Guild Wars 2

Continued thanks for the ongoing dialogue, JS. So, another question!

Your work usually involve very macro-level, wide-ranging economic work. And there’s a lot of faith in the market to adjust and correct itself. As a roaming gatherer, I’ll add that it’s working beautifully.

Quite often, forum thoughts turn frequently to big-ticket, high scarcity items. What’s your professional opinion about the possibility of wealthy players/coalitions to control prices in the market for scarce items?
(Like snatching up a 1000g p-word to resell it for 1500g or more?)
Is the 15% listing cut a sufficient deterrent?

Thanks much!

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

Is the economy designed around rewards or are rewards designed around the economy? (not talking about appearances ofc)

I’m not sure I entirely understand this question, could you elaborate?

What is the main consideration for the distribution (probability/requirements) of rewards? How it’ll effect the economy? How it’ll be perceived by the player base?

The designers and I discuss the changes, each time new content is released is a different story/plan/result.

Can you explain this for legendary weapons and precursors? Specifically, what purposes were these items meant to fulfill (in player perception, impact on the economy, or any other relevant areas). What are some examples of how the current system (RNG, tradeable on a player-driven market) succeeds in these items fulfilling their intended purposes? What are some areas in which these items fail to fulfill their intended purposes (or fulfill them poorly, or could be improved upon to better fulfill the intended purposes)?

John Smith.4610:

Wonderly.1324:

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

Is the economy designed around rewards or are rewards designed around the economy? (not talking about appearances ofc)

I’m not sure I entirely understand this question, could you elaborate?

What is the main consideration for the distribution (probability/requirements) of rewards? How it’ll effect the economy? How it’ll be perceived by the player base?

The designers and I discuss the changes, each time new content is released is a different story/plan/result.

Can you explain this for legendary weapons and precursors? Specifically, what purposes were these items meant to fulfill (in player perception, impact on the economy, or any other relevant areas). What are some examples of how the current system (RNG, tradeable on a player-driven market) succeeds in these items fulfilling their intended purposes? What are some areas in which these items fail to fulfill their intended purposes (or fulfill them poorly, or could be improved upon to better fulfill the intended purposes)?

I think this question would be better answered by Izzy. I tend to have a very macro biased view of legendary weapons, so they fulfill macro-economy values very nicely (great! right?). The current system is a great driver for end game resources and a great sink for those resources as well. That doesn’t mean it’s the best system, it just means it’s economically effective at the moment. I wouldn’t want to comment much beyond that without Izzy’s input.

Thanks for the reply, John! I’m a huge fan of your work and I’m super happy and honored that you’d take the time to read and respond to my question. I hope Izzy does give a response on his perspective, that’d be awesome!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/my-legend-grows-forging-your-first-legendary-weapon/
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdA4MlrF5mA
were the only things I could find on his comments on the topic.

I (think) I understand at least part of your answer- I agree that precursors/legendaries are useful for motivating hardcore/dedicated players and for driving the economy, and that the current system allows them to do so nicely (though not perfectly). If these items were to made too accessible, then they would probably lose value as high end items.
I don’t understand the bit about them being a gold sink though. Please keep in mind I’m in the health sciences professions so I’m a complete n00b when it comes to economics. You probably feel the same way about that Extra Credits video as I do about The Magic School bus, but that’s probably where my level of understanding in this field is at. = p But yeah- applying what I learn from that video, wouldn’t the only gold sink in making a legendary be the 100g required for the icy runestones? (Precursors and everything else are either generated by the game or obtained from other players, so gold that is traded wouldn’t be considered a gold sink, right?)

Wonderly.1324:

I (think) I understand at least part of your answer

There are two big ideas working in tandem. One is the economics of an item, how it is created, traded, and consumed in the game world; the other is the reward of the item, and how that affects the player experience. They are different ideas that need to draw on each other to deliver a good experience.

For example, look at the silk market. The silk market is working fine economically – supply is huge, but demand is also huge, an it’s maintaining a pretty steady price point that is reacting well to fundamentals. It’s doing great! From the perspective of rewards, silk isn’t in a great place – demand is huge, there aren’t effective ways to farm it, and the prices have surged to the point where it’s excluding people from the rewards that were designed for them.

In general to make the reward part work you also have to make the economic side work as well, otherwise it starts to break fairly quickly (see: other MMOs where their rewards get eaten by inflation, D3 getting devoured by deflation, etc). But getting the economics in order is no guarantee that the rewards are going to feel good. You have to consider both.

Ensign.2189:

Wonderly.1324:

I (think) I understand at least part of your answer

There are two big ideas working in tandem. One is the economics of an item, how it is created, traded, and consumed in the game world; the other is the reward of the item, and how that affects the player experience. They are different ideas that need to draw on each other to deliver a good experience.

For example, look at the silk market. The silk market is working fine economically – supply is huge, but demand is also huge, an it’s maintaining a pretty steady price point that is reacting well to fundamentals. It’s doing great! From the perspective of rewards, silk isn’t in a great place – demand is huge, there aren’t effective ways to farm it, and the prices have surged to the point where it’s excluding people from the rewards that were designed for them.

In general to make the reward part work you also have to make the economic side work as well, otherwise it starts to break fairly quickly (see: other MMOs where their rewards get eaten by inflation, D3 getting devoured by deflation, etc). But getting the economics in order is no guarantee that the rewards are going to feel good. You have to consider both.

Thanks for the explanation, Ensign.
=)
So basically John Smith is saying that he can only comment on the economic side of those items, and on that end, things are working well. How very wise of him to comment only in the area he has unquestionable knowledge of, and to defer the “reward experience” to Izzy (in light of the growing dissatisfaction in forums in that area). At any rate, I’m satisfied to hear that the objective conclusion drawn from irrefutable data is that, at least economically, precursors and legendaries are serving their purposes. I wonder if that’s why they’ve delayed precursor crafting- because they don’t want to try and satisfy the “reward perspective” and accidentally break the economics side, and in doing so, lead to the eventual ruin of both. I’m a bit anxious about that too, to be honest, and I would much prefer to keep things as they are (objectively functioning economics, subjectively “broken” reward perspective) than to break both.

Wonderly.1324:

I wonder if that’s why they’ve delayed precursor crafting- because they don’t want to try and satisfy the “reward perspective” and accidentally break the economics side, and in doing so, lead to the eventual ruin of both.

That would be my assumption. Precursors are a huge, huge part of the economy – they aren’t like other expensive items / skins that are expensive because they only drops years ago, there’s an enormous demand for them and forging precursors sucks an enormous amount of end game material out of the economy. It’s what keeps elder wood and mithril above vendor value and is responsible for the high prices of T5 materials, keeps random rares high, impacts the ecto market as a result…it’s a huge cog in the machine.

Adding precursor crafting in a way that doesn’t throw a wrench in that is hard. I imagine that is what is taking them so long.

There are two default prices for sell orders, depending on if buy orders exist:
– If buy orders exist: The default is the price of the highest buy order
– If no buy orders exist: The default is the lowest allowed price.

Are these defaults good choices for new players and/or the economy as a whole ?

The first one widens the gap between sell and buy orders. More noticeably, they remove buy orders, leading to the second.

Ensign.2189:

Wonderly.1324:

I wonder if that’s why they’ve delayed precursor crafting- because they don’t want to try and satisfy the “reward perspective” and accidentally break the economics side, and in doing so, lead to the eventual ruin of both.

That would be my assumption. Precursors are a huge, huge part of the economy – they aren’t like other expensive items / skins that are expensive because they only drops years ago, there’s an enormous demand for them and forging precursors sucks an enormous amount of end game material out of the economy. It’s what keeps elder wood and mithril above vendor value and is responsible for the high prices of T5 materials, keeps random rares high, impacts the ecto market as a result…it’s a huge cog in the machine.

Adding precursor crafting in a way that doesn’t throw a wrench in that is hard. I imagine that is what is taking them so long.

Arguments like this get thrown around a lot on this forum, but tbh, I never found them to be very convincing. In the end it all depends on HOW exactly said precursor crafting method would be implemented.

Just a few ideas based on your concerns:

• Make crafted precursors account bound so that people who want to make gold out of precursors/legendaries would have to stick to gambling with the mystic forge
• Make precursors crafting require HUGE amounts of t5 materials (wood, ore and leather; depending on the precursor), globs of ectoplasm and miscellaneous currently underpriced items
• Make precursor crafting also require a set of items that can only be acquired by completing specific content (you know, the “scavenger hunt thingy”) but in a none RNG way, e.g. through tokens such as pristine fractal relics, badges of honor, dungeon tokens, or maybe something that is the final reward of a pvp reward track etc.
• In the end, throwing rares/exotics into the forge should “statistically” still be the cheapest way of acquiring a precursor, both in gold and time investment (maybe through time-gating parts of the precursor crafting process)

To begin with, this would be a proper set of simple parameters to prevent long-term chaos on the TP I think. But that’s just me of course.

I doubt that we will ever get a sound and official statement about why precursor crafting never came out in the first place, but it would ruin the economy just never sounded like a valid excuse to me.

I’ve got a question.

It seems like ever since the inception of the Living Story, materials required for recipes have been climbing exponentially in proportion to their effectiveness – in other words, getting far less bang for your buck. In particular, I’d like to highlight the Station recipes they released during the Battle of Lion’s Arch. With food, the cost is a mere ten of whichever item you want to share; with these stations, the cost is a handful of ascended materials and a lot of Crystalline Dust. The difference here is between a few silver (for most feasts) and several gold for one station. Likewise, the new recipes look like someone is just pulling numbers out of their kitten. Prickly Pear Stuffed Nopale requires ingredients mostly in quantities of 10s, including 20 of the much-rarer Prickly Pears. The overall effect is on par with old recipes that are much easier to produce. Bowl of Garlic Kale Sautee requires 30 kale for one bowl and is effectively the same as Rare Veggie Pizza (which is a headache to make but only takes a couple each of several ingredients). What’s the reasoning on these decisions?

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

John,

Can you provide an explanation of what a player-driven economy is?

Do you feel GW2 falls under this and why?

Super very simple:
Players set prices, players set supply. Prices are set by the players. Players can change the supply of items by changes in their play activity.

All vendor based economies are not player driven. The TP is player driven. Apologies for the terse response, remind me sometime to revisit this more thoroughly.

John,

Do you have time to elaborate on this more?

There’s discussions that come and go on this subject as to whether GW2 has a player-driven economy. There really isn’t much material online that thoroughly explains what is a player-driven economy.

Those against the idea that there is use the argument that since Anet controls the drop rates, recipe formulas, appearances of weapons (i.e. visual appeal of legendaries), and so on; they’re actually the ones that control supply and demand. One example is silk prices. They state that Anet can simply modify the refinement recipe or increase drop rates to lower the prices all of which would occur without player interaction. Essentially, players have zero control over prices and supply.

The company/devs will always have some influence because they created and continue to update the game. It has been explained many times what “player driven economy” means, there are simply some who refuse to accept this for whatever reasons.

Players control the demand for items because if they don’t want it, they won’t buy it. If they want it, they’ll keep paying for it until the price rises out of the range they are willing to pay. Players control supply because if an item is in high demand they will seek out opportunities to provide these items until the price drops to the point they are not motivated to seek it out any more.

Anet cannot force you to want something, or to want to provide it to others.

Sticky this already. It’s basically a go-to of answers for recurring themes and concerns of the playerbase.

How, in your opinion, would the game economy have evolved differently, if the gold/gem exchange wasnt implemented?

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

How, in your opinion, would the game economy have evolved differently, if the gold/gem exchange wasnt implemented?

I think it would be pretty much the same.

Lame.

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

How, in your opinion, would the game economy have evolved differently, if the gold/gem exchange wasnt implemented?

I think it would be pretty much the same.

Lame.

The CE is really a reflection of gem value and isn’t as strongly tied to the economy as many think it is.

So as a gold sink/counter inflation measure its not very relevant?

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

The CE is really a reflection of gem value and isn’t as strongly tied to the economy as many think it is.

So as a gold sink/counter inflation measure its not very relevant?

I think the point is that the TP and gem store are two very different entities and don’t really influence each other very much.

I mean, there are players who farm for gold to exchange for gems, then spend them in the gem store, yes. But if the game launched without this exchange, they would not be farming for gold to spend in the TP nearly as long because it’s a lot easier to get the things you want from the TP and then drop out of the market, perhaps out of the game altogether because the only real long-term goal is Legendary crafting.

Likewise, a lot of people assume players are spending thousands of real dollars on gems to exchange for gold to buy Legendaries and such, but I don’t think this happens very often. More likely they use it to craft with alts for XP and to buy equipment when the player has money to spend but not a lot of time to grind. Those players are less likely to want a Legendary and are just interested in playing the game the way they want.

And movement of the currency values over time shows that many more players are converting gold to gems than the other way around. So the gem store is impacted by this far more than the TP. Without this exchange, there would be far less players farming in the game, but the impact would probably not be severe, since there would also be a lot less “flipping” and other activities. Prices would not change as quickly and some items would not move as quickly, but otherwise there would be little difference.

tolunart.2095:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

The CE is really a reflection of gem value and isn’t as strongly tied to the economy as many think it is.

So as a gold sink/counter inflation measure its not very relevant?

I think the point is that the TP and gem store are two very different entities and don’t really influence each other very much.

I mean, there are players who farm for gold to exchange for gems, then spend them in the gem store, yes. But if the game launched without this exchange, they would not be farming for gold to spend in the TP nearly as long because it’s a lot easier to get the things you want from the TP and then drop out of the market, perhaps out of the game altogether because the only real long-term goal is Legendary crafting.

Likewise, a lot of people assume players are spending thousands of real dollars on gems to exchange for gold to buy Legendaries and such, but I don’t think this happens very often. More likely they use it to craft with alts for XP and to buy equipment when the player has money to spend but not a lot of time to grind. Those players are less likely to want a Legendary and are just interested in playing the game the way they want.

And movement of the currency values over time shows that many more players are converting gold to gems than the other way around. So the gem store is impacted by this far more than the TP. Without this exchange, there would be far less players farming in the game, but the impact would probably not be severe, since there would also be a lot less “flipping” and other activities. Prices would not change as quickly and some items would not move as quickly, but otherwise there would be little difference.

Yeah, obviously alot more gold went into the CE then came out of it since launch. My question was, if that amount is meaningful compared to the total amount of gold generated in game. If all the gold that went into the CE since launch (minus the gold that came out of it for gems) would still be in the game economy, i would expect overall prices on the tp to be inflated to what we have now.

Wanze.8410:

Yeah, obviously alot more gold went into the CE then came out of it since launch. My question was, if that amount is meaningful compared to the total amount of gold generated in game. If all the gold that went into the CE since launch (minus the gold that came out of it for gems) would still be in the game economy, i would expect overall prices on the tp to be inflated to what we have now.

Your question was about what would happen if the exchange never existed, that’s more like what would happen if the exchange was removed and the gold currently in it was distributed among the population.

Now, if it never existed then gold that was farmed with the intent of trading for gems would not have been farmed in the first place and would not impact the game economy because it never existed.

Also, I would imagine that the gold and tradeable items (including crafting mats, unbound rares, exotics, precursors and other goodies) held within dormant accounts would have more of an impact, collectively, than the gold temporarily set aside in the exchange. “Dormant accounts” being those of players who haven’t logged in since, say, mid-May or earlier, a month after the April patch that changed a lot of things in the game.

Any chance for a response on my question? I think you may have missed it.

John Smith.4610:

Sariel V.7024:

Any chance for a response on my question? I think you may have missed it.

I apologize, I can’t currently speak on that.

Anet’s famous response for everything!!!

Could you discuss your thoughts on the consumable ingredient market in general and, more specifically, cooking? And I know you can’t comment on that question specifically, but is it fair to say that there IS something you’re hoping to accomplish with these new recipes and that it’s not just some arbitrary value being thrown out there?

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

tolunart.2095:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

The CE is really a reflection of gem value and isn’t as strongly tied to the economy as many think it is.

So as a gold sink/counter inflation measure its not very relevant?

I think the point is that the TP and gem store are two very different entities and don’t really influence each other very much.

I mean, there are players who farm for gold to exchange for gems, then spend them in the gem store, yes. But if the game launched without this exchange, they would not be farming for gold to spend in the TP nearly as long because it’s a lot easier to get the things you want from the TP and then drop out of the market, perhaps out of the game altogether because the only real long-term goal is Legendary crafting.

Likewise, a lot of people assume players are spending thousands of real dollars on gems to exchange for gold to buy Legendaries and such, but I don’t think this happens very often. More likely they use it to craft with alts for XP and to buy equipment when the player has money to spend but not a lot of time to grind. Those players are less likely to want a Legendary and are just interested in playing the game the way they want.

And movement of the currency values over time shows that many more players are converting gold to gems than the other way around. So the gem store is impacted by this far more than the TP. Without this exchange, there would be far less players farming in the game, but the impact would probably not be severe, since there would also be a lot less “flipping” and other activities. Prices would not change as quickly and some items would not move as quickly, but otherwise there would be little difference.

Yeah, obviously alot more gold went into the CE then came out of it since launch. My question was, if that amount is meaningful compared to the total amount of gold generated in game. If all the gold that went into the CE since launch (minus the gold that came out of it for gems) would still be in the game economy, i would expect overall prices on the tp to be inflated to what we have now.

Wouldn’t even make a dent.

I can whole heartedly get behind this. The CE is a balancing act which, for better or worse, reflects the way people spend money over time. It’s extremely clear that there is slightly less value (in a video game) in time than in actually RL currency. This is exactly why Diablo 3’s “for cash shop” failed so exponentially. Meaning the majority of people don’t value game time as much as cash on hand, even if at minimum wage they could buy more than that same hour spent in game.

The gem exchange seems to really only cater to people that afford a disposable income to a video games virtual items, which at least in the US isn’t really all that plentiful to people that typically tie time to gaming.

I personally think the CE was either an extremely clever, thought out idea, or a plain fluke. I’m actually more inclined to think it’s the former though.

John Smith.4610:

wwwes.1398:

Could you discuss your thoughts on the consumable ingredient market in general and, more specifically, cooking? And I know you can’t comment on that question specifically, but is it fair to say that there IS something you’re hoping to accomplish with these new recipes and that it’s not just some arbitrary value being thrown out there?

There are several different ideas going on mixing between scarcity, sinks and faucets, usefulness and lore. We often vary the different weights of each of these to get a feeling for the effectiveness of the design changes. Food is tricky because it’s so powerful, but also so abundant. Sometimes we might want to just get people to try eating food more often, sometimes we might want a rare food, sometimes we’re thinking about 18 theoretical months from now and the resources involved instead of right at the moment. The mix of all these may make it seem like a random grab bag of decisions, but it isn’t. With each iteration we’re learning and getting better.

Sometimes i think the economy is the only thing we base the rest of the game on. I’m certain that isn’t a fact, but the “lack” of “rewards” idea totally seems to stem from there. I think price escalation of certain items has helped bolster the idea of rewards. So well done in that aspect. I have no question that we are heading to a more mature game in terms of rewards.

But it’s more fun when we don’t play nice!

I do love how 2 months later a dev/mod is still actively replying to this thread!

If only WvW dev(s) has such dedication!

John Smith.4610:

JBDanger.2603:

John Smith.4610:

Sariel V.7024:

Any chance for a response on my question? I think you may have missed it.

I apologize, I can’t currently speak on that.

Anet’s famous response for everything!!!

This is a 14 page thread of me answering all I can; throw me a bone sometimes.

toss
My question, mine to give.

I find both answers acceptable

Gaile Gray.6029:

John Smith.4610:

JBDanger.2603:

John Smith.4610:

Sariel V.7024:

Any chance for a response on my question? I think you may have missed it.

I apologize, I can’t currently speak on that.

Anet’s famous response for everything!!!

This is a 14 page thread of me answering all I can; throw me a bone sometimes.

Seriously, guys, John’s an amazing forum contributor. Play nicely — we want him to keep up the good info as he’s able to give it!

He’s an amazing contributor, probably the best dev contributor on these forums, but it was a pretty good question from Sariel and well presented. For those of us interested in crafting it’s an issue.

At lot of the game developments recently just don’t make any sense. A good example is the krait collection reward, a recipe that no one in their right mind would ever make because it’s not worth to use t6 mats to get an extra 15 minutes of food effect. There are a lot of examples.

I can appreciate that everyone’s favorite economist can’t answer, and he’s probably not responsible for the decisions being made. So is there perhaps someone else Gaile who you could forward the question to?

I would suggest that y’all do the same. Examples like the candy corn pail come to mind.

So, are you saying that you believe that even if the CE had not existed from the start of the game, rare items such as PCs and uber rare skins would still be approximately the same value as they are now? Do you think the negative affects (Negative from a player perspective) the wardrobe had on high end skins will recover back to “normal” prices? I think every time I get close to having enough money to buy a pre, something happens and it it goes way up again…3 times now it’s happened. I just can’t bring myself to play the mystic forge. I don’t have greatest luck in this game at the best of times and at what is it, about a 1:900 chance for a pre with four level 80 rares? The RNG acts very strangely with me and seems anything but random (Which I have reported to ANet couple times). Just can’t do it. I know people who have thrown in over 1000g worth of stuff to get nothing, while I know others who have gotten multiple pre drops with little effort from the forge. Personally, I think the pre supply needs to be increased to undo what the wardrobe has done. Demand was greatly increased on an already very limited supply.

Be careful saying things don’t make any sense, it’s very rare that’s true. Almost everything (I’m speaking generically) is done for some reason or purpose, that purpose isn’t always very clear at first.

For example, what if we did something like release candy corn before our first Halloween event. Nobody’s ever seen Halloween so candy corn is just some weird item that makes you throw up when you eat too much (very similar to real life). The developers know that Halloween is coming though and they wanted to start filling the world with this currency so people can get started on their rewards right away instead of taking a couple of days to earn enough to start, but want to have a price schema that works over multiple years of releases. Next year there will be candy corn in the world, but this year there isn’t so there’s conflict.

Please note this is a hypothetical situation I just made up off the top of my head and has no basis in any kind of reality. I’m just trying to demonstrate that sometimes there are good reasons for actions that aren’t immediately clear. This doesn’t mean you should stop questioning actions, you shouldn’t, not here, not anywhere. It just means that you should continually reevaluate your beliefs as time goes by and you learn more and more, this is one of the reasons that I come here to tell you what I can about our thought process and our decision making.

You know what would solve this? If you kept us in the loop. If you were to tell us “we’re aware that this element is currently useless, but in the near future we’re going to make this change, and suddenly it will become useful, so store it up.” Right now, all that happens is that there’s speculation, where some people stockpile something they think will become more valuable in the future, and maybe they are right and make way more money than any player really should off such a change, or maybe they’re wrong and take a bath.

I think you should just cut out the speculation. Instead of having vague hints as to where the market will move, just come out and say it. “In three months we’ll be making iron ore way more valuable.” Maybe lock trading on that item for a day or more (especially on items that don’t see high volumes), giving people time to cancel their low sell orders. Ideally players would be able to set new buy/sell orders but none of them would be fulfilled until the lock period ended, allowing the prices to creep towards the “new normal” price without people being able to profit as much off the difference.

There are a lot of places in the game though where the rewards currently make no sense, like the a fore mentioned weapon collections in which the “reward” is a recipe that nobody would currently want to craft, and just saying “it would make sense if you saw the big picture” is a lot less helpful than actually showing us the big picture.

John, you said the following:

• Almost everything (I’m speaking generically) is done for some reason or purpose, that purpose isn’t always very clear at first.

While we are aware that such things are in the nature of game development—that you can’t speak of until it’s ready, I think we can all agree, especially with the creation of Gaile’s new position, that ANET has had room to improve regarding communicating with their players. My two cents on this is: Gaile wants us to be nice. It would be nice to not be condescended upon. Quoting theories of economic logic doesn’t play well with most people, we few Plebeians here.

I have a question, and I’m almost certain it’s too specific to warrant any kind of substantive answer from you, but I thought I would try. Can you comment on, or at least give a defense of, why it is healthy to have the Amberite weapon’s fossils be non-tradeable? I spent around 20 hours of game-time farming geodes, opening chests, and to no avail. That experience was neither fun, nor rewarding, and I have not been back to Dry Top since. This is an area where the economic choices in your game, for me specifically, caused the game to cease to be fun or enjoyable. I highly enjoyed the weapons’ look; however, with the limited time I have to play games, I will and have chosen to take my time elsewhere. I don’t want to play a game in hopes to get “X,” only to never know when that will happen. And so, from point “A” (me with no Ambrite weapon) to point “B” (my sweet precious) has no guarantees of length of grind; thus, I choose to play another game instead.

Thanks for any consideration.

Leamas.5803:

The RNG acts very strangely with me and seems anything but random (Which I have reported to ANet couple times). Just can’t do it. I know people who have thrown in over 1000g worth of stuff to get nothing, while I know others who have gotten multiple pre drops with little effort from the forge.

This is the definition of “random.”

From an economic point of view, which game update was the most interesting to work on/watch go live and why?

John Smith.4610:

tolunart.2095:

Leamas.5803:

The RNG acts very strangely with me and seems anything but random (Which I have reported to ANet couple times). Just can’t do it. I know people who have thrown in over 1000g worth of stuff to get nothing, while I know others who have gotten multiple pre drops with little effort from the forge.

This is the definition of “random.”

You might be referring to the clustering illusion. Wikipedia has a really cool gif:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

Shouldn’t games have mechanics to combat this though? Kinda goes against reason to have some players have fantastic experiences yet others have horrid ones. A players entire time playing in a game is a small sample, thus it matters greatly to them.

I think the point is that this isn’t a problem with the game’s mechanics … it’s just a perception people have when they sample a very small subset of space where a cluster occurs. The RNG doesn’t ensure anti-clustering … it simply does it’s best to give out a random number.

Anecdotally, If I understand correctly, it’s actually not easy to create an algorithm for truly random number generation because many of those algorithms require a first seed number. There might be other methods but I suspect complexity and operations increases significantly.

Games shouldn’t be truly random though. That’s the point. They should strive to ensure that all players have the best chance of having equal experiences given equal input. Not “Sorry Johnny your game experience is a bad one, but that’s the nature of rng.” Imo that is the mark of broken reward mechanic.

Again “imo” game reward should be more consistent with flares of random thrown in to give the illusion of random instead of inconsistent with flares of clusters to give the illusion of pattern.