Guild Wars 2

It’s pretty obvious that they steer players towards certain play styles. Want t6 mats….dr on farming them will get ya…best bet is to farm gold. Want precursor….rng will get ya….best bet is to farm gold…want lodestones…rng and dr will get ya…best bet is to farm gold.

Obviously the least hindered path to a legendary is to farm gold. Now how do we go about that. Well most direct farming is again hindered by dr and rng. The methods that are not or have the least amount will be the prevalent options. Thus steering players towards certain methods.

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s pretty obvious that they steer players towards certain play styles. Want t6 mats….dr on farming them will get ya…best bet is to farm gold. Want precursor….rng will get ya….best bet is to farm gold…want lodestones…rng and dr will get ya…best bet is to farm gold.

It’s a very asymmetrical implementation of their philosophy. They don’t want players to farm, so they introduce DR. And yet, CoF path 1’s money drops are not affected by DR at all, leading it to be incredibly efficient in terms farming.

I’m not sure what difficulties they’re having revamping it. But given their track record, I am certain it will be nerfed in the near future.

munkiman.3068:

In no way am i talking about the speed of earning, or even with arguing over the cost of pre’s, my beef is with the flaws in the system that keep players poor unless they do x or y. Honestly, this is the only game (mmo or not), besides simcity (which is all about earnings and keeping a tight budget) that i’ve actually spent time thinking about the financial aspect of a game, not even GW1.

I’m not poor, and I do neither X nor Y, so I disagree with your underlying assumption that game mechanics are keeping players poor. GW2 is different from the other games you listed because it includes a simulation of a real economy in it. You have to have gold sinks to siphon off all the gold that materializes out of thin air when a player kills a mob and gets a drop. What’s the point of having a huge pile of gold if you aren’t going to spend it on something? Am I poor if I only have 10G in the bank, but I’ve got a bunch of characters outfitted with rare gear?

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

Pandemoniac.4739:

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

This brings us full circle to….“There’s nothing ArenaNet can do about it.”

I say this because right now, Anet has players threatening to leave the game because certain things are too difficult to obtain. On the other hand, I’m sure a LOT of people WOULD leave the game if Anet made these items too easy to obtain.

I’m sure they’ll take the “threat” of players leaving the game over players ACTUALLY leaving the game anytime.

Pandemoniac.4739:

I’m not poor, and I do neither X nor Y, so I disagree with your underlying assumption that game mechanics are keeping players poor. GW2 is different from the other games you listed because it includes a simulation of a real economy in it. You have to have gold sinks to siphon off all the gold that materializes out of thin air when a player kills a mob and gets a drop. What’s the point of having a huge pile of gold if you aren’t going to spend it on something? Am I poor if I only have 10G in the bank, but I’ve got a bunch of characters outfitted with rare gear?

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

I’m not poor either really, I’m also not arguing for or against the rarity of items and their inherent values in the global economy, I’m saying the balance is off, and i’m pretty sure anet knows it.

The idea of getting a legendary isn’t on my priority list of things to do, i’ll get there eventually, so i’m not even arguing over the costs of them. I personally think they should be bind on acquire and just because you can afford to buy gems to get enough G or farm your face off daily, shouldn’t be a factor in the acquisition of them. The focus is on legendaries for a very large player base because that achievement is literally in your face every time you switch toons. It’s not for everyone, but nether is PVP, in no way am i even suggesting that.

Are there people that suck with money? sure. That’s not even the point, the point is the economy is designed as such to basically funnel players into a certain play style or suffer for it. If the player base is earning toward their goal, no matter what style they choose, you wouldn’t be seeing as many threads about it. If RNG wasn’t the only factor in getting pres you wouldn’t have kitten off players. There are admittedly very poor design choices at work here.

munkiman.3068:

Are there people that suck with money? sure. That’s not even the point, the point is the economy is designed as such to basically funnel players into a certain play style or suffer for it. If the player base is earning toward their goal, no matter what style they choose, you wouldn’t be seeing as many threads about it. If RNG wasn’t the only factor in getting pres you wouldn’t have kitten off players. There are admittedly very poor design choices at work here.

What are these poor design choices? What is funneling players into a certain playstyle?

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Pandemoniac.4739:

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

This brings us full circle to….“There’s nothing ArenaNet can do about it.”

I say this because right now, Anet has players threatening to leave the game because certain things are too difficult to obtain. On the other hand, I’m sure a LOT of people WOULD leave the game if Anet made these items too easy to obtain.

I’m sure they’ll take the “threat” of players leaving the game over players ACTUALLY leaving the game anytime.

I’m going to explain, in my eyes how we got here from your OP of “nothing wrong with the supply and demand on pres” by restating that unless the data supports the “hidden” transactions of the sell to the highest bidder, it’s fundamentally flawed. It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru). I’ll also restate that this is a game and as a game people tend to gravitate toward the goal of achievements and those are set by the designer of that game, along with the gold sinks versus what it actually cost to play. My argument points to the fact that there are a lot vocally of poor players and a lot of complaints about how unbalanced the economy actually is and it’s only getting worse. If your game (and these are just random numbers) has 400 uber rich and 10,000 uber poor, you’re game is not going to be fun anymore for either of those player brackets.

munkiman.3068:

It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru).

No. This is an assumption you are making. As I stated earlier in this thread, you cannot possibly gauge just how the activities you describe actually impact prices.

munkiman.3068:

Interesting, what’s wrong with it? It’s a game, the goal of anet was in fact to enjoy the game, but look at this forum section alone. How many posts are about the money? Or how screwy the economy is? Is it anets goal to have a community of poor players? Sure seems that way.

I’ll give you an excellent example too, the borderland series. Not once did i ever worry about revive costs, i always had money and could simply play the game and not even worry for one second about what it’s going to cost me to die. If i WvW and don’t make up my repair costs, that’s an issue. One super basic thing that would help is increase vendor return, more silver per item would float the population without touching costs of WP’s, repairs, consumables, etc. It might even make crafting a little less hard hitting to the wallet.

Again, it’s a game, to use all these analogies to real life economics and social classes just shouldn’t be the case. I can quite a game, quitting life on the other hand isn’t really an option.

Borderlands is not an MMO, it’s as simple as that. They don’t need to worry about the economy in that game.

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru).

No. This is an assumption you are making. As I stated earlier in this thread, you cannot possibly gauge just how the activities you describe actually impact prices.

By high end i mean the highest seller prices, these people can obviously afford a loss while you can look at the data that they aren’t moving as the difference just in the price of dawns buy orders and sell orders are almost 100g difference. It’s staying there since those few people (there aren’t many to begin with) are keeping those prices that high. I’m not poor but i could barely afford to even list a pre at that price let alone buy one.

Vol.5241:

munkiman.3068:

Interesting, what’s wrong with it? It’s a game, the goal of anet was in fact to enjoy the game, but look at this forum section alone. How many posts are about the money? Or how screwy the economy is? Is it anets goal to have a community of poor players? Sure seems that way.

I’ll give you an excellent example too, the borderland series. Not once did i ever worry about revive costs, i always had money and could simply play the game and not even worry for one second about what it’s going to cost me to die. If i WvW and don’t make up my repair costs, that’s an issue. One super basic thing that would help is increase vendor return, more silver per item would float the population without touching costs of WP’s, repairs, consumables, etc. It might even make crafting a little less hard hitting to the wallet.

Again, it’s a game, to use all these analogies to real life economics and social classes just shouldn’t be the case. I can quite a game, quitting life on the other hand isn’t really an option.

Borderlands is not an MMO, it’s as simple as that. They don’t need to worry about the economy in that game.

Borderlands is a game and the devs could have easily made the margin between the cost of bullets versus the sell price of weapons be much tighter, therefore forcint the player to actually worry about the cost of paying revive bills, restocking ammo and buying upgrades. There’s nothing in my argument that states borderlands is an mmo therefore it should be compared as such.

munkiman.3068:

Pandemoniac.4739:

I’m not poor, and I do neither X nor Y, so I disagree with your underlying assumption that game mechanics are keeping players poor.

I’m not poor either really, I’m also not arguing for or against the rarity of items and their inherent values in the global economy, I’m saying the balance is off, and i’m pretty sure anet knows it.

munkiman.3068:

(big snip)
In no way am i talking about the speed of earning, or even with arguing over the cost of pre’s, my beef is with the flaws in the system that keep players poor unless they do x or y.

You keep saying that something is broken, and when someone shows an example of it not being broken, that example doesn’t apply to what you meant.

I’m not really following your argument that well, and I would like to understand it, so would you lay it out more simply for me? Go ahead and talk to me like I’m dense, I promise I won’t be offended

What exactly are “the flaws in the system”?
How are these flaws keeping players poor?
What do you mean by poor?

I don’t think ArenaNet is forcibly funneling players into one type of content over another. The players are funneling themselves into certain content based on their own choices regarding their goals and the content they are best at playing.

Some players prefer the TP to make money. They prefer that method because they have the mindset for it. They are good with numbers and analysis and have the dedication required to find profitable markets within the TP. I see a lot of players point the finger at TP players with the assumption that it’s “easy” to make money using it. While money can be made there….it’s not nearly as easy as many people think it is. I like this type of content for making money….because my skillset allows me to do it.

Some players like playing dungeons. There are players that work day in and day out finding the most efficient path to make the most money per hour. Many players group together with like goals and run together. This is more “community accepted” form of money generation because it’s playing a portion of the content, that in other games like WoW, is considered to be “end-game” content. Personally….I HATE dungeons….and the thought of grinding content repeatedly gives me a headache. That’s MY choice though. Honestly…right now….CoF P1 is probably more profitable to those players than the TP is to me.

Still other players enjoy chaining DE’s. That’s a great way to earn currency as well….depending on your goals. Karma generation is HUGE in DE’s. If your goal is outfitting your characters in Exotics….Karma is a REALLY good option. If you’re goal is a Legendary…..Karma generation will ease the acquisition of certain parts of your Legendary, but probably won’t net you the entire thing.

There are lots of ways to play the game and depending on the goals of the player, that may or may not funnel them into certain types of content. There’s no way that ArenaNet could balance every different type of content so that they’re all equal in terms of acquiring any given “end game item”. The reason they can’t do it is because not everyone’s idea of what constitutes an “end game goal” is the same….nor does everyone play with an equal amount of dedication.

I still feel that the core of the issue lies with the player…..not the game. That won’t change either. It’s going to be like this forever…..and possibly only get worse as time goes on.

munkiman.3068:

these people can obviously afford a loss

Assumption.

munkiman.3068:

buy orders and sell orders are almost 100g difference. It’s staying there since those few people (there aren’t many to begin with) are keeping those prices that high.

Yes, and certain dyes have almost a 100% difference between buy/sell orders. The gap between buy/sell orders is frequently seen in items with low trading volumes. Another assumption you’re making.

It’s okay to not like high prices on the TP. But to blame it on certain specific forces will remain purely speculation, and your argument for it will remain incredibly weak unless you have some substantive evidence supporting your hypothesis.

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru).

No. This is an assumption you are making. As I stated earlier in this thread, you cannot possibly gauge just how the activities you describe actually impact prices.

I think it is a qualitative assumption in that most activities in the game simply do not have high enough profit potential to support such prices. The observable impact certain activities have on them is apparent via the ability those activities have to support certain prices.

ex) the activity of farming meta events does not have the ability to sustain the high prices
the activity of cof p1 grinding has the ability to sustain the high prices

Edit…just read back some posts after the quoted and seems I have misjudged intent….point still stands though

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it is a qualitative assumption in that most activities in the game simply do not have high enough profit potential to support such prices. The observable impact certain activities have on them is apparent via the ability those activities have to support certain prices.

ex) the activity of farming meta events does not have the ability to sustain the high prices
the activity of cof p1 grinding has the ability to sustain the high prices

OK, but when you say “high prices”, you mean “the high prices of precursors and legendaries”. So, if you want a legendary and you want it soonish, you either have to get extremely lucky, or you have to grind out gold doing (insert current most popular method). What is the problem with that?

Saying the entire system is broken because luxury items are expensive and hard to get doesn’t make any sense.

I’ll restate what i’m saying to both the above. What’s broken is the margin between what it cost to play versus what the average player earns. It’s not rocket surgery. There are a few things i mentioned that could be changed to help bring this more in-line, like raising the vendor values or making many of the seemingly illogical account bound items on acquire, like kits so i can send my buddy a kitten kit in a dungeon or a orr zerg so he/she doesn’t have to pay a WP cost just to get a kit to salvage their junk to make more room for more junk. Silly things like that are frustrating annoyances that make the game less fun to me on top of costing players their earning margins.

I’m definitely not denying Charismatic you’re not going to please every playstyle and not every playstyle should be lucrative, but if the very base of the economic system’s fundamental flaw is it’s balance, your going to see this more often than not.

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it is a qualitative assumption in that most activities in the game simply do not have high enough profit potential to support such prices. The observable impact certain activities have on them is apparent via the ability those activities have to support certain prices.

ex) the activity of farming meta events does not have the ability to sustain the high prices
the activity of cof p1 grinding has the ability to sustain the high prices

What would the solution be though? Would it be to raise everything up to the profit potential of CoF P1…..or bring CoF P1 down to the profit potential of the other types of content?

I don’t think there’s anything they could do to the TP to change the profit potential there….not so long as it remains global, has player controlled pricing and nearly everyone uses it to buy and/or sell their goods.

The easiest option for ArenaNet would be to “nerf” CoF P1. That will just bring a different portion of the content to the surface where people would complain not only about the CoF nerf, but also the profit potential of the other content.

Anet is changing the game slowly…thankfully. It’s when game companies make big sweeping changes to large portions of the content when things get broken in a hurry. I’m sure they have their eye on CoF P1 right now and are deciding how best to “deal with that situation”.

munkiman.3068:

I’ll restate what i’m saying to both the above. What’s broken is the margin between what it cost to play versus what the average player earns.

I’ve given a ton of examples that it’s not broken. I can afford everything I need to play and I probably put less work into earning money than the average player.

munkiman.3068:

It’s not rocket surgery. There are a few things i mentioned that could be changed to help bring this more in-line

But you have yet to convince me that it’s broken. I earn plenty of gold to play the game without doing anything special. I actually waste a lot of money because I don’t want to be bothered to think about the most cost-effective way to get what I want.

Are you annoyed because you don’t have a big pile of gold, or are you really saying that you can’t afford the cost of way points and repairs just by playing the game?

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

these people can obviously afford a loss

Assumption.

munkiman.3068:

buy orders and sell orders are almost 100g difference. It’s staying there since those few people (there aren’t many to begin with) are keeping those prices that high.

Yes, and certain dyes have almost a 100% difference between buy/sell orders. The gap between buy/sell orders is frequently seen in items with low trading volumes. Another assumption you’re making.

It’s okay to not like high prices on the TP. But to blame it on certain specific forces will remain purely speculation, and your argument for it will remain incredibly weak unless you have some substantive evidence supporting your hypothesis.

The difference in a dye that sells for 5s versus a sell order that lists for 10s isn’t a high end margin, the cost to loss ratio is next to nil. We are talking about hanging 62g out on the market, knowing full well it’s going to hold prices high and being able to play in the action end cause you can turn them quick cause it’s a deal. I do it all the time in much lower margin items. It basic economics. Can you afford to hold out an item in a top tier like 62g or more like a few thousand items at 1g margins? There is a big difference there. It doesn’t even matter if only one person is doing it.

munkiman.3068:

…….making many of the seemingly illogical account bound items on acquire……..

I would love for them to look into this as well. Some of the items that Account, or Soul Bound are just silly….while other items that aren’t, should be.

Low level items such as harvesting tools and salvage kits…..there’s no reason those should Account Bound…unless the reason is they don’t want players purchasing them with Karma, then selling them for “gold”. If that’s the case….just make them untradeable on the TP, but allow them to be transferred via the mail system.

Also, things that require Account Bound items to create should end up being Account Bound once created…..I’m looking at YOU Mr. Legendary Weapon!!!!

Even if those things were addressed…..they still wouldn’t have much of an impact on the items we’re discussing….and in actuality, might even make precursor prices rise in “value”. Without the option to buy the Legendary, that forces people to buy their precursor, get lucky with a drop, or get lucky with RNG from the Mystic Forge. That seems to be the way it is right now…but there is a slight, yet significant difference. At that point, the look of that Legendary can ONLY be crafted by your own skills. With this, we would also see a rise in prices of crafting materials as people will be “forced” to also level their crafting disciplines in order to craft their weapon.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it is a qualitative assumption in that most activities in the game simply do not have high enough profit potential to support such prices. The observable impact certain activities have on them is apparent via the ability those activities have to support certain prices.

ex) the activity of farming meta events does not have the ability to sustain the high prices
the activity of cof p1 grinding has the ability to sustain the high prices

OK, but when you say “high prices”, you mean “the high prices of precursors and legendaries”. So, if you want a legendary and you want it soonish, you either have to get extremely lucky, or you have to grind out gold doing (insert current most popular method). What is the problem with that?

Saying the entire system is broken because luxury items are expensive and hard to get doesn’t make any sense.

By no means am I saying the entire system is broken. The luxury system (lots of variables) however is another matter.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I don’t think there’s anything they could do to the TP to change the profit potential there….not so long as it remains global, has player controlled pricing and nearly everyone uses it to buy and/or sell their goods.

The easiest option for ArenaNet would be to “nerf” CoF P1. That will just bring a different portion of the content to the surface where people would complain not only about the CoF nerf, but also the profit potential of the other content.

Anet is changing the game slowly…thankfully. It’s when game companies make big sweeping changes to large portions of the content when things get broken in a hurry. I’m sure they have their eye on CoF P1 right now and are deciding how best to “deal with that situation”.

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.

Pandemoniac.4739:

munkiman.3068:

I’ll restate what i’m saying to both the above. What’s broken is the margin between what it cost to play versus what the average player earns.

I’ve given a ton of examples that it’s not broken. I can afford everything I need to play and I probably put less work into earning money than the average player.

munkiman.3068:

It’s not rocket surgery. There are a few things i mentioned that could be changed to help bring this more in-line

But you have yet to convince me that it’s broken. I earn plenty of gold to play the game without doing anything special. I actually waste a lot of money because I don’t want to be bothered to think about the most cost-effective way to get what I want.

Are you annoyed because you don’t have a big pile of gold, or are you really saying that you can’t afford the cost of way points and repairs just by playing the game?

No, it’s the little things that annoy me. Like i mentioned.

I’m not trying to convince you, i see it all the time, the difference is that there is a clear goal for a pretty large player base and that is high ticket items and those require an average player to earn higher margins (versus a reasonable time frame, before they feel as though they aren’t even making progress) which in turn forces them into x to increase those margins. Being this thread is about pres, you can kinda see that these much smaller margins for actually playing the game is causing people to get tired of it. They’ve actually made those margins worse in many ways (DR, only looting a boss chest once a day per toon, among others).

Essence Snow.3194:

By no means am I saying the entire system is broken. The luxury system (lots of variables) however is another matter.

There’s a big gap between the most expensive exotic and the least expensive legendary, but given what it takes to make one, I don’t see that as broken.

I guess I’m just completely missing the point. People have obtained legendaries without exploiting (I know of several personally), so they aren’t impossible to get. What would “fix” the luxury system? Some item between Legendary and and the most expensive exotic?

There are plenty of cool things to spend money on that are luxuries and not as expensive as legendaries. Frankly I think some of the less expensive items look better than legendaries. Why is it such a big deal to have one class of weapons that is really difficult to obtain?

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.

Are you suggesting a system with an ever increasing, permanent diminishing return?

Basically….the more money you have going through your account via the Trading Post, the more you would pay in fees? Or…would it be based on volume of items….pure traffic? Would it be a limit of either items or gold you could trade in a period of time before being taxed a higher amount?

I’m interested to hear your ideas on this…..most ideas I’ve heard deal with taxing the rich more solely because they’re rich…..which is a ridiculous notion in and of itself. Just because someone has money, that doesn’t mean they should be punished for it.

Edit: These questions may pull this thread off topic….but it’s my thread and I’ll do with it as I please, lol. If it veers off too much, we’ll bring it back to the topic at hand.

I’m actually going to give an example of about 20 people i surveyed (i know small amount but still) I think it would be safe to assume that the average player in about 3-4 hours a night, after school or work, earns no more than 1.5g, just “playing the game the way it was meant to be played”. I’m using that since it’s a fairly supported argument.

Would anyone think that the cost of a pre should take the average person almost 2 years to get? Now remember this is just the precursor weapon, not the legendary.

How about say a visions of the mist, a much more reasonable goal at a about 100-150 days?

I’m pretty much saying the average player guild wars 2 caters to is going to look at that and say “no way”. Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.

Are you suggesting a system with an ever increasing, permanent diminishing return?

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

munkiman.3068:

Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Well the folks that see the end game as getting a shiny will leave as soon as they get that shiny or realize it’s unobtainable. Making it easier to get won’t keep them in the game. This is true of any goal that someone perceives as being the win condition for the game. Once you’ve won the game, why continue to play it?

munkiman.3068:

Would anyone think that the cost of a pre should take the average person almost 2 years to get? Now remember this is just the precursor weapon, not the legendary.

That doesn’t sound unreasonable to me because during the average players quest for a Legendary, they’re going to need to run some dungeons, play WvW, do map completion, and several other things, which in the long run should get them the other things they need to craft their Legendary.

munkiman.3068:

How about say a visions of the mist, a much more reasonable goal at a about 100-150 days?

Again….this doesn’t sound too far off to me.

munkiman.3068:

I’m pretty much saying the average player guild wars 2 caters to is going to look at that and say “no way”. Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Then the goals of these average players outstretch what they are actually able to accomplish. Setting lofty goals is not a bad thing….but setting goals so far out of your reach versus the time you’re willing to spend trying to achieve them is.

Having your eye on “the highest prize(s)” in the game does not automatically give a player the right to “have it”. They’re going to have to work for it. These things we’re talking about aren’t for the faint of heart. They’re for the most dedicated of players. Also, just because other players have it, that doesn’t mean everyone should have it….no matter their method of acquiring it.

Supply and demand as stated but there is also the issue of the listing price.

• No one is going to delist their precursor for reposting since they will just loose money doing so. They’ll be forced cross their fingers and hope the lower listing will sell quickly.
• No one is going to delist their precursor to repost at a lower limit due to “no takers” since that will just mean they’ll loose money. They will keep it listed and hope the purchase power in the community increases.
• Anyone getting a precursor will just think “Yes!” and post it on TP at a 1c lower price for the maximum profit and then get stuck as per 1/2.
• No one with an existing precursor listed will sell another identical item for lower price (competing with himself).
• No one with an existing precursor listed will sell another identical item for buy price (competing with himself x 2 since he eliminates one purchaser from the original and also risks the item to be flipped)

All of these factors will trigger a very slow change in the precursor market as the item drops.

/Q

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.

Are you suggesting a system with an ever increasing, permanent diminishing return?

Basically….the more money you have going through your account via the Trading Post, the more you would pay in fees? Or…would it be based on volume of items….pure traffic? Would it be a limit of either items or gold you could trade in a period of time before being taxed a higher amount?

I’m interested to hear your ideas on this…..most ideas I’ve heard deal with taxing the rich more solely because they’re rich…..which is a ridiculous notion in and of itself. Just because someone has money, that doesn’t mean they should be punished for it.

Edit: These questions may pull this thread off topic….but it’s my thread and I’ll do with it as I please, lol. If it veers off too much, we’ll bring it back to the topic at hand.

I’m not sure of the implementation of it. As I said I have only tinkered with the thought, but basically because of what it is…yes it would on some level increase the tax based of an increase of x variable. Whether that variable should be based on the volume of items, total value of items, or some mishmash of things …idk

Pandemoniac.4739:

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

The 15% we have now is a proportional tax…ie…it’s fixed. A progressive tax increases as value of whatever is being taxed increases.

Essence Snow.3194:

Pandemoniac.4739:

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

The 15% we have now is a proportional tax…ie…it’s fixed. A progressive tax increases as value of whatever is being taxed increases.

Ah, luxury tax. The oak trees are pollinating around here and it makes me a little slow.

I’m not sure if it will have the effect you want though… If you raise the tax rate too high, more folks become interested in avoiding the tax. You might just end up pushing folks off of the TP and into dark alleys of LA, which will drop the supply, which will raise the price.

Economics is a tricky business. There’s no straight cause and effect, just a bunch of systematic interactions. You poke the market in in one spot and things in six other places change. And then three days later, that one thing you didn’t anticipate sneaks up behind you and bites you in the tookus.

Edit – and one more thought… you can’t change the cost of a precursor or legendary through taxes. You only change the cost of selling it. The cost of creating it remains the same.

Pandemoniac.4739:

munkiman.3068:

Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Well the folks that see the end game as getting a shiny will leave as soon as they get that shiny or realize it’s unobtainable. Making it easier to get won’t keep them in the game. This is true of any goal that someone perceives as being the win condition for the game. Once you’ve won the game, why continue to play it?

This is solely the responsibility of a developer to provide these carrots to keep people interested in playing their game. If they want new stuff or to try new content then it’s not the players issue in the least. I’m not even suggesting making them easier, but i think we can all agree the earnings of the average player are very disproportionate. The larger a perceived gap is between what someone wants and the reasonable amount of time and effort it takes to get, the less inclined they are to even bother sticking it out at all.

I personally don’t have a goal of legendary any time this year, maybe some time down the road and by then, who knows maybe they’ll develop a skin that i just must have. But, so far i’ve made 2 visions of the mists which actually seem pretty unreasonable cost wise versus what it takes the average player to earn enough to make or buy one. That in and of itself is a developer issue, not a player having too lofty of a goal. The game is actually designed around the shiny, and players do want that, a pretty large majority. So not only does your content need to be fun, your achievements need to be at the very least, realistic. Again, and i can’t stress this enough, this is a game. This isn’t anyone wanting a jaguar on a honda budget. There are plenty of ways to balance these things more toward a reasonable time frame to acquire. It’s a fundamental flaw in the design of the economy, no ones going to starve if anet increases drop rates of g across the board or increase the return on vendor trash. Also realize i’m not really even talking about the market, it’s 100g just for runestones and that’s a fixed price, among many other things like tier 3 weapons and armor, these aren’t even “legendary” type items. Not to mention that if you’re an achievement hound and not a hard core player, the tier weapon/armor achievements are basically impossible.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

munkiman.3068:

Would anyone think that the cost of a pre should take the average person almost 2 years to get? Now remember this is just the precursor weapon, not the legendary.

That doesn’t sound unreasonable to me because during the average players quest for a Legendary, they’re going to need to run some dungeons, play WvW, do map completion, and several other things, which in the long run should get them the other things they need to craft their Legendary.

munkiman.3068:

How about say a visions of the mist, a much more reasonable goal at a about 100-150 days?

Again….this doesn’t sound too far off to me.

munkiman.3068:

I’m pretty much saying the average player guild wars 2 caters to is going to look at that and say “no way”. Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Then the goals of these average players outstretch what they are actually able to accomplish. Setting lofty goals is not a bad thing….but setting goals so far out of your reach versus the time you’re willing to spend trying to achieve them is.

Having your eye on “the highest prize(s)” in the game does not automatically give a player the right to “have it”. They’re going to have to work for it. These things we’re talking about aren’t for the faint of heart. They’re for the most dedicated of players. Also, just because other players have it, that doesn’t mean everyone should have it….no matter their method of acquiring it.

Again, this is actually quite unrealistic to expect from the majority of your player base, and generally speaking this game seriously caters to a casual player base, even if you just account the one time cost of the box. I pretty much have given up getting all the achievements in FF13, simply because it felt like a chore and really not worth my time. It be different if it was fun getting there, but the time it took far exceeded the fun value. You may say, so what? its not an mmo… But it’s a game and even anet wouldn’t contest the pure fact that they, even more so than any single player game need to take some of this into account to keep people playing and buy crap off the gem shop. That not to mention even being interested in buying an expansion sometime down the road.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Essence Snow.3194:

Pandemoniac.4739:

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

The 15% we have now is a proportional tax…ie…it’s fixed. A progressive tax increases as value of whatever is being taxed increases.

Ah, luxury tax. The oak trees are pollinating around here and it makes me a little slow.

I’m not sure if it will have the effect you want though… If you raise the tax rate too high, more folks become interested in avoiding the tax. You might just end up pushing folks off of the TP and into dark alleys of LA, which will drop the supply, which will raise the price.

Economics is a tricky business. There’s no straight cause and effect, just a bunch of systematic interactions. You poke the market in in one spot and things in six other places change. And then three days later, that one thing you didn’t anticipate sneaks up behind you and bites you in the tookus.

Edit – and one more thought… you can’t change the cost of a precursor or legendary through taxes. You only change the cost of selling it. The cost of creating it remains the same.

I think the thought here was to hamper market manipulation further on high priced high demand items, not in actually changing the cost of the precursor immediately.

There is market manipulation, i’ve seen it done on low cost fast moving items. You can fairly easily artificially increase the value on high moving items for a short period of time simply by buying enough stock and reselling it off at a higher margin. You have to be quick though since high moving items settle just as fast.

Basically you buy enough stock, post some of it at a fair, but higher market value and sell off the lower end, undercutting yourself. This can be seen with the ecto market almost daily, by many. Most of the time it’s not even intentional, people just know it’ll sell eventually since the market moves so fast.

munkiman.3068:

Pandemoniac.4739:

- and one more thought… you can’t change the cost of a precursor or legendary through taxes. You only change the cost of selling it. The cost of creating it remains the same.

I think the thought here was to hamper market manipulation further on high priced high demand items, not in actually changing the cost of the precursor immediately.

Cost =/= price the way I was using it. You’re assuming that the market price of the precursor has nothing to do with the cost of creating one and that it is entirely set by these mysterious manipulators.

Even if these “manipulators” had the power to arbitrarily set the price of something, taxes don’t target them specifically. They target everyone equally and folks will change their behavior to account for the taxes.

The thing that sets active traders apart from the typical market participant is the number of trades they make, not the price of the trades. If you really wanted to stick it to the traders (which I think would be a mistake), you’d put a flat fee on a trade, and you would have a progressive fee based on how many listings and buy orders someone had out.

There is market manipulation, i’ve seen it done on low cost fast moving items. You can fairly easily artificially increase the value on high moving items for a short period of time simply by buying enough stock and reselling it off at a higher margin. You have to be quick though since high moving items settle just as fast.

Basically you buy enough stock, post some of it at a fair, but higher market value and sell off the lower end, undercutting yourself. This can be seen with the ecto market almost daily, by many. Most of the time it’s not even intentional, people just know it’ll sell eventually since the market moves so fast.

That’s not market manipulation – that’s just trading. And the techniques that work on high volume items don’t translate well to low volume items.

Even though DeBeers did do some market manipulation by buying up diamond stocks, the only reason it worked is because they controlled the mines that produced 80% of the supply. When the economy is as large as it is in GW2, and when there’s no way to gain control over the means of producing items, it is extremely difficult to manipulate the market for any length of time.

@munkiman

I don’t want to quote your entire post because this thread has started turning into a wall of text the way it is, lol.

In regards to the “quest for a Legendary”….

You may or may not remember, but ArenaNet stated that this quest should be considered a “long term goal”. GW2 has only been out for 8 months. 8 months, for a game that expects to have a longevity equal to or greater than its predecessor, is NOTHING. It’s a blip.

The issues isn’t that players shouldn’t have the goal of acquiring a Legendary, but lies in the perceived time it should take to achieve that goal. People see the shiny, they want it, so they start picking the things off the list that are easiest / least expensive to acquire. That sounds like a solid plan, but in reality, the quest for a Legendary is meant to be something you achieve while you do other things and the tasks required for creation (WvW, dungeons, etc.) are meant to get you to experience other areas of the game rather than farming your tail off.

If you were to approach the quest for a Legendary by gathering everything you need as you play the various content GW2 provides, at the point which a precursor drops (it doesn’t even matter which one, because you could then sell it and buy the one you want in most cases), you will probably have most, if not all, of the other materials you need to craft one. If you’re short a few items, that’s where the Trading Post comes in.

Players are approaching it with the mindset that all of the pieces should be equally as easy to achieve….but they’re not. So, when they blow through the content, farm their tails off, buy up everything they need from the Trading Post and are left with the single most expensive piece left…..they complain. The only reason they’ve done it that way is because the other things were easier or less expensive to accumulate. How would those players feel if they’d have gotten the precursor first instead of last? Basically grind to START your Legendary rather than grind to finish it.

I’m approaching my Legendary the way it was intended….gathering up the bits as I play, then when it comes to the end, I’ll either have gotten my precursor through a drop, or I should have enough to buy it off the Trading Post. Players need some serious money management training as well. You can’t blow your money on every pretty shiny you see, then complain that you can’t have them all.

@Charismatic I’ll do the same with the quoting thing.

The disparity between earning potential and cost of product is too far apart. I’m not even talking about legendaries (even though i think 2 years and RNG is ridiculous and an artificial way to keep players playing long term). You can blame player money management issues all you want, it’s like saying the poor are poor because they just don’t know how to manage their measly earnings. Being this is a game, it can be fixed and no one is going to drop dead or be homeless. It’s really that simple and it’s a very common complaint.

@munkiman

So….what you’re saying is….due to the unrealistic expectations of some of the player base regarding the costs (price and time) of a Legendary, or any pretty shiny, the game developer should fix the prices, methods, or time required to acquire the item so they are easier for everyone to get?

Charismatic Harm.9683:

@munkiman

So….what you’re saying is….due to the unrealistic expectations of some of the player base regarding the costs (price and time) of a Legendary, or any pretty shiny, the game developer should fix the prices, methods, or time required to acquire the item so they are easier for everyone to get?

Don’t think of it as easier, think of it as time spent to earn. I’ll give an example of a fix to karma post release. It used to be an exorbitantly long process toward buying karma armor that consisted of farming plinx ad nuseum, but after the introduction of karma rewards anet basically cut the time to acquire to almost 1/3. It didn’t trivialize the content, or make it easier per say, it made the time to acquire shorter. It was really a fundamental flaw in the karma exchange system and I can certainly agree with the change and it actually made the game funner for me. It’s the same with g accept for the TP, prices will eventually increase, but i’m not arguing that the prices in the TP are off. They definitely reflect the game in almost ever way. Since the drop rate on crystaline dusk got the nerf bat, which is far too steep IMHO, you have a similar situation of frustrated players that can’t acquire this widely use crafting material, compounding the already fundamental flaw of the earnings ratio. Anet seems to continue to buff and nerf at almost a random pace never really addressing this fundamental flaw of overall player earnings and every time they do it, it kitten es people off.

The fundamental difference between Karma and gold is that Karma cannot be transferred from player to player. It is a closed system. Gold is an open system in which transfers can be made freely.

With a closed system, changes can be made that don’t greatly impact other areas. Sure, they can have some impact, but that impact is minimized due to it being a closed system.

If Anet was to try and make a similar change with the gold system, all that would happen is that prices would adjust themselves according to the change. If more gold is introduced through drops, the prices of goods would rise.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the systems being compared:

Karma (price of goods) = ArenaNet
Karma (availability of currency) = ArenaNet

Gold (price of goods) = Players
Gold (availability of currency) = ArenaNet

The MAJOR difference between the two is that the pricing of items purchased with gold are controlled by the players.

In order to make gold act more like Karma, either ArenaNet would have to take control of the pricing of every item in the game, thereby removing the need for the Trading Post, or give control of the availability of the currency to the players. Both of those options are horrible ideas. The Trading Post is an amazing tool that allows players to set their own prices and acquire goods they want / need quickly…..I would hate to see the Trading Post be eliminated. If Anet was to give control of the availability of gold to the players, we’d be swamped with gold and pretty much everything in the game would be worthless.

As it is now, Anet is trying to balance the availability of gold to close the gap between the average player and the grinder or TP player. They can’t do anything drastic though because it will quickly become exploited. Look at the two recent changes made to the meta-event boss chests. Initially, the market was flooded with items because players could farm the meta-events gathering up many items extremely rapidly. A change was made to limit that item creation because many players were using this new system that was intended to reward players for spreading out and playing more content because players were “exploiting” (I use this term loosely) the system and generating items far more quickly than was intended. So….Anet IS trying to change the system, but there isn’t a magic bullet, so they have to make small, subtle changes and see how those changes play out.

I’m wondering if you read my post or all my previous posts. The disparity lies in anets price to play the game versus average player income. This includes WP costs, repairs, costs of handbooks, skills resets, kits, etc. There is a pretty long list of items that are set prices by anet, this is the cost to play the game. When the cost to play margin is narrow, it impacts overall health of the economy and you get reactions like “TP prices are out of whack”, “I have no money”, “i must farm cofp1 to earn for the not even that lofty goal of attaining a set of tier 3 armor for my toon”. I also mentioned the TP will adjust, but the margin of player earnings versus the set cost to play the game would be higher, increasing overall wealth and bringing a better balance to the TP.

munkiman.3068:

i must farm cofp1 to earn for the not even that lofty goal of attaining a set of tier 3 armor for my toon

This is where our differences lie.

“I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards in the LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME POSSIBLE.”

This is different then, “I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards. Period.”

The first is true. The second most definitely is not, and there is a ton of anecdotal evidence that contradicts the second statement.

You are arbitrarily applying your own time scale of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable.” Just quick glance at the requirements of a Legendary (250 each of t6 mats? Incredibly rare precursors?) gives you an idea of how long Anet wants the journey to be.

You also constantly try to lump the Legendary process with everything else in the game, and that is incredibly misleading. You mention them yourself: Wp costs, repair costs, skill book costs…Those are expenses VERY easily covered by doing anything in the game really. If you want to mention these however, it further dilutes your arguments because these costs are incredibly negligible to an average player.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

One of the MAJOR difference between the two is that the pricing of items purchased with gold are partially controlled by the players.

There really are a lot of variables.

Ursan.7846:

You are arbitrarily applying your own time scale of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable.” Just quick glance at the requirements of a Legendary (250 each of t6 mats? Incredibly rare precursors?) gives you an idea of how long Anet wants the journey to be.

To be fair, they enabled the ability to completely bypass or drastically shorten the “journey” via gold. As such we receive contrary messages about what they may or may not want.

munkiman.3068:

I also mentioned the TP will adjust, but the margin of player earnings versus the set cost to play the game would be higher, increasing overall wealth and bringing a better balance to the TP.

No, it wouldn’t. It would just make things more expensive. If everyone has more money, but the supply and demand remain the same, prices go up.

If every player received 100G for completing their daily, what would happen? No-one in their right mind would sell an item that required a lot more effort than completing a daily for 100G. I know that’s an extreme example, but I don’t think the message would come across in a more realistic example.

The market in GW2 is much more efficient than the market in any other game I’ve played. Things settle out to their real value really quickly for the most part. You can see it in the complaints in the crafting forum that it makes more financial sense to sell the materials than the crafted item.

Making it easier for everyone to make more gold will not get you what you want. The only thing that will bring down precursor prices is to make more supply available, either by increasing the drop rate, or adding a recipe that guarantees a precursor.

Essence Snow.3194:

To be fair, they enabled the ability to completely bypass or drastically shorten the “journey” via gold. As such we receive contrary messages about what they may or may not want.

This is an interesting discussion that I’ve had a few month ago. I agree with your stance, but I am going play devil’s advocate because I found the justification fascinating.

Why is the journey shortened via gold? You are implying that gold is somehow easy to earn. It’s not. To amass the amount of gold required to buy a Legendary takes a lot of time in-game (grinding, TP trading) or in real-life (actually working and earning money).

In the end, gold gives you options, because you can convert anything (time spend in-game, time spend out of game) into gold. Why are you denying this option to people who don’t have much time to spend in-game, and wish to convert the fruits of their labor in real-life to in-game goodies? Why are you denying this option to people who don’t play the game like you do, and wish to purchase a Legendary solely through their own preferred method of gameplay?

Now my argument is that Legendaries should actually require you to play all aspects of the game. However, being able to purchase them with Gold doesn’t necessarily “shorten” the journey as some would like to claim. It’s just giving the playerbase more options.

“This is where our differences lie.

“I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards in the LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME POSSIBLE.”

This is different then, “I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards. Period.”

The first is true. The second most definitely is not, and there is a ton of anecdotal evidence that contradicts the second statement."

I would change your first statement to a “reasonable amount of time” I didn’t even use the second statement.

“You are arbitrarily applying your own time scale of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable.” Just quick glance at the requirements of a Legendary (250 each of t6 mats? Incredibly rare precursors?) gives you an idea of how long Anet wants the journey to be."

I also mentioned the journey is unreasonably long and far to long to ask of the average casual player. This not to mention the RNG attached to the legendary. when you artificially increase the time it takes to reach a pinnacle of success, most people may not even bother, it is a game after all. Anet has recognized this and have adjusted some things to make people feel like they are progressing toward whatever goal, it’s a a start, but a shallow one. I’d rather have the rare guarantee (off world event chests) to go back to what it was if they increased the average earning potential. it’s like increasing the minimum wage since people cant pay the bills and buy that 50" flat screen, pretty depressing and not something i play a game for.

“You also constantly try to lump the Legendary process with everything else in the game, and that is incredibly misleading. You mention them yourself: Wp costs, repair costs, skill book costs…Those are expenses VERY easily covered by doing anything in the game really. If you want to mention these however, it further dilutes your arguments because these costs are incredibly negligible to an average player.”

I didn’t mention they aren’t easily covered, i said specifically the margin of earnings compared to the cost to play the game are too small, that doesn’t dillute anything. i wouldn’t say VERY easily covered for the average player or that the cost to play is negligible, however. I’ve also said that this really doesn’t have to be about precursors or legendaries or the price of TP items. I think some people take the game and relate it to life standards, people don’t play games (especially fantasy games) cause they want to struggle financially.

Shortened or skipped journey aside….Legendaries should be Account Bound in my opinion. You should not be able to buy them with gold at all. They should be reserved for those players that gathered the Account Bound materials necessary to craft one via the content in the game that provided them.

At least that way, the wielding of a Legendary weapon would show that YOU completed those tasks and YOU acquired the Account Bound items you need to craft it. The way it is now….no one really knows….no matter how ridiculous it seems to many of us that you can convert real money to gems to gold and buy one outright.

@munkiman

Increasing the earning potential across the board will NOT accomplish the goal you want it to….unless the goal is to make those fixed costs of playing the game (WP travel, repairs, etc.) have less of an impact on your pocket book.

It will NOT do anything for disparity of pricing of items on the Trading Post. When people start making more money, the price of goods WILL go up…..across the board. There will STILL be extremely expensive items listed on the TP as well as extremely inexpensive items. The difference between the two will remain the same.

The only way to bring the price of something down it to increase the supply, but when talking about those items in GW2, we’re talking about precursors and Legendaries. One of the reasons people want them is because there’s exclusivity associated with them. The more of them there are, the less exclusive they are.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Shortened or skipped journey aside….Legendaries should be Account Bound in my opinion. You should not be able to buy them with gold at all. They should be reserved for those players that gathered the Account Bound materials necessary to craft one via the content in the game that provided them.
.

I have mixed feelings about this… I agree with the sentiment and in some ways I think that there should be rewards like the GW1 HOM rewards that you can’t get unless you play the game. I think the high end karma and dungeon gear fills this role.

On the other hand, I don’t know why there shouldn’t be extremely expensive items that reward the TP players and the farmers that can generate that kind of gold. Heck even the folks that spend real money to get gold (legitimately) help the game by supporting development.