Guild Wars 2

I got deceived by the gem exchange, the prices were so much changing that i lost 30 silver in 1 minute trying to get the correct number of gems. If we could buy gems by their number instead by adding casually a sum of gold this wouldn’t have happened. It’s also really annoying to figure out the right amount of gold needed for the right number of gems.

Deceive is a strong word. You have to realize it’s a moving target and like the rest of the TP, it’s servicing requests from all the servers (likely only the servers in your region, US/EU). It’s like complaining that a stock price ticked up while you were quickly checking out the current short positions.

But I do agree whole heartily that the UI needs to allow us to enter either the amount we want to spend or the amount of gems we want.

Why not allow both? Seems like a pretty simple solution.

munkiman.3068:

Why not allow both? Seems like a pretty simple solution.

I was going to ask the same. Seems the calculation can be done both ways.

I can, however, see where putting in a number of gems and being charged more than is on the screen would be more annoying than putting in a money amount and getting less gems than you think.

The thing that gets me is how quickly the numbers change. Is there any period when the exchange is stable, or is it recalculated every second like it sometimes seems?

Well if you do that in the trade gems for gold section it doesn’t let you if you’ve waited to long, gives an error, it doesn’t just correct the exchange and give you the current value.

Perhaps the answer is to include both options in the UI to allow you to enter either value. I am surprised that the split of opinion is so even however, as I would have predicted that most people would be looking to purchase a specific number of gems to spend in the gem store.

How about a live exchange update? You type in your gems or gold numbers and the exchange rates flip back and forth as you watch, in real time (or as close as possible given the tech involved). Click your button when the numbers seem right to you and you lock in and verify your trade at that rate. There’d still be some minor variances possible as a number changes slightly in the time it takes your brain to reach your mouse finger, but probably not enough to ever be an issue.

I’m not holding my breath, but I like the image all the same.

I can understand the benifit of how it is currently myself.

Lets say i wanted to 100 gems. So I type in 100 gems it tells me it will cost 4g cool! I hit the button, boom i get 100 gems and 6g is taken from my inv. ANET QQ!

The way it is now. I pit in 4g it shows i’m going to get 100 gems! I hit the button. I get 95 gems. Darn you movig target! Do i want to spend 2g more now and see if can get it again later for 50s to cover the difference.

Btw prices are just examples and is of course only my opinion

I haven’t noticed the behavior FangedTerror describes… I’ve noticed that if you type in 3g, it says you can get 100 gems for that. if you then add 1s onto that, it’ll update and tell you you can get 99 gems for that. back to just 3g 0s and you can get 99 gems for that. add 10s and you can get 102 gems for that. when you hit the button, you pay what you said and get what was quoted.
I’d almost guess that if you waited an hour it would still give you what was quoted (maybe you want to see how the price changes during that hour?) but you have to check the price on something other than the TP, which makes it tricky to know if the price went up or down in that time.

Almost everyone who is converting gold to gems is trying to purchase a certain amount of gems. This is because they want to purchase a particular item that costs a particular amount of gems.

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Unfortunately, most of the folks you know are not a representative sampling of the entire player base. Some folks convert their excess gold to gems a little at a time so they don’t get stuck with an unfavorable conversion rate the next time something cool is added to the gem store, or they can take advantage of an improved gem to gold rate when it happens.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Unfortunately, most of the folks you know are not a representative sampling of the entire player base. Some folks convert their excess gold to gems a little at a time so they don’t get stuck with an unfavorable conversion rate the next time something cool is added to the gem store, or they can take advantage of an improved gem to gold rate when it happens.

I’m one of the people who convert excess gold to gems a little at a time in order to avoid exchange rate spikes, but even then I buy a set number of gems. I’ll admit my behavior might not be representative, but it’s a personal preference to have a nicely rounded number of gems stocked up.

Astraea.6075:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Unfortunately, most of the folks you know are not a representative sampling of the entire player base. Some folks convert their excess gold to gems a little at a time so they don’t get stuck with an unfavorable conversion rate the next time something cool is added to the gem store, or they can take advantage of an improved gem to gold rate when it happens.

I’m one of the people who convert excess gold to gems a little at a time in order to avoid exchange rate spikes, but even then I buy a set number of gems. I’ll admit my behavior might not be representative, but it’s a personal preference to have a nicely rounded number of gems stocked up.

Everyone has their own system. Some folks like to keep track of the gold so it’s easier to figure out when they get a decent return converting back. I believe JS when he says it’s pretty evenly divided.