Guild Wars 2

So every now and then I chuckle because in gw2 cotton is more expensive than silk, or iron more expensive than gold.

This isn’t a problem in itself, it’s just market forces causing this to happen. But this took me down the somewhat obvious path of wondering why?

And the obvious answer to the obvious question is the world of Tyria produces absolutely nothing (come on, let me have this small exaggeration), and only the heroes actually produce anything, hence the imbalance of supply since no mine operations or casual workers are producing anything (read: NPCs).

So, my unrealistic suggestion is to add basic resource vendors that sell things like the various ores, woods, and cloths with prices set similar to how the gem ratio is set. The system could be started with a set amount of gold and a set amount of ore/wood/cloths/etc for each resource type, and the prices could use a similar algorithm to the gem system to stabalize around a good price.

The main difference between this and the gem system (you know, besides not dealing in gems) would be that the supply wouldn’t be a one-time thing they set up at the beginning, but would receive artificial boons at somewhat set intervals, to simulate economic activity within Tyria. The amount of each resource added to the system would depend on its abundance in Tyria, so things like iron and copper would recieve more supply because theoretically they are more abundant in Tyria than gold is.

Ideally the supplies would leak in constantly to prevent large price variations when supply is added to the system or when it drains.

So,
Pros:

• better simulates economic activity in Tyria
• provides more realistic price differences between basic materials
• improves supply of resources which come from player levels/zones less played

Cons:

• it will never happen
• whatever the comments below say

The juxtaposition between the Real World and on Tyria is that there are no real “rare” materials that can be gathered. you compare iron to gold but on Tyria there are just as many rich gold nodes as there are rich iron nodes to farm, where in the Real World gold has a much more limited supply. Same with silk and cotton even though they are not gatherable.

The funny thing about these threads is noone ever compares Real life woods because noone knows the markets. It truly amuses me that ancient wood(petrified) is higher value than soft and hard woods which are used in construction.

one can deduce, though, that from the usage of golds and silks in luxurious places within the game world, and cottons and linens among the poor, though, that they are indeed supposed to share similar rarities to the real world.

Cons :
some people hate dungeons but also want to make some money

What about we do something like that for dungeons ? The more people that play
dungeons the less money they get ? Say for example there is 1000g available per day
for dungeons .. now if 10.000 dungeons are mad a day everyone only gets 10s

But that would stabilize the creation of new money, and so it would also bring more
people to harvest / farm mats instead of everyone always says : go dungeons to earn
gold then buy the mats. What in the end leads to higher and higher prices.
the mats.

Beldin.5498:

Cons :
some people hate dungeons but also want to make some money

What about we do something like that for dungeons ? The more people that play
dungeons the less money they get ? Say for example there is 1000g available per day
for dungeons .. now if 10.000 dungeons are mad a day everyone only gets 10s

But that would stabilize the creation of new money, and so it would also bring more
people to harvest / farm mats instead of everyone always says : go dungeons to earn
gold then buy the mats. What in the end leads to higher and higher prices.
the mats.

if you ask me these are separate problems, though yes, they could affect each other in this way.

For all I care you could seriously decrease the gold rewards for running dungeons, so long as you compensate it with some guaranteed materials. This would increase the value of gold and decrease the value of those materials, while not affecting people who enjoy running aroud harvesting to their heart’s desire too much.

But this leads naturally to: where does gold get generated? The basically dungeon only solution in place now isn’t optimal, but they do need to lock gold generation behind some kind of content. I’d be open to suggestions.

It helps newer players who can sell lower level materials at a decent price. It gives an incentive for higher levels to visit lower level maps. For this case I would not see a benefit in having an alternative to the TP.

proviticus.4183:

But this leads naturally to: where does gold get generated? The basically dungeon only solution in place now isn’t optimal, but they do need to lock gold generation behind some kind of content. I’d be open to suggestions.

Mobs still drop some money now and then .. events give some money .. trashloot sold to NPCs.

@Rouven while that seems nice, I don’t think it makes sense for low level players to be able to gather the most expensive materials. It doesn’t seem bad if the system changes and only high level players can collect the highest value materials, at least not to me.

@Beldin true, and if they were to find those avenues weren’t giving the economy enough gold they could just boost those sources.

proviticus.4183:

@Rouven while that seems nice, I don’t think it makes sense for low level players to be able to gather the most expensive materials. It doesn’t seem bad if the system changes and only high level players can collect the highest value materials, at least not to me.

@Beldin true, and if they were to find those avenues weren’t giving the economy enough gold they could just boost those sources.

As the game ages most people are and will stay at max level, those materials will eventually always be “oversupplied”. But look at silk, I’m sure John can help us out and make the requirements for all other high level materials similar.

In regards to non- or only semi-farmable items, the highest value materials are only available to “max” level characters. Namely T6, lodestones, exotic items including their sigils/runes.

I wasn’t going to buy linen anymore – I can farm about 40 scraps within 20-30 minutes, or even more if doing the pre-events for the world boss Ulgoth – which you will most likely still do at max level.

Orichalcum and Ancient Wood are still up there in price as well, also for max level.

The system cannot give newer players more gold (meaning hearts, events, maps) – it has to come from the TP – and those players need it.

I respect your opinion, and believe this is just a case where we have fundamentally different beliefs. I don’t think we need to worry so much about low level income, I didn’t need money until I hit 80, I just used gear that dropped. I even did a fair bit of crafting, but I can imagine if you try to do too much you’ll get money hungry early.

by my suggestion low level materials would have a constant supply, justified as coming from the actual Tyrian economy. In such a world abundant supplies should be cheaper, and it just doesn’t feel right to me when the abundant supplies are the luxurious ones, I don’t care if it makes sense. It makes perfect sense, I know how we got here, and I know some people have built play styles around it.

That doesn’t make it right to me, it seems like a fundamental flaw. Now, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t upset me, doesn’t make me feel like quitting, and doesn’t make me lose sleep at night. However when I do think about it I see it as a flaw. I however do recognize my ‘solution’ as unrealistic because the market has already molded itself around the way things are now, but in an ideal world I think it would work the way I mentioned, and probably from launch so players don’t get used to a playstyle that doesn’t really make any sense.

I don’t have a belief per se, just trying to give input to your suggestion and why I don’t think it’s a good one – I can change my mind if given solid reason.

At the end of the day basically you can already pay with your credit card for everything, but how would it make you feel if essentially your ability to earn in-game gold with farming items would be limited by a price ceiling (which is what those vendors would be). Surely the next step would be for someone to say: “Why are the vendors only selling cotton, I don’t need much cotton, I need silk, let them sell silk.”

Next would be, what about produce? Take something like Rosemary Sprig perhaps, should the vendors sell those too?

At what point might people say – this is P2W. Even if that might not be truly the case, at what point might there be an overal perception that “playing” is futile, farming nodes obsolete – would that still be fun? I see many many people farming nodes in maps – surely at least some of them like doing it.

true, but that playstyle is arguably less realistic than killing dragons. There’s no way you should get rich farming what should otherwise be common materials (that is unless you farm a literal kittenload, which isn’t actually the case).

as for the p2w question, I don’t see how buying mats of the TP with gold from gems from dollars is less p2w than buying mats off a vendor with gold from gems from dollars.

Rouven.7409:

I see many many people farming nodes in maps – surely at least some of them like doing it.

Here .. here .. I like that .. else i wouldn’t have bought 13 endless picks, 9 axes and 7 sickels

Beldin – youse crazy *lol – just kidding. Why no love for sickels?

proviticus – I hear you – to be honest it somewhat goes against my grain that I make the most amount of gold by selling my stuff. I like to keep my stuff, it’s mine. But realistically in this game that is how you make the gold, that or getting lucky (or speedrunning dungeons I guess). It’s just a technicality if you are “farming” dragons or farming nodes/regular mobs.

As for the second part, the difference would be that another player benefits from it and the materials are not generated from thin air, but through someone playing.

Look at it from another side. There is a reason why the low level materials are needed in the highest level of recipes – so that they are not worthless. It’s now your choice, or opportunity to get them yourself or pay someone else to do it. If you move this to a vendor you take this away from another player. You are not forced to do the low level content, you can trade your high level materials.

Of course I understand your reasoning that “linen” should not be as or even more valuable as “gossamer”, but it is done with intention to make sure some maps are not obsolete.

Edit: Perhaps you can phrase a general question in the “about the economy” thread, maybe John will be able to give some insight.

yeah, the current system definitely does serve a purpose in keeping the lower level zones populated with higher level characters. I don’t have a counter for that point, but perhaps a modification of drop rates could solve the issue?

If cotton is supposed to be more common, yet we want harvesting it to still be worthwhile, why not just increase drop/salvage rates by a ton? Salvaging gives you 20 scraps, suddenly they’re worth much less, but you’re getting many more. It’d be about striking a balance such that demand doesn’t get completely satisfied because of the new supply, but such that supply is high enough that prices drop to more realistic relative levels.

Probably not the best solution to the issue with lower level zones that would occur with my original suggestion, however I still believe in my original suggestion and think different solutions could be found for the lower level zones that don’t create an upside-down (in some cases) economy.

Iron is more useful than gold, in real life too.

I’m sorry, but you lost me. What does usefulness have to do with this discussion? How useful something is is a single (albeit major) factor in demand, which would ignore supply entirely.

so, the inevitable counter to your statement:
Gold is more expensive than iron, in real life.

The price for iron is higher because the demand is higher because the usefulness is higher.

In real life the price for iron would be higher too, due to its usefulness compared to gold, but in real life, people like to wear gold as jewelry – something that in RL other people see, but in GW2 is useless as a status symbol.

I don’t know how to respond to you because I don’t think you’re reading what I’m saying anyway. I clearly understand what you’re saying and said it way before you did in this thread. I even had some suggested ways to solve the issue. Thanks for the lesson though.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The price for iron is higher because the demand is higher because the usefulness is higher.

In real life the price for iron would be higher too, due to its usefulness compared to gold, but in real life, people like to wear gold as jewelry – something that in RL other people see, but in GW2 is useless as a status symbol.

Maybe a tiny factor could also be that iron is far more abundant than gold … in the real world.

Rouven.7409:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The price for iron is higher because the demand is higher because the usefulness is higher.

In real life the price for iron would be higher too, due to its usefulness compared to gold, but in real life, people like to wear gold as jewelry – something that in RL other people see, but in GW2 is useless as a status symbol.

Maybe a tiny factor could also be that iron is far more abundant than gold … in the real world.

which is exactly the “problem” I’d like addressed. Iron should be far more abundant than gold, but it shouldn’t be the heroes of tyria’s jobs to make that happen, but instead regular workers, which would be NPCs in this case. I guess they should let us heroes do it too, but we shouldn’t expect more than a standard worker’s pay for the work.

Well, if you wanted to simulate that accordingly then you’d also have to factor in that you can make far more jewelry with one gold ingot than armour with an iron ingot. You have to simplify the model a little bit for a game environment. Then you have to factor in the amount of work it takes to actually mine and process the ore – most of that stuff doesn’t sit on the side of the road … anyways … at this point I feel it would change the whole dynamic of the game, but heh, doesn’t hurt to brainstorm.

brainstorming would be a good result from a thread about an “unrealistic suggestion”

For the gold/iron situation perhaps it could be resolved by changing them from gold ores to nuggets, simply to suggest the volume mined is much lower.

In fact, that’s how I’m going to start justifying it in my head. Every time you’re buying an iron ore I’ll imagine a truckload, and every time some gold I’ll imagine a nugget :P

This, however, doesn’t really address silk vs cotton, as they are used to craft the same type of items, and using the same quantities.

proviticus.4183:

brainstorming would be a good result from a thread about an “unrealistic suggestion”

For the gold/iron situation perhaps it could be resolved by changing them from gold ores to nuggets, simply to suggest the volume mined is much lower.

In fact, that’s how I’m going to start justifying it in my head. Every time you’re buying an iron ore I’ll imagine a truckload, and every time some gold I’ll imagine a nugget :P

This, however, doesn’t really address silk vs cotton, as they are used to craft the same type of items, and using the same quantities.

In real life cotton is much more abundant than silk.

eithinan.9841:

proviticus.4183:

brainstorming would be a good result from a thread about an “unrealistic suggestion”

For the gold/iron situation perhaps it could be resolved by changing them from gold ores to nuggets, simply to suggest the volume mined is much lower.

In fact, that’s how I’m going to start justifying it in my head. Every time you’re buying an iron ore I’ll imagine a truckload, and every time some gold I’ll imagine a nugget :P

This, however, doesn’t really address silk vs cotton, as they are used to craft the same type of items, and using the same quantities.

In real life cotton is much more abundant than silk.

…exactly?