Guild Wars 2

Buttercup.5871:

@smooth penguin: By your line of argument they might as well sell supreme sigils and runes of the overlord (account bound) in the gemstore. And 100% crit food (account bound). And special uberskills for tpvp. Because you can convert gold to gems, right?
.

Because they don’t want their gem store to appear that way which would spawn too many complain threads like this one. On the other hand, they are obliged to continue boosting sales of their gem store items, so it is a delicate balance. The old unlimited pick has been around long enough that its sales must be tapering off. They needed something, as successful, to take over so they recycled it with a new feature.

The problem is those who spent the gems to get the old unlimited pick, wanted theirs to be the best in class forever but ArenaNet has never guaranteed that. They also have not guaranteed any free upgrade to existing customers with the old unlimited pick.

If I am ArenaNet, I would also sell a consumable for about 500 gems, that would upgrade existing customers with the old unlimited mining pick to the new one, but that is just me.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Because they don’t want their gem store to appear that way which would spawn too many complain threads like this one. On the other hand, they are obliged to continue boosting sales of their gem store items, so it is a delicate balance. The old unlimited pick has been around long enough that its sales must be tapering off. They needed something, as successful, to take over so they recycled it with a new feature.

You see they aren’t really trying with many things.
I loved nodes in my instance – thats pure convenience since I don’t have to run around map to get gatherer done, but I would. It just saves time and effort just like caring few extra tools and buying them to get gathering done.

Here is a HUGE list of what people wants:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/List-Of-Things-We-Want-In-Gemstore/first

I would dare to say “if they want to see their business spinning they should use it for a change instead giving us controversial, easy income like: sprocket pick, mr sparkles for real cash or reskins.”

DarkSpirit.7046:

The problem is those who spent the gems to get the old unlimited pick, wanted theirs to be the best in class forever but ArenaNet has never guaranteed that. They also have not guaranteed any free upgrade to existing customers with the old unlimited pick.

If I am ArenaNet, I would also sell a consumable for about 500 gems, that would upgrade existing customers with the old unlimited mining pick to the new one, but that is just me.

The case is we want to not give gathering tools to give economical advantage and ruin small items market.
I would hate upgrades for tools since as I said – THE CORE IDEA IS WRONG. There are many people who state it like that.

Behellagh.1468:

20% chance for a 40c item. So that’s 8c a node. Oh no that new gold spigot will ruin the game’s economy for good.

Yeah, right.

1st. Those who bought it early got way more cash for it.
2nd. Even if you get only 8c per node it still adds o unlimited tools convenience price:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1citm3/60000_uses_before_the_molten_alliance_pick_is/
“Currently it costs over 24g to buy 800 gems. The description of the pick says it’s the same as an orichalcum pick, which sell for 4s. Therefore you could buy at least 600 orichalcum picks for the same price, and at 100 uses each that comes to 60,000 uses. So extrapolating further, if you only mined for your daily, you would need to mine 7 nodes a day [7 nodes X 3 uses per node=21 uses per day] and your MA pick would be profitable in 2857 days, or 7.8 years, if you don’t mine more than that each day.”

3rd. The worst part is that they ruin sprocket market that existed for 6 month just by adding item like that. What market is next? Spores? Azures? Quartz?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It seems that you just want to find an excuse to attack Anet. Most people understand that GW2 is not a P2W game. But here’s something else. Even if (and that’s a big if) the new Watchwork pick was P2W in another game, technically it can’t be P2W in GW2, because you can get Gems without spending any real money. Gold exchanges to Gems prevent anyone ever trying to call GW2 a Pay 2 Win game. P2W games require spending real money. If there’s a way to obtain virtual game currency without spending money, then it’s not in the P2W category.

Great. Now I know why you don’t see any of my points.
You are so fixed on being offended in ANet place that you fail to see the facts.

Also you wouldn’t be fair enough to check if I was only attacking ANet. No, you will accuse me and dismiss tens of posts that I contributed in CDI (that had nothing attacking in them) to help shape future of this game with many people on this forum. Or maybe I spoke in other posts that did not criticize ANet? Well I did. You didn’t bother to check. Why? It goes well with your point of view. So I guess I can’t speak my mind when I see something wrong…
I find you the one that are very good with accusing.

Anyway I will say it again.
Giving 1 player advantage (even that lousy 1c) over those who don’t have that is P2Win. If you need it to be big and flashy and you fail to see the point to that, well…
Flippers are the richest people in GW2 and most of them earn 1-10c per item, depending what they flip. So that really means that 1c is worthless income.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1citm3/60000_uses_before_the_molten_alliance_pick_is/
“Currently it costs over 24g to buy 800 gems. The description of the pick says it’s the same as an orichalcum pick, which sell for 4s. Therefore you could buy at least 600 orichalcum picks for the same price, and at 100 uses each that comes to 60,000 uses. So extrapolating further, if you only mined for your daily, you would need to mine 7 nodes a day [7 nodes X 3 uses per node=21 uses per day] and your MA pick would be profitable in 2857 days, or 7.8 years, if you don’t mine more than that each day.”

You weren’t able to earn money on unlimited tools since it would take too much time.
Yet now you get extra 8c per node. What will be next? 10c? 20c? 1s?
How much does it have to be before you realize it is an advantage over other people?

I will take a lot, since you show some examples that you would need a blind man to miss that. Thankfully there are a lot o people in this forum that see it a lot better:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Watchwork-Pick-Non-inflammatory-please/page/1

You can read and see.
Thank you for all your responses.

Septemptus.7164:

Behellagh.1468:

20% chance for a 40c item. So that’s 8c a node. Oh no that new gold spigot will ruin the game’s economy for good.

Yeah, right.

1st. Those who bought it early got way more cash for it.
2nd. Even if you get only 8c per node it still adds o unlimited tools convenience price:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1citm3/60000_uses_before_the_molten_alliance_pick_is/
“Currently it costs over 24g to buy 800 gems. The description of the pick says it’s the same as an orichalcum pick, which sell for 4s. Therefore you could buy at least 600 orichalcum picks for the same price, and at 100 uses each that comes to 60,000 uses. So extrapolating further, if you only mined for your daily, you would need to mine 7 nodes a day [7 nodes X 3 uses per node=21 uses per day] and your MA pick would be profitable in 2857 days, or 7.8 years, if you don’t mine more than that each day.”

3rd. The worst part is that they ruin sprocket market that existed for 6 month just by adding item like that. What market is next? Spores? Azures? Quartz?

1) The pick went on sale the 28th of January. GW2TP.com, with hour samples, had the sell price between 39 and 52c. GW2Spdy had the 24 hr average at 43.18c. 20% puts it between 7.8 to 10.4c or 8.636c on average. If you sell them on the TP deduct another 15% so… 8c or so on average. Yes the price is lower now (38.56 24hr average) but the Watchwork Sprocket price dropped due to the new LS content several days before the release of the pick from it’s roughly 1s price.

2) It’s 1000 gems so roughly 81g. At 4s per 100 swing Orichalcum pick that’s roughly 2025 picks. Now players who did this analysis would say an unlimited pick isn’t worth the gold cost and they are countered that’s it’s a convenience item and such an analysis shouldn’t be done or that it’s value should be stated in cash, $12.50. Except now, assuming the value of sprockets remain constant, it would decrease the number of equivalent picks to, hmm you will earn on average 50c per equivalent pick so around 1800 picks. But as I said people who own an unlimited pick have already said that an ROI isn’t important because it’s for convenience. Sorry you can’t have it both ways now that it’s ROI is slightly better.

3) As I said before, the market on Watchwork Sprockets collapsed 50-60% over a couple of days starting when the new LS started on the 21st, a week before this pick was offered. Since then, maybe another 10% at most. And who knows maybe when this LS goes bye-bye only those with a sprocket node or one of these tools will become the sole supplier of this item and the price will recover.

Septemptus.7164:

Great. Now I know why you don’t see any of my points.
You are so fixed on being offended in ANet place that you fail to see the facts.

Also you wouldn’t be fair enough to check if I was only attacking ANet. No, you will accuse me and dismiss tens of posts that I contributed in CDI (that had nothing attacking in them) to help shape future of this game with many people on this forum. Or maybe I spoke in other posts that did not criticize ANet? Well I did. You didn’t bother to check. Why? It goes well with your point of view. So I guess I can’t speak my mind when I see something wrong…
I find you the one that are very good with accusing.

Anyway I will say it again.
Giving 1 player advantage (even that lousy 1c) over those who don’t have that is P2Win. If you need it to be big and flashy and you fail to see the point to that, well…
Flippers are the richest people in GW2 and most of them earn 1-10c per item, depending what they flip. So that really means that 1c is worthless income.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1citm3/60000_uses_before_the_molten_alliance_pick_is/
“Currently it costs over 24g to buy 800 gems. The description of the pick says it’s the same as an orichalcum pick, which sell for 4s. Therefore you could buy at least 600 orichalcum picks for the same price, and at 100 uses each that comes to 60,000 uses. So extrapolating further, if you only mined for your daily, you would need to mine 7 nodes a day [7 nodes X 3 uses per node=21 uses per day] and your MA pick would be profitable in 2857 days, or 7.8 years, if you don’t mine more than that each day.”

You weren’t able to earn money on unlimited tools since it would take too much time.
Yet now you get extra 8c per node. What will be next? 10c? 20c? 1s?
How much does it have to be before you realize it is an advantage over other people?

The only fact that’s being failed to see is that GW2 is not a P2W game. Any and all your attempts to slander Anet with your interpretations of the term “P2W” go nowhere. Until you actually play a P2W game, you have no standing to use that term with GW2. And to be sure you understand this, the fact that you accuse GW2 of being P2W shows that you’ve never played any of those types of games.

I’ve already explained what a Pay 2 Win game is. You keep thinking that a 20% chance to get a few items is game breaking in some way. Here’s another fact: I make more from killing one enemy in Cursed Shores. I get a Blue Item that’s worth ~3 Silver on the TP, with a chance to get a Rare or even Exotic item. So I kill 30 Risen in CS, with a 20% chance of getting any type of drop (30 × .2 = 6 drops). The least my drops would be worth is 18 Silver, with a max of 500+ Gold if I get a Precusor. If I extrapolate those numbers, in 7.8 years, I’ll have made more money than someone using a Watchwork pick. Going further, I can safely say that killing enemies gives me an advantage over those who use a Gem Store item to mine nodes.

tl;dr – Guild Wars 2 is not a P2W game.

@Smooth: ok, so because you can convert gold to gems, you can put anything in the store; legendary sigils, runes, a celestial permanent statbooster. Who cares right? Cause we can farm them cursed shores for gold! Well, with this direction of the gemstore we might as well farm the cursed shores for the next seven years, we’ll need it to keep affording dem gems.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Septemptus.7164:

Great. Now I know why you don’t see any of my points.
You are so fixed on being offended in ANet place that you fail to see the facts.

Also you wouldn’t be fair enough to check if I was only attacking ANet. No, you will accuse me and dismiss tens of posts that I contributed in CDI (that had nothing attacking in them) to help shape future of this game with many people on this forum. Or maybe I spoke in other posts that did not criticize ANet? Well I did. You didn’t bother to check. Why? It goes well with your point of view. So I guess I can’t speak my mind when I see something wrong…
I find you the one that are very good with accusing.

Anyway I will say it again.
Giving 1 player advantage (even that lousy 1c) over those who don’t have that is P2Win. If you need it to be big and flashy and you fail to see the point to that, well…
Flippers are the richest people in GW2 and most of them earn 1-10c per item, depending what they flip. So that really means that 1c is worthless income.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1citm3/60000_uses_before_the_molten_alliance_pick_is/
“Currently it costs over 24g to buy 800 gems. The description of the pick says it’s the same as an orichalcum pick, which sell for 4s. Therefore you could buy at least 600 orichalcum picks for the same price, and at 100 uses each that comes to 60,000 uses. So extrapolating further, if you only mined for your daily, you would need to mine 7 nodes a day [7 nodes X 3 uses per node=21 uses per day] and your MA pick would be profitable in 2857 days, or 7.8 years, if you don’t mine more than that each day.”

You weren’t able to earn money on unlimited tools since it would take too much time.
Yet now you get extra 8c per node. What will be next? 10c? 20c? 1s?
How much does it have to be before you realize it is an advantage over other people?

The only fact that’s being failed to see is that GW2 is not a P2W game. Any and all your attempts to slander Anet with your interpretations of the term “P2W” go nowhere. Until you actually play a P2W game, you have no standing to use that term with GW2. And to be sure you understand this, the fact that you accuse GW2 of being P2W shows that you’ve never played any of those types of games.

I’ve already explained what a Pay 2 Win game is. You keep thinking that a 20% chance to get a few items is game breaking in some way. Here’s another fact: I make more from killing one enemy in Cursed Shores. I get a Blue Item that’s worth ~3 Silver on the TP, with a chance to get a Rare or even Exotic item. So I kill 30 Risen in CS, with a 20% chance of getting any type of drop (30 × .2 = 6 drops). The least my drops would be worth is 18 Silver, with a max of 500+ Gold if I get a Precusor. If I extrapolate those numbers, in 7.8 years, I’ll have made more money than someone using a Watchwork pick. Going further, I can safely say that killing enemies gives me an advantage over those who use a Gem Store item to mine nodes.

tl;dr – Guild Wars 2 is not a P2W game.

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

dAcIaW.5107:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

It is not strictly P2W because the most effective gear is still not buy-able with gold, except for legendaries but they are the minor exceptions that require a crazy amount of gold. To get the best gear, you need more than just the most effective weapon, you also need the most effective trinkets and armor. People just don’t seem to understand why this is the case in this game. Gold can’t buy you everything in this game.

Second, you are talking about a pick that only gives 20% of a 40c item and making such a fuss about it. If you do the calculations, you would know that the pick is not worth it, so all the points about the economy, gold, and such do not make sense since converting all these gems into gold right away would have a much bigger impact on the economy itself than the extra sprockets from those picks over a period of years.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Psientist.6437:

On the surface some folks are asking for upgrades, but what they are actually asking for is a product release model that does not devalue their past purchases, a model that does not leave them feeling like a sucker or have them counting how many times they have been fooled.

But it has always been like this with the world. The new version of Windows is suppose to be better (i.e. more features) than the previous one and you would have to pay to upgrade to that newer version. Same with other software like Microsoft Office or computers. I never complained when newer PCs come with newer and better features than the one I bought 10 years ago. I never complained when newer Toyotas come with better features than the one I bought 10 years ago. So on and so forth.

The reason why these companies bother to keep building better versions of their old products is because they need to entice people to keep buying from them. ArenaNet has the same need, so I don’t see what is so surprising or disappointing about their actions. This should be expected. How else are they going to survive? Furthermore, they have never ever promised that the molten pick would be the best-in-class pick forever and ever. Some of you guys just imagined this extra sales clause in your heads.
They have also never promised free upgrades to the best-in-class pick with all its features forever and ever. That is another thing that complainers HOPE for but that doesn’t means ArenaNet is obliged to provide for free. It has never been in their sales agreement when they bought the molten pick.

Similar forms does not imply similar substance. Does Microsoft control Moore’s law? Does Toyota control all research on materials? Does any real world producer control every aspect of the environment that their product must compete within? Just as Microsoft leads costumers, Microsoft chases advancements. Microsoft and the costumer for it’s product are on more equal footing than ArenaNet et al and the customers for it’s product.

You can not use real world product evolution as an example without considering all the other elements that influence real world product evolution. The ethical considerations of how products evolve within the market place of a company town are very different than the ethical considerations of how products evolve in the real world.

dAcIaW.5107:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

Wrong my friend. GW2 has never been a P2W game. You’re making the same mistake as the other people. The Watchwork pick comes close to being a P2W item, but it doesn’t cross that line, since the new pick gives no statistical advantages over another player. My merchant bought Orichalcum pick give me a chance at bonus Orichalcum ore. Bottom line, a player is at a disadvantage (money wise) when using the Watchwork pick, since it costs more to use (Gold to Gems, or real money) over just buying a merchant pick. Why? The amount of money it takes to buy the Gem Store item does not justify this as a way to profit in the game. This item is a Convenience item, nothing more.

And again, P2W games rely on microtransactions made with real money. Since you can convert in game currency to virtual store currency, thus never having to spend any real money on this game, this automatically excludes GW2 from falling into the P2W category.

tl;dr – all P2W arguments automatically get dismissed

dAcIaW.5107:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

Oh man! No wonder I can’t seem to win this game. I don’t have any sprockets! I better start getting as many sprockets as I can so I can win.

Where do I turn in my sprockets to beat everyone?

mtpelion.4562:

dAcIaW.5107:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

Oh man! No wonder I can’t seem to win this game. I don’t have any sprockets! I better start getting as many sprockets as I can so I can win.

Where do I turn in my sprockets to beat everyone?

You can turn in your sprockets to Evon at the Black Lion Trading Company. However… be careful, it’s hard to win on the TP. I’ll sell my sprockets for 1 copper less than you, and ruin your profit margins. My Trading Wars rank is roughly around Dolyak level.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You can turn in your sprockets to Evon at the Black Lion Trading Company. However… be careful, it’s hard to win on the TP. I’ll sell my sprockets for 1 copper less than you, and ruin your profit margins. My Trading Wars rank is roughly around Dolyak level.

If I horde my sprockets I can be the Sprocket King. Once I link my sprocket collection in map chat everyone else will despair and stop playing, thus making me the winner of GW2!

mtpelion.4562:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You can turn in your sprockets to Evon at the Black Lion Trading Company. However… be careful, it’s hard to win on the TP. I’ll sell my sprockets for 1 copper less than you, and ruin your profit margins. My Trading Wars rank is roughly around Dolyak level.

If I horde my sprockets I can be the Sprocket King. Once I link my sprocket collection in map chat everyone else will despair and stop playing, thus making me the winner of GW2!

I accept your challenge. I’ll buy out all sprockets in the game, and control the prices. I’ll never let you win this game!!! You may be Sprocket King, but you’ll never come close to the Emperor Penguin.

Healix.5819:

BiS is time sensitive. If something is said to be BiS, it’s only valid at the point in time it was said at.

The unlimited gathering tools were never future-proof BiS because they were limited to the Orichalcum level. What happens in an expansion when something greater is added? Expect new unlimited tools for that level.

The same goes for legendaries. They’re BiS level 80, but that doesn’t mean they’re BiS level 81+. Anything can happen.

Exactly. This is what I’ve always been concerned about.

It’s far more concerning than the Watchwork sprockets.

As you suggest (and I’ve always considered to be the case), the current gathering tools are probably limited to Orichalcum and Ancient trees.

What happens if the impending expansion (we know it’s happening at some point, probably sooner than later) adds “Diamond nodes” and “Redwood trees”? How else are we going to craft level 90/100 weapons and armor?

While we’re on the subject, what happens if there’s a level-bump with the expansion?

Seems fairly likely as GW2 was designed with potential max-level increases in mind (unlike GW1)… They just (not-quite-so) arbitrarily picked a max of 80.

Ascended gear has shown that they’re trying to appease the vertical progression crowd, and as such… Level 90 (or 100 or whatever) gear will then be the new “max”…

I’m sure we’ll then get new Exotics, Ascendeds, and Legendaries. (What’d an expansion be without new gear to strive towards?)

The one thing you can count on (from the current implementation of Ascendeds) is that they won’t make the mistake about Legendaries being “easy” to get.

There’ll be plenty of time-gating and such to artificially add reasons to keep playing.

Septemptus.7164:

(Please NO DRAMA here)

This is hilarious

I do not think the gemstore is disrespecting players.
The discussion is bout pay to win and pay to play. In my opinion there is no line between pay to play, pay to win and free to play but a huge grey area.

Take for example the game perfect world.
This game is a perfect example of pay to win. Even though all things your rl money can buy can be bought with in game gold. To actually being able to play succesfully after the first 15 levels you either need to farm low level area for 1000+ hours OR invest real life money.
This means the game is in reality not only pay to win but also pay to play.

Lord of the rings Online did it differently. There you can actually play a very good amount of content without paying anything. The high end content is pay to play, but it isn’t very expensive and after unlocking you can go back to free to play.

This game has a gemstore and it is an important part of the games cashflow but you can play the game fully without ever buying gems AND you are not terrible handicapped if you decide to do so.

So currently I do not see an issue.
Off course it might happen that at one point this will change, but this is also personal experience and personal opinion. There isn’t a line deviding f2p and p2w or p2p, but a grey area.

The gemstore itself is nothing but an extension of the bussiness model, it cannot disrespect by itself.

But the model can, and i find that it very much has disrespected me as a player and as a consumer. Well before this mining pick came along infact.

Remember when they tried to reskin an existing set and sell it for gems? That was no accident. That was trying to make a quick buck at the expense of those who got cultural armor the hard way.

And honestly, the moment they came up with the gear threadmill, theyve disrespected me as a player and as a consumer. I’ve spend time and money acquiring my skins. To have my characters, all of them, look like i wanted them to look.
Then comes along undisputably better gear and either i lose my skins or i fall behind in stats…. unless i pay again, for the skins i already own and payed for.

For me that was the line being crossed and i dont buy gems anymore, and i refuse to upgrade my gear to ascended or whatever they come up with after ascended, and they will come up with something.

As someone who spends money in the cashshop, i dont feel as if i am being respected for it with these kind of actions. Release better versions of something i already payed quite a lot of money for.
Or, as mentioned, trying to get me to pay more then once for the skins i already payed money for.

Terrahero.9358:

The gemstore itself is nothing but an extension of the bussiness model, it cannot disrespect by itself.

But the model can, and i find that it very much has disrespected me as a player and as a consumer. Well before this mining pick came along infact.

Remember when they tried to reskin an existing set and sell it for gems? That was no accident. That was trying to make a quick buck at the expense of those who got cultural armor the hard way.

And honestly, the moment they came up with the gear threadmill, theyve disrespected me as a player and as a consumer. I’ve spend time and money acquiring my skins. To have my characters, all of them, look like i wanted them to look.
Then comes along undisputably better gear and either i lose my skins or i fall behind in stats…. unless i pay again, for the skins i already own and payed for.

For me that was the line being crossed and i dont buy gems anymore, and i refuse to upgrade my gear to ascended or whatever they come up with after ascended, and they will come up with something.

As someone who spends money in the cashshop, i dont feel as if i am being respected for it with these kind of actions. Release better versions of something i already payed quite a lot of money for.
Or, as mentioned, trying to get me to pay more then once for the skins i already payed money for.

No, that was a lazy artist (lazy in terms of not reinventing the wheel, most programmers are also “lazy”) who decided he liked that look and decided to use it as a starting point to save time. And as an artist might not have understood that the armor he choose was the most expensive armor set you can buy from a vendor in the game. And you know what, there really isn’t another pretty light armor design to rip off borrow from. So you have to design it from scratch and that’s a lot of work.

Minos.5168:

I’m sure we’ll then get new Exotics, Ascendeds, and Legendaries. (What’d an expansion be without new gear to strive towards?)

Imagine if they made the current Legendaries not the best in slot anymore. They’d get crucified.

GW2 has always been P2W since it launched. Anyone who says different is lying to you or themselves. The ability to buy BiS gear with real money is P2W. Doesn’t matter if its armor, weapons, accessories, tools, or whatever else you can think of, BiS is Bis. If you can buy BiS with real money that is PAY TO WIN. We have been able to buy best in slot armor and weapons since launch with real money. Only recently with ascended armor and weapons does the P2W player have to actually play to get BiS (dragonite/bloodstone/Emp) but they can still buy legendary weapons. So stop saying this game isn’t P2W. Someone with large amounts of disposable income has a huge advantage over anyone else in this game.

Now that that has been said, up until recently it really wasn’t a problem because if you worked hard you could still get everything with a reasonable amount of grind. Key word there is reasonable. GW2 has recently made some big changes that push more in direction of use the cash store over just play the game because they have made the grind for some things unreasonable and started selling items with bonuses that can not be had anywhere else but from the store.

This is all bad form and many people like myself have stopped playing because of it. I still check the forums everyday hoping that I will see something to give me hope for this game but what do I see instead a clockwork pick with an ability that can not be had anywhere else in the game. And then I think what will the next BiS item be in the cash store and what will be the one after that and after that.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

GW2 has always been P2W since it launched. Anyone who says different is lying to you or themselves. The ability to buy BiS gear with real money is P2W. Doesn’t matter if its armor, weapons, accessories, tools, or whatever else you can think of, BiS is Bis. If you can buy BiS with real money that is PAY TO WIN. We have been able to buy best in slot armor and weapons since launch with real money. Only recently with ascended armor and weapons does the P2W player have to actually play to get BiS (dragonite/bloodstone/Emp) but they can still buy legendary weapons. So stop saying this game isn’t P2W. Someone with large amounts of disposable income has a huge advantage over anyone else in this game.

Now that that has been said, up until recently it really wasn’t a problem because if you worked hard you could still get everything with a reasonable amount of grind. Key word there is reasonable. GW2 has recently made some big changes that push more in direction of use the cash store over just play the game because they have made the grind for some things unreasonable and started selling items with bonuses that can not be had anywhere else but from the store.

This is all bad form and many people like myself have stopped playing because of it. I still check the forums everyday hoping that I will see something to give me hope for this game but what do I see instead a clockwork pick with an ability that can not be had anywhere else in the game. And then I think what will the next BiS item be in the cash store and what will be the one after that and after that.

Unfortunately, you don’t understand what a Pay 2 Win game is, thus your fixation on calling GW2 such. When I have time, I’ll create a thread that will help to educate everyone on what exactly constitutes as a “P2W” game.

tl;dr – GW2 is not a P2W game

no thanks, they already have the precedent set. They will eventually start selling those items that will get you to admit that this is P2W. You can only deny truth for so long.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

no thanks, they already have the precedent set. They will eventually start selling those items that will get you to admit that this is P2W. You can only deny truth for so long.

Unfortunately you don’t understand what Pay 2 Win means. Give me time, and I’ll help explain it to you. Realize that any ideas of what “P2W” means to you, is inherently wrong. I’ll do my best to teach you, but you need to give me time so I can make a thread.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

but they can still buy legendary weapons.

Am I missing something, or must every legendary weapon be first crafted by players who had invested the incredible amount of time and effort in the game? You have no way to directly buy legendary weapons from the gem shop. This is definitely not how P2W works.

Behellagh.1468:

So you have to design it from scratch and that’s a lot of work.

Well you are charging people 10euro’s for it. To have one set, for one character, once.

Have we really lowered our expectations this much? That we are content and couldnt ask for more then reskinned itemsets?

Oops, guess they did find another to model it off of.

Where was your complaint when they first introduced them months ago? Hmm? If I understand correctly medium and heavy were based on existing armors as well. And nobody is holding a gun to you head, if you think it’s overpriced, don’t buy it. I didn’t.

Behellagh.1468:

Oops, guess they did find another to model it off of.

Where was your complaint when they first introduced them months ago? Hmm? If I understand correctly medium and heavy were based on existing armors as well. And nobody is holding a gun to you head, if you think it’s overpriced, don’t buy it. I didn’t.

I did make a complaint. And i didnt buy them, but then i cant say i think its a cheap idea?

I’m all for voting with your wallet, but that doesnt mean you cant give any other feedback at all…

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

no thanks, they already have the precedent set. They will eventually start selling those items that will get you to admit that this is P2W. You can only deny truth for so long.

Unfortunately you don’t understand what Pay 2 Win means. Give me time, and I’ll help explain it to you. Realize that any ideas of what “P2W” means to you, is inherently wrong. I’ll do my best to teach you, but you need to give me time so I can make a thread.

You are wrong. It was not Pay to Win until now, but with this item it is.

The game was sold on the promise that the Gem Store would not sell anything that gave an advantage unavailable in the game, only convenience or aesthetics. That promise was held until the introduction of this pick.

Does it offer an advantage unavailable in the game? Yes. Is it only obtainable via spending gems, which have a real value? Yes. It doesn’t matter how great that advantage is, or how those gems were purchased. The fact is that you can now spend real money (or an equivalent thereof) to get ingame rewards that those unwilling to make this purchase cannot get. That is Pay to Win.

Naranek.3467:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

no thanks, they already have the precedent set. They will eventually start selling those items that will get you to admit that this is P2W. You can only deny truth for so long.

Unfortunately you don’t understand what Pay 2 Win means. Give me time, and I’ll help explain it to you. Realize that any ideas of what “P2W” means to you, is inherently wrong. I’ll do my best to teach you, but you need to give me time so I can make a thread.

You are wrong. It was not Pay to Win until now, but with this item it is.

The game was sold on the promise that the Gem Store would not sell anything that gave an advantage unavailable in the game, only convenience or aesthetics. That promise was held until the introduction of this pick.

Does it offer an advantage unavailable in the game? Yes. Is it only obtainable via spending gems, which have a real value? Yes. It doesn’t matter how great that advantage is, or how those gems were purchased. The fact is that you can now spend real money (or an equivalent thereof) to get ingame rewards that those unwilling to make this purchase cannot get. That is Pay to Win.

Unfortunately you’re wrong here. The current Watchwork pick has been shown to give no advantage in the game. Research by players indicate that the +20% bonus chance to get sprockets replaced the ability to get bonus ore from nodes you mine.

Example: I mine an Orichalcum node. With any other pick (merchant or Molten), I get a chance at bonus Orichalcum ores. With the Watchwork pick, the bonus Ori are replaced by sprockets.

So in essence, the Watchwork pick is worse off, since the Orichalcum ore is far more valuable than sprockets.

tl;dr – Nothing in GW2 at the moment is P2W.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Naranek.3467:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

no thanks, they already have the precedent set. They will eventually start selling those items that will get you to admit that this is P2W. You can only deny truth for so long.

Unfortunately you don’t understand what Pay 2 Win means. Give me time, and I’ll help explain it to you. Realize that any ideas of what “P2W” means to you, is inherently wrong. I’ll do my best to teach you, but you need to give me time so I can make a thread.

You are wrong. It was not Pay to Win until now, but with this item it is.

The game was sold on the promise that the Gem Store would not sell anything that gave an advantage unavailable in the game, only convenience or aesthetics. That promise was held until the introduction of this pick.

Does it offer an advantage unavailable in the game? Yes. Is it only obtainable via spending gems, which have a real value? Yes. It doesn’t matter how great that advantage is, or how those gems were purchased. The fact is that you can now spend real money (or an equivalent thereof) to get ingame rewards that those unwilling to make this purchase cannot get. That is Pay to Win.

Unfortunately you’re wrong here. The current Watchwork pick has been shown to give no advantage in the game. Research by players indicate that the +20% bonus chance to get sprockets replaced the ability to get bonus ore from nodes you mine.

Example: I mine an Orichalcum node. With any other pick (merchant or Molten), I get a chance at bonus Orichalcum ores. With the Watchwork pick, the bonus Ori are replaced by sprockets.

So in essence, the Watchwork pick is worse off, since the Orichalcum ore is far more valuable than sprockets.

tl;dr – Nothing in GW2 at the moment is P2W.

That does not change my assessment, nor does it improve the situation. If anything, this – if true, still waiting for any kind of official statement – means that right now ANet is screwing over their paying customers by letting them pay for something that is worse than what they would normally get. I say right now, because we don’t know what is going to happen to the price of sprockets.

So I will say it again. Does it offer an advantage unavailable in the game? Yes. Is it only obtainable via spending gems, which have a real value? Yes. It doesn’t matter how great that advantage is, or how those gems were purchased. The fact is that you can now spend real money (or an equivalent thereof) to get ingame rewards that those unwilling to make this purchase cannot get. That is Pay to Win. If you have an alternate definition, I would like to hear it.

Naranek.3467:

So I will say it again. Does it offer an advantage unavailable in the game? Yes. Is it only obtainable via spending gems, which have a real value? Yes. It doesn’t matter how great that advantage is, or how those gems were purchased. The fact is that you can now spend real money (or an equivalent thereof) to get ingame rewards that those unwilling to make this purchase cannot get. That is Pay to Win. If you have an alternate definition, I would like to hear it.

Unfortunately you’re wrong mate. You’re probably not familiar with what the term “Pay 2 Win” means. I told other players that I’ll make some time to help you understand what it means, and how everyone is using that term incorrectly.

Back to the item in question. If the same mechanic is available for both merchant bought and Gem Store bought item, there is no advantage. Right now, the current theory is that the 20% chance for sprockets replaced the X% chance for bonus ore. If I have an Orichalcum pick or Molten pick, and it gives me that X% chance at bonus ore of the same node type, that’s basically the same as the described 20% bonus chance to get sprockets.

The real problem here is that Anet put that bonus sprocket mechanic into writing. I believe that if they wanted to do this right, they should have worded it “20% chance of bonus ore from pick is replaced by sprockets”. Something along those lines would have been much better for all players. That way, it’s more transparent as to how the mechanics worked, thus letting us decide if that new mechanic was worth spending our Gems on.

Some one said, I don’t know who, that you get the sprockets at the cost of extra ore chance when mining. If that’s the case I’m fine with it. I have my sprocket node in my home instance. I’d rather the extra ore. I mean I have nearly 2 stacks of sprockets already.

I’m actually not sure that claim is correct, Smooth Penguin. With the exception of Rich Iron Veins, which do still give the 1 × 2 iron ore with strikes with the Watchwork Pick, I actually cannot remember ore nodes ever giving out more than 1 ore per strike. Wood nodes do in a 2 × 1 package, (and plant nodes give 1 × 2 of their vegetable), but ore nodes? Again, I can’t remember it ever happening.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m actually not sure that claim is correct, Smooth Penguin. With the exception of Rich Iron Veins, which do still give the 1 × 2 iron ore with strikes with the Watchwork Pick, I actually cannot remember ore nodes ever giving out more than 1 ore per strike. Wood nodes do in a 2 × 1 package, (and plant nodes give 1 × 2 of their vegetable), but ore nodes? Again, I can’t remember it ever happening.

It happens. It appears to be a very low chance, but it happens.

From the Urban dictionary (best answer):
’
Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.
’
The key is that it requires the game to become ‘largely unbalanced’.
First of fall it is important to see what a balanced game is. To me it is a game where you can easily win without spending money. So what is winning? Winning is enjoying the game in my opinion.

So lets look at the advantage this pick is offering.
It gives you the abillity to gain certain craftable items faster. these items are all considered sub par and can be obtained the regular way reasonable quick as well.

So the gaming advantage is very limited. The only real advantage is financial. This advantage is still very small, specially when you consider the investment needed to buy the pick with gold.

Anyone who say that this advantage is limiting their own possibility in enjoying the game has imo issues. If you still have enough possibillity to enjoy the game without this pick it is not p2w.