promises in modern free-to-play gaming: “no pay-to-win” and “we will never sell power.” The game is free on PC and PlayStation 5, has PvP, and already has examples of players spending eye-watering sums on cosmetics, so the question is obvious: does paying money make you stronger?
What the developers are promising about pay-to-win
Everstone Studio and NetEase frame Where Winds Meet as a free-to-play open-world Wuxia ARPG with no pay-to-win mechanics. On the global launch announcement page, NetEase states that the game “promises no pay-to-win mechanics to ensure a fair gameplay environment” and positions it as a “purely cosmetic” monetization model built around appearances, battle passes, and monthly passes.
On the game’s start-up screen, players see a blunt message from Everstone:
- Monetization focuses on appearances, battle passes, and monthly passes.
- “There is no P2W here.”
- “Your legend is written by skill and choice, never by wallet size.”
- “We will never sell power. We will never compromise the integrity of combat and gameplay for profit.”
That is the official line: no direct sale of stats, gear, or levels, and no cash-only combat advantages.
What you can spend real money on in Where Winds Meet
In practice, Where Winds Meet has a layered monetization system that looks like many modern free-to-play MMOs, but with a focus on visuals and progression acceleration rather than raw power items.
Premium currency and cosmetic gacha
The core paid currency is a premium “pearls” style token:
- Purchased with real money.
- Used to buy cosmetic items directly.
- Also used to roll on cosmetic gacha banners.
The cosmetic gacha focuses on:
- Character outfits and skins.
- Mount skins, including highly elaborate ones.
- Weapon skins and visual-only skill animations (for example, attacks that summon dragons or dramatic elemental effects).
- Emotes and various vanity items.
These cosmetics do not increase your character’s combat stats. They change how you look and how your abilities animate, but they do not upgrade your damage, defense, or health. The most infamous example is a limited ultra-rare boat “mount” that a player effectively spent tens of thousands of dollars to guarantee, but that purchase remains a flex and a spectacle, not a source of superior combat strength.
Secondary currency (Jade) and early progression advantages
A second, semi-premium currency, often referred to as Jade, sits closer to the line players associate with pay-to-win.
Jade can come from several sources:
- Event rewards and in-game mail.
- Battle pass tracks.
- Daily or monthly paid passes.
- Bonus bundles alongside premium currency purchases.
Jade has two main uses:
- Pulls on a permanent “standard” cosmetic banner, separate from limited cosmetics.
- Purchasing skill books and related items from specific merchants in the world.
Skill books matter. They are used to unlock and level up Martial Arts skills and Mystic Arts techniques across the game’s various weapon sets. Buying these books with Jade lets you:
- Unlock certain skills earlier than you would through the slow accumulation of free rewards.
- Level skills to higher ranks sooner, which improves their effectiveness in both PvE and PvP.
There are important constraints:
- Each merchant’s stock of skill books is finite; you cannot infinitely convert money into more skill power once you’ve bought out their inventory.
- Jade also drops via play, so free players can eventually purchase the same books.
That makes Jade an “early acceleration” tool more than an endless power faucet. Paying players can compress the time it takes to fill out and max certain builds, especially in the early weeks of a server or a new cap. Over the course of a season, dedicated free players can still reach the same ceiling.
The battle pass: mostly cosmetics, some time-savers
Where Winds Meet includes a seasonal battle pass with two tracks:
- A free track that all players progress by playing.
- A paid premium track unlocked with real money.
The free track delivers a mix of:
- Cosmetic items.
- Currency and crafting resources.
- Limited numbers of stamina refills for instanced farming content.
The premium track primarily adds:
- Extra cosmetics (outfits, weapon skins, mounts).
- More premium currency for cosmetic pulls.
- Additional amounts of that same stamina refill item.
The stamina system is central to progression. High-value instanced stages for farming weapon drops and enhancement materials cost a chunk of stamina per run, and stamina regenerates over time up to a cap. Stamina refill items from the battle pass grant extra runs on top of what regeneration would allow.
The practical outcome:
- Free players get a limited number of refills from the free track and natural regeneration.
- Paying battle pass owners get some extra refills, letting them grind optimal dungeons more often in a given week.
That difference affects how quickly you can:
- Farm and refine weapons (which use randomized stat lines and passives).
- Accumulate late-game enhancement materials.
There is still an overall account level cap that rises on a weekly schedule, so there is a ceiling on how far ahead anyone can get in raw level. Within each level band, however, battle pass buyers have more efficient access to high-end gear rolls and upgrade materials, especially early on.
Mounts, convenience perks, and “soft” advantages
Mounts are a major part of the game’s fantasy and its store. Some of them go beyond simple reskins and add utility.
Examples discussed by players include mounts that:
- Auto-gather herbs and other profession nodes while you remain mounted.
- Auto-loot drops in a radius after combat.
These perks do not increase your hit points or damage. Instead, they save time and smooth out repetitive actions:
- A player without an auto-gather mount must dismount, interact with the node, then remount.
- A player with such a mount can cruise through farming routes more efficiently.
That efficiency translates into more materials per hour, more crafted items, and more currency from selling goods on the in-game market. In PvE and open-world play, this looks like pure convenience. In a PvP-focused economy, some players still label any time advantage as “pay-to-win” because it indirectly impacts how quickly you fund upgrades.
In Where Winds Meet, these perks sit in a gray area:
- They do not win you a duel you would otherwise lose.
- They do accelerate how fast you can fuel builds, and trading activity.
How much that matters depends on how competitive you want to be at the bleeding edge of the economy and gear chase.
What “no pay-to-win” means inside the actual game systems
The important context is the structure of character power in Where Winds Meet. The game is built around:
- Multiple weapon types (Spears, Swords, Dual Blades, Glaive, Umbrella, Fans, and more).
- Over 40 Martial Mystic Arts and 12 Martial Arts sets.
- Randomized weapon stats and passives on high-end gear, somewhat similar to action RPGs like Diablo.
- A stamina-gated instanced farming loop for weapons and upgrade resources.
- Weekly level caps that gate how far any player can progress in a given period.
Within that framework, the design choices are:
- No direct sale of finished high-power gear for real money.
- No cash-only damage or defense boosters that cannot be earned in-game.
- Cosmetic monetization that can be extremely expensive but does not alter combat math.
- Progression acceleration options (Jade for skill books, extra stamina refills) that compress time rather than expand the ceiling.
A player who never spends a cent can, with enough time, reach the same account level, unlock the same skills, and chase the same gear. A spender can:
- Reach those milestones sooner at each new cap increase.
- Roll more often on high-end dungeons in a given week.
- Reduce friction in farming through convenience mounts and passes.
That makes the model closer to “pay for convenience and acceleration” than to classic pay-to-win, where a swipe instantly buys superior power that free players can never match. Whether that distinction feels meaningful is a matter of personal tolerance. Some players draw the line at selling any in-game advantage; others are comfortable as long as the ceiling is reachable without paying.
How this affects PvP and competitive play
Where Winds Meet supports multiple types of multiplayer:
- Optional co-op in parts of the open world.
- Duels and arena-style PvP zones.
- Organized guild content through the “Hundred Industries” system.
The game also includes at least one “balanced” PvP mode that minimizes gear differences, putting more emphasis on player skill and build choices. In those modes, cash-driven progression speed matters less because the system levels the playing field.
In open-world PvP and guild-versus-guild style conflicts, the picture is more mixed:
- Paid acceleration means some players have refined builds, maxed skills, and well-rolled weapons earlier in a season.
- Battle pass stamina refills allow more attempts at perfect gear within a given time window.
- Convenience perks improve farming and logistics for guilds willing to pay.
With weekly caps, that early advantage tends to be front-loaded. Over time, highly active free players close the gap by hitting the same caps and farming the same content. That still leaves windows—especially right after a cap increase or major seasonal patch—where paying players can push to the top of the ladder days ahead of the pack.
Community perception: pay-to-win, pay-to-progress, or pay-to-pretty?
Player sentiment splits roughly into three camps:
- “Not pay-to-win” – For these players, pay-to-win means direct sale of power you can’t reasonably get for free. Because Where Winds Meet does not sell stats or exclusive gear and free players can eventually access the same skills and dungeons, they see the game as fair. For them, wildly expensive cosmetics are acceptable as long as combat integrity is preserved.
- “Soft pay-to-win / pay-to-progress” – This group focuses on Jade-for-skill-books and battle pass stamina refills. Being able to optimize builds and gear faster, even if the end-state is shared, looks like an advantage that matters in PvP ranking and early content races. They describe the system as pay-to-progress or mild pay-to-win.
- “Pay-to-look-good” – Another common reaction is that the real spending pressure is fashion. The cosmetics catalog ranges from inexpensive skins to luxury-priced mounts and outfits, driving a culture of visual flexing more than a culture of hard power creep.
All three readings are defensible because they come down to where you personally define the “win” in a live-service action RPG: raw combat numbers, speed to endgame, aesthetic prestige, or simple access to content.
So, is Where Winds Meet pay-to-win?
Strictly on mechanics, Where Winds Meet does not match the traditional model of pay-to-win, where real money buys exclusive stats, gear tiers, or permanent numerical advantages that free players can never obtain. You cannot purchase a sword from the shop that hits harder only because it came from your credit card.
However, the game absolutely allows money to buy:
- Faster access to skill books and skill leveling.
- More high-yield dungeon runs per week via stamina refills.
- Economic efficiency through convenience mounts.
These systems grant temporal and economic advantages that matter at the competitive fringe, particularly in the early life of a server or season. Over the long term, dedicated free players can reach the same power ceiling, but they will likely do so more slowly and with fewer rolls at perfect gear.
If your personal definition of pay-to-win is “any purchasable in-game advantage,” Where Winds Meet will sit on the wrong side of that line. If your definition is “selling raw power that free players can never catch,” this MMO instead leans toward “pay to speed up” and “pay to look extravagant,” under a stated commitment not to sell power outright.
The practical takeaway: you can enjoy the combat, story, and open world without spending money, and you can be competitive with time and effort. Paying primarily makes the climb smoother, faster, and flashier—not fundamentally taller.
