Guild Wars 2

tolunart.2095:

-John’s Post-

Events pay out currently somewhere in the area of 1s 80c – 2s max at level 80 I want to say (I can’t find the info on the wiki for some reason but I know it’s there)

This means to reach one gold through nothing but events, you have to run somewhere in the ballpark of 50 – 100 events to reach 1 gold. While the enemies can drop loot, loot is never guaranteed to drop during an event. Events can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes each to complete depending on numbers, length of event, if it’s a chain of events, difficulty, etc. Let’s say 3-5 minutes per event with 2s being rewarded each time without DR ever becoming an issue for sake of some kind of ballpark.

So, to make 1 gold, 50 events are required. That is anywhere from 2.5 hours to 4 hours to make 1 gold on events alone.

If you have 2 hours to play in a given day, you will make 1 gold that day for 2 hours of your time +/- any incurred waypoint fees and if RNG graced you with decent drops, or nothing but junk trophy items, which are worth copper at best.

Jumping Puzzles can be completed once per day per character. There are 40 PVE jumping puzzles. 3(?) require a pre-event to access or an event to keep open. At the end of a jumping puzzle is one of three different chests, Splendid, Grand, and Magnificent, with Magnificent being the best.

At level 80, these award several pieces of empyrial (only useful if you craft), as well as 1-3 leveled items in any rarity from blue to exotic, with blue and green being the most common, and some gems, with the same rarity structure sans exotic.

Time to complete is relative to player skill with the jumping mechanics and the camera controls. Though some are designed with length in mind. I’m unsure that a ballpark estimate can be made for time and gold gain if you were to do all of them in a day. The minimum would be all blues/greens that are only vendorable, coming out to an average of 7 silver (?) (I think I’m highballing that). Going under the incredibly kind assumption that a player can complete all 40 in 2 hours, they can make ~2.80 g for the day if they are forced to vendor everything.

Renown Hearts would be the next one, but I don’t know if I’m running out of room or not. Um, gold reward for completion is ~70 copper for the lowest level hearts and ~2 -4 silver for the highest level hearts. Hearts can only be completed once each, and there are 300 Hearts. I’m uncertain how much gold it comes out to, but assuming 2 silver for every heart (which again, pretty sure I’m highballing), you can make 60 gold total of the hearts, unless you make another character. We’ll say 10 hearts for 2 hours, due to things like having to travel the map. That’s 2 gold a day for 30 days (plus an extra 2 silver on the last day)

Ohoni.6057:

I think we should focus again on the task at hand, to identify and prove that rich players influence the game in a bad way before discussing possible solutions or reward schemes in general

Why does that matter? It’s unimportant whether rich players “influence” the game or not. What matters is that they can more easily pick up items that take other players far more time and effort, it breaks the social contract that the game functions under, that by playing and having fun one can earn the cool rewards the game has to offer, and that anyone who does have more of those rewards than you do has been playing harder than you have. Players who have more rewards than you do for less time and effort are typically viewed as exploiting, and if the developers are seen to condone this sort of behavior, then they are not viewed as trustworthy brokers either.

You can earn cool rewards by just playing the game that arent available on the tp, for example Scarlets Helm, The Horn and Halo and 3 different ascended backpacks.

If you want, go ahead and keep arguing a solution together with Gene, or rewards in general. Just keep in mind, if you cant prove that there is a problem, dont expect Anet to implement any of your solution.
And you will never prove that there is a problem, by answering other peoples posts.
Read Johns statements again in this topic and then actually try to make an autonomous post that represents your perception of the problem.

My brain will explode if I keep looking for examples right now. I need to know what on average, a person using only the TP, can make in 2 hours of time. Success is assumed for purposes of my examples.

Also: Yes, I am aware I haven’t mentioned things like the QD and FGS champ trains, world boss runs, or the temple run yet. I may not even, because all of those are farming areas, and some of them are even considered degenerate to some degree. For now at least, I want to try and focus on “normal” play. If people want me to do a general ballpark of these though, I will. But not right now. (Flood control is a pita, btw)

Gene Archer: good start.

Now, as a hypothetical situation, let’s say that the hot new item on the TP is the silk quaggan hat. They sell well, and a lot of people are crafting/finding hats and selling them to buy orders for a quick buck. The savvy TP players are placing buy orders and turning around and flipping them to sell orders for a total 100g/hour profit.

But there isn’t just one person making 100g/hour. Five people are flipping, and each make 20g/hour. Five more people realize there’s money to be made and start competing with the flippers. Buy prices go up, sale prices go down, and ten people are splitting 80g/hour for a decent 8g/hour profit.

Then someone tweets “silk quaggan hats are HOT” and a hundred people are now involved, and the resulting competition lowers the profit to 50g/hour or .5g/hour for each person involved.

Then players realize the hats look pretty stupid and demand for them dries up. Half of the 100 flippers end up with a large number of hats they can’t even give away and lose money.

This is the way the TP works. Profits depend on how many people are buying, and how many people are selling. When there are more sellers, the amount of money each person makes will diminish. When people stop buying, you could end up selling at a loss just to be able to reinvest that money in something else.

So, if you want to cut the profits each individual makes on the TP, get more people involved in selling directly through sell orders to maximize their profits instead of filling buy orders for quick money, and get more people to buy the things they want through buy orders to save money instead of buying sell orders for instant gratification. Doing either or both of these things will greatly diminish the potential for flippers to make a profit.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

-John’s Post-

Events pay out currently somewhere in the area of 1s 80c – 2s max at level 80 I want to say (I can’t find the info on the wiki for some reason but I know it’s there)

Statements about gold rewards for events….

I am not sure, if there is more coming after this post but it looks incomplete.

All you do is state what events give how much gold rewards and you take some of the lowest examples, presumably to prove a point.
I think Vols Goldmaking Guide is a good measurement on how much gold can be earned per hour, if you do the right events.

Assuming, you run his proposed events efficiently and rng for lootdrops levels out over 100 hours, you can earn an estimate of 10 gold per hour plus account bound currencies. I am willing to accept this ratio as highest attainable in pve.
Now you have to put a gold value behind the account bound currencies.
Karma: there are several topics on the forum, discussing the the highest value of karma→gold. Use those or estimate your own.
Skillpoints: within the last months, i promoted far more than 1000 stacks of t1 refined common mats into t2. I calculated my profits for the first 500 stacks and i made 2.3g profit on average per skillpoint.
Laurels: this is pretty easy to determine, I am sure you will figure out how
Dungeon Tokens: also easy to determine.
Once youre done with that, try to establish the average profit per hour playing the tp, so we can compare.
I know thats impossible, as i already stated before that even for me its hard to estimate my profits per hour.

But i promise you i will try to do my best to help you. I might even purchase another account for research on that matter (thanks for the sale, Anet), send 10 gold to it and start trading on it, 1 hour in the morning, 1 in the evening and see how much profit i made after 2 weeks.

In summary, while PvE activities always have a chance of dropping very valuable loot like an expensive exotic/precursor or T6 mats, you can pretty easily calculate a ballpark gold/hour rate for various activities and pick which you want to participate in based on expected income or other criteria.

TP profits are always variable, include such factors as luck, timing, experience and market research, and are entirely dependent on what other players are doing. Finding a little-known but profitable niche can produce great results, but as more people discover that they can make money this way, the number of these niches and their potential profit diminishes, and in some cases can disappear altogether.

Further, changes in the game cause instability in the markets, and being prepared to take advantage of this can be profitable, but there is a very brief window to do this, and not everyone is in a position to take advantage of this. Even a slight miscalculation will cause more people to lose money than make money. It is an extremely high risk/high reward activity that exists independently of the PvE mode though it has connections to it.

The closest thing I can think of that compares to this is deciding whether to put money into a savings account or the stock market. The savings account offers very little interest but the results are known and guaranteed, while the stock market presents the potential to either make a lot of money quickly or to lose everything.

It’s up to each player to decide whether to play it safe or risk their money in hopes of getting lucky.

tolunart.2095:

So, if you want to cut the profits each individual makes on the TP, get more people involved in selling directly through sell orders to maximize their profits instead of filling buy orders for quick money, and get more people to buy the things they want through buy orders to save money instead of buying sell orders for instant gratification. Doing either or both of these things will greatly diminish the potential for flippers to make a profit.

Okay. Couple problems with this.

1) To truly make a dent, I’d have to convince like, what? at least 10k players?

I’m not saying I don’t get what you’re saying to do. I understand it. But effort in futility would be an understatement for that kind of project.

2) Unlike some others, I’m not nearly as interested in taking away from Flippers as I am just wanting to find an equilibrium. I will literally go with whatever solution is the easiest and does the least amount of damage to every party so long as some kind of equilibrium is struck where Flippers (and inflation) aren’t far away outpacing other players.

That’s why I understand that just upping gold can’t be done, because it just puts more gold in without taking just as much out to keep things stable.

But that’s also why I’ve been pushing for the other currencies to be utilized far heavier, than currently.

I know you said to find the problem first and such, but just for the sake of it being clear, this is what I’m trying to get done/the problem I’m seeing:

Because of the nature of gold, the prices of some items, and a rather generally unkind RNG, there are players that are ultimately left out of being able to get the rewards they’re after while playing through the game, because the item actually ever dropping is just not going to happen, magic find or otherwise, or they can’t keep up with the gold inflation as they amass their coin.

Getting these items is part of the fun of the game, especially if it’s something you’re after because it “completes that look” or “is just what you always wanted” or whatever else.

The problem appears when you get a case where RNG is continually cruel (as it can be by nature of it being random), -and- the chosen method of fun cannot keep up the coin reward with the going inflation of whatever the desired McGuffin is. It creates a sense of futility which leads to having less fun, and in some cases (not all), leaving the game (and we want people to remain in the game, having people is good). (Oh, and how much time one has to play)

Uh, basically I want everyone to be able to obtain the things they want through their preferred method, rather than having to take up something they don’t want to do just because it’s the only to get the things they want before they turn old and grey because LOLRNG.

I am pretty braindead, so apologize if I’m still not making sense.

Wanze.8410:

I am not sure, if there is more coming after this post but it looks incomplete.

Because it is incomplete.

Wanze.8410:

All you do is state what events give how much gold rewards and you take some of the lowest examples, presumably to prove a point.

That would be because my argument is that doing activities like these, you can’t make as much gold as flipping.

Also, what do you mean by lowest examples? I’m taking note of the various activities that can be performed and looking at the pure coin. RNG isn’t reliable, you can’t factor it in when you can get the shaft one day and lucky the next.

Wanze.8410:

I think Vols Goldmaking Guide is a good measurement on how much gold can be earned per hour, if you do the right events.

As I stated, a lot of those events are considered farms, and there’s a whole kettle of fish there in terms of a farm being degenerate or not. There’s also the upcoming change to world bosses that places them on a defined schedule, which will effect the ability to get all of them in depending on how much time and at what time someone can get on.

As for the temples, those are server dependent, and I don’t even want to get into server stuff and guesting and what not right now because megaservers.

The other things you posted are things I’ll get to when I don’t have a splitting headache.

Gene Archer.8560:

Okay. Couple problems with this.

1) To truly make a dent, I’d have to convince like, what? at least 10k players?

I’m not saying I don’t get what you’re saying to do. I understand it. But effort in futility would be an understatement for that kind of project.

Yes, absolutely. What I’m saying is that changing this situation requires rewiring human nature. We’ve spent decades training people to expect instant gratification, when the greatest rewards are reserved for those who are smart and patient. Anet cannot do anything about this, except reward those who are smart and patient.

Gene Archer.8560:

2) Unlike some others, I’m not nearly as interested in taking away from Flippers as I am just wanting to find an equilibrium. I will literally go with whatever solution is the easiest and does the least amount of damage to every party so long as some kind of equilibrium is struck where Flippers (and inflation) aren’t far away outpacing other players.

That’s why I understand that just upping gold can’t be done, because it just puts more gold in without taking just as much out to keep things stable.

But that’s also why I’ve been pushing for the other currencies to be utilized far heavier, than currently.

But you are ignoring something that is staring us in the face: Anet devs set up the system the way they did for a reason. They are backing off from using alternate currencies because it’s a good business decision for them to allow people to buy gems with cash, buy gold with gems, and buy in-game items with gold.

You are asking them to voluntarily reduce their profits to make you feel better.

Why should they do this? How does it benefit Anet, and its parent company that surely prefers seeing their bank accounts filling up with cash rather than goodwill towards all mankind?

This is the heart of the problem. It’s your opinion that players don’t deserve to make “so much more.” But that is a function of how the TP was designed to work, they just happen to be patient, persistent and smart enough to learn how to use it.

Someone who works in a factory putting two parts of a product together might make, what, $15 an hour? $20? Someone who buys and sells real estate can make a deal over the phone while sitting in the office drinking his morning coffee and make a $100,000 profit during the same hour.

What you are saying is that the government (Anet in the game) should bust into his office and take away $99,980 from the real estate mogul because he doesn’t “deserve” to have it.

That’s just not going to happen.

What I’m saying is, life isn’t fair. There’s nothing that can reasonably be done to let that hard working factor guy make as much as the lazy real estate investor in the real world. But this is a game, and games are supposed to be fair, they have rules for a reason, and when players break the spirit of fairness, it’s the developer’s job to do something about it. When the developers don’t give a kitten either, it just leads to players getting disgruntled about it and less interested in supporting them in future.

You can earn cool rewards by just playing the game that arent available on the tp, for example Scarlets Helm, The Horn and Halo and 3 different ascended backpacks.

Yeah, but I would trade all of those for a Sunrise, to each his own, but I imagine most other players would as well. I own all three and use none of them (although it should be noted that the latter five of those each cost a decent amount of gold, more gold than the non-gold effort involved).

Fair enough though, if we’re bargaining, I’d be perfectly happy if they made it so that all currently LW account bound “have to do the content” rewards could be bought off of vendors for gold, if in exchange ever item currently priced at over 100g on the TP were also available off of vendors for under 10g each.

If you want, go ahead and keep arguing a solution together with Gene, or rewards in general. Just keep in mind, if you cant prove that there is a problem, dont expect Anet to implement any of your solution.

The problem is that I’m a dissatisfied customer, there’s no need for more “proof” than that.

So, if you want to cut the profits each individual makes on the TP, get more people involved in selling directly through sell orders to maximize their profits instead of filling buy orders for quick money, and get more people to buy the things they want through buy orders to save money instead of buying sell orders for instant gratification. Doing either or both of these things will greatly diminish the potential for flippers to make a profit.

But again, you’re making suggestions that only make sense if we can somehow control thousands of other players. It’s irrelevant advice to someone that can only control their own behavior. If you want to make a helpful suggestion, then get John to put more UI flags to make sure players know how stupid they are being every time they fill a buy order, that might actually do some good.

tolunart.2095:

Anet cannot do anything about this, except reward those who are smart and patient.

Well, they can reward everyone, actually. This is a video game, entertainment is the only thing that matters.

tolunart.2095:

Why should they do this? How does it benefit Anet, and its parent company that surely prefers seeing their bank accounts filling up with cash rather than goodwill towards all mankind?

Again, that thing where people just start eventually leaving.

Sometimes a company has to take a small hit to keep as many people as it can. The more happy people, the more gem purchases for things like char slots, bag slots, instruments, mini pets, etc.

The biggest problem I see when you bring this up is that you’re essentially acting like gems to gold is the only way ANet makes any kind of profit, and if they started getting somewhat less from that, they’d just go belly up and it’d be the end of the game.

If that’s true, though, then the game would already be in very dire straits.

They are backing off from using alternate currencies because it’s a good business decision for them to allow people to buy gems with cash, buy gold with gems, and buy in-game items with gold.

Ok, but what if you could buy them directly with gems? That way, if players really intended to turn cash to gold to buy things with, they could just buy them directly with gems, and at that point nothing they did to the gold market would cut into their profits there.

I still hold that cash-to-gold is probably only a tiny fraction of their business and not enough for them to worry about. Remember that in a game like this, good-will IS cash. I’ve spent money on the game post launch in the gem store, which I would never have done if I wasn’t enjoying my time playing the game and cared whether they succeed or fail. The better I feel about the company, the more generous I’m likely to be, buying more and more frivolous stuff.

Ohoni.6057:

What I’m saying is, life isn’t fair. There’s nothing that can reasonably be done to let that hard working factor guy make as much as the lazy real estate investor in the real world.

Why is the factory worker automatically a hard worker, and why is the real estate investor lazy? You’re making assumptions based on absolutely no evidence, aside from “this guy has a lot more money than that guy.”

As far as I’m concerned, this attitude invalidates your arguments on the subject. You seem to have some sort of personal grudge against anyone more successful than you are, whether IRL or in a game. The devs have a responsibility to all the players, not to you personally, so don’t expect them to make changes based on your feelings getting hurt.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

Why should they do this? How does it benefit Anet, and its parent company that surely prefers seeing their bank accounts filling up with cash rather than goodwill towards all mankind?

Again, that thing where people just start eventually leaving.

They aren’t leaving because of the TP. In fact the non-sub nature of the game makes “leaving” irrelevant because any player can return at any time and pick up the game again. I will agree that gems-to-gold conversion is a minor aspect of the business plan, but it has more impact on their profits than someone farming crafting mats and selling them on the TP. Again, we come around to a point that JS has requested we establish before discussing solutions:

Is there actually a problem with the game, or is it just that you don’t like the way the TP works?

Because the gist of discussion as I understand it, is some individuals saying “The TP shouldn’t work like this! Change it!”

JS responds, “the TP is working as intended, show me that there is a problem with it and we can discuss solutions.”

And people keep repeating “The TP shouldn’t work like this!” without providing any solid evidence to back up their statements. As long as things are working as the devs intended, they aren’t going to mess with the system. So it seems that the complaints come down to the idea that some people don’t like the system that the devs created.

But since you are not in charge of the game, there’s not a lot you can do about that. You have a choice to participate in the game as it is, or move on. As long as it’s working as intended, changing it to suit your personal preferences is not an option.

tolunart.2095:

Again, we come around to a point that JS has requested we establish before discussing solutions:

Is there actually a problem with the game, or is it just that you don’t like the way the TP works?

Which brings me back around to what I’ve said before:

On a fundamental level, because of things like heavy handed RNG, the game feels unrewarding, and becomes less fun because of it.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

Again, we come around to a point that JS has requested we establish before discussing solutions:

Is there actually a problem with the game, or is it just that you don’t like the way the TP works?

Which brings me back around to what I’ve said before:

On a fundamental level, because of things like heavy handed RNG, the game feels unrewarding, and becomes less fun because of it.

I probably should have made a new post rather than editing my short comment with a wall of text. But yeah, this pretty much confirms what I was talking about – it’s not that there is a problem with the game itself, or any part of it. You don’t like the way loot works, while a lot of other people don’t have a problem with it, including me. It’s your problem, not the game’s problem, and it can’t be solved by making changes to the game.

tolunart.2095:

You don’t like the way loot works, while a lot of other people don’t have a problem with it, including me.

Great, except there’s a lot of people, including me, who do have a problem with it.

So, you know. Let’s find a balance here or something.

tolunart.2095:

It’s your problem, not the game’s problem, and it can’t be solved by making changes to the game.

It absolutely can be solved by making changes to the game. Something somewhat similar literally just happened with Diablo 3, thus their new expansion that was released.

Of course the devs want players to feel good and be satisfied by their experiences in the game. But they have a responsibility to consider all their players in a game with millions of accounts. The dozen or so opinions thrown around in this thread carry absolutely no weight compared to hundreds of thousands of transactions happening on the TP every hour.

So, fifteen pages later, there isn’t really anything to talk about. Some people like the way the TP works, some people don’t. Overall it appears to be working as intended.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

You don’t like the way loot works, while a lot of other people don’t have a problem with it, including me.

Great, except there’s a lot of people, including me, who do have a problem with it.

So, you know. Let’s find a balance here or something.

You’re balancing a pebble against a mountain. You still have not shown that “a lot” of people have a problem with the TP, let alone a majority of players or even a significant enough minority for the devs to take notice.

Diablo 3’s system was poorly designed, broken, and harmed the game. None of those things apply here.

tolunart.2095:

You still have not shown that “a lot” of people have a problem with the TP

Maybe because I’m not saying people have a problem with the TP?

You know what. Screw it. I’m done. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I prove the problem or not. We disagree at such a fundamental level that it cannot be resolved or worked around. There is no point in me ever finishing that other post, because it will amount to nothing and just be another waste of time, like with my suggestion post.

We aren’t going to ever agree, so I may as well just stop and save myself a second headache.

I wish all the luck to Ohoni, though his efforts will be futile as well. There’s no changing your minds.

Why is the factory worker automatically a hard worker, and why is the real estate investor lazy?

They don’t have to be, but in the example they were. It was your example, you should know that. Sure, conversely if the factory worker was lazy and the real estate guy hard working then he would deserve to make more, my point was, the real world rarely cares how hard someone works, certain types of work are just rewarded more than others in a relatively arbitrary fashion, and people who are well suited for one tend to make out better than people who are well suited to another, and it’s neither of their faults that this is the case.

The same doesn’t have to be true in a game.

The devs have a responsibility to all the players, not to you personally, so don’t expect them to make changes based on your feelings getting hurt.

Me alone? No, probably not. But there are a lot of players in the game, and a lot more that play it as an action-adventure game than as an economic simulator. It’s in their interests to cater to those players rather than to the TP farmers, so if they could do something that would make the adventurers happier but completely infuriate the TP farmers, they’d be best served in doing so.

They aren’t leaving because of the TP. In fact the non-sub nature of the game makes “leaving” irrelevant because any player can return at any time and pick up the game again.

Not really true. While a playing customer is not necessarily a paying one, a paying customer is definitely a playing one. They don’t automatically lose money when they lose a customer, and customers are more likely to come back at a later date, but they still want as many players as possible to be playing the game fairly regularly, because only players that feel invested in the game have any reason to buy things with gems, and furthermore, only by having a vibrant and well populated game world do other players feel that they are having a good time. People crouched over their UIs in town don’t really add much to that.

Is there actually a problem with the game, or is it just that you don’t like the way the TP works?

Again, why is that not a problem? Let’s say you are a baker, and you make a cupcake and offer it to someone to try out. “What do you think?” “Well, it doesn’t taste very good.” “Excellent!” “But I just told you it wasn’t very good, I wouldn’t want to buy one of these.” “Yeah, but it didn’t make you violently ill, so clearly there’s no problem with it.”

Now obviously I speak for nobody more than myself, but I tend to believe that a lot of people feel the same way. It would be up to ANet to get feedback and decide whether they believe a significant amount of players feel that way, but if they do, the there wouldn’t have to be some catastrophic objective flaw in the marketplace for them to act on it, players not liking the status quo is plenty to work with.

Of course the devs want players to feel good and be satisfied by their experiences in the game. But they have a responsibility to consider all their players in a game with millions of accounts. The dozen or so opinions thrown around in this thread carry absolutely no weight compared to hundreds of thousands of transactions happening on the TP every hour.

Yeah, fair enough, but it’s at least an indication that something might be wrong, and that more research into player opinions might be warranted. Hundreds of thousands of transactions per hour mean that people are using the TP, not necessarily that they are 100% happy with the way it currently functions.

I wish all the luck to Ohoni, though his efforts will be futile as well. There’s no changing your minds.

Oh, I have no illusions about changing these guys minds on this. Not even just Clones, much less Phantasms. I’m just hoping that someone from ANet might be reading this who gets inspired to look into it. Probably not JS, since he seems firmly in the “TP daytraders rox” camp, but maybe someone else who has some control over economic factors and cares whether the players are enjoying the game or not rather than just whether the economic sim is running smoothly.

Gene Archer.8560:

2) Unlike some others, I’m not nearly as interested in taking away from Flippers as I am just wanting to find an equilibrium. I will literally go with whatever solution is the easiest and does the least amount of damage to every party so long as some kind of equilibrium is struck where Flippers (and inflation) aren’t far away outpacing other players.

That’s why I understand that just upping gold can’t be done, because it just puts more gold in without taking just as much out to keep things stable.

But that’s also why I’ve been pushing for the other currencies to be utilized far heavier, than currently.

1. You want different forms of play in the game to return similar rewards.
2. You say you aren’t after the TP flippers.
3. You say you understand why ANet can’t simply up the rewards from activities under their control.

So if you want similar rewards but understand that ANet can’t increase rewards without causing inflation then what’s left is “fixing” the TP to reduce the gold earned by flippers which you say isn’t your intention. That basically paints yourself into a corner.

Let’s look at your “reward more alternate currency”. Right now the other currencies in the PVE game are karma, laurels and dungeon badges. They are currency rewarded by specific activity and you can buy specific items tied to that activity. Also right now those items are not tradeable, sellable and in some cases not even salvageable but are only good for forge fodder. The notion of offering similar items to the high priced, highly desired items on the TP that you can only buy using alternate currency is essentially asking ANet for a parallel set of items (so they can’t be converted to gold) and have ANet set the prices. I can’t see it.

The notion of offering similar items to the high priced, highly desired items on the TP that you can only buy using alternate currency is essentially asking ANet for a parallel set of items (so they can’t be converted to gold) and have ANet set the prices. I can’t see it.

Where do you get the idea that they would have to be fundamentally different items? They could just sell the same items, only make them BoP. They do this already with certain karma gear, mostly low level, that is functionally identical to other gear of the same level, including appearance, but is still soulbound. If they wanted to, they could have a vendor that offers anything currently on the TP as an auto-bind version.

Gene Archer.8560:

Maybe because I’m not saying people have a problem with the TP?

You know what. Screw it. I’m done. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I prove the problem or not. We disagree at such a fundamental level that it cannot be resolved or worked around. There is no point in me ever finishing that other post, because it will amount to nothing and just be another waste of time, like with my suggestion post.

We aren’t going to ever agree, so I may as well just stop and save myself a second headache.

Again, the points that we’re trying to make you understand is that there is no problem. Only you believe there’s a problem where one doesn’t exist. So in the grand scheme of things, the only true problem is yourself. Personal preferences do not equal a game wide problem.

Let’s make an assumption here, purely as an example to explain your situation:

You hate cabbage. So now you go to a restaurant that sells cabbage dishes and say “We have a problem, because cabbage tastes bad.” The patrons at the restaurant disagree. You come up with hypothetical solutions to make cabbage taste better. “Let’s add some flavor balance” you proclaim. “Make cabbage taste more like bacon, then I’ll be satisfied.” Then the manager comes out and asks you to prove a problem exists. You then say “Well, because people will leave this restaurant if cabbage continues to taste bad.” We come in and tell you that this restaurant is almost always full of people ordering cabbage. Some order more cabbage than they can handle. Finally you come out and say “It’s not fair for you to enjoy cabbage when I don’t. We have to find a balance where we both agree”.

I’m hoping this will help you to understand your inherent uphill battle in this debate.

Ohoni.6057:

You can earn cool rewards by just playing the game that arent available on the tp, for example Scarlets Helm, The Horn and Halo and 3 different ascended backpacks.

Yeah, but I would trade all of those for a Sunrise, to each his own, but I imagine most other players would as well. I own all three and use none of them (although it should be noted that the latter five of those each cost a decent amount of gold, more gold than the non-gold effort involved).

Fair enough though, if we’re bargaining, I’d be perfectly happy if they made it so that all currently LW account bound “have to do the content” rewards could be bought off of vendors for gold, if in exchange ever item currently priced at over 100g on the TP were also available off of vendors for under 10g each.

OK, lets discuss precursors. As i understand, you think they are out of reach for the average player due to their price on the tp.

Who establishes their price on the tp?
Its the average player, John stated that multiple times in this topic. There is no indication whatsoever that the ultra rich are responsible for their high prices and their prices will be the same, if somehow, we manage to minimise potential profits for tp players.

So why not make precursors available from vendors for 10g and and account bound LW rewards purchaseable by coin?

Because it would result in less people playing the game. Right now, the prices of precursors (which are set by supply and demand of the general players base, unless you prove otherwise), make them a long term goal for people in pursuit of their Legendary.
This keeps them logging in frequently and participate in various aspects of the game, which is good for the overall population of the game.

If Rewards for account bound Living Story Achievements are available for gold, there is less incentive for players to actually participate in the Living Story.

Ask yourself this: As it seems you are in pursuit of Sunrise and think it takes too long for yourself to obtain it, would it result in a better game experience for you (and everybody else), if Anet made Sunrise purchaseable from a vendor for 10g basically resulting in every account to have one?
How does removing long term goals positively impact regular login patterns in the playerbase?

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

You still have not shown that “a lot” of people have a problem with the TP

Maybe because I’m not saying people have a problem with the TP?

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

You don’t like the way loot works, while a lot of other people don’t have a problem with it, including me.

Great, except there’s a lot of people, including me, who do have a problem with it.

Ummmmm…

Ohoni.6057:

Why is the factory worker automatically a hard worker, and why is the real estate investor lazy?

They don’t have to be, but in the example they were. It was your example, you should know that. Sure, conversely if the factory worker was lazy and the real estate guy hard working then he would deserve to make more, my point was, the real world rarely cares how hard someone works, certain types of work are just rewarded more than others in a relatively arbitrary fashion, and people who are well suited for one tend to make out better than people who are well suited to another, and it’s neither of their faults that this is the case.

Nope. This is what I wrote:

Someone who works in a factory putting two parts of a product together might make, what, $15 an hour? $20? Someone who buys and sells real estate can make a deal over the phone while sitting in the office drinking his morning coffee and make a $100,000 profit during the same hour.

I didn’t say anything about how hard/little they work, just that in the same hour one person can make a lot more money. You made the assumption that the real estate guy was lazy, why? What makes the factory worker work hard? Maybe he has an easy job, and the real estate guy spends twelve hours a day working on deals.

I didn’t make any judgements about them, you did, and it tells me a lot about you.

tolunart.2095:

Gene Archer: good start.

Now, as a hypothetical situation, let’s say that the hot new item on the TP is the silk quaggan hat. They sell well, and a lot of people are crafting/finding hats and selling them to buy orders for a quick buck. The savvy TP players are placing buy orders and turning around and flipping them to sell orders for a total 100g/hour profit.

But there isn’t just one person making 100g/hour. Five people are flipping, and each make 20g/hour. Five more people realize there’s money to be made and start competing with the flippers. Buy prices go up, sale prices go down, and ten people are splitting 80g/hour for a decent 8g/hour profit.

Then someone tweets “silk quaggan hats are HOT” and a hundred people are now involved, and the resulting competition lowers the profit to 50g/hour or .5g/hour for each person involved.

Then players realize the hats look pretty stupid and demand for them dries up. Half of the 100 flippers end up with a large number of hats they can’t even give away and lose money.

This is the way the TP works. Profits depend on how many people are buying, and how many people are selling. When there are more sellers, the amount of money each person makes will diminish. When people stop buying, you could end up selling at a loss just to be able to reinvest that money in something else.

So, if you want to cut the profits each individual makes on the TP, get more people involved in selling directly through sell orders to maximize their profits instead of filling buy orders for quick money, and get more people to buy the things they want through buy orders to save money instead of buying sell orders for instant gratification. Doing either or both of these things will greatly diminish the potential for flippers to make a profit.

I actually offered a couple suggestions for this.
1) put in a cooldown timer on products recently bought to be resold.
2) Have merchants become agents of the TP and pass the product to the buyer and the money to the seller. This way people would be more informed to know what an item is worth on the TP.

While it’s very simple to dump your goods into the TP, i certainly wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were a good chunk of players that simply just merchant stuff that has more value on the TP.

Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first-year grad student; you just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison probably. You’re gonna be convinced of that ‘till next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you’re going to be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year; you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood…..

ratche.6204:

Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first-year grad student; you just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison probably. You’re gonna be convinced of that ‘till next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you’re going to be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year; you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood…..

Nobody knows who you are addressing and in what relation your statement stands to what is being discussed. Its also a very patronizing post.

munkiman.3068:

I actually offered a couple suggestions for this.
1) put in a cooldown timer on products recently bought to be resold.
2) Have merchants become agents of the TP and pass the product to the buyer and the money to the seller. This way people would be more informed to know what an item is worth on the TP.

While it’s very simple to dump your goods into the TP, i certainly wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were a good chunk of players that simply just merchant stuff that has more value on the TP.

1: Flipping is not evil. As JS pointed out, among others, they help prices reach a balance faster. Buy orders go up as players compete for each other (guy farming iron ore while playing the game gets more money for his iron) and sell orders go down as flippers compete to sell their stuff faster (crafter buying iron gets a better price).

Forcing a cooldown period in a best case scenario will have no effect on this, flippers will just have to buy separate lots each day and have “sell today” and “sell tomorrow” piles of the same goods. In the worst case, the added complexity keeps people away from selling on the TP – most likely casual TP players, not the die-hard flippers who can easily adapt their techniques – and less competition results in better prices for flippers and worse deals for the average player.

In addition this creates some complex record-keeping issues for the game. If I buy 10 iron ore at 2 pm and another 10 iron ore at 4 pm, the game has to track both piles separately, because I can’t sell the second lot until two hours after the first. If I refine two iron ore from the first lot and one iron ore from the second into a bar of iron, is a “new” item, or does it share the timer with the 2 pm lot or the 4 pm lot?

If I use the iron bars refined from both lots to make weapon components, can I sell them immediately or do I have to wait, and which timer applies? If I make weapon components, log out of the game for three days, come back and buy some wood and use it along with the existing iron components to make weapons, can I sell them now or do they share the cooldown timer with the wood?

What about the collections tab. I have the expander maxed out so I can store 1000 iron ore in it. But do I have to wait for the cooldown timer to expire before adding it to the 300 iron ore that is already there? If so, what happens when my inventory is full of small piles of iron ore that are on cooldown? If I can deposit them, how does the game track how much of the iron is immediately sellable, how much is on cooldown, and how many cooldown timers can it track at once?

In addition to not solving any problems, your solution creates a number of new problems, hurts the average player far more than someone who trades on the TP constantly, and introduces a coding nightmare for devs. I can’t see any scenario in which this kind of thing is a good idea.

And that’s just flippers – speculation requires stockpiling items and waiting for the proper moment to sell them, and investing in expensive items like precursors is not made more difficult by waiting a short period before relisting the items. Players engaging in those activities won’t even notice the cooldown timers.

2: I have no idea what this would even involve. Do you mean that Anet should do away with the TP entirely and just vendor everything? This invalidates the very idea of having a player-run economy in the first place. Play Skyrim instead, you can kill stuff, gather loot, and sell the loot to merchants until you save up enough to buy stuff from them.

Gene Archer.8560:

Events pay out currently somewhere in the area of 1s 80c – 2s max at level 80 I want to say (I can’t find the info on the wiki for some reason but I know it’s there)

This means to reach one gold through nothing but events, you have to run somewhere in the ballpark of 50 – 100 events to reach 1 gold. While the enemies can drop loot, loot is never guaranteed to drop during an event. Events can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes each to complete depending on numbers, length of event, if it’s a chain of events, difficulty, etc. Let’s say 3-5 minutes per event with 2s being rewarded each time without DR ever becoming an issue for sake of some kind of ballpark.

So, to make 1 gold, 50 events are required. That is anywhere from 2.5 hours to 4 hours to make 1 gold on events alone.

If you have 2 hours to play in a given day, you will make 1 gold that day for 2 hours of your time +/- any incurred waypoint fees and if RNG graced you with decent drops, or nothing but junk trophy items, which are worth copper at best.

Except that is not really the reality of the situation. It has been pointed out how much you can make from pve including from events. Now either you missed what has been posted numerous times or you are ignoring it and being disingenuous.

It really has nothing to do with being evil…
Putting a cooldown doesn’t affect anyone other than the person looking to flip. You can do anything you want with your iron ore scenario other than put it back into the TP. If you wanted to craft it into ingots and sell the ingots, you could. Speculation isn’t as problematic since it’s a bigger risk over a longer period of time. The cooldown would basically be to slow down the rate of income. It’s just an idea.

The second part is that vendors have the same function only they actually buy your item at the buy price listed in the TP, acting as agents instead of just taking the item. For items that don’t have buy offers on the TP, you’d just sell it for the base price and remove it from the game, just like it is now.

munkiman.3068:

It really has nothing to do with being evil…
Putting a cooldown doesn’t affect anyone other than the person looking to flip. You can do anything you want with your iron ore scenario other than put it back into the TP. If you wanted to craft it into ingots and sell the ingots, you could. Speculation isn’t as problematic since it’s a bigger risk over a longer period of time. The cooldown would basically be to slow down the rate of income. It’s just an idea.

The second part is that vendors have the same function only they actually buy your item at the buy price listed in the TP, acting as agents instead of just taking the item. For items that don’t have buy offers on the TP, you’d just sell it for the base price and remove it from the game, just like it is now.

Um, yeah, whatever. I already addressed the first idea in my previous post, which you apparently didn’t read. How does the game handle multiple batches of the same item? They can’t stack if they have different cooldown timers, and if you just need to refine the items or stack them to get rid of the timer, then it serves no purpose.

The second idea, just… doesn’t work. It’s very confusing – you sell your item to a vendor, who sells it to someone else? If you set the price, it works just like the TP except you get the money now instead of waiting for it to sell, so why do away with the TP? So you don’t have to wait for the money? If Anet sets the prices then you just want to do away with the TP altogether. I don’t get what the point of this would be. And it would just confuse the average player, who isn’t sure what the difference is between selling to a player or selling to a vendor anyway.

You’re creating a needlessly complex solution to a problem that doesn’t actually exist. And a few pages back, JS asked someone to provide evidence that there really is a problem with the TP, which still hasn’t been established.

Until this alleged problem with the TP has been identified there is no point in discussing solutions. The entire argument comes down to “I don’t like this so Anet has to change it to suit me.”

The problem: The earning potential for flipping goods on the TP is higher than any other activity. Anyone that takes some time to investigate it can see it for themselves.

People here have brought up the question, if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone else do it? The same reason people don’t run dungeons or champ farm or PvP/WvW or any other activity they don’t care about.

munkiman.3068:

The problem: The earning potential for flipping goods on the TP is higher than any other activity. Anyone that takes some time to investigate it can see it for themselves.

People here have brought up the question, if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone else do it? The same reason people don’t run dungeons or champ farm or PvP/WvW or any other activity they don’t care about.

This is not a problem, it is the TP working as intended. What you are describing is a side effect of the way people use the TP – most players want their item/coin now which presents an opportunity to those who are willing to provide these things immediately in order to make a profit later. Profit scales according to the amount of risk an individual is prepared to take on, by buying more expensive items or larger quantities of items.

And as JS and others have explained, this results in better prices for the average user, and a more efficient market. The only problem here is that specific individuals don’t like this, and want Anet to change the TP into something that suits them. This isn’t going to happen.

munkiman.3068:

The problem: The earning potential for flipping goods on the TP is higher than any other activity. Anyone that takes some time to investigate it can see it for themselves.

People here have brought up the question, if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone else do it? The same reason people don’t run dungeons or champ farm or PvP/WvW or any other activity they don’t care about.

Actually, this is only a problem if there is an issue with someone having greater wealth over others.

The earning potential from running world boss events is higher than dungeon running which is higher than running fractals. Just because there is “highest” tier thing you can do to earn money, doesn’t make it problematic.

If the TP earning potential was reduced, would it still be highest or would something else become higher? If the TP is still the highest, then there will always be this problem. If it becomes second or third highest, then there will be those that can’t earn maximum gold the same way as speed dungeon runners or gold through world boss events. This issue exists currently.

So, again, the issue isn’t the ability to maximize profits through one area of play, unless it can be deemed first that the wealth accumulated through maximum earning potential is detrimental to the economy, the game as a whole, other players, etc. Otherwise, there is no point in changing the way people can accumulate wealth, because in the end having wealth isn’t harmful.

munkiman.3068:

The problem: The earning potential for flipping goods on the TP is higher than any other activity. Anyone that takes some time to investigate it can see it for themselves.

People here have brought up the question, if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone else do it? The same reason people don’t run dungeons or champ farm or PvP/WvW or any other activity they don’t care about.

“People can make more money via the TP!” Isn’t an argument that has any merit, it certainly does not prove the current system is flawed.

If only the anti TP crowd had “taken the time to investigate”, then maybe we wouldn’t have threads like this stuffed with anecdotes and hyperbole.

Moreoever it is perfectly reasonable that those people who can’t or otherwise won’t attempt to maximise their gold gain potentially earn less than those that do.

The main “problem” (don’t care for using that term here) is that GW2 is notorious for poor rewards.

Why?

Well one reason is the way in which the economy is set up. Rewards (inputs) have to be balanced on a global scale with sinks (outputs) in a manner that input do not exceed outputs by such a margin where it becomes problematic.

To help do this RNG is used which has zero concern for the individual. An individual may always end up on the bad side of RNG and that is fine by the mechanic as it has no soul. To combat this some games introduce streak busting mechanics, but GW2 does not .

Another way of fostering sinks (outputs) is to have players actively work on doing so. This is where playing the tp comes into the fray. Players doing such may achieve rewards far beyond any other ig method.

This creates a divide between those who do and those who do not. This fosters a high sense of reward in those who do, but adversely fosters a poor sense of reward for those who do not.

Which all revolves back to GW2 having the psychology of poor reward structure for the majority of it’s players…ie….“those who do not”.

“The TP makes me feel bad” is not a problem with the game, it’s a problem with the player. Everyone has the same chances to get loot and the same opportunities to turn that loot into gold.

How can the system be more fair than this? You’re asking Anet to make the system unfair towards people who learned how to play the game better than you, so that you can feel better.

I’m not very good at PvP, so therefore I should demand that Anet makes my toons do triple damage in PvP to make up for the fact that other players are better than I am. Losing PvP matches makes me feel bad, winning more often will make me feel better.

tolunart.2095:

“The TP makes me feel bad” is not a problem with the game, it’s a problem with the player. Everyone has the same chances to get loot and the same opportunities to turn that loot into gold.

How can the system be more fair than this? You’re asking Anet to make the system unfair towards people who learned how to play the game better than you, so that you can feel better.

I’m not very good at PvP, so therefore I should demand that Anet makes my toons do triple damage in PvP to make up for the fact that other players are better than I am. Losing PvP matches makes me feel bad, winning more often will make me feel better.

I would argue that “the tp makes the majority of GW2 players feel bad” is a problem with the deisgn.

This has nothing to do with me as an individual as I play the tp and play way too much.

This is about the player base in general of an action/adventure mmorpg.

Essence Snow.3194:

Another way of fostering sinks (outputs) is to have players actively work on doing so. This is where playing the tp comes into the fray. Players doing such may achieve rewards far beyond any other ig method.

This creates a divide between those who do and those who do not. This fosters a high sense of reward in those who do, but adversely fosters a poor sense of reward for those who do not.

Which all revolves back to GW2 having the psychology of poor reward structure for the majority of it’s players…ie….“those who do not”.

But isnt that divide only perceived on an individual level?

If player A makes 3 times the amount of gold on average per hour by playing the tp than player B by doing his favourite pve content, B feels he is rewarded less.
Now Anet finds the magic wand to nerf Player A´s rewards to a level that resembles PLayer B´s rewards per hour, giving B a fair sense of reward again, right?

But assuming that Player A´s rate of profit before the nerf didnt have any impact of prices in general (nobody was proven otherwise yet in this topic, dont know about PMs), nothing will chance on Player B´s financial situation or his road to his desired rewards.

And what about player C, who plays 3 times more per day than player B? He will also reach reward levels 3 times faster.

So if nerfing the possible profit margins on the TP wont change anything on player B´s situation, what incentive does Anet have to change it?

Essence Snow.3194:

I would argue that “the tp makes the majority of GW2 players feel bad” is a problem with the deisgn.

This has nothing to do with me as an individual as I play the tp and play way too much.

This is about the player base in general of an action/adventure mmorpg.

This is purely your opinion and has no basis in reality. If you believe otherwise, show me.

Player-to-player trading is common in MMOs, and this system was set up to work the way it does, and it does its job very efficiently. For example, the cross-server nature of the TP makes it impossible to make money the way I used to in Rift, by using that game’s weekly free server transfers:

I would research the prices of various items on different servers and buy a large quantity of something that sells for a lot more on a different server. Then I would transfer from server A to server B where I would sell the items for 2x to 5x what I bought them for. Then I would send some of the money to a character already on that server and transfer back to server A. A week later I would repeat the process.

Within a month or two you can double your money many times over with only an hour or so of effort per week. You cannot do that in GW2 because all the servers pool their items on a single TP.

Anet themselves acknowledge there is an issue with players having a sense of “poor rewards”. It is why they are revamping rewards in an ongoing effort. The design of the TP has a major impact on the reward structure of this game (I dare say the single most significant impact).

What can we easily change about it that has a significant impact on player perspective yet does not significantly impact the fundamental purpose of the TP?

We reduce the disparity between the haves (small % of players) to increase the have nots’ sense of reward by comparison from what it currently is, which again is acknowledged to be lacking.

Do I personally want to have my “rewards” from playing the tp reduced?
Not really, but I know that there is a greater good to come from it. A better sense of reward for the masses, help to keep more players happy. This in turn keeps more players playing. More players playing keeps more areas of the game populated, which is the lifeblood of a mmo/rpg.

I am willing to give up some of my rewards (which exceed most by far) in the hopes that we can have a healthier game.

Essence Snow.3194:

Anet themselves acknowledge there is an issue with players having a sense of “poor rewards”. It is why they are revamping rewards in an ongoing effort. The design of the TP has a major impact on the reward structure of this game (I dare say the single most significant impact).

What can we easily change about it that has a significant impact on player perspective yet does not significantly impact the fundamental purpose of the TP?

We reduce the disparity between the haves (small % of players) to increase the have nots’ sense of reward by comparison from what it currently is, which again is acknowledged to be lacking.

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

That’ll I can agree with. If we ever get access to some hard data, we’ll be in a much better place to say the least.

Please explain to me what your process would be for proving your theories if you had the data.

Start by seeing if there was a wealth gap, how large if present, and if it was growing. Then I could go from there.

This does not answer my question. Feel free to make assumptions as you go, fork the ideas as if drawing a decision tree. This is how I would recommend beginning the analysis with or without data.

John Smith.4610:

3. The prices of high end goods are VERY close, if not exactly the same, to what they would be without any “TP Barons” wanting those items. There’s too much velocity for individual rich people to influence the supply/demand equation all that much, which is the only control they have if they aren’t manipulating prices.

You still have not shown that there is a problem with the TP, which happens to be one of the best designed and efficient marketplaces in an MMO.

Anet acknowledging that rewards (which are vital to mmorpgs) are poor is more proof that there is a problem, then proof of there not being a problem.

Ergo there is more “proof” of a problem than there is “proof” of no problem.

You have not shown there is not a problem.

“For the good of the game!” isn’t a credible argument, at all. Moreover the onus is on those asking for nerfs to provide proof.