Guild Wars 2

Hi, first off i want to just quickly say that this isnt a post about the prices of gems, they are what they are and its fine.
This is about the value of certain gemstore items such as EXP boosters and trading post express items etc etc

While at the beginning of the game the prices were fine for these, they have become almost rediculous to consider buying to use outside of recieving them from a black lion chest.
Currently the prices are as follows for some of the items

EXP booster (50% exp for 1 hour) 17 gold and 40 silver
DYE packs – currently around 25 gold for 7 random dyes
Instant 1 time use bank/merchant/repair items – 4 gold each

The list goes on and on….however, while alot of items are priced with the gem value in mind. These were priced at the beginning of the game and since the value of gems has altered SO much, they should be re-addressed and made to be cost effective comparitively with the current gem price.

As a general rule, i think all the boosters should be lowered ALOT, currently 17 gold for 1 hour of 50% extra exp is silly and i cant imagine why anyone would spend such a large amount of cash or gold for a very limited use item.
4 gold to have a 1 time use of bank or merchant as well seems excessive.
The prices should be changed to reflect the current prices of gems and keep to a rough number…
I think more people would use the items should this be done, you would probably see more gem sales from the increased use of the items and it would be more convieniant for players.

TL:DR version…
boosters 17g each…1 time use items 4-5g each.. way too high value for items with small use. Dye packs costing more than almost any dyes with little to no chance of getting any valuable dye
Make prices dynamic to the current gem to gold value.
IE Boosters 5g each in gem prices and 1 time use things 1-2g each in gem prices.

No. Prices are set by their cost in cash, rebalanced in cash, and cheap in cash. Assuming Anet cares what their price is in gold is foolish.

They should take both into consideration.
Especially considering that gems can be converted at 9g per 100 into cash so you need to question why someone would want to buy 800 gems and get 5 hours of +50% exp rather than sell them for 45g and just craft 2-3 professions to 400 and get a ton of extra exp that way
Unless we assume that Anet preys on those who simply dont know any better…or wants to profit from people who are new to the game and dont understand what terrible investments those items are

Taiver.4395:

They should take both into consideration.

No they shouldn’t. Gem Shop items are priced in cash similar to items found in other cash shops in other games. They care ZERO about the price in gold because the exchange’s purpose is to provide the gold for those exchanging gems, gems bought with cash. This way no additional gold is ever generated, since it was paid in from the game for gems, and the exchange acts as a sequester for game gold rather than a sink that removes it permanently. That said the exchange does 15% of gold going in and out of the exchange which is reflected in the two exchange rates.

It’s not complicated. The more gold that’s used to exchange for gems, the higher the rate goes. The higher the rate, the more those items cost in gold, so more gold needs to be spent which raises the rate even more, ad infinitum until the exchange runs out of gems (yes it’s finite and depends on players cashing in gems to prevent that).

i think you misunderstand me behellagh, i dont even mention the conversion rates for gold to gems.
My concern is the extortionate prices the few items like boosters etc have turned out to be now gem value is so high in gold
All they need to do is make the boosters around 30-40 gems each and the 1 time use items 10 gems each.
Its really not that hard and it would give them alot more use and actually be worth buying.

Taiver.4395:

i think you misunderstand me behellagh, i dont even mention the conversion rates for gold to gems.
My concern is the extortionate prices the few items like boosters etc have turned out to be now gem value is so high in gold
All they need to do is make the boosters around 30-40 gems each and the 1 time use items 10 gems each.
Its really not that hard and it would give them alot more use and actually be worth buying.

If they devalue boosters, they also devalue black lion chest keys. Why would they want to do that?

Taiver.4395:

i think you misunderstand me behellagh, i dont even mention the conversion rates for gold to gems.
My concern is the extortionate prices the few items like boosters etc have turned out to be now gem value is so high in gold
All they need to do is make the boosters around 30-40 gems each and the 1 time use items 10 gems each.
Its really not that hard and it would give them alot more use and actually be worth buying.

That’s exactly what he’s talking about. Anet does not care what the cost in gold is for these items precisely because the exchange rate changes how much gold each gem is worth. These items are price solely in cash. Players attempting to justify, or vilify, the prices in gold are being absolute fools.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Taiver.4395:

i think you misunderstand me behellagh, i dont even mention the conversion rates for gold to gems.
My concern is the extortionate prices the few items like boosters etc have turned out to be now gem value is so high in gold
All they need to do is make the boosters around 30-40 gems each and the 1 time use items 10 gems each.
Its really not that hard and it would give them alot more use and actually be worth buying.

That’s exactly what he’s talking about. Anet does not care what the cost in gold is for these items precisely because the exchange rate changes how much gold each gem is worth. These items are price solely in cash. Players attempting to justify, or vilify, the prices in gold are being absolute fools.

100% this. If the price in gold is prohibitively high, it could show a problem in the economy, but should be entirely secondary to the price in cash. That said, I do feel many items, particularly smaller items such as boosters, should be cheaper. Many people still aren’t entirely comfortable paying cash for something digital, be it a song, an app, et cetera. I’m fairly comfortable paying for, say, a Bag Slot Expansion that gives me a permanent effect on my character, but the idea of spending almost $2 on a booster that lasts an hour or $3 on a revive orb is a little much for me.

Gold is not worth much. Gold to gems is so high because many players have lots of gold and don’t want to spend money on the game. Those with money and buy gems do not really convert too much to gold as they also make gold in the course of game play that is sufficient for their daily needs.

Imo there are only a few non gem store drops/items that make converting gems to gold a worthwhile proposition. On the other hand the gem store always has new things for sale that make players want to convert gold to gems.

If players have so much gold then why all the crying over loot nerfs and prices of luxury items on the TP?

Behellagh.1468:

If players have so much gold then why all the crying over loot nerfs and prices of luxury items on the TP?

Just because someone’s rich doesn’t mean they won’t complain about prices and loot nerfs. It all contributes to making them just a little less rich.

It’s true gold is almost worthless right now. Almost everything worth owning is in the gem store. The only thing that gold is good for are legendaries and skins on the tp.

Thankfully Anet (or John Smith) may have realized this which could explain why custom arenas will sell for gold soon. This will lower the astronomical exchange rate a bit since there will be more demand for gold.

Although the OP’s reasoning is wrong, I think his premise is valid. Some items in the gem store are completely overpriced no matter how you look at it.

The one that comes to mind is the upgrade extractor. You are looking at nearly 2000 gems to extract an entire set for of upgrades. That is $30 just to switch upgrades. I can buy an entire expansion for most MMO’s for that price. Imo they should either drop a 0 off of the price or make it 2000 gems for an unlimited use one.

omg yes, unlimited use upgrade extractor, especially now with the change to ascended gear and transmutation stones → wardrobe system.

Honestly, they were put there at a set price of gems with the hopes that people spend their real $ on it however they implemented the gold to gem conversion into the game allowing players who don’t have the money or those who don’t want to spend money to instead work for that item in game at a higher cost of course which is understandable because they want you to buy it with real money instead. But really who buys those boosters? Ive never spent real money or gold buying boosters from the gemstore and I’ve got stacks in my bank lol.
As for other gemstore items such as skins we can take league of legends for example, people happily paying $10+ for a skin why should gw2 be any different, its all cosmetics and is optional and the fact that anet added the gold to gem conversion is awesome.

I don’t buy the boosters either. In the years that I’ve been playing, the only ones I really used were karma and that was when they affected consumable karma items. Now that we can’t do that, they just collect dust in my bank storage. I wish there was another use for them. Personally I would like to convert them into T6 mats on an 1 to 1 ratio. If nothing else, that would boost the value of black lion chests.

LimitBreaker.4165:

Honestly, they were put there at a set price of gems with the hopes that people spend their real $ on it however they implemented the gold to gem conversion into the game allowing players who don’t have the money or those who don’t want to spend money to instead work for that item in game at a higher cost of course which is understandable because they want you to buy it with real money instead. But really who buys those boosters? Ive never spent real money or gold buying boosters from the gemstore and I’ve got stacks in my bank lol.
As for other gemstore items such as skins we can take league of legends for example, people happily paying $10+ for a skin why should gw2 be any different, its all cosmetics and is optional and the fact that anet added the gold to gem conversion is awesome.

I don’t think anyone is complaining about the armor skin prices. $10 is pretty standard for armor skins these days. I think people are more complaining about things like $30 to change your armor upgrades, or $400 to get a weapon skin.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t think anyone is complaining about the armor skin prices. $10 is pretty standard for armor skins these days. I think people are more complaining about things like $30 to change your armor upgrades, or $400 to get a weapon skin.

Except the most expensive weapon skin is only 555g and at the current gem to gold rate is only 6100-6200 gems which is $76.25-$77.50. Outrageous still, just not as outrageous as $400.

Note that the top three priced weapon skins aren’t gem store ones.

Guess if prices were half, I would spend my $$ on the store.
But not in this current state…

I’m sad that there are no local prices adjusted for different country GDPs.
Which is totaly a good deal for NA, isn’t that cheap for EU’s eastern part…

To me it all depends on what you mean.

Do you think that $10 is too much for an armor skin, or do you think that 100g is too much for the skin?

If you think that $10 is unreasonable, then yes, you can argue that they should reduce the gem store price.

If $10 is reasonable but 100g is not, then the problem is the gold / gems conversion. Assuming the current price is at equilibrium (which it probably isn’t since the amount of gold you get for a gem keeps increasing) the only way to reduce the cost of the gem store items in terms of gold is:

1. Reduce the cost in $ (which we already said is reasonable)
2. Reduce the gem to gold ratio, which will result in less people trading gems for gold and ergo will cause it to quickly rise up again.
3. Provide an additional incentive to trade gems to gold.
4. Bifurcate the cost, so a gem store items costs $10 dollars but only 50 gold. I can’t see why they would do this. But it is a possible “solution.”

Behellagh.1468:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t think anyone is complaining about the armor skin prices. $10 is pretty standard for armor skins these days. I think people are more complaining about things like $30 to change your armor upgrades, or $400 to get a weapon skin.

Except the most expensive weapon skin is only 555g and at the current gem to gold rate is only 6100-6200 gems which is $76.25-$77.50. Outrageous still, just not as outrageous as $400.

Note that the top three priced weapon skins aren’t gem store ones.

As has been stated before the devs don’t balance around gold to gem conversion.

To obtain the most expensive weapon skin you need 7 BL tickets. there is the possibility of getting lucky and getting them fast but that is the outlier not the average. On average the drop rate of tickets is around 2% and the scraps are 20%. This means on average you will need to open around 200 chests to get enough scraps/tickets. This is 16,800 gems or ~$220.

You you are correct I was off in my calculation, but I still think $220 to obtain a weapon skin is a little absurd.

Of course since there is the gem to gold conversion rate only the outliers who get very lucky drops actually sell them on TP, leading to a lower price.

Associating direct gold prices to the atual RL money cost of gems is the OPs mistake. Despite what he says, he IS correlating his argument to the gem to gold conversion rate (indirectly).

They should only consider what the OP requests if they change the RL money value of Gems (that have remained at $25USD / 2000 gems since release). They are NOT going to do that as long as gems are selling.

You you are correct I was off in my calculation, but I still think $220 to obtain a weapon skin is a little absurd.

Sorry, but what is absurd is the suggestion that gambling is equivalent to making a purchase of an item. You can argue that Anet is taking advantage of not too bright players, but they are NOT selling that skin for an average of $220.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Behellagh.1468:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t think anyone is complaining about the armor skin prices. $10 is pretty standard for armor skins these days. I think people are more complaining about things like $30 to change your armor upgrades, or $400 to get a weapon skin.

Except the most expensive weapon skin is only 555g and at the current gem to gold rate is only 6100-6200 gems which is $76.25-$77.50. Outrageous still, just not as outrageous as $400.

Note that the top three priced weapon skins aren’t gem store ones.

As has been stated before the devs don’t balance around gold to gem conversion.

To obtain the most expensive weapon skin you need 7 BL tickets. there is the possibility of getting lucky and getting them fast but that is the outlier not the average. On average the drop rate of tickets is around 2% and the scraps are 20%. This means on average you will need to open around 200 chests to get enough scraps/tickets. This is 16,800 gems or ~$220.

You you are correct I was off in my calculation, but I still think $220 to obtain a weapon skin is a little absurd.

Of course since there is the gem to gold conversion rate only the outliers who get very lucky drops actually sell them on TP, leading to a lower price.

And I’m one of those who say you can’t judge the price of Gem Store items in what it would cost to convert gold to gems, only dollar cost counts in judging if something is too expensive.

But your premise is what does it cost in cash bought gems. And the two ways to acquire a weapon skin is either buying a lot of keys and opening a lot of chests until you have 7 tickets to get a fuse skin or convert cash bought gems into gold at the exchange to buy them directly from the TP.

For the 11 fused skins currently available on the TP (5 others have 0 supply), they range in sell price from 330g to 480g and at the current gem to gold rate as I’m writing this of 8g 69s per 100 Gems that translates into only $48-$70 of gems.

And while this is the “logical” and “smart” choice, there are still plenty of people who are willing to drop money periodically on this game’s version of a scratch off to see what they can win. I say let them do the “heavy lifting”. I’m patient.

As for the unreasonable price and odds of paying a lot more than “average” with the key method, I’ve said in the past that EVE’s client base and general MMO community was up in arms over kitten cosmetic monocle where here you could dump hundreds and not get what you want with barely a word of outrage.