Guild Wars 2

Just something that’s been bothering me of late.

This comes with the idea that people will still be buying the game, just starting, etc.

But back when the game went live, a player could get 100 gems for I think 20 silver IIRC. Now its nearing 9 to 10 gold.

For luxury items such as infinite picks or axes, or cosmetic items such as armors and hairstyle kits, I totally understand, as these should be based on market pricing and rarity because they don’t really represent an unfair gameplay advantage.

But for certain upgrades, the pricing is WAY too high. Specifically, bag slot expansions, bank tab expansions, and to a lesser extent as its been newly introduced, collection size expanders.

The problem is, the gold cost for a new player upgrading their account or characters with storage costs approximately 45x to 50x as much as it did for players fresh out of beta, taking in to account the current gold to gem conversion rate.

Even the 5000 achievement point milestones’ 400 gems isn’t enough for even one bank slot. And it takes a considerable amount of time to amass that many points.

Yes, one doesn’t NEED storage to play, but that’s not the point. The point is, new players face a significant hurdle in basic inventory management compared to players who got their gems super cheap. And an MMO with significant PvE content, that’s a huge comparative disadvantage.

I would suggest that ANet lower the gem cost for storage upgrades, considering the above.

A bag slot expansion costs as much gems now as at the start of the game. The gem store is not balanced around gold/gem conversion.

Aha! But for those of us who buy Gems with real money, the rate doesn’t change.

In free markets, economies usually do a good job in correcting themselves. Interfering — such as through what you’re suggesting — would probably just upset that balance (as in the “big picture”).

If your concern is new players then I don’t think you have to worry, cause new players certainly aren’t. What player before he hit’s lvl 80 on his first character is thinking about expanding his collection space when he hasn’t even filled it up yet? Or increasing his bank space for a single character? Or looking to buy infinite use harvesting tools when he can’t even use the max level ones yet?

With the exceptions of skins and novelty items I don’t think there are too many newbie players who see the need for anything on the cash shop and probably aren’t considering it anyways until they hit the end game and have better gold supply and income.

Yeah, there are 1,000 ways in which players who started the game at Headstart or Release have a huge advantage over players who just downloaded the game last week. For instance, new players will never get to farm all their T6 mats in Cursed Shore the way people could a year or more ago, nor will they be able to hit 1 million karma in their 1st week after hitting level 80, as many people did with the infinite karma loop that no longer exists in Cursed Shore. I’m not sure why you decided to single out Inventory Expansion Slots as the major problem facing new players who are trying to catch up; I mean, there are people running around in this game right now with 4 Legendaries on 1 character, for chrissakes! If they were here at release, they probably crafted all 4 themselves!

Games evolve and new players will have to deal with it.

Uhhh
I would support the REAL rewards within the AP chests, like bank slot upgrade, + character slot, etc. Anything that supports the entire account somehow.

Right now I’m forced to chose between ugly and even more ugly skins.
I do not want them…

Wanze.8410:

A bag slot expansion costs as much gems now as at the start of the game. The gem store is not balanced around gold/gem conversion.

This.

The Gem Store is how ArenaNet makes their money. The normal way to use it is to buy the items with real world money. The ability to convert your in game time (gold) into gems is an added bonus that rewards spending time in the game.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Uhhh
I would support the REAL rewards within the AP chests, like bank slot upgrade, + character slot, etc. Anything that supports the entire account somehow.

Right now I’m forced to chose between ugly and even more ugly skins.
I do not want them…

You get awarded gems and gold from AP chests, use it to buy that stuff.

Wanze, thats a 400+400 Gem at AP10k
Single expander is 800. We’re speaking about consant and worty account upgrades.

I’ll leave a concept here;

• 1K: Account Wallet
• 3K: Account Dyes
• 5K: Title, +1 Bank or Bag slot
• 10K+: Titles, Chose between Account upgrades every +5k
  Between these, the boosts we have, and the gear they offer should have some kind of alternative too… or just adjusted to armor tiers.

As AN sees, they need to inspire us even in gathering more and more AP.
Right now I’M ~10,600 AP and I don’t really see anything that I need from the loot table,
apart from the minor boosts. Laurels and gold rewards are way underrewarding compared to the effort to gather more and more AP in good time.

You’re not supposed to buy gems with gold. The option is just there to appease the ones screaming P2W.

Kaleban.9834:

But for certain upgrades, the pricing is WAY too high. Specifically, bag slot expansions, bank tab expansions, and to a lesser extent as its been newly introduced, collection size expanders.

Try not to look at it that our banks slots and character slots are farmed.

We BOUGHT them. Like we buy an ice cream or a movie ticket. Like we buy the game itself when we pay at the checkout counter.

That’s generally just life in an mmo. If you don’t start at launch youre going to miss out on a lot of opportunities and there will be a disadvantage (however large or small) because of it… its just how the games work.