Guild Wars 2

When I began playing several weeks ago, the going rate for Exotics on the Trading Post ranged between 5 & 20g. Nowadays, I’ve seen Exotic gear at 100+ Gold. I understand the Gold Farmer Company (GFC) issue can be daunting & tedious. However simple & fair solution would simply place a price limit on the Trading Post. Nothing sold on the Trading Post should cost over 20g—20 Gold should be the limit.

One of the selling points of Guild Wars 2 was to reduce grinding. Having to gather 100 Gold per weapon or article of armor does not reduce grinding, by any stretch of the imagination. For those who enjoy grinding, one may always opt for the tier gear sold by vendors at a premium.

By capping price at the Trading Post at 20 Gold, one effectively kills two birds with one stone. :

1. By creating a increasingly discouraging environment for GFCs. Banning accounts will never be enough to stop GFCs. GFC have the money, resources, & wherewithal to simply hide their IP & create another account, ad infinitum. However, banning & setting a price limit on the Trading Post so low that these companies actually take serious losses, is far more efficient. Arenanet can never out-ban the GFCs, because players—your customer base, are always their customer base. If nothing on the Trading Post cost over 20g, players would still be challenged while Arenanet constricts the profits of GFCs to such Guild Wars 2 becomes an unprofitable venture in which to invest. Attrition is key. Starving & Banning GFC accounts is the only solution to a stable MMO economy.

2. The reason most players leave MMOs is the perception of False Advertising. One of the greatest touts of Guild Wars 2 was little or no grinding (Colin Johanson – http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/Guild-Wars-2/video/Guildwars-2---No-More-Grind). When any single item costs over 20g, any way it’s sliced—one must grind. When companies keep their promises—stay to true to what they advertise, they keep their clientele. For example, when Pizza Hut suddenly stop selling pizza to sell tacos, they’d lose nearly all of their pizza customers. Remember what happened when Coca-Cola changed their recipe to compete with Pepsi? Don’t change the Guild Wars 2 recipe or “bait & switch” us please.

Thank you for your time.

To be honest, I do see that it would damage and slow down that problem… but limiting the TP to 20 gold will raise other problems as well.

I can already see high end items no longer being available on the TP because 20 gold would just be too low (Like say the legendary precursors).
I’m no pro at economics but low supply means high demands which would just make those items even more impossible to get via trading post and seeing as these items take A LOT of gold to purchase materials to create… it just wouldn’t be profitable to sell, which will force everyone to craft their own precursor legendary weapon.

Also, I believe grinding is a choice in this game. One could quite possibly do fun dynamic events over and over and explore the world for rare exotics and loot for a good solid income. If that is your definition of grinding then we’re on different pages.

If you want to make a ton of gold for something thats worth 100+ gold then take your time and enjoy your way to it, because I’m guessing that if something costs 100 gold, it isn’t meant to be achievable within a few weeks, but is supposed to be a long time and end-game type of goal.

Back on topic though— I think you’ll have to find a better way to combat the GFC instead of drastically altering the trading post because that will not only effect the GFC, but every honest player out there who is trying to make a profit from their hard earned items.

Not only upper price must be capped.

Lower price too.

The Trading post is cluttered with trade requests under the sale price, so no one can sell at those prices, so they are useless data stored in the trade server for nothing.

As for a higher cap, I would limit it to the highest things you can acquire with gold.
I believe that’s the Commander tomes, so it’ll be 100g.

I can agree with both the lower cap being raised above vendor price and limit cap at 100g. That sounds solid.

Capping the upper price is a stupid idea. If somebody wants to pay 100+ gold for an item it’s fine. Also 20g would be way to low for such a cap, it doesn’t take long to get 20g.

Items naturally rise and fall to what they are ‘worth’. If supply is high, then the materials are junk and on the TP at vendor values. If the supply is low, then the items are listed as expensive.

If people are buying them for that much, then that’s where they are at.

The system is only broke if people are buying gold from the gold sellers. That causes the economy to inflate, without it being kept natural in-side the game. That creates a situation where it’s more cost effective to use a third party gold seller.

Most of us don’t. So the ones that do (and who get away with it) they clearly get ahead of the rest of us, and benefit in doing so. We are punished doubly, by having to grind more to offset the cheaters, or pay more cash for gems than we would if we cheated.

The state of end game is a result of the player mentality while leveling.

Most players just try to rush to level 80, avoiding spending gold whatsoever and just selling everything they find.

Since few money is made available to buy, everything is lowered in price…

…Except, of course, the stuff those players are saving their money for: End game gear.

If a time comes where alot of players suddenly are geared up, then the exotic prices may drop again.

Another key problem is how weak crafts are while leveling.
ANet needs to make them better and more viable.

A price cap is stupid for two reasons:

1 – ANET tried to cap prices in GW1 to 100k by making it impossible to trade more than 100k in one go. It didn’t work there. It won’t work here.

All you would get is someone setting up a reputable middle man service to remove the risk of mail trading and bypass the cap. A middle man service consisting of trusted individuals which will push prices up further by taking a cut, and increase inflation because it bypasses the trading post gold sink. Which is the most important gold sink, because it is the only one which eats more gold the higher are, which means it’s the only one that can ever halt inflation. Then there are people wouldn’t trust the middle men. Leaving them no way to buy the expensive stuff, and any they sell for max price will be instantly taken and resold at the price the market is set.
Not to mention just how hard it will be to get an accurate estimate of the items price. Just like it was in GW1.

2 – Even if you convince me that a cap is a good idea, you haven’t made any arguments about where to set the upper cap. Just “I think x is a good value”. Which suggests you are going on gut instinct, not thinking about it.

No, if ANET thinks an items price is too high, the only solution to that is to increase the drop rate so that the price falls.