Plat is 100% a requirement for EG atm. [...] usually there is 1-3 high plat buyers in each clan that do the majority of the supplying.
Exactly. Plat is needed, plat gets bought, but it is not necessary for all/most players to purchase it.
Depends on how much the big buyers buy. If a server doesn’t have a single big (as in $500-$1000 a month) then the amount needed for each player to buy increases.
I’d argue that there is a plat value P that is required per month for a server to be able to participate in EG. The more a single person buys, the less people need to participate.
Now because clans are competitive, they will try and keep plat inside clan if clan will buy it at sustainable level. This means each clan then needs that same P level of plat, at the low end, in reality they probably will need 1.5P to 2P maybe even 3P due to plat to keep a competitive advantage at raids where it otherwise wouldn’t be needed.
So ya, the game is 100% F2P but it is not at all F2W. An individual player may be able to, but someone has to buy the plat for the server/clan.