Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I don’t like there are many people who have more than 50g and do not
a.) play the auction house (flipping orders)
b.) buy gems and change those to money

I play the game a decent amount (1-2 hours a day minimum) and I find that just through casual playing of dungeons, fractals, exploring, most players should have 50g worth of items if they also cashed in their collections. I personally just invest in things that should grow over time (like minis or skins) and jump in when I think something will be big. I bought chocolate in anticipation of Wintersday, and made big money.

Very casual investing. Maybe 5-10 minutes a day.

Strangely Guildwars 1 had no Trading post, and its economy did great, yet 4 months into Guildwars 2 and its gone to hell..

Was there really a need for this in Guildwars 2..

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I don’t think there are many people who have more than 50g and do not
a.) play the auction house (flipping orders)
b.) buy gems and change those to money

Option a.) is relatively time-consuming and I don’t like to do this activity when I could be playing the game. This is basically an anti-fun mechanic. Yeah now lots of peope probably would disagree, because this is the way they become rich and are happy with it. Perhaps some of those people even like this activity – find it fun. I can only speak for myself: I don’t like this.

In my opinion, I don’t have the numbers though but I guess depending on the reality in our guild, the difference between the amount of money some rich people have (those who spend most of the time in the tradingpost or with much RL-money) opposed the amount of money poor people have (those who actually are in the gameworld) is far too big.

At least money isn’t everything in GW2.

Haven’t bought a single gem in my life. Have only tried to play the TP once (and lost money off of it)

Full exotics/ascended gear including an ascended back I spent about 40 gold on, and a triforge pendant that cost me about 85 gold.

You just have to actually play the game and not sit in lions arch alt tabbed to the official forums.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Haven’t bought a single gem in my life. Have only tried to play the TP once (and lost money off of it)

Technically Gold —> Gems is still buying gems, and I see you have a bank tab so…

Dante.1508:

Strangely Guildwars 1 had no Trading post, and its economy did great, yet 4 months into Guildwars 2 and its gone to hell..

Was there really a need for this in Guildwars 2..

Sorry but having to spam the channels for hours or coordinate in time on 3rd forums to trade was anything but great.

Dante.1508:

Strangely Guildwars 1 had no Trading post, and its economy did great, yet 4 months into Guildwars 2 and its gone to hell..

Was there really a need for this in Guildwars 2..

Why do you think that? I think GW2 economy is doing fine. Whats your exact problem? Let me guess – you have too few gold? Economy is always “gone to hell” for those who cant get money id say.

Divinities are a good general purpose rune that works well on a lot of classes, but they aren’t that much better than the alternatives – and the alternatives are quite a bit better for quite a few builds.

Mostly they just suffer from a really constrained supply – you can’t craft them, and there aren’t any level 80 armors with Sup Divinity runes (meaning they don’t come out of armor forges), so the only repeatable source of supply is throwing major runes into the forge in bulk – which is very expensive.

Superior Sigil of Hobbling goes for vendor-price. I slapped a couple of those bad boys on my engi, got power wrench trait, eat some pizza every now and then, and now all the enemies in WvW have to limp everywhere all day. I’m engineer. It’s not like I did damage worth having sigils for anyway.

I stack maximum cripple on champs.

Edit: If they nerf Box of Nails I will quit this game.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I don’t think there are many people who have more than 50g and do not
a.) play the auction house (flipping orders)
b.) buy gems and change those to money

Try to farm CoF p1 for a day and see how much richer you are after that.

John Smith.4610:

Quick Note:
GW2 Spidy is not hacking, they are not doing anything illegal, it’s a fantastic site.

So, why aren’t you guys from arenanet building your own version ike you did with the wiki?
Do you think it’s a good idea to have such a crowdattractor in third party hands where it’s just a matter of time until the site-owner decides there’s enough unique IP adresses visitting and decides to upload a trojan to empty a few thousand accounts.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Haven’t bought a single gem in my life. Have only tried to play the TP once (and lost money off of it)

Full exotics/ascended gear including an ascended back I spent about 40 gold on, and a triforge pendant that cost me about 85 gold.

You just have to actually play the game and not sit in lions arch alt tabbed to the official forums.

You are doing fractals, no real surprise here, but yes, the person you quoted forgot about that part. Nevertheless all the dungeon crawling doesn’t get you even close to what the person you quoted referred to.

Dude says people don’t have more than 50 gold without playing the trading post or buying gems, I showed him a player with more than 50 gold who doesn’t play the trading post or buy gems.

Pic is outdated now though, I’ve got 80 gold in the bank now.

So John, any chance of making every kitten rune/sigil craftable? It’d only make sense putting, let’s say, 2 molten lodes, an ori bar and an ecto to make a superior sigil of fire.

Iehova.9518:

So John, any chance of making every kitten rune/sigil craftable? It’d only make sense putting, let’s say, 2 molten lodes, an ori bar and an ecto to make a superior sigil of fire.

Why should they? Not every item is craftable (take a look at all those exotic weapons/armors for example ).
If everything was craftable the only items of value on the market would be crafting mats.
Or you’d be forced to grind dungeons for the high end recipes=> gear spiral.

Before you craft any armor or buy any rune or sigil, you should decide what role you want to take (although this game does not have “trinity system”, there is still tank (keep agro in check, can eat more damage including mitigate it, etc), DPS, and healer; you can be a balance class also).

Once you decide it, you should check combination of stats according the role you want, for tank: vit and tough is a must, boon duration, healing power (sometimes tank is also a healer (usually heavy armor class)), condition removal duration/skill, for DPS: condition duration, power, precision, condition damage, critical damage, a bit survival (but it not must), for healer: healing power, boon duration, condition removal (soldier rune (shout condition removal),etc), if you want to live long just build like a tank, if you want to have DPS, build more power/condition damage (depends on your class).

Last, before you buy your stuff, check your build in heart of the mist (PvP main area). You can buy all rune and sigil here, you can try any combination of armor, you can try your trait build. All of these are free. To check, you dont need to go to PvP. In the north there is 8 NPC from every class, a bit south from there, there is golem to check your damage (without crit). Test your build there (some of them will be too strong for certain build. But its OK, there is no dead penalty in heart of the mist). Once you are good, you may buy what you need from TP or crafting them (If you dont see any combination which you want, check dungeon NPC vendor).

FYI: Although PvP main area is good for test your build, this is only for a basic guidance for your build (majority of your build). You may want to change a bit, lets say you want to be a tank (you use knight), you use soldier rune or dolyak rune (from SE dungeon vendor), but you still want to do some decent damage; you can change your weapon to berserker, some of your accessory to berserker type. Or you get tanky by using AC armor, but you lack healing power, you can change your accessory to cleric type. Or you get DPS by using berserker armor, but you lack on survivalbility, you may change some of your rune to enhance your toughness and vitality, or change your accessory to enhance your toughness and vitality.
FYI: Divinity rune is not always the best (except you want to make the most balance class).
FYI: Tank class: Warrior, guardian, can become a tank (but not in long run): ele, engineer, can become a tank because of pet: ranger :p, tank because of clone: mesmer (hard).
DPS: all classes. Damage: except necro (they can but not very effective). Condition damage: all but only thief, necro, and mesmer which are more effective.
Healer: warrior, guardian, elementalist.
(only in PvE case, does not apply in PvP).

I hope this help you, as this help me (and save me some money).

Jiro.6589:

John Smith.4610:

Quick Note:
GW2 Spidy is not hacking, they are not doing anything illegal, it’s a fantastic site.

So, why aren’t you guys from arenanet building your own version ike you did with the wiki?
Do you think it’s a good idea to have such a crowdattractor in third party hands where it’s just a matter of time until the site-owner decides there’s enough unique IP adresses visitting and decides to upload a trojan to empty a few thousand accounts.

lol.

Just lol.

goldi.3129:

Why should they?

So that rune/sigil prices won’t go through the roof.

Not every item is craftable (take a look at all those exotic weapons/armors for example ).

Irrelevant, we’re discussing runes and sigils.

If everything was craftable the only items of value on the market would be crafting mats.

Exaggeration, we’re discussing runes and sigils.

Or you’d be forced to grind dungeons for the high end recipes=> gear spiral.

What the hell are you on about?

Iehova.9518:

goldi.3129:

Why should they?

So that rune/sigil prices won’t go through the roof.

Not every item is craftable (take a look at all those exotic weapons/armors for example ).

Irrelevant, we’re discussing runes and sigils.

If everything was craftable the only items of value on the market would be crafting mats.

Exaggeration, we’re discussing runes and sigils.

Or you’d be forced to grind dungeons for the high end recipes=> gear spiral.

What the hell are you on about?

Irrelevant why exactly? Its an example. You say you want to craft all runes- why not all armor than? Just because YOU want to craft all the runes/sigils now- so you can get them cheap. Next day you want all the armor for a low prize as well.

Its a basic of an MMO that there are rare items. Which depend on rng. If you want all the items for free do sPvP.

You can aquire both the same way now- through rng, either by drops (in the rune/sigil case by weapons/armor with the runes and than salvaging them) or by rng in the Mystic forge.

Being craftable doesn’t necessarily make things cheaper. Look at Rune of the Scholar. Sure it’s half the price but that is still not cheap.

Just some general advice for saving up money from a guy who doesn’t enjoy playing the TP:

-set yourself a self-banker policy. If I put 1g in my bank, that gold does not leave the bank until I have enough gold to buy what I need. Every character I have puts 1g into the bank every time they break 1g10s. It doesn’t build up quickly, but it is steady when I’m actively running dungeons.

-Don’t craft level 80 Exotic/Rare gear or buy it directly from the TP. Masterwork gear works fine for most dungeons as long as you know the fights. Just to farm the appropriate dungeon for the gear you want, and use dungeon tokens to gear up. You save 10-15g on Armor/Weapons this way, but also gain 5-10g just from drops and dungeon rewards, which will cover your accessories and then some.

-run CoF. Just do path 1 and 2 once a day if you can. Heck, if you’re up to it run HotW path 1 too. Purchase the rare gear with tokens and then salvage the rare gear for ectos. Every run will get you two rares to salvage.

-Actually play when you are at your computer. Don’t jump around Lion’s Arch (as much fun as that is), don’t browse forums. Play. Join PUGs for Explorables. Most PUGs can get through AC and CoF without any problem, and most people looking for CM/TA/SE/HotW have experience in those dungeons already. Just play.

I only have ~15g at the moment, because I have been working on my Legendary. You heard me right. I get money from dungeons and having fun. I already have my Mystic Clovers (they’re horrible, get them out of the way…), and most of my t6 mats. My next goal is to save up for my precursor.

The game gives you money for playing. That’s why everything is expensive: because players have the gold to spend on things.

I’ve messed around in the major rune → superior rune mystic forge business for awhile, and historically it was quite profitable when major runes were selling at 5 silver or less. Was also quite interesting to see how price changes in one market affect downstream markets too. The price of superior runes is dependent on a lot of things. It appears to be primarily based on: Price of major runes, price of vile essences, glacial cores, gold doubloons, and filthy essences, all of which can be made into major runes. To a lesser extent also based on the price of superior armor which can be salvaged into runes, ectos, and lv 6 crafting materials.

If anyone is curious about the profitability of rune conversion, see below.

Right now, superior runes sell for an average of 1.25 gold per superior rune, and after the 15% TP fee that’s a return of 1.06 gold per rune. The best price I can get for a major rune to convert to superior is currently 6.13 silver per major rune. My best estimate for the major → superior conversion rate is somewhere between 17% and 20% upconversion rate with a 95% confidence after about 3000 combines. At the prices paid for rune conversion, this means a profitability of between -0.36 silver per combine, and 2.63 silver per combine, with an average of 1.12 silver per combine.

Once you know the upconvert rate, figure out the profitability. Why am I posting this now? Well, in the past I’ve gotten over 3.6 silver per combine, and 1 silver per combine just isn’t profitable enough anymore to bother staying in a market with such large fluctuations in profit =\.

Follow-up to previous post, individual superior gems are based on demand and whether they can be crafted or not. Divinity runes are good, but they’re expensive not because they’re the best rune, but because they’re not craftable like Scholar runes (arguably better imo). They undoubtedly also get a price bump for having a higher demand just because they’re the most expensive which most people presume means best.

goldi.3129:

Irrelevant why exactly? Its an example.

Which does not pertain to the current discussion – some rune/sigil prices are through the roof ONLY because they cannot be crafted or obtain other than tossing 4 other runes/sigils into the Mystic Toilet and praying that Zom doesn’t kitten you over.

You say you want to craft all runes- why not all armor than?

Because the uncraftable soldier/rabid/etc armor can be farmed in dungeons. Runes cannot.

Just because YOU want to craft all the runes/sigils now- so you can get them cheap.

Price and accessibility are different things. As of right now there is no reliable way to obtain certain runes and sigils. And just to fend off your stupid ad hominem, I’ve had the runes and sigils I needed for months. On one character. My alt’s pushing 80 and it’ll cost me 5 times as much to gear him.

Its a basic of an MMO that there are rare items. Which depend on rng.

“Rarity” and “reliance on RNG” are not necessarily the same. See: Arah sets, VotM, etc.

If you want all the items for free do sPvP.

Holy irrelevance batman.

You can aquire both the same way now- through rng, either by drops (in the rune/sigil case by weapons/armor with the runes and than salvaging them) or by rng in the Mystic forge.

“You can obtain your desired runes/sigils by two means: RNG and RNG” – this is what you just said. I want bloody reliability. Is it really this hard to understand?

Your problem is very simple. You are trying to buy the best stuff that is buyable in the game. And you are complaining that it’s expensive and you have trouble affording it. There are only two real solutions to your problem.

1. Make the best stuff so common that everyone gets more of it than they know what to do with.

2. Ensure that everyone has roughly the same amount of money.

Both of these solutions are obviously game-breaking. If the best gear was so easy to obtain that it didn’t represent a real goal to strive for, then a lot of the incentive to play would be destroyed. All MMOs are, to some degree, about progression. Some gear may not be obtainable on the market at all. That’s a different issue. But the best gear that is buyable for money? It will cost a lot of money. That’s because lots of people will want to buy it. Supply and demand.

The other solution is just the same “problem” of power-gaming, only applied more narrowly to the market. You are annoyed that some people have what you don’t have – yet. You are annoyed that they spend more time/effort making money than you and so they have more. Could be more levels too. Or gear that isn’t tradable. But in this case it’s money.

As long as there is any way to make money in this game, there will be people putting in more time and effort than you do. That’s an unavoidable truth. If there’s going to be an economy at all, some folks will rock it. Others won’t. The solution is to have no economy at all. Which frankly, some games do. But GW2 isn’t one of them.

The only real solution to your problem is a third option, which you’ve already heard. Adjust your expectations. GW2 IS extremely good about one thing. The “best” gear is only marginally better than gear that’s easily obtainable. You aren’t a second-class citizen only because you lack the best. Most times you won’t even feel the difference. So just stop worrying about it. Use what you can afford and get the rest when you can.

GW2 has the best solution built right into it. It isn’t a game that depends on hardcore progression. But if you insist on buying the best, and you think it should be easy, you’re simply playing the wrong genre. Not just the wrong game – but the wrong genre entirely. Not everyone can “win” just by logging in. If it took no effort, it wouldn’t be a game at all.

Divinity runes are very nice because of their flexibility, but they aren’t actually better. When it comes to making your character stronger or do whatever it is you want it to do better, there’s almost always runes out there that much up better for a specific build or type of builds. So just decide what your major play/build style you use and pick runes that go well with that.