The lowest and highest priced 5060ti 16GB models with 5 others in between. I know RAM and NAND is expensive and prices have continually gone up but an entry level card costing mid-high range cost is insanity. There's 9070XT models that are cheaper.
Not only is WG wanting people to drain their resources on a ship that will eventually be available to everyone, it's also a ship that will drain your credits every match. Thanks but no thanks.
In order to get to the last item in the Summer Festival, you need 24k Summer tokens. The cheapest way to get that amount is to buy three 75k doubloon bundles at $299.99 each. WG is trying to tempt people into buying a T9 premium ship for $900!!! It doesn't matter that you can earn 1810 tokens for free. That still puts the cost at what most mid range graphics cards are going for these days. It's beyond predatory. Yes you can just ignore the event but you know there's going to be those that buy into it anyways. Please don't be one of those people.
This is a continuation of my original post "Greed To The Max"
I found another layer to wargamings greed. Part of the Azur Lane 8th wave includes camos you can get by spending Azur Lane Tokens. The problem is that you can only get these tokens by buying Ocean Guardian crates. While buying these crates is already bad enough given the money math behind them, the added layer is that you can only get these tokens when buying crates with real money as shown in the 2nd and 3rd screenshots. The 1st screenshot is of the same Ocean Guardian crate but purchasable with doubloons with a clear omission of these "bonus" tokens. This means that even the camos that wargaming makes look like you can earn them for free are also locked behind a pay wall. The most expensive camos are for T9 ships and cost 50 tokens and the Azur Lane enemy destruction effect is 60 tokens. Since a $49.20 x6 crate bundle only gives you 30 tokens, they've basically priced these T9 camos and destruction effect at the price of a whole T9-T10 premium ship. No matter how you look at it, this just keeps looking worse and worse. The Ocean Guardian crate you buy with cash is not the same as the Ocean Guardian crate you buy with doubloons.
The new Azur Lane 8th wave just dropped and they've locked AL Shinano and AL Massachusetts behind a double loot box and the math is insane. Worst case scenario you're looking at needing to buy 720 Ocean Guardian crates to guarantee getting both ships. Just to put this worst case scenario into perspective, that's 1.8 million doubloons or $7200 USD to buy said doubloons (ignoring any discounts from bundle purchases). I know wargaming is an extremely greedy company but this is on a whole new level. I've been with the game since 2017 and never thought they'd go this far. So much for getting one of the most beautiful AL ships in the game (Shinano). I know she's available for steel but still. At least you can earn AL tokens to buy AL camos for ships like Enterprise, Atago, Baltimore, Admiral Hipper, ect. for free just by playing.
-NOTICE-
PhotonTrance and rarz both made very good points. Make sure to read them.
---UPDATE---
Turns out that in order to get Azur Lane tokens to buy AL camos, you need to buy the stupid Ocean Guardian crates. You can't even get them for free just by playing the game. Since the most expensive camos are 50 tokens, that's $60 - $70 just for a camo. You used to be able to get a T9 premium for that back in the day. Just to be clear. ANYTHING WORTHWHILE IS LOCKED BEHIND A PAY WALL!!!