i have over 1k hours in this game (mainly on other accounts but I also played a ton before it was exalt). its fun. never did the p2w stuff other than a bit of gambling for skins and some vault space a long time ago.

recently came back to the game after an extended break, things seemed pretty normal (game has always had p2w aspects so nothing out of the ordinary) but i went to check the battle pass and realised just how greedy deca has became.
you no longer just pay for the battle pass to unlock rewards, but you also have to pay to unlock some of the challenges in the battle pass separately. that's right, not only do you pay for the pass (which by the way, has absolute trash this season so just not worth buying at all) but you also pay for the recently released paid pass-specific challenges. what's the point in buying the pass when you don't even get all of the content implied to come with it?
paired with all of the other ways you can pay for things, this is easily the most greed i have seen in a game company in the past year or so.

worst of all is the fact that they pull this kind of greed yet their most popular server will without fail crash at least once every two hours, forcing players out of any dungeons they may be in (which by the way can also be paid for, no refund if servers crash though teehee). the money they siphon from players CLEARLY isn't being spent on better servers.

here's a basic list of things you can buy for real cash in realm:
loot boxes containing gear, skins, and the bulk of the loot: trash. (no drop rates released)
keys to open dungeons.
cosmetics such as auras and dyes (these are character specific and are lost on death, THIS IS NOT STATED IN GAME). auras can *only* be bought with paid currency or sometimes given out once in a blue moon.
max level potions.
loot potions (temporary boost to drop rates on items, still dont know any of the drop rates though so who cares).
guaranteed gear (this is different to the loot box ones as of course the guaranteed purchases are all only tiered items which generally won't be worth paying for at all).
every time there is a new season, seasonal storage gets reset which means you have to either earn a small amount of extra space which makes life difficult, or pay up for extra space every single season. when joining servers, it's easy to see that most players play seasonal characters so they must make a decent chunk of money off of some seasonal players.
pet eggs (one of the only permanent forms of progression in the game).
pet food to feed your newly paid for pets.
battle pass (sometimes there will be a singular skin, other times the pass just shafts you and has nothing good).
(now) pass challenges. no idea if its been like this in the past, hopefully not.
pet skins.
fuel which allows you to craft items.

im definitely missing some stuff. its a basic list. theres a couple more notable things i should add:
there is a $50 skin (this is probably still cheaper than getting a loot box skin but i guess i cant prove this, since the drop rates arent public), lol.
there is also fake fomo. in the main hub area, there are items which have a timer to get players to buy before they "leave", but they're just replaced with the exact same items after leaving.

you don't have to spend money but the greed is forced into your face every time you play the game.
just so done with this game at this point. it is past its best days. don't play this ♥♥♥♥. get your bullet hell fix from anything else.

i have 5 hours and not a single one was me playing i got stuck on the updating screen and my game would not update no matter what 10/10

Imagine Heroes of Hammerwatch, and then tack on every conceivable predatory monetization practice.
We're talking battle passes, booster packs, premium currency -- that you can only buy in quantities that are just a little too high or low -- and a bunch of nonsensical micro-transactions to get around the inconveniences deliberately placed by the developers.
Not to mention how incredibly dull the gameplay is. Every single combat is literally just holding left click to win, and tapping right click every so often if you have mana.
THAT'S Realm of the Mad God Exalt.