Guild Wars 2

And yet, you will be lambasted on these forums for saying that. There wasn’t enough gold in game before the patch (barring a few heavy farmers). It’s going to get much worse now. For brand-new players, they may as well just give up getting anything good.

You have some points there but IMO, the only thing that will take a hit will be t6 mats since FG champ farming was obliterated by Anet but with megaservers, world bosses has outright replaced champ farming. Theres plenty of ways to make gold but you shouldnt rely on just 1 method to do so.

Crafting professions like tailoring, armorsmithing are still very profitable and theres also explorer mode dungeons to make gold from.

I guess to each his own, but for me I find it even more motivating to make gold now than before.

The economy is failing you because others players are willing to spend gold more for legendary weapons than you are. These players are probably collecting more gold than you are within game. No matter how much the reward rates for content are changed, those players are probably still going to collect more gold than you and spend more gold on legendary weapons than you.

My advice would be to enjoy your game time and if that brings you enough virtual coin to buy a legendary then fine. Otherwise, don’t commit yourself to spend more time in game than hardcore players just so you can get a shiny weapon.

Who cares about what players can get as drops? Who cares that the “Equip to Off Hand” still doesn’t work correctly 18 months after launch. THERE IS A DRUM IN THE TP THAT YOU CAN BUY FOR REAL WORLD MONEY! THAT’S WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ANET.

Umm what? I run about 2-4 dungeon paths a day and I buy everything I’ve ever needed. Just the other week I got my ascended spinal blades back pack.

What exactly do you need money for? A legendary? That’s just for looks anyways dude…

Wombatt.2546:

Who cares about what players can get as drops? Who cares that the “Equip to Off Hand” still doesn’t work correctly 18 months after launch. THERE IS A DRUM IN THE TP THAT YOU CAN BUY FOR REAL WORLD MONEY! THAT’S WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ANET.

Words cannot describe how accurate that sentence is.

Not that I’m particularly a fan of Rift, but their cash shop is more fair than the ANet one. This is getting ridiculous, but it’s a risk with the F2P model.

MightyMicah.7451:

Umm what? I run about 2-4 dungeon paths a day and I buy everything I’ve ever needed. Just the other week I got my ascended spinal blades back pack.

What exactly do you need money for? A legendary? That’s just for looks anyways dude…

I enjoyed the link in your sig

Neokolzia.5680:

- gem exchange rate is exploding more then ever 1G=$0.20USD vs about 1G=$0.65USD about a year ago.
-Farming rates for gold has Declined after updates trying to weed any viable farming methods have been thoroughly stomped, reducing farming rates to obscenely low numbers.

danbuter.2314:

And yet, you will be lambasted on these forums for saying that. There wasn’t enough gold in game before the patch (barring a few heavy farmers). It’s going to get much worse now. For brand-new players, they may as well just give up getting anything good.

The price of gems and the rate at which you can farm gold are intricately tied: The easier it is to farm gold, the higher the price of gems.

Imagine everyone has 100 gold. If there are 1 million gems for sale, and 1000 players are willing to bid 20% of their gold on them (20g), then the price is 20g * 1000 / 1 million gems = 2 gold per 100 gems.

Now imagine everyone’s gold is magically doubled to 200. The moment you do that, the price of gems doubles. Now 20% of their gold is 40g, and the price becomes 40000g / 1 million gems = 4 gold per 100 gems.

So it’s contradictory for the price of gems to go up, yet gold to be harder to farm. If you’re finding gold harder to farm, that’s just because you haven’t discovered/learned the methods other people are using to farm gold.

When I started playing I was pulling in about 1 gold/day in loot. I’m now pulling in about 15 gold/day. A 15:1 ratio. When I started playing, gems were about 75 silver for 100 gems. They’re now about 9 gold for 100 gems. A 12:1 ratio. So really there has been very little change in the amount of time needed to farm 100 gems.

If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that certain methods of making gold haven’t kept pace with others. People who want to play a certain way are then forced to play a different way just to keep pace with the rate of inflation.

As Solandri has said, most of these prices are set by players, not ANet. Inflation is occuring because it occurs in every econemy. The more gold there is in the game, the higher the prices of everything will be, but the more materials will sell for on the TP, so you actually make far more gold now than you would’ve back then.

I brought in about 5g/day when I started, and now I can farm about 25g/day by doing the exact same things all day long as I did back then.

On top of this, the more gold there is in the econemy, the less people will be spending real money on gems because they can buy them with gold instead. This means that in turn gem prices will go up and up, until people start buying them with real money again and converting to gold, which will then make them go down.

People really need to take a break from all the conspiracy theories…

The economy is player-driven and an inflation isn’t only exclusive to what you pay but also to what you get.

danbuter.2314:

And yet, you will be lambasted on these forums for saying that. There wasn’t enough gold in game before the patch (barring a few heavy farmers). It’s going to get much worse now. For brand-new players, they may as well just give up getting anything good.

Not sure what you mean but I made a new account like 1 week before the update. After 30 hours of playtime I had 100g on that account. I didn’t “play the TP” I just sold everything that dropped for me. Lower level materials are so much worth now.

I fully agree with OP.

The economy is driven by ANet loot’s table. That’s all. They can nerf gold income, i don’t care, but they have / had to adjust the poor drop loot tables to correct the massive inflation that is now in the game (and will continue, despite the gold nerf).

the game is free to play for a reason, it seems like u could really use a break, stressing over in game gold

It is not free to play. It’s called buy to play, but whatever.

What I find absurd is the low gem-to-gold ratio. Now I don’t buy gems… but it seems crazy to me that someone would be willing to buy gems in order to purchase something they really want but are unable to farm for. Should a single cosmetic item really cost 100’s of $ or EUR? I think that simply hurts Anet’s income. I know I won’t pay more for a single item than I would for a whole new game…

ThaOwner.7560:

the game is free to play for a reason, it seems like u could really use a break, stressing over in game gold

Free to play??? No, you had to buy the game. Not F2P in any sense. It’s a personal decision after you pay for the game to particpati in the pay to win/pay to wear useless bling, annoying noise makers, and other useless stuff that Anet can make money off or particpate in the TP.

Blude.6812:

ThaOwner.7560:

the game is free to play for a reason, it seems like u could really use a break, stressing over in game gold

Free to play??? No, you had to buy the game. Not F2P in any sense. It’s a personal decision after you pay for the game to particpati in the pay to win/pay to wear useless bling, annoying noise makers, and other useless stuff that Anet can make money off or particpate in the TP.

Pay to win? Heck no. If you have to pay to win, you’re playing this game completely wrong. Pay to get useless bling bling? Perhaps, but isn’t that the point?

There lots of things that can be done to make things better.
Let us people set the price we want to sell our gems thus increasing the value GEMS have on currency change.
Atm it’s better to farm some gold and buy the gems you need to buy new item X ob BLTC than spend your $$ on gems to get the gold you need ingame to buy mats , skins , w/e.

Make complete legendaries acc bound , and give alternative means on acquiring precursors that are also acc bound thus having 2 types of precursors ( acc and non acc bound).

Wombatt.2546:

Who cares about what players can get as drops? Who cares that the “Equip to Off Hand” still doesn’t work correctly 18 months after launch. THERE IS A DRUM IN THE TP THAT YOU CAN BUY FOR REAL WORLD MONEY! THAT’S WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ANET.

It mostly works. It just doesn’t work if the weapons isn’t bound yet.

Inflation occurs from actions taken by Anet to make the Cash shop more exclusive, and promoting more Gold→Gem purchases, Which escillates the Gem→Gold exchange rate, further increasing amounts players will get, making something “unattainable before” somewhat cheaper as more players buy large sums of Gold through RMT (non-illegal) Buying out more of the pre-cursors, legendaries etc.

Raising the price of the above items, and my complaint was, that of a few things, as someone said above you earn 15g worth of drops a day. Ok only 75 more days of farming like that casual as it is for a precursor without spending a penny.

GW2 does not have nearly enough gold sinks, and didn’t have enough gold sinks from day one, and this is one of the founding problems, Gem Shop is Not a gold sink, since it directly influences the price of the return gold from players exchanging Gems → Gold

Gold sinks help prevent inflation, as players say in WoW for instance (talking older expansions) had to save up for quite some time to invest in mounts, various flying, etc, maybe a few pieces of gear that are from vendors.

Player owned items cannot act as gold sinks either, as prices are not constant and will rise as players purchase them, and depending on the items popularity, specially with Legendaries and Pre-cursors now, prices can increase rapidly, as the market becomes easily flooded with no time limit for length of the sale.

All I know, I can get fan boy raged at above all day, that doesn’t make me like this game in its current state. I WANT to love it, but I find myself time and time again, unable to; its not Daunting to think about earning 1000G+ for a precursor and other materials, its ridiculous with how current farming methods work in Guild wars 2, specially with viable ones being nerfed into the ground.

For those asking what you need gold for: Plain and simple, Runes and Sigils. This will probably decrease over time, but currently it’s very expensive to test out different builds with the value of many of these.

I think it’s funny that people are complaining about inflation and at the same time complain about less gold drops.

Samuirai.4561:

I think it’s funny that people are complaining about inflation and at the same time complain about less gold drops.

Inflation up, gold drops down… wealth disparity anyone?

The gold drops imo affected the poorer part of the playerbase more, because if you have a steady decent source of income, it sure as hellkitten isn’t champ gold drops (oh wow, hell isnt a kitten?). I find it rather understandable why people complain about both…

Borghal.1635:

(oh wow, hell isnt a kitten?)

It stops being a “bad word” around the age of five or six.

Inflation goes up with more gold drops. And we should see deflation with less gold drops. If the price is still rising for an item it’s definitely not inflation.

Another note: you can’t argue with disparity of incomes in gw2 and compare it to the real world. Because of two very important differences. Players play a varied amount of hours a week, compared to almost fixed 40h week in RL. And I think more impact on the disparity of incomes in reallife have depts (and interest rates), which doesn’t exist in gw2.

Samuirai.4561:

Inflation goes up with more gold drops. And we should see deflation with less gold drops. If the price is still rising for an item it’s definitely not inflation.

Another note: you can’t argue with disparity of incomes in gw2 and compare it to the real world. Because of two very important differences. Players play a varied amount of hours a week, compared to almost fixed 40h week in RL. And I think more impact on the disparity of incomes in reallife have depts (and interest rates), which doesn’t exist in gw2.

why can’t you use wealth disparity in GW2 when we use things like inflation, supply/demand, etc which have just as many variables as disparity in real life that are not taken into account in GW2?

fact is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is just no way a new player nowadays is able to compete in this market, because those who already possess a fortune will be making more money out of that market, and the barriers of entry are higher and higher as more gold sources are nerfed and removed.

Pie Flavor.1647:

why can’t you use wealth disparity in GW2 when we use things like inflation, supply/demand, etc which have just as many variables as disparity in real life that are not taken into account in GW2?

fact is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is just no way a new player nowadays is able to compete in this market, because those who already possess a fortune will be making more money out of that market, and the barriers of entry are higher and higher as more gold sources are nerfed and removed.

Rich players are unable to negatively impact poor players in a game because things like sustenance, healthcare, housing, and employment don’t exist. That is why wealth disparity is irrelevant in a game.

Pie Flavor.1647:

why can’t you use wealth disparity in GW2 when we use things like inflation, supply/demand, etc which have just as many variables as disparity in real life that are not taken into account in GW2?

fact is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is just no way a new player nowadays is able to compete in this market, because those who already possess a fortune will be making more money out of that market, and the barriers of entry are higher and higher as more gold sources are nerfed and removed.

You’re a new player with your recently max-leveled character killing the Shadow Behemoth and your bonus chest opens to reveal Dusk. Boom! You’re rich.

Wealth is created out of thin air in this game, unlike the real world, and actual expenses are nearly non-existent. If you keep spending your money on stuff you want but don’t need, you’ll always be poor. But that’s your fault, not the game’s or anyone else’s.

Samuirai.4561:

Another note: you can’t argue with disparity of incomes in gw2 and compare it to the real world. Because of two very important differences. Players play a varied amount of hours a week, compared to almost fixed 40h week in RL. And I think more impact on the disparity of incomes in reallife have depts (and interest rates), which doesn’t exist in gw2.

I fail to see what debts and interest have to do with your income. It’s what you use that income for, but that is hardly relevant when comparing income.

The fact that players play a varied amount of hours even increases the income disparity, doesn’kitten But how many players actually play more than, say 2 hours per day? Usually in mass games like this it’s the casual gamer group that is the largest. But if a casual gamer has to spend months of his playtime focusing on getting that ONE piece of equipment, he’s gonna get bored and quit soon… Consider that to get the look you want, you could be aiming at up to 8-9 item skins, in the extreme case that could take you years. And the lifespan of a game is limited.

tolunart.2095:

You’re a new player with your recently max-leveled character killing the Shadow Behemoth and your bonus chest opens to reveal Dusk. Boom! You’re rich.

I’d trade consistency for higher value random drops any day. That one players then proceeds to share his happiness with the others, and manages just the opposite – the others, unless they already had such a drop, go: oh god, I’ve run this event (and other) 500x already and all I got was four five-gold exos. WHYYYYYY

You get the point.

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

You’re a new player with your recently max-leveled character killing the Shadow Behemoth and your bonus chest opens to reveal Dusk. Boom! You’re rich.

I’d trade consistency for higher value random drops any day. That one players then proceeds to share his happiness with the others, and manages just the opposite – the others, unless they already had such a drop, go: oh god, I’ve run this event (and other) 500x already and all I got was four five-gold exos. WHYYYYYY

You get the point.

Then you’re playing the wrong game. I’d tell you what game to play instead, but I’ve never seen one that works like that.

mtpelion.4562:

Pie Flavor.1647:

why can’t you use wealth disparity in GW2 when we use things like inflation, supply/demand, etc which have just as many variables as disparity in real life that are not taken into account in GW2?

fact is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is just no way a new player nowadays is able to compete in this market, because those who already possess a fortune will be making more money out of that market, and the barriers of entry are higher and higher as more gold sources are nerfed and removed.

Rich players are unable to negatively impact poor players in a game because things like sustenance, healthcare, housing, and employment don’t exist. That is why wealth disparity is irrelevant in a game.

of course, technically speaking nobody can negatively impact me because this is just a videogame, not real life. More specifically speaking, rich players cannot negatively impact new players because most of the heavily traded stuff is purely cosmetic (weapon skins, dyes) or not necessary for experiencing the entirety of the game (legendaries, ascended materials and other crafting materials), but that doesn’t mean new players do not desire that, and due to rich players, those so called “luxury items” (luxury items my kitten are harder and harder for new players to acquire, due to how the market has been basically driven by speculation since early life of this game, and how currently Anet has been forced to increase the income from dungeon daily chests just to match inflation.

Borghal.1635:

I fail to see what debts and interest have to do with your income. It’s what you use that income for, but that is hardly relevant when comparing income.

Heh. Okay then.

The fact that players play a varied amount of hours even increases the income disparity, doesn’kitten But how many players actually play more than, say 2 hours per day? Usually in mass games like this it’s the casual gamer group that is the largest. But if a casual gamer has to spend months of his playtime focusing on getting that ONE piece of equipment, he’s gonna get bored and quit soon… Consider that to get the look you want, you could be aiming at up to 8-9 item skins, in the extreme case that could take you years. And the lifespan of a game is limited.

That’s the problem, you’re assuming that everyone wants the same things. Most players know that they’ll never swing Twilight as they romp through Queensdale following the champ train, so they aren’t trying to get it. I have 16 different characters of various levels, half of them are max. I’ve spent so much money just leveling toons through crafting that I could buy Eternity outright. Right now I have about 40 silver in the bank.

I don’t care about fancy skins or Legendaries, or even ascended gear – I bought my first ever ascended piece a couple months ago when I realized I had enough laurels to buy an amulet or somesuch. I just like playing the game, and exploring the game world. My goals are my own and I don’t measure my fun against what other people have or do.

If your a casual player like me and my boyfriend are, and I will say Alot of players of GW2 are with its very open subscription-less model.

Its Extremely overwhelming coming back after taking a few week break or coming inbetween content patches, and feeling more and more like we’re unable to make any progress in the game.

You know the game has poor itemization and economic model when the market is made up of~

Unobtainable
3000-4000G Legendaries (will increase rapidly)
1000-1400G Precursors
10-100G Skins (from events that are past)
10-100G Rare Dyes (No longer obtainable without spending real money)

Obtainable
4-2G Exotics that you’ll get as a drop extremely rarely
>1G Everything else from very rare crafting mods etc.

And when combining everything together were still looking at, a market that is inflating only with Expensive high desire items, take a look at Ecto’s they’ve remained solid, high demand for crafting Artifacts, and Legendaries etc, where Pre-cursors and Legendaries have increased nearly 50-60% in the same time frame of about 6 months.

So, I cannot get Ecto’s any faster then before, but items I want are now worth more, Ecto’s and alot of other “cash mats, and cash exotics” Are Not moving in price, as they’re price is heavily modulated by things like vendor or salvage value.

Therefore I am making about 50-60% Less for the items I want than 6 months ago.

This IS Depravity
I come in game, have a few full geared level 80’s I number crunch.. and am just smashed every… single time, by the crushing reality how I won’t get anywhere in this game. And find myself playing other games.

People don’t blame Anet for the inflation but a large part of it is caused from things they do, or haven’t done to control the economy.

Anet has FULL control of the economy, and can add things for people to pay/use however they want, and didn’t have to go nerf Champion drops, get rid of ability to get yet another item that could be worth gold (Random Dye’s which could be worth upwards of 50g+) So yet another strike against players that are trying to earn money.

Short of Finding a precursor, earning gold in Guild wars is Absolutely Gruelingly slow, and unfulfilling, As nothing is worth a significant amount.

(As for the above post, don’t even get me started about the content, yes I love exploring but, this is a World that has No true extra area to explore being a player that has been playing gw2 since day 1, and having already taken that time to explore the regions and see what there is to see. Anet taking the route of temp content, and leaving us now with the same game we started with short a few also unfulfilling world bosses that will reward 1 player out of 150 with something worthwhile, if your group can manage a kill.)

I consider most legendaries outright ugly (a proud Norn ranger shooting flowers, really?) and don’t bother thinking about them. There’s a handful of them anyway and the performance upgrade is negligible.

But say I want a Dreamthistle sword and board for my Sylvari warrior, or Fused for Charr, what have you. Only reliable way of obtaining it is buy from TP at rather obscene prices of hundreds of gold.
If I consider them an epitome of what the game has to offer in terms of gear, I would be happy getting geared up in such items during months of playing (PvE,PvP, whatever) without having to look at what activity is more profitable than the other.

That’s not the way it is, though. To get them would require, say, upwards of 100 hours of succesful <30mins dungeon runs. To get one or two items. Now to gear up in all the skins you like with all weapons taken into account, that’s like 8 times that. For one character.

Long story short, before you outfit every one of your five character slots (assuming you don’t buy any more char slots too), you’ve been playing for five or more years, close to the end of the lifecycle for many MMO’s.

before the launch i remember it has been said that "gw2 will be about gameplay and skill based builds that players can choose how they want to play each class.
and “we don’t want to make a grinding game”

It has been 604 days, we are still waiting for any of that to be true.

aside that fact, the game now is the most grinding game out there and the RNG progress is just sad.
since all the pink stuff needed to be crafted is about 600g+max professions
that’s just for 1 set of armor and a weapon.

if hardcore players that don’t look for every possible exploit or a legit tp craft / sell.
15mins of boss fights are about ~40silver.

now what type of “casual” player you need to be to even get to that 600g if 15mins ~40silver.

this is not even talking about all the pretty stuff and purples.

So if you really don’t want us to grind / gold farm make it easier to get. i personally don’t care if everyone the best gear stats vise because then its competitive in areas like wvw.
or at least make the progress be equal AND viable in every aspect of the game.

Borghal.1635:

Long story short, before you outfit every one of your five character slots (assuming you don’t buy any more char slots too), you’ve been playing for five or more years, close to the end of the lifecycle for many MMO’s.

I’ve done it sixteen times. Even the toons that aren’t max level have “the look” I want. Apparently I’ve been playing since a lot of you were in diapers.

HallusH.3987:

before the launch i remember it has been said that "gw2 will be about gameplay and skill based builds that players can choose how they want to play each class.
and “we don’t want to make a grinding game”

It has been 604 days, we are still waiting for any of that to be true.

aside that fact, the game now is the most grinding game out there and the RNG progress is just sad.

You can thank all the hardcore players who reached level 80 and geared up in exotics within a week after launch and said “I need stuff to do!” What will occupy them for a month will take a casual player a year.

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

Long story short, before you outfit every one of your five character slots (assuming you don’t buy any more char slots too), you’ve been playing for five or more years, close to the end of the lifecycle for many MMO’s.

I’ve done it sixteen times. Even the toons that aren’t max level have “the look” I want. Apparently I’ve been playing since a lot of you were in diapers.

16 level 80 chars with specific skins? Mind posting their /age ? :P

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

Long story short, before you outfit every one of your five character slots (assuming you don’t buy any more char slots too), you’ve been playing for five or more years, close to the end of the lifecycle for many MMO’s.

I’ve done it sixteen times. Even the toons that aren’t max level have “the look” I want. Apparently I’ve been playing since a lot of you were in diapers.

16 level 80 chars with specific skins? Mind posting their /age ? :P

“Even the toons that aren’t max level…”

None of your business.

tolunart.2095:

None of your business.

Ok, ok…excuse me for assuming that since you shared your achievements you would also share how much effort it took you :-) Since we’re talking with the casual playerbase in mind here…

I don’t keep track… I have <7000 AP however, since I drop in and out of the game every few months since I bought it, a couple weeks after launch.

Gem to Gold conversion doesn’t cause inflation. The gold being paid out was gold paid in by other players converting Gold to Gems and that gold is “taxed” twice, going in and coming out. It doesn’t add any gold to the in game money supply so it can’t be inflationary.

Wait, the economy is failing? How am I still making money then?

Aidan Savage.2078:

Wait, the economy is failing? How am I still making money then?

Not that I’m saying it is failing, but how does that correlate? Money can be made in a failing economy too :-)

Borghal.1635:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Wait, the economy is failing? How am I still making money then?

Not that I’m saying it is failing, but how does that correlate? Money can be made in a failing economy too :-)

Did you have enough gold today to log in and play the game?
Yes?
Then the economy is fine.

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Wait, the economy is failing? How am I still making money then?

Not that I’m saying it is failing, but how does that correlate? Money can be made in a failing economy too :-)

Did you have enough gold today to log in and play the game?
Yes?
Then the economy is fine.

Notice I specifically stated Not that I’m saying it is failing :P And while I’m not an economist, I’m sure it’s not that simple. There were probably rich people during the great depression too.

HallusH.3987:

aside that fact, the game now is the most grinding game out there and the RNG progress is just sad.

You’ve clearly never played Kal Online.

Despite the extreme title, I have to agree. The gem store is getting out of hand, to the point where almost literally all new items are being placed in the gem store. There are very, VERY few instances of desirable items being sold in game for gold of late (which would decrease the conversion rate)… the only ones I can think of are the selfless potions. Because of this jacking up the exchange rate, converting gems to gold becomes by far the easiest method to earn gold, trivializing almost anything else you can earn in game that isn’t account bound.

I disagree that increased gold in the economy is causing the exchange rate to skyrocket. If anything gold generating activities are being dampened (see champ bags). The reason the exchange rate is so high is because demand for gems is obscenely high since something new is releasing in the gem store every week, and nothing is releasing in the game to increase the demand for gold. If legendaries didn’t exist, gold would be almost worthless and I wouldn’t be surprised if the exchange rate would be 1 gold for 1 gem