I want to clarify that I'm not against being able to, in some form, pay in order to get stronger weapons, I just don't think those should be locked to paying money. For example, in FO, if you wanted those any-level any-class new-strongest-item-ingame equips, you had to buy the latest gempack. And once a regular pattern for those was established the prices for said extra items just went insane.
If it was 100% my decision, I would advocate -no- additional items when purchasing premium currency (aside from the very rare special occasion type things). So for example, you pay £5, you get 500 gems.
Yeah I'm going to continue calling them gems here, move along.This would work by having a 'gem shop'.
In said shop would be say, the usual cosmetic things (that do not discontinue), as well as a selection of gear items. To give an example, lets pretend the game comes out with one area and the level cap set at 10.
There would be a sword in the shop, with similar stats to the strongest lootable/non-premium-currency-buyable weapon that currently exists. So your choice is to go through the usual game and get the current strongest weapon the long 'free' way, or if you want to, buy it via premium currency right away and then do the quests etc.
This item would have a level range of say 1-10, compared to the 'free' item having a range of maybe 8-10.
New area comes out, cap goes up to 20.
Existing premium currency item stays, another new one is added comparable to the new strongest 'free' item, for the range 11-20.
And so on. So rather than buying your way into being better than everyone else, you're fast-tracking your weapon, but still need to meet some sort of requirement, such as level, and you're on more of an even level than outright better.
Just in case - I'm working on the assumption that you can also, in some form, grind premium currency the same way as you could in FO. I won't go into the many ways this could be done and controlled, but for this example, lets just assume it's at least somewhat balanced and not limited and inflated. (I enjoy thinking of the control of say, spiral knights or puzzle pirates for their premium currency stuff).
I also think there should be an even number of premium and non-premium currency sinks, so that -both- types of currency are enough in demand to encourage a flow back and forth of transactions, rather than one type of currency being worthless.
I also use 'cosmetic' loosely, I don't just mean outfits, but also maybe things like guild shields, customisable titles...etc etc.
I know premium currency can be a turn-off, because so many games do it so, so badly, and are obviously trying to just milk everything out of you.
I remain hopeful that we manage to strike a balance between being able to afford the servers etc while also allowing people to play for free (without being locked out of content)