Guild Wars 2

TChalla.7146:

Essence Snow.3194:

Cassocaster.4576:

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

semantics……you know full well the point

Important distinction.

You can argue that you NEED food to live. You cannot argue that you NEED filet mignon and lobster every day to live.

When you conflate need with want, you reach the conclusion that the Trading Post makes thing too expensive. When you correctly identify needs and wants you realize that the Trading Post is your best friend.

This is a perfect reply……

The point being that nothing is required in this game. Thus justification using “required” as a basis is moot in this case. The only thing required is character creation so anything past that is optional.

Correct. Nothing is required in this game. Also, playing the TP is not required to enjoy the game or get anything in game.

So nothing is required to play required aspects of this game. That is sorta neither here nor there. Optional aspects however are rather relevant since they are pertinent to most everything in the game. Hence the debate at hand.

Essence Snow.3194:

So nothing is required to play required aspects of this game. That is sorta neither here nor there. Optional aspects however are rather relevant since they are pertinent to most everything in the game. Hence the debate at hand.

This current chain of discussion is related to my repudiation of another player because they felt that an optional form of gameplay was unethical and they desired to have that form of gameplay removed/altered. The basic premise of my response was that if they felt it was unethical, they could simply not do it since nothing was forcing them to do anything. We’ve gone on a bit of a tangent since then regarding required/optional.

Essence Snow.3194:

TChalla.7146:

Essence Snow.3194:

Cassocaster.4576:

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

semantics……you know full well the point

Important distinction.

You can argue that you NEED food to live. You cannot argue that you NEED filet mignon and lobster every day to live.

When you conflate need with want, you reach the conclusion that the Trading Post makes thing too expensive. When you correctly identify needs and wants you realize that the Trading Post is your best friend.

This is a perfect reply……

The point being that nothing is required in this game. Thus justification using “required” as a basis is moot in this case. The only thing required is character creation so anything past that is optional.

Correct. Nothing is required in this game. Also, playing the TP is not required to enjoy the game or get anything in game.

So nothing is required to play required aspects of this game. That is sorta neither here nor there. Optional aspects however are rather relevant since they are pertinent to most everything in the game. Hence the debate at hand.

But it’s for all intents and purpose a free-enterprise system. Look at how it plays out.

1) There is the original seller who sells whatever they sell instantly for whatever order price is available. I think of those players (and I’m one) as a worker. This would be akin to being a farm-hand that gets paid for the amount of work they performed, and the rate of pay is set by others. They also pay a flat tax for their services when they sell this way.

2) There is the seller that believes their work was worth more than the rate of pay offered. I’ll call them freelancers. They decide to sell at a higher rate than what was otherwise a guaranteed paycheck. They will have to incur some upfront costs, since they are not accepting the rate of pay advertised, but they stand to make more money in doing so. It is a bit riskier as well, since there is no guarantee that they will be paid at all.

3) There is the payer. These are the corporate heads that decide the rate of pay for the workers. They incur the most risk, since they must shell out even money in the hopes that they can get a return on their investment. In essence, they pay the workers for their time and make money by doing so.

Here’s the beauty of the system. At some point in time, the system has to reach an equilibrium, since it could actually become more profitable to go out and be the worker than it is to be the payer, specifically when the payer sells wares above a certain threshold based on supply and demand.

All I can say is thank god for the trading post… “THANK YOU ANET” I really hated in GW1 trying to sell something like a mini and constantly having to check with people what the going rate was. Which of course is not reliable because one person may know more then another and other players could take advantage of someone buying a item off them for much lower than it should be or someone selling something higher than what it should be.

I don’t like the idea of farming resource nodes for days on end just so I can get my crafting professions up. Hoping in the super slim chance that the specific precursor I need will randomly drop. I can just open the TP, see the prices, and decide if I want to buy or need to earn more money to get it. That is how the real world works. Supply and demand. It would be pointless if my Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten was so easily accessible that 40% of the people in the game had it. It would no longer be special to me. Just like in GW1, being ran to the town with the best armor was in no way earning it so it looses its personal value in the game.

Not sure WTF is going on but in my last post I wrote "Bifrost that I made and worked very hard———on (without the dashes) but for some reason it shows as “Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten”. Even when I edit it, It shows what I wrote…Forum bug???

Mistress Elemental.3750:

Not sure WTF is going on but in my last post I wrote "Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten (without the dashes) but for some reason it shows as “Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten”. Even when I edit it, It shows what I wrote…Forum bug???

Profanity filter gets a bit overzealous… like words ending in “T” followed by “its” even if your hard wasn’t meant to be sexual the filter sometimes turns it into a kitten anyway…

Mistress Elemental.3750:

Not sure WTF is going on but in my last post I wrote "Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten (without the dashes) but for some reason it shows as “Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten”. Even when I edit it, It shows what I wrote…Forum bug???

And sometimes it goes really nuts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/There-is-Luck-and-then-there-is-RNG-Luck/first#post2924633

Behellagh.1468:

And sometimes it goes really nuts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/There-is-Luck-and-then-there-is-RNG-Luck/first#post2924633

That post had more kittens than the stray cat my mother took in a few months ago…

tolunart.2095:

Mistress Elemental.3750:

Not sure WTF is going on but in my last post I wrote "Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten (without the dashes) but for some reason it shows as “Bifrost that I made and worked very kitten”. Even when I edit it, It shows what I wrote…Forum bug???

Profanity filter gets a bit overzealous… like words ending in “T” followed by “its” even if your hard wasn’t meant to be sexual the filter sometimes turns it into a kitten anyway…

I’ve actually taken the tack that my posts will get “corrected” so now I use kitten, kittening, kittened in context since everyone knows the replacement. For example “I don’t understand why I cannot kittening use a dollar sign”

As an economist, I just have to disagree with how you look at the situation John. Not personal. Not argumentative. Just a good natured disagreement. But I won’t hesitate to say I think you have lost the heart of the matter of an online economy in being too focused on spreadsheets. That gets to my other hat of advising clients on consumer science.

I’m reminded of what my pappy said before I became a lawyer. “You don’t need to go to law school to know 95% of the time when you are doing something that will or should get you in trouble”. Same with economics.

I have this conversation quite a bit with economists at digital clients. It is a common theme.

It is a bad mistake to not take into account the sentiment or perception of the economy especially an online economy whose consumers have quite the ability to switch. In fact, that is the only thing that at the end of the day matters. As such, I tell all digital media companies that perception is typically a darn good leading indicator of a good economic model. Fragmentation, in sentiment, across micro clusters of your customer segments, and with varying degrees of intensity is a nightmare to avoid.

Too often we allow internal “data dorking” which creates a sterile macro model replace consumer sentiment which is intensely micro both in numbers and sentiment intensity.

Be a consumer scientist first and an economist somewhere much later.

A Pure Economic Model Never Works in an MMO. There is no inherent demand need nor any real limitation on supply. Desire is coming 100% from internal versus external factors (in layman’s terms the desire comes from the game not from outside the game). There is no comparable. Supply despite any models (no matter what model you chose) is arbitrary. Likewise, the ability to change supply is limitless. And volatility is defined exclusively by the publisher.

An example helps. What is the “natural” or “efficient” supply for ascended gear or iron ore? The question points to economics gone mad. The only real question is how much gear and at what price pleases the consumer given it can be anything with no restraint and I can immediately provide a disgruntled consumer with a different digital challenge or shiny. In a consumer sentiment model, the spreadsheet “facts” are far less relevant than the perception.

Thus, you might please quite a majority of people in a “free market” economy to increase the supply of ascended gear to meet the pent up demand. Ok, how much>? What value? What currency? And while you make changes, you naturally have two micro-clusters assigning their value differently. You have one who wants greater access, often larger in population but less intense in feeling. Then you have the other micro-cluster who “got it the hard way” smaller in numbers but with far more passionate feelings.

Economics in an online game economy is great public relations but mathematical gibberish. There is a lack of limitations on the design of the economy. Now that is quite different than the online store where real currency that is base lined against other things it could purchase is used for your in game items/currency/etc. We are talking purely about the in game economy of digital goods and items.

The only thing that really makes sense to consider for the online economy is consumer perception. That is why the OP and others are more right than the spreadsheets.

Too often being trained in economics makes us a bit desensitized to the heart of the matter being the matter of the heart. There is no macro spreadsheet that disproves micro sentiment. . .thank God.

Bombsaway.7198:

Be a consumer scientist first and an economist somewhere much later.

I’m pretty sure “consumer scientist” is just another name for “someone who lies to the public for a living in order to convince them to buy something”.

I’ll take a free market economy over your proposed form of “feel-good” online poverty any day.

I am pretty sure ‘economist’ is just another name for “someone who gazes into crystal balls and tries to dazzle the public with charts and graphs based on cooked up numbers and assumptions pulled out of their a*se’.

I’ll take the ancient Roman soothsayers poking around in chicken entrails any day over an economist. If they got it wrong, it was usually their last mistake …

bri.2359:

I am pretty sure ‘economist’ is just another name for “someone who gazes into crystal balls and tries to dazzle the public with charts and graphs based on cooked up numbers and assumptions pulled out of their a*se’.

I’ll take the ancient Roman soothsayers poking around in chicken entrails any day over an economist. If they got it wrong, it was usually their last mistake …

In that case, you’d be quite wrong. Economics is a very old field of study. Sure, there’s the theory component, which, just like other sciences is focused on the exploration of the unknown and is thus subject to constant reevaluation, but there are also hard facts that have been laid out. It is not the job of the economist to market the idea of the economy to jealous, whiny players, it is the job of the economist to ensure that the economy is running smoothly for ALL players.

mtpelion.4562:

bri.2359:

I am pretty sure ‘economist’ is just another name for “someone who gazes into crystal balls and tries to dazzle the public with charts and graphs based on cooked up numbers and assumptions pulled out of their a*se’.

I’ll take the ancient Roman soothsayers poking around in chicken entrails any day over an economist. If they got it wrong, it was usually their last mistake …

In that case, you’d be quite wrong. Economics is a very old field of study. Sure, there’s the theory component, which, just like other sciences is focused on the exploration of the unknown and is thus subject to constant reevaluation, but there are also hard facts that have been laid out. It is not the job of the economist to market the idea of the economy to jealous, whiny players, it is the job of the economist to ensure that the economy is running smoothly for ALL players.

Economies (like the one we have in this game) by their very nature do not run smooth for ALL. They actually move further and further from that the longer they exists.

Essence Snow.3194:

Economies (like the one we have in this game) by their very nature do not run smooth for ALL. They actually move further and further from that the longer they exists.

It is each individual’s responsibility to educate themselves and participate. I think you’ve got equality of opportunity (free market) confused with equality of outcome (goal of market control). In a free market, the “smoothness” is not illustrated by a lack of spikes and falls but rather in its natural tendency to equalize. In a controlled market, the goal is to limit spikes and falls because those allow people to profit and profit is contrary to the end goal of making everyone have the same number of things.

I have nothing confused. I am well aware of the effects of our economy on this GAME. That’s the main kicker here. This is a game not a real life economy. The game is the number one priority, not the economy…some forget that or choose not to consider it.

Essence Snow.3194:

I have nothing confused. I am well aware of the effects of our economy on this GAME. That’s the main kicker here. This is a game not a real life economy. The game is the number one priority, not the economy…some forget that or choose not to consider it.

If the economy of the game fails, then the game will quickly follow. I’d posit that in a game like this where there is no (or should I say very limited) power creep as a result of the lack of vertical progress, the economy becomes the most important part of keeping the game alive because the economy allows ALL players to participate in the horizontal progression.

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

I have nothing confused. I am well aware of the effects of our economy on this GAME. That’s the main kicker here. This is a game not a real life economy. The game is the number one priority, not the economy…some forget that or choose not to consider it.

If the economy of the game fails, then the game will quickly follow. I’d posit that in a game like this where there is no (or should I say very limited) power creep as a result of the lack of vertical progress, the economy becomes the most important part of keeping the game alive because the economy allows ALL players to participate in the horizontal progression.

It doesn’t have to fail if it isn’t purely based on numbers. It is not an all or nothing aspect, 0 or 1, black or white, there is the ability for levels of grey.

I’d would also debate that verticle progression is the most important aspect of a mmo livelyhood followed by it’s economy.

We can compare how our economy effets players who are just starting vs how it effected us when we started. There is a prominent difference and it will only gain traction, effectively leaving some in the dust….aka moving away from ALL.

Bingo Essence. The economy is just a tool to build loyalty.
MtPellion: I just reframe it this way, an “economy” in a game allows you to balance the need for players having aspirations (gear, items, power etc) with the need to not create undue frustration (I can’t get that. Do you know how much time that would take for me to get that gear myself. . . .). The subtle difference is one way of viewing the issue is more perception than data based.

Behellagh.1468:

I have a feeling that a lot of TP “haters” tried to “EARN BIG MONEY AT HOME ON THE TP” and when they couldn’t they assume that those that do are cheating in some way instead of A) don’t be greedy; research and C) have a little patience. And since those making money must be cheating then the system is either broken and/or those profiting need to be punished.

I have a feeling it’s quite the opposite. Some of us search around for the best ways to make money, trying various things in game. Eventually our search leads us to the TP, and we find that the fastest way to make money in game is by flipping items.

Since we came to the game with visions of slaying dragons, we get disappointed that the easiest way to make gold is relisting items for people too impatient to appropriately price things.

We go defend villages against marauding beasties and get a few copper, and think, wow, spending that time standing in LA with GW2spidy on my other monitor would have rewarded me a lot better.

Gibson.4036:

I have a feeling it’s quite the opposite. Some of us search around for the best ways to make money, trying various things in game. Eventually our search leads us to the TP, and we find that the fastest way to make money in game is by flipping items.

Since we came to the game with visions of slaying dragons, we get disappointed that the easiest way to make gold is relisting items for people too impatient to appropriately price things.

We go defend villages against marauding beasties and get a few copper, and think, wow, spending that time standing in LA with GW2spidy on my other monitor would have rewarded me a lot better.

If you enjoy killing dragons or defending villagers, then the reward disparity wouldn’t matter to you. The fact that it does bother you suggests that you enjoy making gold rather than adventuring.

Bombsaway.7198:

Bingo Essence. The economy is just a tool to build loyalty.

What?

Essence Snow.3194:

We can compare how our economy effects players who are just starting vs how it effected us when we started.

Hi Essence, Can you compare the differences in the economy for me? Also, do you see definitive milestones within the economy’s changes that would also effect players starting at different points over the past year and a half-ish? Or has it been incremental over time? I’m very curious to see it from your perspective.

Gibson.4036:

I have a feeling it’s quite the opposite. Some of us search around for the best ways to make money, trying various things in game. Eventually our search leads us to the TP, and we find that the fastest way to make money in game is by flipping items.

The problem with this, however, is that as more people buy items to “flip” the less money any one person makes. The increase in competition makes buy orders rise and sell orders fall, leading to lower profits and making it harder to obtain the items themselves.

So, someone posts that they’re making tons of money selling quaggan scrimshaw trinkets, dozens more people start buying them to flip and make easy money, then end up paying too much and selling for 16% more than they bought them for and don’t make any money at it. They get discouraged and go back to running the champion train.

The TP is self-correcting, like a watering hole during the dry season – only so many animals can come here to drink, and if too many show up no one gets any water.

brittitude.1983:

Essence Snow.3194:

We can compare how our economy effects players who are just starting vs how it effected us when we started.

Hi Essence, Can you compare the differences in the economy for me? Also, do you see definitive milestones within the economy’s changes that would also effect players starting at different points over the past year and a half-ish? Or has it been incremental over time? I’m very curious to see it from your perspective.

I could, but unfortunately I know your stance already, and thus what I perceive as your objective would be a waste of my time. ie…..“do not feed the….well you get the just of it”.

As for the second bit. Incremental mainly with a bit of steps coinciding with releases. Each release offers those with (not new players) a significant increased chance at gain. This is proportionate to wealth disparity…..eg……the more one has the more they can gain and the less one has the less they can gain. Since this only grows in time newer players in relation to established players have less and less of percentage in comparison.

Essence Snow.3194:

brittitude.1983:

Hi Essence, Can you compare the differences in the economy for me? Also, do you see definitive milestones within the economy’s changes that would also effect players starting at different points over the past year and a half-ish? Or has it been incremental over time? I’m very curious to see it from your perspective.

I could, but unfortunately I know your stance already, and thus what I perceive as your objective would be a waste of my time. ie…..“do not feed the….well you get the just of it”.

As for the second bit. Incremental mainly with a bit of steps coinciding with releases. Each release offers those with (not new players) a significant increased chance at gain. This is proportionate to wealth disparity…..eg……the more one has the more they can gain and the less one has the less they can gain. Since this only grows in time newer players in relation to established players have less and less of percentage in comparison.

I was honestly asking for your perspective, but it is entirely up to you whether you provide it.

I agree with you in regards to wealth disparity over time.

Some people get excited by playing the market (Gordon Gecko), other people get excited by finding something in the wild (Bilbo Baggins). My only point is that in this game it’s much better to be a Gecko than a Baggins. (Which I think is not debatable, but feel free to try)

The only question I have is whether that’s a good thing. And that is 100% a matter of perspective only. It’s great for the games economy. It may be less great for the player base.

mtpelion.4562:

If you enjoy killing dragons or defending villagers, then the reward disparity wouldn’t matter to you. The fact that it does bother you suggests that you enjoy making gold rather than adventuring.

That argument feels a little disingenuous. By your logic, we could go ahead and remove all rewards from killing dragons and defending villagers, and people should be happy because the act of it is reward enough.

More realistically, I enjoy the dragon slaying and village defense as well as getting significantly rewarded. I want to get the better gear and cool cosmetics, but it would take an unrealistically long time by doing heroic activities, compared to a realistic time if I engage in trading.

The game gets developed to make it take a significant time to achieve rewards. Which is fine. Nobody wants to achieve everything for logging in the first time. The problem comes when there are vastly different incomes from various activities in the game. If it takes twice as long to dungeon run the gold you can make trading, three times as long to champ farm it, and ten times as long to get it doing DEs or WvW, and ArenaNet wants players to spend a month getting some new item, how do they set its cost?

They make it take a month of doing DEs, and the traders and dungeon runners snatch it up in half a week.

Then they say, “Oops, players got that last item too quickly,” and bring the next set out at a much higher cost to keep the traders and dungeon runners going for a full month. Now the world explorers and WvW players are looking at a little under a year before they can afford it.

Look at the mat requirements for ascended crafting. These numbers clearly aren’t targeted at people hitting nodes one by one as they go through the world. They’re targeted at a game where the TP is the center around which the reward system spins.

It’s so not about whether I enjoy saving villages. It’s about whether the game values that by the way its rewards are structured. And at the moment, it doesn’t. If you want to save villages, you have to ignore the reward system, because if you follow the rewards they lead you to trading, first and foremost, as well as farming dungeons, champs, and world bosses on timers.

TooBz.3065:

The only question I have is whether that’s a good thing. And that is 100% a matter of perspective only. It’s great for the games economy. It may be less great for the player base.

In looking at the type of game that this is, ultimately its a theme park mmo with somewhat of an open world, I would say that its not a good thing. Its not an economic simulator, its not a sandbox where players create the content.

On a personal note, and just a personal note, I find that TP takes a lot of the joy of killing that big boss and seeing what shiny you got today. There is too little waiting for Santa and seeing what the Christmas loot bag has for you and your class. So TP comes across as too easy to just one day hit 80 and the next day get the gear you always wanted. PvE then becomes more grind and less epic (see below why) or completely irrelevant.

To balance the instant purchase on TP effect, ANet creates ascended gear and armor that forces you into crafting or a PvE grind versus epic encounters. Or it is so time boxed (laurel based) that it is like waiting your turn for a promotion. But that isn’t epic. There is no great story to tell of how you killed the dragon and got the rifle.

What I wished for:

1. Glory could be coverted to ascended gear (and the primary way of getting it) to reintroduce the population to what really was the game defining mode. Something needs to pull the player base to PvP by tying it back to other mode benefit.

2. Epic Encounters would create epic loot (if it can’t be a drop because of randomization then a ticket or currency we can trade at a vendor for that epic piece).

3. TP would not be the main vehicle for getting a new set of best or near best equipment because it leaves no aspiration that I can’t just whip out my wallet and satisfy in a few keystrokes.

That is my point of looking too seriously at TP as an economy. The real question is do you have enough ways to meet player need? Do you really want a trade system to be the primary way of equipping an end game character? Is TP the root cause of needing ascended and other gear that is causing horrid grinding and crafting (which is neither epic nor really fun in my humble opinion)?

In short, is TP providing so much of our need that the only way to introduce aspiration winds up being a huge grind?

@Bombsaway: Unfortunately, the flipside of that system is that you’ll get players who do content over and over, but due to sheer bad luck, never get what they want. Or players who get something they know is in high demand, but they have absolutely no use for it themselves, and so just end up marching it or even destroying it.

That said, I do agree with Points 1 and 2 of your suggestions. There SHOULD be ways for players who only do WvW/PvP to get Ascended gear too. (Although maybe not PvP, since sPvP is finely balanced around level 80 + Exotics. Throwing Ascended gear into the mix could alter it in small but significant ways.)

I personally feel that the SAB loot system got it right. You can play the content and get lucky with a rare drop, or you can earn tokens and trade them in for an account bound version of the same skin. And for players who are just too lazy or dislike the content to do it themselves, they can buy skins from the players who were lucky enough to get a sellable skin version.

@Zaxares Not at all if well designed. You have multiple markets. You can buy on TP (prices fluctuate). You could get gear from a good dungeon run (luck variability). OR (and this is a critical or), you could get gear from one of several steady price methods:

1) Crafting (where the amount of materials you have to collect is constant)
2) sPvP (where the amount of glory you have to collect is constant)
3) WvW (where the amount of karma you have to collect is constant)

The key is to realize that in a game that has a fragmented player base and caters to the idea that you can be a PvEr and enjoy GW2 or a WvWer and enjoy GW2, you need to encourage “play as you like” versus “play as forced” to get gear.

Multiple markets does not even have to imply that gear acquisition is “easier”.

There is nothing magical or even serious about markets in a game. You can introduce new ones at anytime. All variables are always controlled by the publisher. At some point, an MMO company in the past hired an economist (the story is interesting as to why) and ever since MMO economists have missed that there really is no economy, tried to create an artificial one, and too narrowly defined consumers as macro vs micro clustered.

Zaxares.5419:

I personally feel that the SAB loot system got it right. You can play the content and get lucky with a rare drop, or you can earn tokens and trade them in for an account bound version of the same skin. And for players who are just too lazy or dislike the content to do it themselves, they can buy skins from the players who were lucky enough to get a sellable skin version.

Marvel Heroes has an interesting twist on this – they have tokens that you can turn in for various special things – new hero unlocks, random rolls on epic gear, etc. These tokens can drop randomly from mobs and are affected by their version of magic find, but if you don’t find a token after 10 minutes of playing (I think, it might be 8 minutes) you get one dropped from the next mob you kill.

That lets players earn them faster with magic find, but doesn’t completely leave them to to the mercy of RNG. It also allows the developers to balance the costs of different items by thinking about the most time it would take a player to earn that item. For hero unlocks, they decided that even if every drop roll didn’t go your way, it would take about 20 hours of playing to earn one. Tokens can’t be traded, but you can spend cash to unlock the heroes if you don’t want to put in the 20 hours.

On the other hand, that game has no player driven economy at all, so a system like that might not translate directly into GW2. Still I thought it was an interesting approach to balance the thrill of getting a lucky drop with the frustration of streaks of bad luck.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Zaxares.5419:

I personally feel that the SAB loot system got it right. You can play the content and get lucky with a rare drop, or you can earn tokens and trade them in for an account bound version of the same skin. And for players who are just too lazy or dislike the content to do it themselves, they can buy skins from the players who were lucky enough to get a sellable skin version.

Marvel Heroes has an interesting twist on this – they have tokens that you can turn in for various special things – new hero unlocks, random rolls on epic gear, etc. These tokens can drop randomly from mobs and are affected by their version of magic find, but if you don’t find a token after 10 minutes of playing (I think, it might be 8 minutes) you get one dropped from the next mob you kill.

Anet has tokens but it is very inconsistent with the way it uses them, I’ve taken it as a sign of a lack of overall vision in relation to the reward systems and probably in terms of the way the game is project managed at the top level.

morrolan.9608:

Anet has tokens but it is very inconsistent with the way it uses them, I’ve taken it as a sign of a lack of overall vision in relation to the reward systems and probably in terms of the way the game is project managed at the top level.

This seems to be the message of the last year.

It felt like the game had a strong vision leading up to launch. Now it feels like it’s lurching back and forth, with no clear idea of where it wants to go.

Gibson.4036:

morrolan.9608:

Anet has tokens but it is very inconsistent with the way it uses them, I’ve taken it as a sign of a lack of overall vision in relation to the reward systems and probably in terms of the way the game is project managed at the top level.

This seems to be the message of the last year.

It felt like the game had a strong vision leading up to launch. Now it feels like it’s lurching back and forth, with no clear idea of where it wants to go.

So far as I can tell, Anet was caught by surprise when their assumed target market – GW1 players – was overwhelmed by more traditional MMO players. So they have been trying to integrate traditional MMO features with the experimental and GW1-like features ever since. With limited success, since the compromises they make tend to leave both sides with the feeling that something is missing.

As for tokens, it’s a lose-lose situation. Look at karma – if they expanded the selection of items you can buy with karma, the players working towards Legendaries will be upset because they have to grind karma for stuff now and for the Legendary. Players who don’t play as often as hardcores will be upset because they don’t have a lot of karma in the first place, and so they can’t get the new stuff without going out of their way to grind karma.

Players who just spent a lot of karma, on exotics or Orrian boxes or whatever, will also be upset because they would have saved their karma if they knew that new items were coming. Pretty much the only people who would be pleased are hardcore players who have tons of karma already and/or spend a lot of time in the game and can easily grind karma.

So they introduce new karma items and a minority of the player base buys them immediately and flaunts the new stuff in front of the already upset players who can’t afford the new items and don’t want to grind for weeks to get them – at which point the hardcores are already tired of the new items and by the time most of the players get them it’s not a big deal any more.

Most items in the game are sold via gold because it’s easy to get, hardcores can grind the champ trains and dungeons and so on, casuals can convert gems, and relatively few people feel left out. More importantly, the casual players who spend money on gems are happy, and those are the people who make sure the devs have a job to come back to on Mondays.

The system is set up the way it is for a reason, and without a shift in the foundation of that reason it’s not likely to change.

Unfortunately that system takes a lot of the reward feeling out of it’s reward by doing so. Since rewards are an integral facet of this genre of game it really does garner taking a deeper look at.

morrolan.9608:

Anet has tokens but it is very inconsistent with the way it uses them, I’ve taken it as a sign of a lack of overall vision in relation to the reward systems and probably in terms of the way the game is project managed at the top level.

I don’t think it was the tokens that was the interesting part of how Marvel handles balancing RNG with earning rewards. It was the twist of being assured of getting a token every 10 minutes regardless of what you were fighting or where you were fighting it.

In GW2, every token that you can get without relying on RNG requires the successful completion of a particular task. In my opinion, that makes it more grindy because in most cases you can’t earn tokens during the course of doing whatever it is you’re in the mood for. Specialized tokens have a place, and I think more general tokens earned just by fighting enemies for account bound items could be added to fill in some gaps.

The devil’s in the details though, and I can see a few interactions with existing systems that could cause problems when trying to implement something similar in GW2.

Essence Snow.3194:

Unfortunately that system takes a lot of the reward feeling out of it’s reward by doing so. Since rewards are an integral facet of this genre of game it really does garner taking a deeper look at.

In a perfect world different games would be developed for different kinds of players, and GW2 would focus solely on either the hardcore audience or the casual audience. But there is a lot of crossover in the real world, and a business can’t afford to alienate a large chunk of its customers if they can help it.

The bulk of the game is designed for a player like me, who picks up and puts down the game in small chunks, and works towards incremental rewards. The LS supports this, a casual player can catch up in a single weekend of play and there is always something new.

For more dedicated players, there are rewards such as Legendaries to work for, and dungeons and fractals and so on. But they are harder to please than casuals, and it takes a lot of work to constantly put new goals in front of them to work towards because most hardcore players can consume content faster than the devs can provide it.

So each side ends up feeling like the game is incomplete, casuals are shown rewards that are forever out of reach and hardcores end up running out of things to work for. Eventually Anet may have to decide which group they want to keep and who they can stand to let go.

I need a +100 button for Bombsaway… +1 is just not sufficient.

tolunart.2095:

Eventually Anet may have to decide which group they want to keep and who they can stand to let go.

That is my expectation and hope. As new games come out, GW2 will have to refocus its image and direction in order to be able to stand out. At that point I’ll be able to decide if I will come back to the game or move on completely.

i think you answered your own question in your original post:

all is vain

Gibson.4036:

tolunart.2095:

Eventually Anet may have to decide which group they want to keep and who they can stand to let go.

That is my expectation and hope. As new games come out, GW2 will have to refocus its image and direction in order to be able to stand out. At that point I’ll be able to decide if I will come back to the game or move on completely.

Remember though, most hardcore players turn gold into gems, but more casuals turn gems into gold…