Guild Wars 2

Would it be possible to get an update similar to the following link?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-guild-wars-2-virtual-economy/

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

Would this derivatives market have anything to do with the unique features of Tyrian lore or just be an addition to our mercenary marketplace?

I would attempt to incorporate any game feature into the world as a piece of the world.

I think a Tyrian, lore- rational, economic cycle represents an untapped gold-mine of game theory and business plan. Consider CCP’s Eve economic ecosystem….without rolling your eyes. The free expression of Randian market ethics in Eve is system rational/ethical (enough so to make it into the MMA). But does that free expression of Randian ethics translate into a game world where no one makes bodily contact with anyone?

As a fantasy mmo, GW2 could tell a compelling economic story, a story that would rival the economic story of WWII.

mtpelion.4562:

Psientist.6437:

The work involved is just the work involved and the world manages much bigger problems. My question stands unanswered.

1. If it were up to you, would you have released all of the information concerning changes to the dye system at once?

Reading between the lines, I gather that John isn’t going to say anything else because he has coworkers who may not like his answer and he has to work with them every day.

When I combine the game theory and economic theory of:

rational expectations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_expectations

with

John Smith’s comment from this thread. (Pardon my inability to use permalinks)

“There’s a lot here, but I want to present something that may make you think slightly differently about your questions. Are economies static? MMO Economies move at hyperspeed and games change very quickly. This is especially true in Guild Wars 2 when we constantly update the game adding new content and changing the game. For many of these questions there isn’t a single answer, but we move in cycles; we increase and decrease, we update and change, we add volatility and stability sometimes both. The change makes the market more interesting, more fun and allows us to keep the economy balanced.

If you like I can still answer those questions in general about working in MMO economies, or I can wait to see if you’d like to rethink the questions at all for GW2 specifically."

and RMT

I do not grok your reply as a legitimate excuse. Instead I grok the need to get John Smith and the other relevant employees into a room together for the specific purpose of answering this Question:

Did the final bit of information describing the change to the dye system (the change in laurel cost) include the information generated by the market as it processed incomplete information. In other words, please explain the bubble in dye price and whether Arenanet et al’s handling of information influenced that bubble.

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

The EULU allows Arenanet et al to data-mine chat logs.

John Smith, there are so many ways to shape information for thermodynamic effect. Your response to this player is almost caustic.

Questions!

1. The RMT algorithm, does it process every gold and gem bit as individual bits (ie do gem and gold bits queue in a single line), process bits as batches, or both?

2. The RMT algorithm, would it translate simultaneous “no demand” for gems and gold into a vector?

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

@John Smith

It appears you are responding to these questions in this post… So my quick question in regards to the economy is this.

The economy centers around wealth of the players. This could be graphed on a bell curve (but that is outside the spirit of this post).

To craft a legendary weapon people are required to earn around 2000 – 3000 gold. Which, when not considering drops, would require a person to run around 1,000 dungeons.

My questions are centered around gold making:
1) Dungeons. Are there talks / will there ever be an increased incentive to run dungeons? You cannot run more than the same path once per day now to get rewards. The 1.25 – 1.5g takes a while to amass any amount of wealth.

2) T6 material. There are no place to farm for T6 mats. The drop rate on these is extremely low, even in the Level 80 areas. Is there any talks to increase the drop rate or make these more “farmable” to lower the price on the TP? I mean… up to 55 silver a piece for some of these mats is getting very expensive.

3) Laurels. Tons of things require Laurels… from Ascended Accessories, to Ascended Armor/weapon recipes, Heavy Crafting Bags for people working on Legendaries, etc etc. Is there any thoughts to increase the amount of laurels that a person receives?

Lodius.5392:

@John Smith

It appears you are responding to these questions in this post… So my quick question in regards to the economy is this.

The economy centers around wealth of the players. This could be graphed on a bell curve (but that is outside the spirit of this post).

To craft a legendary weapon people are required to earn around 2000 – 3000 gold. Which, when not considering drops, would require a person to run around 1,000 dungeons.

My questions are centered around gold making:
1) Dungeons. Are there talks / will there ever be an increased incentive to run dungeons? You cannot run more than the same path once per day now to get rewards. The 1.25 – 1.5g takes a while to amass any amount of wealth.

2) T6 material. There are no place to farm for T6 mats. The drop rate on these is extremely low, even in the Level 80 areas. Is there any talks to increase the drop rate or make these more “farmable” to lower the price on the TP? I mean… up to 55 silver a piece for some of these mats is getting very expensive.

3) Laurels. Tons of things require Laurels… from Ascended Accessories, to Ascended Armor/weapon recipes, Heavy Crafting Bags for people working on Legendaries, etc etc. Is there any thoughts to increase the amount of laurels that a person receives?

These questions are not only about the economy, but also about game design. Numbers 1 and 2 would affect the economy through: inflation (1) if you’re talking increasing the gold per path or relaxing the 1/day restriction; and through devaluing the prices on T6 mats (2). Legendary weapons are the only real long-term goals this game offers, other than maybe outfitting all characters in full Ascended. Unless other long-term goals are introduced, don’t expect the path to a legendary to be made easier anytime soon.

Lodius.5392:

The economy centers around wealth of the players. This could be graphed on a bell curve

I highly doubt that. Bell curves usually arise when averaging over (nearly) independent observations. There are very few things in economy that are properly modeled if they are assumed to be independent.

For the distribution of wealth, you are more likely to find them following the “Pareto law” (which you may have heard before of in the form of a 80-20 law like “80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the people” or something similar). Such “natural” observations arising from social interaction tend to follow “heavy/long tail” distributions instead of the exponentially fast shrinking tail that is characteristic of a bell curve. That is, they behave completely different in the regions “away” from your mode which mathematically makes a kitten of a difference.

~MRA

I have a question, that goes back a ways…

“Posted by: John Smith
The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now."

Are you done yet? Because I am still not liking it one bit!

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I have a question, that goes back a ways…

“Posted by: John Smith
The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now."

Are you done yet? Because I am still not liking it one bit!

In this very thread:

John Smith.4610:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

A recent patch made some changes to the mystic forge output for L75+ average gear inputs. You stated at the time that you thought we’d be pleased with the results. Have you been?

I stated that you would be pleased with the final form. When it reaches the final form you may tell me.

~MRA

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I have a question, that goes back a ways…

“Posted by: John Smith
The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now."

Are you done yet? Because I am still not liking it one bit!

If by “liking it” you mean you put trash in and get money out, you’ll probably never like it.

It’s hard to think of more questions, you’ve done such a thorough job.

Can you talk more about your role within the development process? You’ve alluded a few times to what seems like very specific periods of input to the process, do you have daily discussions on a project like Dry Top as it’s being developed or is it just an advisory role at the beginning and end?

On a different note, how involved do you get on a day to day basis? Do you operate like a stock trader with 3 monitors of different markets or just look at a daily snapshot of activity? Is part of your job identifying major anomalies or abuses in the system as they happen and flagging them for developers to take care of?

Again, this is fascinating to math/programming nerds like myself that frequent these boards, so thank you! I wish we had more threads like this with developers/writers, it makes the game more enjoyable to hear about how much care goes into it.

John Smith.4610:

I can’t answer questions about our future plans. I’m more here to answer questions about our/my process in the economy, how the economy works, the past and other interesting ideas that don’t require me to violate an NDA.

For those players that usually dont spend much time in the BLTC Forum or havent followed Johns Posts in past:

Before you post a question, ask yourself, if the answer you would like to hear would enable you in any way to make some profit on the tp by predicting future market or reward changes. If that is the case, he is not allowed to answer it.

Hi John,

How does wealth / material distribution affect how you think about sinks?

For example, I imagine that gaining wealth for the sake of gaining wealth could be, under some circumstances, be very similar to a sink – as wealth and materials are held outside the market. The problem being that at anytime those materials and gold could flood back in. Or is this a self-correcting problem that you don’t need to worry about?

QUESTION:

• I would like to hear a little bit about Vendor Value of items and what big an impact it has on the economy in general. I know that you dont like items that are listed at 1c above vendor value and fortunately, since the introduction of essences of luck and ascended crafting this isnt the case for the vast mayority of tradeable items anymore.
  I dont think that tradeable items sold to vendor make up any significant amount of the overall gold faucet in game these days but how was it before the big update in september last year?

• Maybe you are allowed to release some percentages or ratios on how much the gold faucet from vendored items declined within a year, lets say from the 23rd of July 2013 to the 23rd of july 2014 (as it is my Birthday, you basically HAVE to release that info).

• Considering that every item that was usually sold to vendor turns from a gold faucet into a gold sink, once its traded on the tp (through fees and taxes), were you surprised by that shift or did it work out as predicted?

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

• One last question is about a vendor value change that affected me personally as a trader (its my birthday, remember). The recipes for the exotic givers inscriptions and insignias had a vendor value of 1.32 silver when they got introduced during Wintersday 2012. That vendor value is more or less standard for exotic recipes. But during Wintersday 2013, the vendor value got dumped to 1c. I am wondering, if that was an intended change or not.

TooBz.3065:

Hi John,

How does wealth / material distribution affect how you think about sinks?

For example, I imagine that gaining wealth for the sake of gaining wealth could be, under some circumstances, be very similar to a sink – as wealth and materials are held outside the market. The problem being that at anytime those materials and gold could flood back in. Or is this a self-correcting problem that you don’t need to worry about?

Good question, +1 from me for that.
As a trader, i would like to chip in and give my opinion about it.
In general, materials held outside of the market are a very good thing and help balancing the market, when supply and demand shifts.
Its also one of the core arguments why flippers and speculators are good for a balanced economy. If we imagine a trading post with no flippers and speculators active, it would mean that items are only bought by consumers, people that intend to use the item they are buying and taking it out of the market.
Every item has supply and demand and usually at any given time, supply and demand arent equal.
So if an item has more supply than demand its value on the tp would inevitably go towards vendor value because on average, every player will get more of that item through loot than he needs. Once an item hits vendor value, people will vendor it, which will destroy the item and take it out of the market. Especially speculators prevent that because they put in buy orders for items nobody wants and in the process give sellers more value for their items than the vendor, they keep the item in the economy instead of it being destroyed and they sink gold through fees and taxes instead of adding new gold from the item being sold to a vendor.

Wether an item has a higher rate of supply or demand in GW2 changes very often, it might shift between prime time and night time EU and NA, between weekdays and weekends or after updates, which GW2 pumps out at a faster rate than any other MMO.

So what happens when an item goes into demand? Price will spike. How hard will it spike? That depends on how fast the player base can react and add new supply to the market. The obvious supply source are farmers because they create items “out of thin air” but that takes time. The more supply is stored outside of the tp, the easier it is to slow down price spikes, once demand sets in because that supply is available instantly.

So, to get back to your original question, items stored outside of the tp are very good for the balance of the economy in my opinion (and i think for most of the items at least 90% are stored outside the tp, at least for the most demanded items).

Concerning gold, its a completely different matter. I guess you would like to know the ratio of gold being put into buy orders at any given time and the gold being held in players wallets. I actually didnt really think about that that much because i dont think it makes much difference. Gold tied up in buy orders can be retracted without any loss, compared to mats being retracted from the tp, where you lose the listing fee.

Some people regard me as one of the best traders in GW2 (which im not) and one of the richest (which im not). In my opinion, I am just one of the most vocal traders and one of the most honest ones. I have no doubt that regular players might see the amount of wealth i accumulated since head start as unfair and might think that I am a thread to the economy but i can assure you that there are accounts or individuals (not players) that are way more malicious to the game economy than myself. There is no way that my experience in making profit stands in competition to botters, exploiters or account hackers. Of course, those individuals dont voice their opinions and methods on the official forums.
Getting back to gold value stored outside of the tp:
I think its pretty worthless. Gold in your wallet is subject to inflation, so it loses value. I have no idea about my account value because its a pita to calculate but its propably far beyond 100k gold by now. I cant recall having more than 500g in my wallet for more than a day.
Usually, at the end of a day, i have all my gold bound up in buy orders, and a couple of silver in my wallet.
So as a trader, i would say that (as a rough estimate) 90% of all items are stored outside of the tp, while 90% of my gold are stored on the tp in buy orders.

Not sure, if you are a trader or a regular player but how much gold do you have in your wallet and in buy orders when you log out?

John. Reddit. AMA. Just sayin’

Nefara.2186:

Since you’ve mentioned that “silk wasn’t an accident”, I’d love to know some of the reasoning behind that. When you say you want to add volatility, I’m very curious as to what the benefits are to putting an immense amount of demand stress on to a specific commodity. Doing so effected the price of all cloth (except jute), since Damask is so profitable to craft. However, it is more than triple the price of other ascended materials and all cloth is at least twice as expensive as its counterparts. it’s been terrible for newbs who want to level up their armor related crafting. I don’t understand the need for the imbalance so I’d love some illumination.

On a related note, is there an economic reason why superior runes and sigils are not able to be put into the mystic forge? Adding a mystic forge recipe would help equalize the prices of all of the superior runes, adding value to the, well, crappy ones and adding supply to whichever ones are currently en vogue. Was this inequality something else that was planned and if so, why?

If you get the chance I’d still love a response about the benefits of cost imbalance, it’s something I genuinely would like to understand better!

I am not sure if this has been asked yet, but I have some questions for John regarding RNG as implemented in GW2.

Were you involved with the initial design of this, and if so, were other options discussed? Was the decision to implement the current version based on economic or game design factors, or a bit of both?

Is the algorithm constantly monitored and tweaked, or is set and let run for a certain period of time while you collect/analyse data?

John Smith.4610:

TooBz.3065:

Hi John,

How does wealth / material distribution affect how you think about sinks?

For example, I imagine that gaining wealth for the sake of gaining wealth could be, under some circumstances, be very similar to a sink – as wealth and materials are held outside the market. The problem being that at anytime those materials and gold could flood back in. Or is this a self-correcting problem that you don’t need to worry about?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re asking if the sink is likely to sink from the rich/poor/middle/everyone, is that a factor of the design?

Where the sinks hit are a major factor of the process. Imagine the difference between HoHo Tron allowing people to donate to kick off the event faster and requiring anyone who wants to participate to donate.
It’s good to think about sinks and faucets in terms of wealth and potential wealth, both must remain balanced or you lose sleep over the possibilities.

I think you’re wrong

Imo, what he meant is that ‘pathological’ collectors act as a type of sink (because they gather and gather and gather but don’t give it back to the economy) and how you deal with the associated uncertainty (cause given enough incentive, they may dump their stuff anyway).

I guess this largely relates to the very first question you answered in this thread.

Ongoing thanks, John! Also, another one for you:

As part of your in-game economist duties, do you have any input into more “meta-economic” decisions, or things that will have ramifications for the in-game economy but aren’t always though of as being directly a part of it? For example, are you consulted on things such as when to offer a sale on the box price of the game (since an influx of new players surely shifts the supply and demand curves of the in-game economy), or is this solely the purview of other departments like marketing? In the same vein, are there other areas of the game that you consult on as an economist that you think would be non-obvious or surprising to the average player?

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

If I had to guess (which I do since I don’t track vendor values), I’d say Icy Runestones probably have one of the highest vendor values.

For clarification:
John, is the fact that profit from the traiding post is shifted value, unlike the reward from other activities, which is newly created value, the justification for traiding post flippers to have, in theory, profit with only the market itself as boundary?

Followup:
What is the justification for traiding post flippers having an exponential maximum-reward-curve, unlike any other activities which all have just a steady, constant maximum-reward-curve?

Followup:
If skill is the justification, do you want to express that the traiding post is the most skillful activity in this game? Based on the formula that the most challenging activity should be rewarded the most? Does that mean that traiding post flipping is considered as “endgame content”? So is any other activity in this game worth less and at its core only exsiting because it fuels the traiding post? Doesn’t this mindset lacks the true meaning of a MMO, playing together to achieve more?

mtpelion.4562:

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

If I had to guess (which I do since I don’t track vendor values), I’d say Icy Runestones probably have one of the highest vendor values.

From what I gathered, they do at 12s50c. The highest vendor value I saw for non-account bound was for level 80 exotic amulets at 5s28c.

brittitude.1983:

mtpelion.4562:

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

If I had to guess (which I do since I don’t track vendor values), I’d say Icy Runestones probably have one of the highest vendor values.

From what I gathered, they do at 12s50c. The highest vendor value I saw for non-account bound was for level 80 exotic amulets at 5s28c.

Ascended weapons currently have the highest vendor value at an even 1g.

edit: still working on whatever’s got the highest for non-bound items.

AHA, superior rune of holding sits at a price of 1 gold 25 silver and CAN be traded.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

For clarification:
John, is the fact that profit from the traiding post is shifted value, unlike the reward from other activities, which is newly created value, the justification for traiding post flippers to have, in theory, unlimited profit?

Followup:
What is the justification for traiding post flippers having an exponential maximum-reward-curve, unlike any other activities which all have just a steady, constant maximum-reward-curve?

You’ll likely find your answer here but I’m sure he’ll elaborate when he has time.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Why-manipulate-that/page/2#post3175493

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

Sooo are you going to do the research to verify the answer? grin

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

T3 cultural chest armor pieces can be sold for 3g75s.
However they cost 30g to begin with.
Note: If you’ve transmuted your T3 armor this wont work. Also just looking up the armor at the vendors wont work.

As part of economy and growth is there any “Guest Pass” or “Free Weekends” so that I can tell my friends about it.

This would help increase the rate of new players coming into the game.

How about offering incentives to recruiting people?

I am interested in the economy because I enjoy the game and do not want to see it ever die.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Wanze.8410:

• Which item has the highest vendor value? This question can be answered rightly by any player who wants to do some research on it (I dont), so I gonna make a little contest: Whoever posts the item (or any item, if there are multiple ones) that has the highest vendor value first, will get 10 gold from me, plus 4 items that i currently invested in because i think they will gain in value.

T3 cultural chest armor pieces can be sold for 3g75s.
However they cost 30g to begin with.
Note: If you’ve transmuted your T3 armor this wont work. Also just looking up the armor at the vendors wont work.

Too funny, I was just checking the wiki for this, didn’t say there though.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

T3 cultural chest armor pieces can be sold for 3g75s.
However they cost 30g to begin with.
Note: If you’ve transmuted your T3 armor this wont work. Also just looking up the armor at the vendors wont work.

Aidan Savage.2078:

AHA, superior rune of holding sits at a price of 1 gold 25 silver and CAN be traded.

It looks like there is a standard 12.5% ratio used in calculating the vendor value of the items that you can buy from a vendor. This isn’t something I’ve ever noticed, so I found it interesting.

John Smith.4610:

I’m glad people are enjoying this mini Q&A, it’s great to see people interested!

We need to thank YOU for taking the time to answer these questions. You’re probably one of most approachable Anet employees on the forums. I wish all Anet people would be as active as you in interacting with the player base.

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

For clarification:
John, is the fact that profit from the traiding post is shifted value, unlike the reward from other activities, which is newly created value, the justification for traiding post flippers to have, in theory, unlimited profit?

Followup:
What is the justification for traiding post flippers having an exponential maximum-reward-curve, unlike any other activities which all have just a steady, constant maximum-reward-curve?

Followup:
If skill is the justification, do you want to express that the traiding post is the most skillful activity in this game? Based on the formula that the most challenging activity should be rewarded the most? Does that mean that traiding post flipping is considered as “endgame content”? So is any other activity in this game worth less and at its core only exsiting because it fuels the traiding post? Doesn’t this mindset lacks the true meaning of a MMO, playing together to achieve more?

You’ll likely find your answer here but I’m sure he’ll elaborate when he has time.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Why-manipulate-that/page/2#post3175493

I have already answered my opinions and the facts on flippers, but I would point out that flippers do not have an exponential gain curve. I am definitely not making a comment that the TP is the most skill portion of the game. I have previously implied that since the amount of profit is very finite and split between those participating, the fact that anyone makes a decent amount of profit indicates a barrier to entry that could be skill based.

So you would say the gold one invests in his buy offers isn’t the main factor of how much gold he will obtain as profit?
You’re obviously right that the maximum profit curve isn’t exponential, the profit one can get is also limited by velocity and other player who also participating in the traiding post. But it is exponential until those limitation kick in.
Would you say that the limitations are good enough? Or do they allow for too much profit gained compared to the other ways ingame to get gold?

Buttercup.5871:

John Smith.4610:

Buttercup.5871:

John, I have only one pressing question. I even created a thread on it a while ago.

Why are WvW badges treated differently, forge-wise, than dungeon tokens?

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.

They’re a fundamentally different item. Though I expect that’s not the answer you’re looking for. Could you elaborate a bit more on the question?

Thank you John, I’ll do my best to be brief.

Dungeon tokens and WvW tokens appear to be similar in that they reward the user for time played. You can buy stuff with your tokens or badges. Given the amount of badges/tokens needed to buy stuff, I’d say the ratio is about the same in what you get for time spent.

Now, when I buy stuff with my tokens, I can chuck it in the forge and RNG willing, Zomorros blesses me with something nice. Maybe even a precursor! Or, if I don’t like Zomorros, I can salvage the stuff bought with tokens for ectos and runes/sigils.

When I buy stuff with my badges, Zomorros doesn’t want me. He says “Go away! I don’t want any gear that you bought with your stinking WvW badges.” When I try to salvage stuff bought with badges, even my salvage kit says “what is this? I’m not salvaging this, go away!”

In a game that was intended to reward players equally regardless of the type of gameplay they choose, that seems terribly off. So I’m wondering, there must have been a good reason for this!

I can think of a good reason that policy was put in place, once upon a time when the game started, but that reason is gone now. This design choice no longer seems logical. That’s why I had hoped you could provide a logical explanation for it, if there is one.

I am grateful that you’re taking the time to answer our questions.

Wanze.8410:

I think the reasoning behind it (from Anets side) is that dungeon token acquisition is capped per day (and has DR), while Badges arent.

Thanks Wanze, I can think of many things as well. But they all no longer make sense. A badge cap certainly doesn’t, there’s so many ways I can think of to alleviate that concern. Anyway, in order to avoid setting out all my theories and huge walls of text, I thought I’d just ask.

Hi John, you seemed to have moved on to other questions and have not yet replied to my response? Working as intended?

Probably not as easy to answer, answered multiple times in other places, or yes, working as intended.

Logically speaking, BoH are dirt easy to obtain, and since the armors you can buy are exotics, being able to salvage or MF them means you can reach around a gold profit from each piece considering salvage results, and up to 17g through MF and rolling an armor with Strength runes in it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Probably not as easy to answer, answered multiple times in other places, or yes, working as intended.

Logically speaking, BoH are dirt easy to obtain, and since the armors you can buy are exotics, being able to salvage or MF them means you can reach around a gold profit from each piece considering salvage results, and up to 17g through MF and rolling an armor with Strength runes in it.

they cost gold AND badges of honor, Magic finding 4 to get back one would not be profit, as i believe each piece costs 1 gold or something in addition to badges. Salvage of exotics gives less than 1 gold.

The main reason they probably dont allow it, is it creates a sort of floor value for certain things. Right now, the value is lower the most you can expect out of an exotic salvage is an 1-3 ectos and 1-2 mats and dark matter (which cannot be directly sold) but later this may not be the case, ectos could rise to 1 gold one day, at which point this would be profitable.

However, they arent really as easy to get as you think. If they had more sinks, they probably would be seen as more valuable. Its not so much that you get a ton, its that you have virtually nothing to spend it on if you arent buying tons of seige.

Its like people get hyped on dungeon tokens being used to salvage, but getting one guaranteed rare, or 1 guaranteed exotic for 6 runs of a dungeon is far from being an OP reward. i mean doing 2-3 hours of WvW you might get 40-90 badges, that gets you like 2/3rds to 1/2 of an item.

It really isnt that profitable considering other methods of obtaining wealth, to salvage or MF the item.

John Smith.4610:

Lodius.5392:

How about offering incentives to recruiting people?

This is a bit beyond my scope, sorry. Also it falls into my future things coming out clause, so I can’t answer twice, but I’m sorry twice as well and I hope that makes up for it.

Is this indirectly saying that Anet is working on some kind of incentivized recruitment or am I reading too much into what you said? If so, I have to admit I’m curious about what it would look like.

The balance of this games eco is actually horrible, it’s why people complain so much about rewards. While i get the global eco structure far out reaches “other games” it’s also caused a very real, very deep problem with GW2’s eco balance. Rewards are always based on value, and it’s kind of odd that the drop rate on something account bound is so heavy handed. (insects now, but others in the past). I’m glad we can buy stuff via the TP and that supply is high, but the way anet implements and balances the drop rates, makes me feel like this game is constantly in beta (at least in eco sense). Does the TP work as intended? Sure, it works great actually, it’s the rest of the game that’s suffering, based on the fact that ANet has to take into account, it’s a global TP system.

GW2 suffers from a lot of problems, really, look at the Mac community or, the bugs introduced that take months to fix, while they focus on adding more bugged content.

One of my personal tell-tale indicators of a failing game is the amount of “whining posts” on the forums (according to some). Yeah, sure we’d all love to know how the gw2 economy was designed and what choices they make for improvement, but i highly doubt John has those answers or that he/she would be willing to share (game breaking and all).

ANet is really not taking risks in the right places, they add new stuff, most of the stuff people actually want they lock behind RNG or gem prices. Overall i think the game is suffering from hard feelings and far too much “labor” and it’s killing the populations confidence in what anet can turn out, that makes them feel satisfied enough to come back.

I know John can’t speak on WvW rewards, but they really need to accelerate what comes out of there or risk losing that dwindling population.

TLDR: the global TP is so heavily considered when offering players with rewards, it’s actually hurting the game as a whole. When are we going to see rewards that mean something? Rewards players earn to add to their collections? Why can you buy legendaries? Probably the worst move ever? Why are the ambrite weapons so heavily handed to RNG and not actually earning them? These are bad choices, yet you keep doing it over and over. I’m pretty sure (based on past experiences) RNG is synonymous with GW2 in popularity. I didn’t expect a gw1 revamp, but this is silly…

I don’t expect John to answer, just some food for thought.

How does one identify when there is a problem with the economy on a player level.

How does one tell if players do or do not feel like the time they spend is valuable?

How does one tell if players feel pressured to one meta economically, versus a genuine enjoyment of that playstyle?

Then the next question is, how much would you change to solve these types of problems? What type of things would you change? just playing with the numbers seems like it would generally be ineffecient in some cases.