Final Fantasy XIV would fit the bill. The cash shop only has cosmetics, and you can pay to add more retainers (basically bank space), but in terms of actual gold buying or power upgrades, none of that exists.
Maybe they're not so popular, or in context not worth that much, but levels and money usually are no-nos for me. Because the one appears to be straight up levels and gil.
This is a story skip. Many forms of character progress in FFXIV are gated by that individual character completing the main storyline quests.
A story skip boosts the character to the beginning of the current expansion tier, so it is not possible to use this mechanic to compete with standard players on current content. I think the intended use case is alt characters (which are less necessary in FFXIV because you can play all jobs on one character, but many players still have them).
Yeah, they're a skip to endgame content. But they're not any kind of "instant win."
The couple types of pvp aren't tied to your character level, and the most difficult raid content is best run with a group that you practice with. If you've never played, simply grabbing the game and one of those packages isn't going to give you an immediate edge.
XIV is sort of a single player game with a bunch of coop boss fights.
And, not to be cliche, but you can play through the entire first two arcs (A Realm Reborn and Heavensward) completely free, with no real limitations. The only things locked out of the free tier are the more social aspects, and any content above level 60. A handful of jobs are locked, but there is a ridiculous amount of content available for free.
I've played a few other mmos and hated them all. XIV is something weirdly different. And the overwhelming majority of the community is chill and friendly.
Would disagree it's where the game begins, given how story-directed it is. FFXIV is, to me, a single-player JRPG in the shell of MMO combat with a huge amount of multiplayer content. (Especially with the fulfilment of duty support allowing you to do MSQ dungeons with bots.)
I play FFXIV since 2014 and I honestly wouldn't recommend anyone to buy this. You're just paying to not play the game and skip the main quest (which locks up a bunch of content behind it).