I personally attempt to avoid most free-to-play games, due to the term Free being an over-statement. What I mean is: The game says it's free, but then a few minutes after downloading, you come across either a pay wall, a sudden difficulty spike that forces you to fork over cash, or even both. Don't even get me started with game of war: fire age, what I can easily call the worst self proclaimed Free-to-play game of the decade. Seriously, if you don't fork over a 1000 bucks a week, you'll have to wait for weeks, months, or even entire years just for fictional buildings to upgrade, all while overpowered paying players farm you every day. A lot of Chinese MMOs are like this, too, on top of plagiarism. I'm pretty sure a certain war tune will come to mind.
Fortunately, there are some Free-to-play games that don't actively try to make you pay. Some examples include Love Live, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, Puzzle & Dragons, and iDOLM@STER: Cinderella girls: Starlight Stage. All of these free-to-play games can be played normally without that much waiting, and they give out premium currency on a pretty common basis, so you don't have to worry about having to spend over a hundred dollars just for a single item. You can just play for a few days, or maybe even a week, and you can eventually get it without spending even just one buck.
After a while, I found it very easy to distinguish between playable free-to-play games to sweatshop-made cash grabs that penalize free players for whatever they do. I've been playing the previously mentioned 5 games for at least a year now, and if I stop playing, I tend to come back later. I also did the same for a Chinese MMO, but once I came back and played that for a week, I remembered why I stopped. If I don't have to pay to get an advantage, chances are strong that I'll play it for at least 2 months.
I personally attempt to avoid most free-to-play games, due to the term Free being an over-statement. What I mean is: The game says it's free, but then a few minutes after downloading, you come across either a pay wall, a sudden difficulty spike that forces you to fork over cash, or even both. Don't even get me started with game of war: fire age, what I can easily call the worst self proclaimed Free-to-play game of the decade. Seriously, if you don't fork over a 1000 bucks a week, you'll have to wait for weeks, months, or even entire years just for fictional buildings to upgrade, all while overpowered paying players farm you every day. A lot of Chinese MMOs are like this, too, on top of plagiarism. I'm pretty sure a certain war tune will come to mind.
Fortunately, there are some Free-to-play games that don't actively try to make you pay. Some examples include Love Live, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, Puzzle & Dragons, and iDOLM@STER: Cinderella girls: Starlight Stage. All of these free-to-play games can be played normally without that much waiting, and they give out premium currency on a pretty common basis, so you don't have to worry about having to spend over a hundred dollars just for a single item. You can just play for a few days, or maybe even a week, and you can eventually get it without spending even just one buck.
After a while, I found it very easy to distinguish between playable free-to-play games to sweatshop-made cash grabs that penalize free players for whatever they do. I've been playing the previously mentioned 5 games for at least a year now, and if I stop playing, I tend to come back later. I also did the same for a Chinese MMO, but once I came back and played that for a week, I remembered why I stopped. If I don't have to pay to get an advantage, chances are strong that I'll play it for at least 2 months.