Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen a bunch of these posts, trying to ‘fix the economy’, and I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring, for what it’s worth. Honestly, I’d just like to hear from people why I’m wrong. This IS the Internet, right?

I’m a new player. Been testing crafts and fiddling a bit with the TP. Mostly selling my extra resources. I managed to find myself at level fifty-something with about 4 gold. I believe I have achieved some level of success at least.

I’m mostly a casual player, so I may be blind to certain things, but here’s what I’ve found: crafting professions exist solely to produce trash items in bulk until they are maxed out, at which point they provide high level characters with the equipment they need to make their builds, at least until they can farm specific items that fit them better.

The reason crafting professions serve no useful purpose is that you can find equipment that is just as good in random drops as you go through the game. And even if you don’t find a decent weapon drop in twenty levels, you can probably still go through the PvE content with little problem — I have.

Contrast with EvE, where all equipment is player made and you only find scraps in drops.

With no need to go to the TP to update your equipment, the only purpose of crafting materials is to gain crafting experience through discovery. This explains the counterintuitive situation where craft materials lose value the more they are refined. A plank in the TP costs less than an equivalent number of logs, because the opportunity to refine them is lost. Dowels lose value compared to the equivalent plank for the same reason. At the end of the chain is the finished product, which goes for vendor value. We only have an overabundance of supply because demand is stuck at zero. Random drops hold the entirety of the market.

My solution would be to leave the TP alone and get rid of random equipment drops. Make mobs only drop broken equipment (salvageable) and raw materials. Equipment drops are nonsensical from an in-character perspective (why was this bear holding a longbow?) and they destroy the other big mechanic that is all the crafts.

I’d love to hear from anyone thinking otherwise though, and to know what random equipment drops actually add to the game.

Huh… I have thought this too, in GW there was no armor drop just stuff to salvage or sell. I kinda came to a similar conclusion. I mean even now I mostly salvage everything I have and make armor for my low level toons as they progress. The stuff I craft is a lot better that what I find.

hmm… while interesting, this could lead to one problem, being it would be almost impossible to be self-sufficient unless you make multiple toons, or constantly pay to swap professions. for a character to fully equip himself with armor+all types of weapon he can use, you would need 3-4 crafts for 1 character alone (1 for armor and 2-3 for weapons, depending on profession). Add jewellery on top and we looking at 4-5 crafts to sustain one character alone. And then we not even touched food as well, or the fact that many crafts require the same base materials.

This does NOT mean I don’t support your suggestion, but would likely need some kind of adjustments to make it work properly.

I think it is already too late.

GummiBear.2756:

hmm… while interesting, this could lead to one problem, being it would be almost impossible to be self-sufficient unless you make multiple toons, or constantly pay to swap professions. for a character to fully equip himself with armor+all types of weapon he can use, you would need 3-4 crafts for 1 character alone (1 for armor and 2-3 for weapons, depending on profession). Add jewellery on top and we looking at 4-5 crafts to sustain one character alone. And then we not even touched food as well, or the fact that many crafts require the same base materials.

This does NOT mean I don’t support your suggestion, but would likely need some kind of adjustments to make it work properly.

Being self sufficient is kind of the problem. With everyone being self-sufficient because random drops give them everything they need, no one needs to buy anything. Without people buying stuff, an economy doesn’t work. People are currently only buying what they need to level the crafting professions, but these produce no useful output.

Anyway, you can have up to 5 characters. Make 3 alts that each train two professions. Need armor? Log to the armorsmith, make the armor, bank it, log to the char that needs it. A single character can’t do everything, but you still have access to every profession from your account.

I personally enjoy the possibility of getting a nice new weapon or piece of armor from mobs that I kill, but I would definitely agree that reducing the equipment drop rate might help the trade economy. Stop having bears drop longbows, for example, but keep them as potential drops from humanoid mobs which have just failed to kill you with that very weapon.

@ GummiBeat again I must fall back on GW1 example, first time I played I thought how on earth am I supposed to get armor if no one drops them (I was coming from D2). Bu there were armor sellers (with no magical properties for low level ones) at prices that were affordable to what was expected of a toon of the level they were in.

IN GW2 we have armor sellers too but I don’t think anyone even notices them because really why would you? the firefly that you just killed dropped a chainmail (prob casue it liked the bling?).

I was surprised when I got armor drops in Beta, maybe not complety erase the drops but add a chance of the item beign broken?

Ruin the game for 90% of the players so the 5 or 10% of maket enthusiasts can be happy.

GOOD IDEA!!!

while yes armor and weapon sellers did exist in gw1 to give you the armor or weapons you needed, and while technically there is is armor weapon sellers again in gw2 (i suppose you mean completed hearts). The way armor and specially weapons worked being a lot more class specific, than in gw2, it could work that way, but going through a whole zone in gw2 you wont be sure you can get one of each of your weapons, meaning that way you would be like lvl 20-30 before you even got the opportunity to unlock all your weapon skills

Ghoest.3945

Ruin the game for 90% of the players so the 5 or 10% of maket enthusiasts can be happy.
GOOD IDEA!!!

How does it ruin the game for 90% of the players? The change would simply mean that instead of comparing every drop to your current equipment, and swapping when you find something you like, you would press “O” and check the market for equipment that’s actually of use to you. It would actually help people keep their equipment up to date.

What exactly do random drops add to the game that you find lessened by removing them?

If all gear was crafted, I’m worried that we’d lose the wide variety of item types in all levels and stat configurations, forcing non-crafters (like me) to go looking for a crafter in chat, fingers crossed that someone had the necessary materials on hand. I rarely get drops with the exact specs I’m looking for, but currently I can count on the marketplace to have it, and usually at very reasonable cost.

Because casual players love getting drops. Its like playing the lotto everytime they see green.
When I was leveling up I enjoyed drops and wasnt interested in the market.

Not everyone sees the game like you – in fact most people dont.

Kian.3769:

Ghoest.3945

Ruin the game for 90% of the players so the 5 or 10% of maket enthusiasts can be happy.
GOOD IDEA!!!

How does it ruin the game for 90% of the players? The change would simply mean that instead of comparing every drop to your current equipment, and swapping when you find something you like, you would press “O” and check the market for equipment that’s actually of use to you. It would actually help people keep their equipment up to date.

What exactly do random drops add to the game that you find lessened by removing them?

Because I don’t want to spend my hard earned gold on gear I will out-level in an hour. I’d rather “hunt” for my gear, or find drops and replace my old equipment with the new drops. That way I don’t have to blow my money on items that will be obsolete every time I level up. Plus, if the drop is worse than what I currently have equipped, I can vendor it or sell it on the TP and earn money without having to farm my life away.

I would actually much rather have them do the reverse – increase the drops of gear and materials in such abundance that you never have to grind out anything to obtain your gear. All players can easily be 100% self-sufficient.

WatchTheShow.7203

Because I don’t want to spend my hard earned gold on gear I will out-level in an hour. I’d rather “hunt” for my gear, or find drops and replace my old equipment with the new drops. That way I don’t have to blow my money on items that will be obsolete every time I level up. Plus, if the drop is worse than what I currently have equipped, I can vendor it or sell it on the TP and earn money without having to farm my life away.

You’re either getting very different drop rates from me, or you are wearing equipment that you out-leveled anyway. I doubt you are managing to find full sets, plus matching runes and sigils, every five levels. So it’s not reasonable to compare the cost of a full set with finding useful drops now and again as you level.

Changing one piece of armor per level, however, should be easily achievable by even casual players. With the benefit that you can ensure you’re always wearing a matching set, or at least find the bonuses you want.

Mobs would still be dropping loot, just not equipment. You shouldn’t need to farm beyond how you regularly play the game, and it wouldn’t require intricate knowledge of the market. Just being able to use the interface to find equipment that is of use to you.

I wouldn’t be concerned with lack of options either. If you check right now, you can probably find every craftable bit of equipment, going for base price + listing cost. Due to how the crafting mechanic works, the best way to level the profession is to make a wide variety of objects, not make several copies of the same one. If you had people actually interested in buying them, there would be a lot more of the popular ones, but there would still be reason to produce the rarer ones.

CdrRogdan.8907:

I would actually much rather have them do the reverse – increase the drops of gear and materials in such abundance that you never have to grind out anything to obtain your gear. All players can easily be 100% self-sufficient.

Why stop there? They could just automatically level your equipment as you level, make sure you’re always wearing a full set of exotics and legendary weapons. They could even make you spawn at level 80 and you wouldn’t even need to farm anything.

It’s not being self-sufficient if everything you want is handed to you. I’m not sure self-sufficiency is even a goal in a multi-player game.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Kian.3769:

Ghoest.3945

Ruin the game for 90% of the players so the 5 or 10% of maket enthusiasts can be happy.
GOOD IDEA!!!

How does it ruin the game for 90% of the players? The change would simply mean that instead of comparing every drop to your current equipment, and swapping when you find something you like, you would press “O” and check the market for equipment that’s actually of use to you. It would actually help people keep their equipment up to date.

What exactly do random drops add to the game that you find lessened by removing them?

Because I don’t want to spend my hard earned gold on gear I will out-level in an hour. I’d rather “hunt” for my gear, or find drops and replace my old equipment with the new drops. That way I don’t have to blow my money on items that will be obsolete every time I level up. Plus, if the drop is worse than what I currently have equipped, I can vendor it or sell it on the TP and earn money without having to farm my life away.

Okey, having read through the thread and thinking about it. While its true that GW1 had no armor drops, I guess having 4x the amount of levels kinda forces the devs to keep the armor drops in there.

However
How bout removing any level 65+ (or 70+) gear from the drops? When you’re high-level, you can grind your teeth for few levels and buy that level 80 armor or decide to spend gold on playermade level 65+ armor. Or karma on cultural armor, whichever you prefer. That way, most people will still get that lotto feeling, enjoy being casual but all the while balancing out the economy a bit in the favor of the crafting professions.
(Yeah, I’m one of those people who started leatherworking but quickly found out that mats are hard to get and its totally not worth it in the end. Ended up going cook / jaweller)

This game is already nonsensical to begin with as we get gems from swinging an axe on a tree bark, but that’s not the main point.

Equipment drops are not the fundamental issue, but the equipment obtained from crafting. The value of crafted equipment is continuing to devalue as players proceed up the craft ladder not because of equipment drops being available but because of the unrewarding item players obtain from crafting.

The base solution for this issue is to leave equipment drops as they are but increase the stats of crafted items up to par with “transition” items. One might ask what I mean by “transition items,” but the explanation is quite simple. In guild wars 2 we have items that are valued by the 10’s but we also have transition equipment items that transition by the 15’s. We can increase the crafting gear stats that are at base level currently to the stats of the looted gear that increase by the 15’’s. This in short, ensures crafting gear to exceed to market constantly but allow players to rely on rare drops if they insist on gearing themselves in that manner. Also, this prevents and hindrance from players who have crafted magic find gear to find high level rare equipment that value their craft to begin with.

@GummiBear actually no I do not mean heart vendors (and thanks for proving my point =P )

Some of the medium post have actual weapon and armor sellers they even tier it (first tier are x level second tier a higher level) Their icons are a sword and an helmet. They work exactly like they do in GW1 (minus the crafting components).

And not getting all the weapons skills right away might not be so bad, some players will get to “stay” with a weapon longer because they have already spent the cooper and will suddenly find a “free” drop of a different weapon much more valuable.