Guild Wars 2

Vinny.6924:

Entitlement again.

Its a skin, you won’t die if you don’t have it.

Its a very long term goal.

Wait for the scavenger hunt.

Quit.

Apparently its a skin that makes you good at the game.

Just sayin’…its what I’ve heard. :p

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

I think the question can be re-worded a bit.

I was reading RisingDusks’s post and I was going to point out that his ideas don’t do what you proposed (Gold earning, not item earning). Because the fact that on the TP your earning potential increases as you increase your wealth (higher investments, more return) can’t be mirrored in PvE, period.

But I had to pause and think. A majority of people don’t earn gold for the sake of earning gold. A majority earn gold so that they can convert it into other items that can can use. Materials and weapons and what not. The question isn’t how to make PvE earn more gold than the TP, but how to make gathering materials in PvE more viable then getting gold on TP (or PvE), then buying it.

Then yes, RisingDusks’s solution would make sense.

Though I’d argue that it would greatly reduce the distance needed to reach the carrot, which may not be what the developers want (Because I’m assuming they want us to be chasing carrots for a long while).

Please stop with these “its a skin, you dont have to get it” posts, because they are the pinnacle of idiotism.
Obviously everyone wants to get items that are ingame and are a part of the price we payed for the game, and are a part of everyones goals in the endgame.

Everyone should have the same chance of getting it, and atm that is not the case. Get lucky – get legendary / be unlucky – dont have a legendary.

Besides, there are an abundance of legendarys already existing, which should in term make them easier and easier to obtain?!
So, i dont know why not implement a system for legendarys that would make them easier to obtain the longer the game exists. Now its basically harder to get it, than it was in the first months of the game.

It’s also important to note, Ursan, that making gold on the TP doesn’t create gold out of thin air like earning gold in PvE (it transfers from player X to player Y). That is part of why I chose a path that creates items in PvE, which don’t add gold to the economy (and these items still get removed from the economy by the Mystic Forge and other recipes). This is important so that we avoid inflation; we don’t want to explode the amount of gold/hour that a player can make in PvE continually to try to match the TP gold earnings, because that will blow up and not get us anywhere balanced.

Lastly, ANet can always add new carrots to chase down the line if they want to keep the demand for these materials up. Regardless of that, however, getting these items needs to be more reliable than it is so that people can actually make progress. Players should not embrace the philosophy that it is better to farm gold/TP for gold and buy the materials than to get the materials directly. One of the roles this economy currently severely lacks is suppliers to the economy, and as of now it has far too many marketeers because that is simply more profitable.

This is really all silly.

There is no method for every single person in a MMO community to have the same gold/rate per hour based on what they’re doing unless you want to tear up the game and rebrand it as some other new genre.

You pretty much have to design a game that rewards people who spend their time in a game doing a certain activity.

Spend 3 hours in game doing nothing and afk? 10g for you in your mailbox!
Spend 3 hours in game pvping? 10g for you in your mailbox!
Spend 3 hours killing mobs for no apparent reason? 10g for you in your mailbox!

And then you’d spend that gold on things in game that have fixed prices.

But of course, we’d still have complainers who will say that they “don’t play as much and feel forced to play in order to progress”. Go look at laurels and dailies and how people are complaining that they’re missing out because they don’t play as much as a hardcore player.

Better yet, what’s the fun in that? You know you’ll be getting the same amount of gold as that botter, or that dragon farmer, or that guy who just afk’s in town all day. Why play? What’s the point? I think people would rather take the least stressful activity.

But all of the above is a moot point because it violates the constraint that we need a TP in the game.

This whole “PVE=TP in terms of rewards” notion is just a random suggestion that was not thought thoroughly, as with the majority of suggestions in MMO’s.

The question is: how much time do you have to invest in any other aspect of gameplay vs. the TP in order to make money and get what you want? It should be an almost (never will be perfect) equal amount of time across the board spent in every “valid” method of gameplay.

If Anet is going to consider playing stock broker and buying/selling your way into wealth a supported form of gameplay, it should be just as rewarding as any other mode of play given the same amount of time spent.

Your time as a consumer is what’s really at stake here. There need to be methods of play that achieve the “ultimate” goals for both players with lots of time and players with very little time. That’s the best way to attract customers to your game and keep them there.

Vol.5241:

This is really all silly.

Vol, I appreciate your point of view in many threads, but I implore you to read my previous two posts and consider that as a viable way to make playing in PvE more valuable and more in-line with the TP in terms of value for time investment. The key problem right now, I feel, is that there is a severe lack of suppliers to the economy because items have such low drop rates and there’s no reliability. Remember GW1 how you were guaranteed ecto and shards from the end chests of UW/FoW, respectively? That sort of thing is what is needed in GW2, just with cores/lodestones/rares and dungeon/fractals chests.

Increasing the value of the supplier role will encourage a lot of people to branch out, make PvE feel more rewarding without breaking the economy, and enable people to feel like they can make progress towards a goal by playing the game rather than playing the RNG. That is why it’s so valuable to us.

jaka.9635:

Please stop with these “its a skin, you dont have to get it” posts, because they are the pinnacle of idiotism.
Obviously everyone wants to get items that are ingame and are a part of the price we payed for the game, and are a part of everyones goals in the endgame.

Everyone should have the same chance of getting it, and atm that is not the case. Get lucky – get legendary / be unlucky – dont have a legendary.

Besides, there are an abundance of legendarys already existing, which should in term make them easier and easier to obtain?!
So, i dont know why not implement a system for legendarys that would make them easier to obtain the longer the game exists. Now its basically harder to get it, than it was in the first months of the game.

Please, no. Read the definition of legendary. It means mythical, rumored, the stuff of legends. They are a long term goal and many players work towards them for months. They are not a goal for casual players to expect to earn unless they work towards them for a long, long time.

You bought the game; you are therefore entitled to work towards a legendary like everyone else. You are not guaranteed to get one, though you will if you are lucky or if you work hard enough. The instant you make something easier to get, you devalue it for everyone. I’m not just talking about in-game gold – the actual satisfaction you get from earning it decreases.

While I’m on the subject of luck, keep in mind that MMO’s are essentially a luck-based genre. Rare drops that you need to sell on the TP, for example, are due to luck. Even crafting is through luck since you need fine mats to drop. The Mystic Forge is all luck. Running dungeons is like learning a dance; there are definite steps involved, but at the end, your rewards are random. There is relatively little skill in any of this until you get to the TP players. The instant you take that random chance out, and everyone can get something guaranteed, it becomes worthless.

Apparently, that is what is going to happen anyway with the scavenger hunt. I dearly hope that the scavenger hunt patch introduces a whole new set of legendaries with their own precursors.

Rising Dusk.2408:

It’s also important to note, Ursan, that making gold on the TP doesn’t create gold out of thin air like earning gold in PvE (it transfers from player X to player Y). That is part of why I chose a path that creates items in PvE, which don’t add gold to the economy (and these items still get removed from the economy by the Mystic Forge and other recipes). This is important so that we avoid inflation; we don’t want to explode the amount of gold/hour that a player can make in PvE continually to try to match the TP gold earnings, because that will blow up and not get us anywhere balanced.

No, you just create a ton of items. Which means the ratio of currency:items will decrease a ton. Nothing will cost much gold.

Which…is okay, but again, certainly not something Anet wants (I’m assuming.)

Rising Dusk.2408:

Lastly, ANet can always add new carrots to chase down the line if they want to keep the demand for these materials up.

You can’t just “add new carrots” if they take negligible time to obtain. That’s a ton of dev manhours you’re spending introducing some new rewards every month or so to keep the playerbase happy. Most players will burn through it very quickly. Also there’s the other issue which all these items will have no prestige/accomplishment feel attached to them, because they’re so easy to obtain. Say what you will about “Oh Legendaries are no achievement because you can just buy them,” but every other day I read threads on Reddit and other fanforums about a person who is BLISSFUL that they finally achieved their Legendary. You’re taking away from it.

All of which….is again, okay. It’s your opinion, I can’t say it’s wrong. But I repeat, certainly not something Anet wants (I assume again)

What PvE activity exactly are we going to use to establish the maximum gold/hour that can be earned?

- Dungeons? Which one?
- Exploration? Which area?
- WvsW? As part of a zerg or roaming solo?
- RP? I’ve heard that bar wenches do pretty good tips!

What nefarious TP activity are we trying to hit with these measures?

- Flipping?
- Manipulating the ecto market to within 20c of buy/sell price?
- Crafting?
- Selling mats?
- Selling dropped gear?

- What happens if Dusk drops for me and I want to sell it on the TP? Should I be allowed to sell it for 700g and then denied access for the foreseeable future until I work through my gold/hour TP cap?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Vol.5241:

This is really all silly.

Vol, I appreciate your point of view in many threads, but I implore you to read my previous two posts and consider that as a viable way to make playing in PvE more valuable and more in-line with the TP in terms of value for time investment. The key problem right now, I feel, is that there is a severe lack of suppliers to the economy because items have such low drop rates and there’s no reliability. Remember GW1 how you were guaranteed ecto and shards from the end chests of UW/FoW, respectively? That sort of thing is what is needed in GW2, just with cores/lodestones/rares and dungeon/fractals chests.

Increasing the value of the supplier role will encourage a lot of people to branch out, make PvE feel more rewarding without breaking the economy, and enable people to feel like they can make progress towards a goal by playing the game rather than playing the RNG. That is why it’s so valuable to us.

Even if you increase drop rates (which would more than likely result in a drop in price too, lowering your gold rate), a person who plays the TP will still come out on top.

I liken it to farmers. No matter what you do in game, whether you nerf Cof1 or even shelt/pen, there will always be that one activity or event in game that a farmer will take advantage of. Because there is no way to make a game that is unique but also have equal rewards for equal activities.

Same with the economy and drops. No matter what you do with the drop rate, there will always be inefficiencies and gaps in the outpost. People make money on the outpost because they are feeding off of player’s
-lack of awareness
-lack of patience

You can’t get rid of that because it’s human nature.

So let’s say we have a 1-item economy of crystal lodestones, and you have get a drop boost for them to drop it from 3g to 1g. Completely ignoring the fact that you probably don’t even make as much gold as before, there will still be people who will be buying/selling the lodes. And fluctuations throughout the day can be ‘exploited’ to make profit.

Increase the # of items in this economy and you further increase the inefficiencies of player’s in the market.

tldr:
People make money off the TP due to differences in buy/sell orders and player’s impatience (sell now or later?). Altering drop rates will do nothing.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

The reward system needs to have more controlled means of obtaining highly desired items, this way the cost of a highly desired item is based on deciding whether its worth it to do whatever is required to get the items. Not only that, but it sets up a real market in which people who like doing X or are good at doing X can sell their services.

IE the real problem is random number itemization. Desired items should be consciously created, and require some sort of quanitifiable effort and use of time to create. This gives them value.

Very few items should be created by accident, random’s influence on item generation should be limited.

See, pve doesnt need to make as much money as being a great businessman, but it needs to be able to compete in terms of getting content in the game, the best way to do this is to make getting content in the game and doing things with a purpose be the primary way of obtaining an item.

So to put it short
1.Items are created by accident by millions of players with no desire for said item
2.Items created on purpose have to compete with accidental items
3.Since no one can get anything they want purposefully in a competitive way, money becomes the best answer for obtaining what you want
4.Of course the people who dedicate themselves primarily to earning money, and prefer that gameplay style will be the most rewarded player in this scenario.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

I would argue that it doesn’t have to be the same level, and would go on to assume that it’s probably impossible to do.

But the common perception is that there is a drastic difference between earning on the TP versus earning elsewhere in PVE. That drastic difference (whether real or perceived) is where the discontent lies. If I make 4g per day and a trader makes 5g per day, then oh well. No biggie. He makes a bit more than I do but the difference is acceptable. If I make 4g per day and a trader makes 20g per day, then it seems more of a problem. (Making up numbers, just examples).

So I don’t think it’s necessary that they be equal, just that the gap doesn’t seem so drastic. That’s why I have been enjoying the new guaranteed rares from bosses. Yes, the value of the individual rare/ecto goes down, but the volume compensates. And yes, I might not make as much money as a trader (and honestly all the ectos I put on the market are that many more ectos for traders to play with if they want), but it doesn’t feel like trading is the only way to wealth. And so I am fine with making less so long as I still feel rewarded for my time spent elsewhere in the game.

phys.7689:

The reward system needs to have more controlled means of obtaining highly desired items, this way the cost of a highly desired item is based on deciding whether its worth it to do whatever is required to get the items. Not only that, but it sets up a real market in which people who like doing X or are good at doing X can sell their services.

IE the real problem is random number itemization. Desired items should be consciously created, and require some sort of quanitifiable effort and use of time to create. This gives them value

I’m very confused with this statement. Even with the RNG nature of the creation of certain items, there are still very real markets for them and they have very real values as determined by the market.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Challenge accepted!!!

Select how much money/hour you think is feasible for a character to gain (I’d say around 1 gold personally. Maybe 2 gold if you’re feeling nice.)

Players cannot gain more than that amount per hour from monster drops or vendors. Players are also capped per hour for profits from the trading post. (Defining profit is an exercise left up to the reader)

And hey, we can monetize that! For the low price of 800 gems, you can double that cap for a week!

And if that Modest Proposal piques your interest, Just wait till you hear about my great idea for solving economic problems in Ireland…

Vol.5241:

This is really all silly.

There is no method for every single person in a MMO community to have the same gold/rate per hour based on what they’re doing unless you want to tear up the game and rebrand it as some other new genre.

You pretty much have to design a game that rewards people who spend their time in a game doing a certain activity.

Spend 3 hours in game doing nothing and afk? 10g for you in your mailbox!
Spend 3 hours in game pvping? 10g for you in your mailbox!
Spend 3 hours killing mobs for no apparent reason? 10g for you in your mailbox!

And then you’d spend that gold on things in game that have fixed prices.

Its never going to be perfect, no, but you don’t have to resort to pointless conclusions such as going AFK and recieving money. The valid methods of play should be determined, and then balanced, by the company who makes the game. In this case, Anet should clearly state what methods of gameplay are considered to be supported and consistantly rebalanced by their staff based on other changes made to the game.

Vol.5241:

But of course, we’d still have complainers who will say that they “don’t play as much and feel forced to play in order to progress”. Go look at laurels and dailies and how people are complaining that they’re missing out because they don’t play as much as a hardcore player.

This is true. Players who are not able to achieve the daily every day are missing out on a form of currency that has a time gate on it. If you miss a daily, you cannot make it up.

However, the reverse point can also be made that players who only play a short period each day, and complete the daily, benefit just as much from said system as someone who plays all day long because of the time gate.

Its not a 100% fair system, but its more fair than letting some lifeless shmo in a huge guild grind his way to top-end goals in two days while casual players struggle at every corner. It favors casual in some instances and hardcore in others.

Vol.5241:

Better yet, what’s the fun in that? You know you’ll be getting the same amount of gold as that botter, or that dragon farmer, or that guy who just afk’s in town all day. Why play? What’s the point? I think people would rather take the least stressful activity.

Exactly. Whats the point of playing if you achieve without playing? This isn’t what people are saying but it is somehow the conclusion you’ve drawn. Nobody wants to have an empty game where whoever logs in is at the top just “because.” People just want their supported method of gameplay to be equally time effecient. The whole phrase “play your way” comes to mind. The word “play” is, of course, part of that phrase.

I’ll say it again, its all about supported methods of play. If Anet says its a way people are meant to play their game, it should be just as viable as any other method. Don’t say it if it isn’t true.

That’s why legendary items can be sold at the TP, because otherwise people would HAVE to 100% the world and craft in order to have a legendary item. Some people in this game, as easy as it is, will never do those things out of lack of interest.

Instead of looking at the PvE part, look at the TP part. Not talking about getting rid of it but changing the design. I don’t understand why my (sell) offers stay up indefinitely, there is no incentive on finding a competitive price. There is more money destroyed if someone has to re-list his products and pay the listing fee again and it will make people think a bit more about it.

Rouven.7409:

I don’t understand why my (sell) offers stay up indefinitely,

Your stuff is too expensive!

Rouven.7409:

there is no incentive on finding a competitive price.

so that they sell quicker?

Don’t need to thank me…

Vol.5241:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Vol.5241:

This is really all silly.

Vol, I appreciate your point of view in many threads, but I implore you to read my previous two posts and consider that as a viable way to make playing in PvE more valuable and more in-line with the TP in terms of value for time investment. The key problem right now, I feel, is that there is a severe lack of suppliers to the economy because items have such low drop rates and there’s no reliability. Remember GW1 how you were guaranteed ecto and shards from the end chests of UW/FoW, respectively? That sort of thing is what is needed in GW2, just with cores/lodestones/rares and dungeon/fractals chests.

Increasing the value of the supplier role will encourage a lot of people to branch out, make PvE feel more rewarding without breaking the economy, and enable people to feel like they can make progress towards a goal by playing the game rather than playing the RNG. That is why it’s so valuable to us.

Even if you increase drop rates (which would more than likely result in a drop in price too, lowering your gold rate), a person who plays the TP will still come out on top.

I liken it to farmers. No matter what you do in game, whether you nerf Cof1 or even shelt/pen, there will always be that one activity or event in game that a farmer will take advantage of. Because there is no way to make a game that is unique but also have equal rewards for equal activities.

Same with the economy and drops. No matter what you do with the drop rate, there will always be inefficiencies and gaps in the outpost. People make money on the outpost because they are feeding off of player’s
-lack of awareness
-lack of patience

You can’t get rid of that because it’s human nature.

So let’s say we have a 1-item economy of crystal lodestones, and you have get a drop boost for them to drop it from 3g to 1g. Completely ignoring the fact that you probably don’t even make as much gold as before, there will still be people who will be buying/selling the lodes. And fluctuations throughout the day can be ‘exploited’ to make profit.

Increase the # of items in this economy and you further increase the inefficiencies of player’s in the market.

tldr:
People make money off the TP due to differences in buy/sell orders and player’s impatience (sell now or later?). Altering drop rates will do nothing.

you dont have to increase the drop rate of items, you need to make it specific.

right now, lets say 1000 onyx lodestones come into the game a day.
the supply is something like
20% from hunting sparks
45% from dungeon/boss chests
15% from mystic forge upgrades
15% from mystic forge attempts at mystic clover
5% somewhere else, i dunno

point is out of those sources only two of them are intentional, but now they have to compete with3 other sources in the market, which are people who may have absolutely no need or desire for said items.

if all methods of obtaining onyx lodestone were intentional, now you have a functioning market, and a more rewarding world. People spend time to create onyx lodestones because thats what they want to do, people who buy it are paying people who purposefully created item, based on how much they thing that time is worth. If onyx lodestone uncharachteristically valuable, more people start creating them and balance the price.

So lets say if you want to get onyx lodestone, you have to get lodestone hunter status from an npc, and go to the types of content where it drops, mines, fighting eles, and boss chests, now you only find the onyx type of lodestones. Now you are competing with other lodestone hunters, but not random drop man who just needs to offload items. items that are low in demand will be low in production, which will bring their price in line with the value of the time.

TP guys will still be the richest guys, but now they will have to pay people what that player thinks their time is worth, rather than what someone who didnt want the item at all thinks its worth. As well, if a price gets too high, a player can decide to obtain the item directly.

Redscope.6215:

That’s why legendary items can be sold at the TP, because otherwise people would HAVE to 100% the world and craft in order to have a legendary item. Some people in this game, as easy as it is, will never do those things out of lack of interest.

THIS is a GREAT point…..and is EXACTLY why all things in the game should NOT be created equal!!!!!

Personally….I don’t think Legendaries should be sold on the TP. Those people that aren’t interested in doing the things that are required to gain a Legendary should NOT be allowed to have one. Period.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

I’m pretty much under the impression this thread is yet another complaint about the increasing cost of the precusors. It being based entirely on RNG (maybe not true RNG) but gambling none the less, is overall seen as anything but legendary and needs to be changed, period. This would really eliminate a good chunk of the ruffled feathers over the market in general. Account bound on acquire for legionaries also needs to happen.

Playing the market is a game and a positive part of this game. To me the market feels about right, i wouldn’t expect to earn the same amount simply playing than i would taking the time to be market savvy. I’d actually expect to earn more per hour, as many people that play the market do. People invest IRL, to actually gain more income than they do through normal working means, i don’t see it any different in the game and don’t feel it should be.

I simply can’t stress enough how much the precursor acquisition method needs to be altered. It really needs some creative thinking to make it feel like it’s something epic and not feel like gambling. The TP itself isn’t really an issue.

Ursan.7846:

phys.7689:

The reward system needs to have more controlled means of obtaining highly desired items, this way the cost of a highly desired item is based on deciding whether its worth it to do whatever is required to get the items. Not only that, but it sets up a real market in which people who like doing X or are good at doing X can sell their services.

IE the real problem is random number itemization. Desired items should be consciously created, and require some sort of quanitifiable effort and use of time to create. This gives them value

I’m very confused with this statement. Even with the RNG nature of the creation of certain items, there are still very real markets for them and they have very real values as determined by the market.

items creation has too many unintentional creators, thus everyone prioritizes liquidizing things, to get the stuff they actually want.
For example, exotic weapons tend to cost more to make than they do to buy, this is partially because the pursuit of precursor creates many exotics with no/small value to the person who made it.

lets say some one wants to make a rune of divinity, in the process they will probably create 50 other superior runes they have no need for.

in a market where too many items are created randomly, its most peoples best interest to turn everything into gold, so they can get the things they want. This makes any activity that is not getting gold feel unrewarding. There is no way that players who are not seeking gold will ever be able to compete in gold earning with players who are seeking gold. However, they can feel rewarded if they can obtain things they want directly, or sell the things they obtain at a decent value.

as far as creating real markets for items, that will always be the case, any item that has more than npc value will have some type of market, but thats just equilibrium. that will occur no matter what.

Just like there are real markets where people get paid virtually nothing to work for long periods, or unhealthy conditions. But that wouldnt make a very rewarding or intresting gameplay for those people would it?

Ooshi.8607:

Rouven.7409:

I don’t understand why my (sell) offers stay up indefinitely,

Your stuff is too expensive!

Rouven.7409:

there is no incentive on finding a competitive price.

so that they sell quicker?

Don’t need to thank me…

You missed his point.

In other games, you have time limits, generally 24-48 hours. If you don’t price your item where you think it will sell within that time period, you lose your deposit and have to list again (at a new deposit). Thus a bigger gold sink if you misprice, and more incentive to either price competitively or not list at all.

In GW2, you can price things whatever you want because you are not at risk of not selling the item within a time limit. If I get a sword that is selling for 100g but I think somewhere down the line it might sell for 200g, I can put it up for 200g and forget it forever. I will never lose my listing fee or have to worry about relisting it. And maybe 4 months down the road it will sell, maybe 6 months. Maybe never. But you never have to think about “will this honestly sell in x time frame or will I be out my listing fee?”

So from what I’m understanding from you phys~

is to remove the gap between buy/sell so that the TP players can’t profit off of buying/selling. You do this by discouraging sellers from pricing stuff below what they think is worth.

In a perfect world that sounds nice, but again, there are people who are impatient and want their money now. Get enough people to farm these intentional onyx locations and you’ll have several players on the market. Maybe they’ll keep undercutting themselves by 1C, maybe a few here or there by a few S. Next thing you know, there is a large enough gap for tp players to profit off of.

In a perfect world you’d have all sellers agree to a fixed price and stack all their items on that price. But in a game where you need to survive with gold, and gold is the currency, more often than not you want to make a reasonable amount of gold rather than no gold at all.

You see this undercutting all the time. In real world, you have businesses undercutting others with deals like (we’ll beat the competitor’s price by 5%) because it’s better to make some $ rather than none.

John Smith.4610:

Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Well given that folks probably want more gold so that they can buy things from the TP, and that the traders will capitalize on that newly minted demand, that’s a tough nut to crack. The only thing that comes to mind is highly desirable items that can only be crafted from materials collected by farming. Geez, it’s a wonder that isn’t already in the game.

On the other hand, I don’t think the traders have an advantage over farmers. Folks who pay attention to the market trends have an advantage over folks that ignore the market. For example, it makes no sense to farm Karka shells if the shell prices have tanked or if there’s a huge demand spike for powerful blood.

Nothing can be done to level the playing field between the high-information player and the low-information player; the high-information folks always have the advantage.

I don’t play the market because it’s too much work to do it properly and I already work a too much. I’m sure if I put as much effort and thought into my gathering as some folks put into their TP strategies, I could make comparable money.

Vol.5241:

So from what I’m understanding from you phys~

is to remove the gap between buy/sell so that the TP players can’t profit off of buying/selling. You do this by discouraging sellers from pricing stuff below what they think is worth.

In a perfect world that sounds nice, but again, there are people who are impatient and want their money now. Get enough people to farm these intentional onyx locations and you’ll have several players on the market. Maybe they’ll keep undercutting themselves by 1C, maybe a few here or there by a few S. Next thing you know, there is a large enough gap for tp players to profit off of.

In a perfect world you’d have all sellers agree to a fixed price and stack all their items on that price. But in a game where you need to survive with gold, and gold is the currency, more often than not you want to make a reasonable amount of gold rather than no gold at all.

You see this undercutting all the time. In real world, you have businesses undercutting others with deals like (we’ll beat the competitor’s price by 5%) because it’s better to make some $ rather than none.

Im not really saying you eliminate TP playing, like i said people whose primary focus is earning money will always earn money, and yes patient people can earn money just for that patience, etc. However the game will have a more balanced economny, where you actually feel rewarded for your time. When you start to feel like onyx lodestone market isnt worth your time, you swap and become a crystal lodestone hunter. At least you get a somewhat realistic value for the item, with other suppliers being actual competitors.

The key here is not to get rid of TP profiteers, or farmers, but to make it feel like you can actually earn something of value or work towards something in PVE, by making item distribution more intentional, you start to create a real economy with real suppliers and real value on items. Currently there is usually an inability of supply to match demand. People want 300000 charged lodestones, but the game creates 3000 peoplle want 3000 crystal lodestones but the game creates 30000. And regardless of what lodestone people want, the best way to get a lodestone predictably, is by buying it on the market, and selling a whole bunch of stuff you never wanted as fast as possible.

Pandemoniac.4739:

John Smith.4610:

Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Well given that folks probably want more gold so that they can buy things from the TP, and that the traders will capitalize on that newly minted demand, that’s a tough nut to crack. The only thing that comes to mind is highly desirable items that can only be crafted from materials collected by farming. Geez, it’s a wonder that isn’t already in the game.

On the other hand, I don’t think the traders have an advantage over farmers. Folks who pay attention to the market trends have an advantage over folks that ignore the market. For example, it makes no sense to farm Karka shells if the shell prices have tanked or if there’s a huge demand spike for powerful blood.

Nothing can be done to level the playing field between the high-information player and the low-information player; the high-information folks always have the advantage.

I don’t play the market because it’s too much work to do it properly and I already work a too much. I’m sure if I put as much effort and thought into my gathering as some folks put into their TP strategies, I could make comparable money.

i sort of agree, but it doesnt have to be just crafting, the key here is to make it intentional, whether that be hunting specific monsters, going into some hard to access zone, or crafting it up. The problem with farming in this game mats is your still competing with tons of accidental competitors, take the bags for example. did 90% of the people farming in cursed shore want to actually get a peice of leather? probably not, but you will have to compete with them in the market.

Ummeiko.5318:

You missed his point.

In other games, you have time limits, generally 24-48 hours. If you don’t price your item where you think it will sell within that time period, you lose your deposit and have to list again (at a new deposit). Thus a bigger gold sink if you misprice, and more incentive to either price competitively or not list at all.

In GW2, you can price things whatever you want because you are not at risk of not selling the item within a time limit. If I get a sword that is selling for 100g but I think somewhere down the line it might sell for 200g, I can put it up for 200g and forget it forever. I will never lose my listing fee or have to worry about relisting it. And maybe 4 months down the road it will sell, maybe 6 months. Maybe never. But you never have to think about “will this honestly sell in x time frame or will I be out my listing fee?”

You are still loosing a lot of money that way! You are in fact renting storage for a potential exorbitant amount.
If in your example he was reasonable in his sell price, that money could have been quickly reinvested. As an experiment roughly a month ago I started a character with 5 gold, and mainly through crafting have 75 gold at the moment on that character.
So I would say that in your example and if the same trades where available he would have “paid” 1500g for having that item “stored” at the TP.

Okay, fair enough, but Anet is also losing a lot of gold sink potential by allowing that storage (yes, expensive storage, but imagine if instead of paying 10g once, he had to pay 10g every 2 or 3 days).

On a smaller scale, it’s generally cheaper to buy in the middle of the week and sell on weekends. If you can reasonably speculate the weekend price, you can list everything on Tuesday when you buy it. In other games, if you list it on Tuesday, you have to list it again on Thursday. If you want to save it for the weekend, you have to use storage space. Wither or not that storage space is worth the listing fee is I guess valued by the seller.

I’m not saying a time limit would fix any problems, or that I’d even like to see one. But I am surprised there isn’t one.

phys.7689:

i sort of agree, but it doesnt have to be just crafting, the key here is to make it intentional, whether that be hunting specific monsters, going into some hard to access zone, or crafting it up. The problem with farming in this game mats is your still competing with tons of accidental competitors, take the bags for example. did 90% of the people farming in cursed shore want to actually get a peice of leather? probably not, but you will have to compete with them in the market.

Well does it matter if it’s intentional or accidental? You’re always going to be competing with tons and tons of other players. As soon as the price of leather goes up, more people will go intentionally get leather because it’s more profitable, then the price goes back down.

No matter what mechanic is introduced, there will be thousands of other players doing whatever it is and earning more gold. More gold getting injected into the economy will cause things to get more expensive, and then you’ll need more gold for whatever purpose you’re collecting it for, and then you’ll be right back where you started.

The only way to make more money than the average player is to know more about what’s going on, know the best places to get certain materials, have a character build that lets you get those items more efficiently, etc. In short, you have to know more about the game than the average player, and it’s a moving target. As soon as someone posts a video on youtube about some farming spot that will earn you tons of gold, that spot is worthless. You have to keep ahead of the herd

jaka.9635:

Everyone should have the same chance of getting it, and atm that is not the case.

Um, no. This is a fallacy. Everyone should not have the same chance to get ‘it’. The chance to get something is generally a function of playtime, effort and yes, luck. On the other hand, it is safe to say that everyone should have the capability to get ‘it’ and in GW2, they do.

It’s nonsense to compare earning potential between farming and playing the market. Two completely different of risk/reward ratio. Vastly different skills needed to succeed in profiting from either.

Just to respond more directly to Mr. Smith who asks:

Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Absolutely nothing. The assumption that earning potential between TP and farming should be equivalent is horrible to begin with for many reasons. The initial one being the disparity between the ROI you get from market vs. farming investment. The second one being the potential risks on your market vs. farming investment.

Pandemoniac.4739:

phys.7689:

i sort of agree, but it doesnt have to be just crafting, the key here is to make it intentional, whether that be hunting specific monsters, going into some hard to access zone, or crafting it up. The problem with farming in this game mats is your still competing with tons of accidental competitors, take the bags for example. did 90% of the people farming in cursed shore want to actually get a peice of leather? probably not, but you will have to compete with them in the market.

Well does it matter if it’s intentional or accidental? You’re always going to be competing with tons and tons of other players. As soon as the price of leather goes up, more people will go intentionally get leather because it’s more profitable, then the price goes back down.

No matter what mechanic is introduced, there will be thousands of other players doing whatever it is and earning more gold. More gold getting injected into the economy will cause things to get more expensive, and then you’ll need more gold for whatever purpose you’re collecting it for, and then you’ll be right back where you started.

The only way to make more money than the average player is to know more about what’s going on, know the best places to get certain materials, have a character build that lets you get those items more efficiently, etc. In short, you have to know more about the game than the average player, and it’s a moving target. As soon as someone posts a video on youtube about some farming spot that will earn you tons of gold, that spot is worthless. You have to keep ahead of the herd

Theres whole point is that what feels forced into an economy where one will be at a disadvantage unless one plays the game a specific way IE TP hustling. you can compete with hours spend in the right farming areas, but your only competing with the mid level TP hustler.

If people actually have to actively choose what they want to obtain, they will value obtaining it, at the same time if they want to sell such a thing they would be competing with people who also are spending their time getting such things.

overall more goods and services will actually have a value closer to what they are worth. farmers will farm the hot item, and tp players will make money hustling, however the average player will be able to either get the things they want themselves, or sell something that has value, and have a real basis for its worth.

Imagine instead of getting paid in money everyone got paid in random items, some people got cars some people got milk some people got beef.

Everyone would HAVE to sell almost everything they earned, and none of it would feel like it was valuable because none of it was what you wanted.

The market for said items would be incredibly cheap, because most of the people who get items have no need for them. This makes it feel even less rewarding because 90% of the random items you get are worth less than the materials they are made out of now.

The people who make money off of the back and foward and trading of items from hand to hand however would earn money exponentially.

the value for the rarest items goes up insanely because no one can actually purposefully obtain them and that value is determined by the people who either grind massively or know how to work the TP.

You are only at a disadvantage if your principal goal in GW2 is to maximize your potential gold/hour ratio.
I could spend 100% of my game time TPing stuff and make loads of shinies, but what would be the purpose?

Ooshi.8607:

You are only at a disadvantage if your principal goal in GW2 is to maximize your potential gold/hour ratio.
I could spend 100% of my game time TPing stuff and make loads of shinies, but what would be the purpose?

To pay for many fine-looking wenches in Maiden’s Whisper. Those wenches do not come cheap.

LoL.
I guess that someone is probably manipulating their prices….

Rising Dusk.2408:

The only way to do that I can think of is to do the following:
(…)

Thank you for that, really, if they’d implemente things as you suggested it would made an incredible turn of events for how the economy works and I imagine it would be really great.

I still don’t know why they didn’t fix CoF 1 yet, they desperetely need to do it to slow things down a bit.

I’m not sure why people think playing the TP has to be some thing you do at the exclusion of all else.

You can play the game AND play the TP. It isn’t necessary to stand at the TP all day babysitting orders/posting as soon as possible.

I usually logout at the TP. I login, place some orders and put some stuff up for sale, then go play.

Ooshi.8607:

You are only at a disadvantage if your principal goal in GW2 is to maximize your potential gold/hour ratio.
I could spend 100% of my game time TPing stuff and make loads of shinies, but what would be the purpose?

the problem is when you set your sights on endgame goals, it starts becoming money focused.

I will agree that when you decide you dont care about those type of goals, the game gets to be more fun again, but then you lose a sense of purpose in playing. (once you ve done most of the content)

Minion of Vey.4398:

I’m not sure why people think playing the TP has to be some thing you do at the exclusion of all else.

You can play the game AND play the TP. It isn’t necessary to stand at the TP all day babysitting orders/posting as soon as possible.

I usually logout at the TP. I login, place some orders and put some stuff up for sale, then go play.

i ve done it, and it starts to make other activities feel less worthwhile (anything not earning a decent amount of gold) your constantly checking the market, analyzing time spent/maximizing earnings. When your way of best achieving your goal becomes to get money, and you get more money in a half hour than you would from doing other things for 3 or 4 hours, it starts to kill your desire to do other stuff.

phys.7689:

Minion of Vey.4398:

I’m not sure why people think playing the TP has to be some thing you do at the exclusion of all else.

You can play the game AND play the TP. It isn’t necessary to stand at the TP all day babysitting orders/posting as soon as possible.

I usually logout at the TP. I login, place some orders and put some stuff up for sale, then go play.

i ve done it, and it starts to make other activities feel less worthwhile (anything not earning a decent amount of gold) your constantly checking the market, analyzing time spent/maximizing earnings. When your way of best achieving your goal becomes to get money, and you get more money in a half hour than you would from doing other things for 3 or 4 hours, it starts to kill your desire to do other stuff.

I noticed a similar feeling with dragon/event chests. With my limited play time, I felt my time could be best spent getting my daily chests than anything else.
Edit: stupid phone.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

There have been a lot of good conversations in this thread thus far. While I’m not up to par with guys like Ursan and RisingDusk, allow me to chime in.

The question you ask cannot be answered. Reason being, the person who complains that earning money through PvE and the market need to be equal doesn’t understand that it’s two different things. Earning gold by killing monsters is determined by parameters set by loot tables. Earning gold by buying and selling goods on the TP is determined by the players themselves, based off of Supply and Demand.

Every action by Anet has a subsequent reaction by the player base. People will speculate on blog posts or Dev interviews, and can drive prices crazy temporarily. Then once changes are made, these fluctuations will stop and settle into more of a stable price. Nerf drop rates for an item, that item’s price will skyrocket on the TP. Sames goes for increasing rates. So should any reward system be put in place that makes it easier to get something (i.e. Precursors), it will negatively affect how that same item trades on the TP (ie. price crash). In both cases, the prices will find an equilibrium, and settle until the market moves again.

Rising Dusk, i love you.
<3

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

In some respects we saw it, and now ANet is backpedaling away from it furiously – the Mega-Boss chests made it possible to advance towards endgame goals (which generally require hundreds of ectos) steadily and reliably by swinging your weapon instead of swinging your coin purse. The anger I have with the change to the rare-or-better reward becoming once per event per day per account is that those of us who had invested time in gathering XP (rolling and leveling alts) are being cut off from the rewards of doing so, while the people who invest time in amassing gold seem to be the chosen ones who must never be ‘shocked’ or impeded in any lasting way.

The obvious means of making the Trading Post less profitable are present in most other MMOS… Limited listing time. I actually don’t support that here, because I like the generally thriving market you have here. What would be nice is if the person in charge of adventuring rewards was as commited to a satisfying Player-Adventurer experience as you have been to a satisfying Player-Merchant experience.

One oddball suggestion I’ll throw out there is Dynamic Events should not drop coin as a reward – instead they should drop blue or better crafting materials of a tier comperable to the level of the DE. Reduce the amount of coin comming into the game while increasing the VALUE of an adventuring player’s holdings. Reduce mudflation and increase the worth of the economy as a whole.

Dungeon rewards might get a similar look-see to see if there is a way to slightly reduce direct coin (and the inflation it promotes) and replace that with a higher rate of acquiring valauble goods. Peple run dungeons for cores as much as they do coin. Make the last boss drop 1 core per player automatically, and halve the last boss’ coin rewards or something similar. In that example you make progress towards cosmetic goals more accessible doubly so – by making the lodestone gathering less onerous and slightly down-scaling one of the biggest raw money-gathering tools makes all money a little more useful.

tl:dr – DON’T give us more gold for adventuring – it’ll just get stripped off via the TP that much faster . Give us more worth for adventuring – then we can actually make the things we’re working towards with less reliance on the TP to offset the shear monotony of the grind.

Ooshi.8607:

You are only at a disadvantage if your principal goal in GW2 is to maximize your potential gold/hour ratio.
I could spend 100% of my game time TPing stuff and make loads of shinies, but what would be the purpose?

My pricinciple goal is to build certain specific skins. Since all skins except fractal weapons can be BOUGHT OUTRIGHT, the disparity I want to address is that adventuring is slower that (successful) trading in advancing towards those skins.

Ooshi.8607:

Eagerly anticipating the manifesto for this revolution!

“I swung my sword. I swung my sword again. Hey, I got something of value for it instead of more mudflating coin!”

Nike.2631:

Ooshi.8607:

Eagerly anticipating the manifesto for this revolution!

“I swung my sword. I swung my sword again. Hey, I got something of value for it instead of more mudflating coin!”

LOL! I love it! But also remember that value is in the eye of the beholder.

I think after being shown 150,000+ ectos change hands daily, in ghost-goo we can trust.

And while I would prefer to make adventuring more rewarding, if balancing the rates of progress is a real goal, there is another way to curtail TP gains…

Anything purchased from the TP becomes account bound:

You can buy it to use it.
You can buy it to process it (selling the newly created item if you like).
You can buy it to eliminate a rival seller’s offering to maintain your desired price point.

You CANNOT buy it to re-sell it.

Again, not my first choice here, as this market works better than most I’ve seen in MMOs, but in the infinite-inflation-verse that City of Heros degenerated into, something like this would have been a godsend.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Three-tier plan to ease plenty of problems.

Step 1: Make karma actually matter. Let it buy things that players want. Lots of things. Make them expensive so items become exclusive based off of choice of reward. Prestige will come because players HAD to have earned it. Individuality would be achieved by providing a plethora of weapon and armor skin options to chose from. So players would feel accomplished and unique at the same time.

Step 2: Take wide-swinging RNG out of the mix OR have an equally or more valid/effective way of achieving such grand ‘end-game’ items. So when you add new things to the game launch processes like scavenger hunts at the exact same time.

Step 3: Have very high value items that get put on the TP become transformed from Bind-on-Equip to Bind-on-Acquire. So the purchaser would then own the item and would be unable to resell. If you want the gap between TP moguls and the average players (even given the same amount time devotion) to be even remotely minor, you need to put some preventative measures in place to prevent wealth-siphoning systems like precursor flipping (and similar practices) from being so lucrative.