Guild Wars 2

@Jake: you were always able to salvage jewelry as well. So why not snowflake jewelry? And yes, you always received a rare back that was worth more than the 4 products you put in. There was no loss, especially before the massive exploitational forging began, only profit. Minimum profit of 1g, max profit 180+g per forge.

@Butter I believe the reason why the snowflakes were so bad in bans was due to the ability of regaining the materials needed to make the actual jewelry in the first place. So you would salvage one, get a ratio of the snowflakes back, and some ectos. So essentially you could do this over and over with a massively reduced rate of needed materials due to the materials salvaged out. So instead of paying like, 20s for one rare to salvage, you paid on average like, 3s. It was clearly not normal in terms of yielded materials.

When salvaging the jewelry you didn’t always get ecto back. Just the snowflake. One guy calculated the average crafting profit per snowflake jewelry was 2.4 silver. Of course, the big problem is not how much profit the exploiter makes, but what the effect is to the market. A guy in this thread proudly stated he is “swimming” in jack-a-lops. I’ll bet you 10 to 1 he’s not the only one. So while you could easily see the effect of the snowflake exploit, you just don’t see this one yet.

All we can do is watch GW2spidy and watch as the market slowly plumetts from the cheap green minis and pre patch before it went Masterwork. I do have sympathy for the people who collected such minis only to see their profits dwindle on a daily basis..saddest part is we got almost an entire month of this. Oh the damage that can be done in such a long span.

Anet has no idea how to run an economy. This is just another nail in the coffin.

I have a hunch why this solution was opted for. Deflation. This thing led people to start collecting minis and pumping money en masse into a useless item. Prices of many items have dropped across the board as a result. The new skins did this too, of course.

The price Anet paid is that no one will buy the gemstore mini pack in its current form anymore, and people who bought them in the past feel they’ve been scammed. They’ll find a solution to that, I hope.

@Buttercap, actually no one would have bought them previously either… the ones that did it did it for many reasons and those people will STILL continue to do so.

1) support the game and rather take chance, than straight money
2) clueless

As I stated before, while rare mini’s had a 1 in 3 chance from mini-packs, that means with 900 gems you would average out with 10g, perhaps 17g if lucky, 900 gems would get you 22g… no one would have bought the mini pack cause the chance of you getting rares in all 3 packs would be SO SLIM. They still were bought, this change won’t change that.

So many of these items are entering the game, the are 1000’s of listing fees taking place per hour, creating a massive gold dump.

Buttercup.5871:

@Jake: you were always able to salvage jewelry as well. So why not snowflake jewelry? And yes, you always received a rare back that was worth more than the 4 products you put in. There was no loss, especially before the massive exploitational forging began, only profit. Minimum profit of 1g, max profit 180+g per forge.

The thing with the jewelery at Xmas was an actual bug. People weren’t salvaging fully made jewelery, they were salvaging a part of it, which isn’t possible for ANY other piece of jewelery.

To make rare jewelery, you need to first make 3 parts, each which takes an ecto and a jewel or whatever, then you use the 3 to make the final bit of jewelery, so you use 3 ectos to make 1 thing to salvage. But with the snowflake things, you were able to salvage the parts. So instead of risking 3 ectos and getting 1 back and losing money, you were able to salvage the part which only took 1 ecto, giving a greater chance for a positive return.

This however, was doing something that has always been possible. If you only needed 2 mini’s instead of 4 like normal, then sure. But the fact that you needed 4 like it always has been, then there is no reason to blame people for doing it.

@buttercup

I notice you have said this in ways multiple times. Just because you make profit DOES NOT MEAN it’s wrong, illegal, against the rules, or bannable. Sure when you see an oppertunity you must ask yourself, is there a bug here?

Markets change drastically during some updates, so when making a profit, it’s perfectly acceptable granted there is nothing wrong to it. The way you make it sound is, any profit = ban, which is false. It’s when there is something OBVIOUSLY glitched/bugged. For example, throwing 4 rares in and having a 100% chance to get an exotic, THEY ARE BEING BANNED FOR MANIPULATING A GLITCH, not for making a profit, it’s the profit that motivated the people to USE THE GLITCH.

Examples:
People who were FIRST to salvage ecto’s into Dust and instant sell them off for double to 10x the profit.
People who invested into Yellow Holo Dragons @ 10 silver each, when they went back up to 40 silver within one day after being changed to green.

MAJOR DIFFERANCE there compared to having a 100% chance to yield a higher item when obviously it’s suppose to be a 20% chance.

Get the differance between why people are banned, it’s not over making money, it’s over abusing a glitch. 90% of the time, when massive profit is being made, it’s from a market shift, usually brought with a patch (perhaps a new recipe using a currently un-common material, influx of mini’s).

@Osi. Again, I have never said that making a profit is bad. Had you read between the lines, you would have seen I probably made more profit of this than you, without using the exploit. And that I didn’t feel “good” about this in the least. But let me refresh your memory on what I have said on the “profit” part, and how irrelevant it was:

Buttercup.5871:

You keep focusing on the “bad luck” part. What if you had had “good luck”? Would that have made a difference? The outcome of your forging is completely irrelevant. What is important is the effect it had on the market, and on the people you duped with it.

Buttercup.5871:

Of course, the big problem is not how much profit the exploiter makes, but what the effect is to the market.

Then, for the third or fourth time (I lost count), you bring up the “banning” thing. I have never said what the measures should be as a result of this, if any. I purposefully never even used the word, because I am well aware it is not up to me to decide on such matters, or even suggest what they should be. I’ll tell you, though, why you bring it up each and every time. A guilty conscience will do that for you.

I have nothing further to add to what I believe happened here.

The beautiful thing about this is, no one gets punished yet again!

/sarcasm

@Buttercup, you obviously read too far into things, and I don’t have anything to feel guilty about because I decided to use some mini’s in the forge EIGHT HOURS AFTER the patch was released, as far as I knew, it was intended except the drop rate was so common it was creating a crash. As I said many times before, if the mini’s were rare, no one like yourself, would be crying, and considering I’ve crafted 6 Jack-A-Lops with regular rares since the disabled of the recipe/them changed to green, I highly doubt it, not sure why you would even brag in the first place.

As I predicted, exotics are slowly falling, so if your profiting via hoarding/holding, enjoy it while i’m making 40g+ a day using my money to flip items at a faster rate then waiting for stuff to go up lol.

As I was saying previously, and my entire intent to the post, you lack a lot of sense as you’ve expressed multiple times that “making obvious profits is bannable” when really they are being banned for an exploit, not for actually making the profit(the profit is what fuels the abuse of the exploit). Nothing was exploited here at all except for the fact it “could have been an obvious mishap”, because you originally assumed they shouldn’t have been used in the mystic forge as none of the other “special mini’s” can, no one else would have known otherwise considering it’s one of the few new mini’s that isn’t account bound or of exotic quality(cant be forged), and obviously Arena-nets intent was to allow them to be crafted because they could have just made them 1/100th rarer and the economy wouldn’t be PACKED with them. As far as your deflation post, if that was true, they would have made them blue quality or as I said before, changed the drop rate, as far as I see, this was intended.

Also the reason no one was banned over this was because it would be crazy to be banned for something that wasn’t even an exploit but a mistake, there was nothing to create profit here except the fact they were dropping too often and created a crash(making profit possible) due to the common drop rate, not an exploit. You would basically be banning people for profiting soley over a mistake and if it was that bad, servers should have been shut down immediately because I’m sure this was discovered way before they disabled the recipe they simply weren’t sweating buckets over it. This is silly and why nothing was done. As I said before, you might as well ban people who got the chance to salvage dust for the first 1-2 hours making 100-1000% profit, or the people who hoarding yellow mini’s when they increased by 400% after they were changed to green because that’s how you sound when you explain this. There really wasn’t any evidence it was an exploit or unintended aside from they dropped to common and the rarity was reduced. I would have been skeptical if I was one of the first people logging on and figuring this out, I wouldn’t even try it, but the fact I logged in 8 hours AFTER and figured this was going on, I didn’t have any sense of “this is wrong” one bit, and to be banned for that, would be absurd. It wasn’t like there was an obvious exploit here or even WAS an exploit. If I knew it was an exploit or even thought it was, I would have held onto every jack-a-lop I crafted. I only did it for the risk of trying to make 50g off a good exotic forge, which utterly failed for me at the time resulting in more than 5 tries per exotic and losing money.

Comprehend better, and make more sense in your post. I can say I’m glad we have wise and clear minded people working at Arena net, some of you guys would just destroy the game with false bans of jealously and assumptions. Leading a major innocent player base from leaving this game for being unreliable.

Osi.3504:

@Buttercup, […] As I was saying previously, and my entire intent to the post, you lack a lot of sense as you’ve expressed multiple times that “making obvious profits is bannable” […]

Osi, your whole post is – again – premised on the above idea. You even put it in quotation marks this time, as if these were my words. Osi, I never said this. At all. It’s not even close to what I stated. Next time, when you want to paraphrase me, use the quotation system.

Maybe I should spell it out for you. Maybe I should. OK.

Scenario 1: gameplay affecting personal taste
Profit = Nice. I like profit. Mmmmmmm. Profit!
Loss = Not nice. I don’t like loss. Bleeeeeeh. Loss!

Scenario 2: gameplay affecting economy
Intended game play = good! Intends to make economy happy and stable.
Obviously unintended game play = bad! Can make economy unhappy and unstable.

My concern has always been with scenario 2 only.
So, for the last time, I don’t care whether you personally made a profit, or a loss, when you started pumping 720g worth of newly released event minis in the forge.

Buttercup,
My concern has always been with scenario 2 only.
So, for the last time, I don’t care whether you personally made a profit, or a loss, when you started pumping 720g worth of newly released event minis in the forge.

More sentences that make no sense, pumping 720g of new mini’s into the forge means nothing, especially when it’s not an exploit, all it means if Arena Net made the content too common and therefore those were the results, a lot of other yellows and exotics being crafted. The same thing is STILL happening but at 4x slower rate, it means NOTHING. Just seems you like to find something to justify nothing. If anything I helped get rid of 15% of total amount of gold out of the game having fun playing the odds.

Osi.3504:

[…] all it means if Arena Net made the content too common and therefore those were the results [..].

Two things about this phrase.

First, you saw that Anet made the minis “too common”. In other words: it could not have been intended, certainly not in combination with its rarity level (rare/yellow), and certainly not in combination with the mystic forge! In fact, you knew this situation wasn’t normal, and that minis were normally gem-generated. As you stated in another thread:

Osi.3504:

Considering mini’s are regulated by gem store price […]

Second, when Anet makes a mistake which allows for unintended game play, this doesn’t give you a carte blanche to just use it at will, and say “well Anet, you designed it, this is the result!” What matters is whether you used it, to what extent you used it, and what the result was on the market. In your case, you contributed to a major market crash in a major way. You saw that your forging, and that of others, was crashing a market. You stated in this thread that you saw it; the prices kept dropping and dropping and dropping. Yet you kept forging and forging and forging ahead. Was it intended? No. The rarity level was changed very soon as a result. Now, I’ll happily admit I’m still confused with Anet’s decision to change it to masterwork quality, and allowing it to be forged as well. However, I don’t believe Anet’s decision to do so (make it masterwork + forgeable) can be interpreted as Anet having always intended to crash the mini market with the introduction of this event mini; I tend to believe they made it of masterwork quality because the damage had been done already. Most likely, Anet does not have a proper tracking system for (ab)use of the forge. This would explain why no measures were taken against the godskull abusers, either.

Lastly, coming back to your comparison with the glob to dust market. That game mechanic was explicitly in the patch notes, i.e. it was intended. The fora were filled with people requesting Anet to please crash the dust market. For months! When this mechanic was implemented, some people made a loss, some made a profit, both of which is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it was intended, it was announced in the patch notes, and that it made the dust and glob market a little bit healther for every user in this economy.

Ps. Please use the “reply” button for quoting! It now looks like I pumped 720g into these minis, whereas it was a quote from me, addressed to you.

TLDR, anyways was trying to quote it, was at work and about to head out the door so didn’t care enough. Sorry chump.

Unintended or not, it wasn’t an exploit, get the facts straight.

Also they would never include such things in the patch notes about miniatures because it’s not a new change like dust so that’s an irrelevant comment, but all you kiddies screaming about others making profit and wanting bans issued is what is funny about this whole thing. I could have questioned it if it was at launch, but not 1/3rd a day later.

Also your history is saved on your character, they have tracking data as they even look into peoples accounts to tell them what they did with their buy/sell history. Recently one who thought they were getting lodestones for “no reason”, but they put an offer in at this day/time according to an ANET GM.

Buttercup.5871:

Osi.3504:

[…] all it means if Arena Net made the content too common and therefore those were the results [..].

Two things about this phrase.

First, you saw that Anet made the minis “too common”. In other words: it could not have been intended, certainly not in combination with its rarity level (rare/yellow), and certainly not in combination with the mystic forge! In fact, you knew this situation wasn’t normal, and that minis were normally gem-generated. As you stated in another thread:

Osi.3504:

Considering mini’s are regulated by gem store price […]

Second, when Anet makes a mistake which allows for unintended game play, this doesn’t give you a carte blanche to just use it at will, and say “well Anet, you designed it, this is the result!” What matters is whether you used it, to what extent you used it, and what the result was on the market. In your case, you contributed to a major market crash in a major way. You saw that your forging, and that of others, was crashing a market. You stated in this thread that you saw it; the prices kept dropping and dropping and dropping. Yet you kept forging and forging and forging ahead. Was it intended? No. The rarity level was changed very soon as a result. Now, I’ll happily admit I’m still confused with Anet’s decision to change it to masterwork quality, and allowing it to be forged as well. However, I don’t believe Anet’s decision to do so (make it masterwork + forgeable) can be interpreted as Anet having always intended to crash the mini market with the introduction of this event mini; I tend to believe they made it of masterwork quality because the damage had been done already. Most likely, Anet does not have a proper tracking system for (ab)use of the forge. This would explain why no measures were taken against the godskull abusers, either.

Lastly, coming back to your comparison with the glob to dust market. That game mechanic was explicitly in the patch notes, i.e. it was intended. The fora were filled with people requesting Anet to please crash the dust market. For months! When this mechanic was implemented, some people made a loss, some made a profit, both of which is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it was intended, it was announced in the patch notes, and that it made the dust and glob market a little bit healther for every user in this economy.

Ps. Please use the “reply” button for quoting! It now looks like I pumped 720g into these minis, whereas it was a quote from me, addressed to you.

He clearly knew what he was doing from the start , and probably have done it in the past..theres no reason to continue explaining anything to him because every one of his hostilic wall of texts screams “IM GUILTY , but FREE” .

I would like to point out that despite what several ppl in this thread keep insisting, ArenaNet have merely changed the quality of the mini from rare to masterwork instead of disabling forging, they obviously does not consider forging those minis to be an exploit.

And yes, ArenaNet does have a tracking system for the forge. Someone I know forge the precursor for bolt by mistake, contacted ArenaNet support and received it back. So please stop making assumptions on ArenaNet’s behalf.

Zumy.6318:

But you guy want me and my account with 2600 hours of playtime, 7k achievementpoints and 5 legendaries and lots of dedication put in banned?

10 months.
2600 hours playtime.

That’s over 11 hours a day, every single day including weekends, work days, exam periods, holiday with significant other etc etc.

I don’t want you to be banned, most certainly not. But it’d probably be in your own interest to take a little break once in a while. Just saying.

marnick.4305:

Zumy.6318:

But you guy want me and my account with 2600 hours of playtime, 7k achievementpoints and 5 legendaries and lots of dedication put in banned?

10 months.
2600 hours playtime.

That’s over 11 hours a day, every single day including weekends, work days, exam periods, holiday with significant other etc etc.

I don’t want you to be banned, most certainly not. But it’d probably be in your own interest to take a little break once in a while. Just saying.

Not entirely sure how you calculated 11 hours a day based on this, but I’ll break it down on a grade 3 level for you.

10 months x ~30 days= 300 days over 10 months
2600 hours/ 300 days= 8.6667 hours per day

Yet I agree, a break from gw2 is needed here.

Its really great to see my mini collection I worked hard for devalue each day. (I am only missing two of the golems for guild tokens)

Evolut.2398:

marnick.4305:

Zumy.6318:

But you guy want me and my account with 2600 hours of playtime, 7k achievementpoints and 5 legendaries and lots of dedication put in banned?

10 months.
2600 hours playtime.

That’s over 11 hours a day, every single day including weekends, work days, exam periods, holiday with significant other etc etc.

I don’t want you to be banned, most certainly not. But it’d probably be in your own interest to take a little break once in a while. Just saying.

Not entirely sure how you calculated 11 hours a day based on this, but I’ll break it down on a grade 3 level for you.

10 months x ~30 days= 300 days over 10 months
2600 hours/ 300 days= 8.6667 hours per day

Yet I agree, a break from gw2 is needed here.

Made a mistake somewhere. But still… 8.6 or 11.5 doesn’t really change the conclusion.

Let’s break it down on an engineer level for you. A 20% calculation error is expected. Make sure to add safety factor :p

Malediktus.9250:

Its really great to see my mini collection I worked hard for devalue each day. (I am only missing two of the golems for guild tokens)

Nice isn’t it. Now others have a chance too.

marnick.4305:

Malediktus.9250:

Its really great to see my mini collection I worked hard for devalue each day. (I am only missing two of the golems for guild tokens)

Nice isn’t it. Now others have a chance too.

If this had been a normal market following normal rules, it could have been nice. Yes. However, this is a very peculiar market, which thus far was entirely gem-generated. In other words, hordes of people spent money on this. You can think this is silly of them, but the fact is, they did. They bought gems with money, in order to buy minis with gems. In a way, they bought exclusivity, the same way some people buy exclusivity with skins from rich coffers or BL chests. The mini-buyers made their purchases in the reasonable assumption that this market would remain gem-generated and stable. In a way, they trusted Anet to safeguard their monetary investment. For them, that trust is pretty much out the window right now. And that is a much bigger problem than the value of any virtual item on the TP.

@Buttercup: while it’s true that minis themselves are “gem generated”, the TP market for them is too divorced from the dollars to gems transactions to really back up your statement.

A mini collector could have obtained all the non-event minis without buying a single gem. Even discounting the tradeable minis, a mini collector could have used gold to purchase the required gems.

Astraea.6075:

@Buttercup: while it’s true that minis themselves are “gem generated”, the TP market for them is too divorced from the dollars to gems transactions to really back up your statement.

A mini collector could have obtained all the non-event minis without buying a single gem. Even discounting the tradeable minis, a mini collector could have used gold to purchase the required gems.

Yes, they could, but the price was somehow reflective of the gem cost. The jack-a-lop or the oakheart were like the dusk and dawn of minis. They were very special. You wouldn’t be able to “swim” in them, as one mass mini-risen-knight-forger proudly stated in this thread.

Yay for market manipulation via patches

marnick.4305:

Malediktus.9250:

Its really great to see my mini collection I worked hard for devalue each day. (I am only missing two of the golems for guild tokens)

Nice isn’t it. Now others have a chance too.

Everyone had the chance. You just have to stop being lazy and go earn a few 100g. This is just one more reason to never spend money on this game again.

I demand a compensation for this crap. I helped someone forging a legendary weapon to afford most of these minis (used my skillpoints, gifts, karma etc).

Wait, so the new DB minis can be rng in toliet?
Oh that’s why anet changed the quality of risen knight?

Yyyyyeeeeeeppppp

I love big patches because, if you can anticipate what the market will do and act fast enough, you basically get a free legendary worth of profits in the span of a day!

These minis were probably the 2nd most profitable thing for me ever, the first being when I discovered the Triforge ammy recipe and bought up hundreds of gold worth of mats before releasing it…I don’t think I’ll ever see margins like that again unless new recipes are released.

If only we could short — then my TP life would be complete.