Why are you playing Vanguard? It's totally pay to win
I don't really care about it in Vanguard. It's too old for me to become anything special in terms of PVE, and there is no PVP any way. So people can pay to win all they want, it doesn't affect me.
Just curious, qwerty, are there any games you consider f2p?
You mean f2p yet not p2w? Assuming that's what you meant, my answer is, I don't know. I don't like most MMO's so don't keep track of them too closely. I try stuff sometimes like Neverwinter, GW2, Warhammer, etc. but I play them for a few days or hours, find them really boring, and never go back.
There is some stuff like emulators and free servers (EQ Mac etc) that are obviously f2p and not p2w, but they aren't really 'real' MMO's.
I just know that it is technically possible to do f2p and not go p2w. In fact one of the first f2p games ever (maybe 'the' first) was a game called Battleforge which is an RTS with a collectable cards element. I think they did a pretty good job. As standard you get an 'ok' set of cards. If you spend real money you get cooler ones style wise, and a bit more variety gameplay wise, but they aren't really any stronger. You also can only upgrade your cards in to uber ones, by playing the game, so the stronger players are the ones who play a lot - whether they spent real money or not.
So basically it's more fun if you spend money, but you aren't going to win any battles you wouldn't have otherwise.
p.s. And you also can get anything with in game cash eventually too. So someone who spends 20 bucks gets all the funnest cards right away. But a free player will get them eventually if they just keep playing.