Guild Wars 2

@Green Archer
(Not quoting in the interest of avoid Great Wall of Text)

I recognize that other suggestions have been made. But for a stretch there before you submitted this it was mostly hateful emotional comments. Which is not something either group can work with. I did not mean to devalue previous suggestions and I apologize if it came off dismissive.

For Understanding:
Why are there so many people here that are dismissive of all these suggestions? There’s a few reasons.
1) There are claims that the wealthiest players in the game are hurting the economy for others. This idea is raised every now and then in various ways but there has never been any proof. Even John Smith with all his data and education has yet to find this to be true. So people have become tired of others constantly raising this flag without proof.
2) There are yet to be any significantly new suggestions. Most of the suggestions brought forward have already been suggested or rehashed and picked apart before.
3) As you said it is easy pick apart an idea, it is hard to come up with a new one that works.

Terms for a Good Idea:
1) It cannot affect the general player base negatively. A lot of ideas, such as a progressive tax, are suggested with the intent of nerfing the profits of the wealthiest players. However these suggestions are made without thinking about the effect on the average player. And these suggestions so far result in hurting them as well, if not more than the wealthiest players the suggestion is meant to target. We aren’t greedy monsters, we do care about the economy overall.

2) It cannot affect Anet’s ability to make money. We don’t want to make any suggestions that would negatively impact their free to play model such that the game can no longer support itself and we lose the game we all love.

Will continue with your rebuttal to my argument soon in another post. Just want to get this out as I think it can help guide the discussion.

Since we have yet to find a way to “nerf the TP” without negatively affecting the average player then the next idea would be to buff drop rates and make it easier to farm what you need through PvE. This is has been suggested before but usually just by increasing raw gold reward or similar ideas. The major problem being hyper inflation due to massive gold creation and the reduced value of items that now have increased drop rates.

However I like that you are thinking a bit differently. Rather than increasing gold output, thus devaluing gold, you are increasing the value of other in game currencies by opening up new opportunities for purchase. And I would certainly like to see reward tracks in PvE, (especially long epic ones for precursors).

The advantages of this are increased PvE reward without hyperinflation as well as encourages various modes of play which is what Anet likes to see. This also allows for people to convert various in game currencies into gold by buying from a vendor and then selling it on the TP. Out of all the suggestions so far I like this one the best.

However, another result of this is weakening the player’s dependence on gold. At the current price, running three dungeons a day for three days gets you 100 gems. So to get 800 gems that 24 days which is a little less than a month. That’s not terrible for getting something for free that would normally cost $10 but its certainly something that would require commitment. But if we implemented new ways of obtaining items without spending gold, this time gets reduced as people are saving more gold. This also gets reduced further by people able to convert other currencies such as karma, relics, or laurels into gold. I do think this would be serious problem as the money that Anet makes off this is based on the player’s reliance on gold. And by reducing that reliance it becomes more within reach of the average player to buy gems with gold instead of cash. And of course there is the question of how much money does Anet make off of these conversions now? Well they certainly won’t tell us. It could be a small portion compared to people who buy gems just to buy things off the gem store. But based on how much money they make a small portion is still a lot of potential profits.

Now, all that being said I am thinking about ways to improve your idea. But I don’t post ideas unless I’ve considered it very carefully. Also it’s late for me and I don’t make such decisions so late at night and so far from morning. So I am not just saying no to your idea, I am trying to develop a suggestion of my own based off of yours.

Schizo.1375:

But if we implemented new ways of obtaining items without spending gold, this time gets reduced as people are saving more gold. This also gets reduced further by people able to convert other currencies such as karma, relics, or laurels into gold. I do think this would be serious problem as the money that Anet makes off this is based on the player’s reliance on gold.

For sake of post length, I cut a bunch of your earlier stuff mainly because I am actually in agreement. I do want to touch upon this part, however, as I see what you mean, but I think I may have (or at least I certainly intended and may have just forgotten to put it in the post) covered this as well.

To prevent any problems, the, I guess we’ll call them “extra” items for now, that would be added to the various merchants would most likely need to be account bound on purchase. Crafting materials could remain safely unbound, imo, since that’s what can currently happen with laurels and the mat bags anyway. But any full item or skin would need to be bound on purchase I think.

I also don’t think binding the purchase would be that bad, either, since the idea is that the player is going to this other vendor to obtain those items for the sake of having those items. Basically, in my head, it would work like how karma armor already works. You can’t salvage it or vend it or tp it, but you can mystic forge it.

This should also help avoid inflation problems since the items in question cannot be traded in for direct gold. Allowing them to be traded on the tp could theoretically still be an option though if all we’re worried about is inflation. I’m not sure on that last part. But generally, binding of some form would need to be implemented. The idea is that you’re just trying to achieve a specific item with a currency other than gold, so there’s at least no need to make any of it directly vendor-able.

The general hope, like you’ve noticed, is that the idea doesn’t render the TP pointless. Rather it just opens up other paths. So if someone is good at karma gathering, they can use karma, laurel collectors can use laurels, and TP…ers(?) can continue to utilize gold. There’s other currencies, too, of course, but you get the gist.

Schizo.1375:

Now, all that being said I am thinking about ways to improve your idea. But I don’t post ideas unless I’ve considered it very carefully. Also it’s late for me and I don’t make such decisions so late at night and so far from morning. So I am not just saying no to your idea, I am trying to develop a suggestion of my own based off of yours.

And that is something that, despite my earlier posts (which mostly don’t exist anymore, anyway), I do in fact appreciate.

But yeah, given the systems in place, I think the only workable option is to bind the items purchased via the other currencies. Which, again, in my opinion at least is no real love lost, though having them be trade-able would still certainly be nice. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t require essentially building from scratch.

However I have given you reasons how they do make money off this. And we have both agreed that they do in fact make money off of this. The only way to make money off of this is by making hard to make gold in game.

I don’t think that’s true. They can’t make it completely effortless, obviously, and nobody is arguing that they should. If anything the proposals on the table would only serve to make it harder for some people to make gold who currently make it much too easily, and at best it would result in a very marginal increase in how quickly everyone else makes gold.

But that aside, they don’t need it to be super hard to earn a lot of gold, they just need it to be reasonably time consuming. If you want to buy something that costs 3000g, and you’re of the mindset that you might, in a million years, spend a significant amount of money on gems to buy gold to buy loot, then you don’t need for it to be crazy hard to earn gold in the game, you just need to make it take at least a few good months of solid effort to earn that much gold. People willing to spend that much cash money in principle probably have better things to do than to grind away for months at a time. I bet you that whatever the current “cash-to-gold” rate is, they could probably double the rate that gold would drop into the world through every avenue, and it wouldn’t reduce their cash-to-gold rates by any huge amount. I have no stats to back that up, of course, that’s just my bet based on player and consumer psychology.

Yes I know this was bad math. Double checking my math I was using incorrect factors of 10. I have realized my mistake and removed my incorrect statement. Your answer of around $500-$600 is correct. Which I would like to point out still isn’t thousands of dollars.

Yeah, fair enough, in my initial post on the subject I was making a wild guess, I didn’t bother to run the numbers for it yet. Still, that’s ~$550 for a single Legendary, if you wanted to outfit both weapon slots using two-handers or one full slot with one-handers it would be ~$1200 (twice that if you wanted four one-handers, of course), and that’s on one character, if you wanted them for multiple character it could be a lot more. Equipping all my characters with legendary versions of their current specs would end up costing me around $9500, not counting aquatic slots at all. Not that I’d do that, of course, even if I had piles of unneeded gold lying around, but maybe someone would want that.

Still, $500 is not bump change, that would be more than I’ve every spent over the lifetime of any game (and many MMOs offer “lifetime” subs for half that), that’s the cost of an entire game system! It may not be “thousands,” but it’s still very considerable.

And yeah, crafting your own is cheaper, but 1. people who are likely to dump large amounts of cash into the game aren’t likely to be the type to bother with the annoying details of making a Legendary, such as world completion or karma farming, and 2. it’s not waaaay cheaper, there are a lot of components where even if you earn/farm everything you can, you still have to dump out a lot of cash for things like the precursor (which theoretically could drop, but I’ve never had one drop over thousands of hours, so it’s not worth counting on), and the Icy runestones, and realistically most players will end up buying a ton of mats.

Not that this example fits the original scenario in the first place the more likely scenario is that Anet fixed their bugs and the players who took advantage of this moved on. You have to stop using that phrase “I believe” without any reasoning behind it.

Well I know they fixed it, I just also believe there was a lot of hubbub at the time about people being banned over this. I’m not just assuming they were banned, I remember it happening, it was just so long ago I’m not sure I trust that memory. It either happened or it didn’t, I could go either way.

People get banned because they are exploiting game mechanics, not because they are keeping their farming spot secret. The act of keeping your farming spot secret for as long as possible is not exploiting.

That depends entirely on whether they choose to consider your farming spot exploitative or not. Any place that is a “good farming spot” is so because it’s in some way more efficient than just picking an area at random. Maybe ANet is ok with that advantage, maybe they aren’t. In any case, continuing to use it without reporting it is generally frowned upon.

continued. . .

OK, so what benefit do you see to point out the same perceived problem over and over again, when you are unable to present or add to a solution that serves everybody?

By now you know that JS is reading both top topics in this forum, so he is aware of the issues you have. It seems right now, the TP and Economy are in a good place in his opinion, and he should know best. I am pretty sure, he is double checking his data , to see, if you have a good point. He asked for your input on how to optimize the system and adress the issues you have but your response is that you are unable to (no shame in that) and its his job.
But shouldnt you trust him then as well, that he is doing the utmost to please everybody and the status quo is the best one?

Honestly? I would be willing to trust him to fix it, IF he was willing to acknowledge that there was a problem in need of fixing. My impression so far is that he’s on the same page as you guys, that this is a little Ayn Rand paradise that is working just fine, like Rapture, and there’s no reason to tinker with it. “Sure the money concentrates into the hands of the day traders, but there’s nothing wrong with that.” Well so long as there’s no indication that they even consider it to be a problem, I feel the need to keep banging the drums. If I saw any movement towards improving things, I’d give them a chance to work it out.

Wrong! But that has always been the impression that people here give that is so easy to be filthy rich, just go play the TP and you are guaranteed profit! That is a lot of BS and gross exaggerations here and those persists even to this thread. Either that or most of you guys don’t even know what you are talking about.

It’s a middleground of the two. It’s not effortless to earn gold on the TP, but once you put in a relatively minimal amount of effort learnign the tricks, and if you have a decent head for economics, you can start making deals in a way that becomes easy. It’s a bit like if you’re playing a class with complete elements to it, like a Mesmer or Ele. Not every player can just pick up those classes and play them and do well right away, but once you work out the right specs and rotations you can accomplish quite a bit with very little effort at that point.

So yes, once you get rolling, the TP offers too much profit for too little effort, but you do need to get on the right track first. You aren’t “defeating” any of the arguments being made in this thread.

1) It cannot affect the general player base negatively.

I think that’s an unreasonable expectation. More importantly, it it should instead cause no more harm than good. Most changes would have at least some negative impact on the general players, but the idea would be to also have positive impacts, and for the negatives to be considered insignificant. Most of the changes in the April 15th patch have negative elements to them, but hopefully the good will outweigh the bad.

2) It cannot affect Anet’s ability to make money. We don’t want to make any suggestions that would negatively impact their free to play model such that the game can no longer support itself and we lose the game we all love.

Again, while I agree that a plan should not hurt their ability to make money too much, obviously nobody wants to implode their economic model, it’s reasonable for a suggestion to take a bite out of one element of their model, if the belief is that it will balance out elsewhere. For example, you could reduce revenue from some elements, if it would lead to more players, or more engaged players that were more likely to spend money. Keeping players happy is their primary job, because happy customers are paying customers, and sad customers just leave. I’m not exactly a whale, but I do spend $20 every now and then to pick up some gem store items. I’ve never turned gems to gold, although I have turned small amounts of gold into gems to balance out a purchase.

Now it’s hard for us to judge from the outside whether a change would hurt ANet’s profits “too much,” we don’t have any numbers to work with on that, so from the outside it’s fair to suggest ideas even when they have some reasonable obvious cuts to ANet’s business (such as perhaps reducing the demand for gems-to-gold), and it would be fair to point out the direct impact it may have, but only those with access to ANet’s internals could decide whether the direct costs would be worth it as a “marketing cost,” or to perhaps offset the loss by adding charges elsewhere.

DarkSpirit.7046:

The other contradiction I noticed in this thread, is that you guys say rich people are hurting the market and making life miserable for so many poor people by raising prices everywhere. Now, if it is so easy to be rich by playing the TP, then why are there so many poor people?
.

This is the best question possible…

The answer is the most interesting

Because other people play Guild Wars 2 and not “John’s Smith market tycoon”.
(remember the “play the way you want” that should mean a minor activity shouldn t nor profit 10-100X other nor influence other players playstile)

And i ll reverse the question

If this system is so fair…how comes is ban worthy in many other games?

LordByron.8369:

DarkSpirit.7046:

The other contradiction I noticed in this thread, is that you guys say rich people are hurting the market and making life miserable for so many poor people by raising prices everywhere. Now, if it is so easy to be rich by playing the TP, then why are there so many poor people?
.

This is the best question possible…

The answer is the most interesting

Because other people play Guild Wars 2 and not “John’s Smith market tycoon”.
(remember the “play the way you want” that should mean a minor activity shouldn t nor profit 10-100X other nor influence other players playstile)

And i ll reverse the question

If this system is so fair…how comes is ban worthy in many other games?

Which other game has a global trading post system just like GW2?

LordByron.8369:

And i ll reverse the question

If this system is so fair…how comes is ban worthy in many other games?

Making gold from the market/trading is ban worthy in other games? I’ve played mmos since pre Tram UO and have never seen anyone banned for making IG currency through trading activities such as flipping, speculation or trying to corner a market.

Having played EVE threads like this one do crack me up a bit.

10-100x eh? So you are now going to demonstrate to us all exactly how you make 10,000 – 100,000G in 4-6 weeks? I mean it is easy and there is zero risk. Because it is more than possible to clear 1,000G in that amount of time via pve. And I don’t mean one off events, I mean consistently, week after week, month after month.

So let’s see this trading master plan.

Gene Archer.8560:

suggestion…

The main reason why i ignored your suggestion was that it was kinda off topic. It geared more towards and overhaul of rewards in general to use other currencies, which are not obtainable via the tp, to buy stuff that is (subjectively) too expensive on the tp for many players. I dont think thats a bad suggestion at all and Anet is doing that already by adding more and more ways to spend your account bound mats and currencies and tying exclusive rewards to achievements.
PvP Rewards Track looks promising and I am sure, if it gets positive feedback, they will implement it in PvE/WvW as well.

They ARE adding rewards constantly that arent obtainable by just gold, which in my eyes devalues the dependance on gold every time, even though a little.

As a TP Player, i am fine with that and you dont see me complaining that rewards/profits from my favourite gamemode (these days, I really only play the TP for fun, not gold gain. The amount of profit i make is just a way to measure my success in some way).

But no matter, how much easier you make it to obtain in demand items with earned currency other than gold, the TP will still be there. And as long as the TP is there in its current state, I will be able to make more gold on it than other players through other means.

In my eyes it wont matter how much rewards Anet introduces that are unobtainable by playing the TP, people who complain about my income now, will keep complaining.

So thats why i think your suggestion was kinda off topic because it didnt suggest anything on how to effectively nerf possible profits on the tp and i think thats what we are trying to do here.

Fenrir.3609:

10-100x eh? So you are now going to demonstrate to us all exactly how you make 10,000 – 100,000G in 4-6 weeks? I mean it is easy and there is zero risk. Because it is more than possible to clear 1,000G in that amount of time via pve. And I don’t mean one off events, I mean consistently, week after week, month after month.

So let’s see this trading master plan.

Show me how to make 1000G without the TP in the same time….
Then i ll link you one of the many videos showing what you asked.

Anyway John Smith is ignoring the main problem:
The unbalance in rewards goes etremely against the game philosophy.

We need BALANCE.
A TP trader should earn the same as a dungeon runner as a champ farmer as a www player or a pvp etc

Just a wild idea:

What if you could pay on the TP with other currencies than gold?
Or lets just make a totally seperate TP with karma as currency.
It would definately give regular players a higher “income” through regular events.
But it would open up a way for TP players to earn karma, which I am not sure, is good or bad.

LordByron.8369:

Anyway John Smith is ignoring the main problem:
The unbalance in rewards goes etremely against the game philosophy.

We need BALANCE.
A TP trader should earn the same as a dungeon runner as a champ farmer as a www player or a pvp etc

If Anet somehow manages to put TP profits in line with other activities, would you be fine to make all those additional rewards obtainable via TP achievements?

1. karma
2. AP
3. Laurel
4. Tokens
5. Badges

etc.?

LordByron.8369:

Fenrir.3609:

10-100x eh? So you are now going to demonstrate to us all exactly how you make 10,000 – 100,000G in 4-6 weeks? I mean it is easy and there is zero risk. Because it is more than possible to clear 1,000G in that amount of time via pve. And I don’t mean one off events, I mean consistently, week after week, month after month.

So let’s see this trading master plan.

Show me how to make 1000G without the TP in the same time….
Then i ll link you one of the many videos showing what you asked.

Anyway John Smith is ignoring the main problem:
The unbalance in rewards goes etremely against the game philosophy.

We need BALANCE.
A TP trader should earn the same as a dungeon runner as a champ farmer as a www player or a pvp etc

FGS/Arah Champs.
Karka.
Arah meta event server hop farm.
Speed clear dungeons.
Sell dungeon paths.

There are guides for each and every aspect of that on these very forums which list exactly what you can expect to make per hour, per week. I know they are pretty accurate as I’ve done them myself and cleared that amount (bought Dusk with it) within that time frame and have run with people who make more.

Wait, let me guess, you are going to link the rare greatsword craft video….

No I asked you to tell use how you make up to 100,000G in that amount of time consistently via the TP. So go on, let’s see this masterstroke trading plan.

You keep yelling about balance and yet still, you have neither proven how large the disparity is, how it is harmful or why it needs balancing.

Moreoever you have failed to demonstrate why a zero risk, zero competitive gold pump activity which also provides tokens, AP’s, SP’s, karma, XP and the chance for pres and other high end drops, as well as letting you make constant and consistent returns as and when you want whilst having a blast doing combat content, should offer exactly the same return potential as a higher risk, gold sink, zero sum activity which returns nothing but gold.

Lol no….
Unless you exploit no dungeon can net the same as TP…..
Not even the Golden age of Cof1 could and it was nerfed…..

Wonder why TP is immune to any profit balance…

The only thing that could come close is exploiting dungeon paths….but its obviously ban worthy.

LordByron.8369:

Lol no….
Unless you exploit no dungeon can net the same as TP…..

10-100 times more is not “the same”

Nobody is arguing that you cant make more on the tp than with dungeons, he is just arguing that its far from the 10-100 times more on a regular and constant basis that you keep throwing around to help your arguements.

I’ve spent the time to read so many of these post, that I don’t have the time for a proper response. Though I can quickly say this, I do believe a portion of player’s are left with a general sense of wanting in the game. It’s the sensation of angst over grinding comes from. I do not believe this comes from our fellow players as much as it’s a general design philosophy of the game. It’s to encourage the use of the gem store.

Speaking of the gem store, anyone see that reddit post about GW2 having an average monthly revenue per user of $3.88? I’m averaging way more than $3.88 per month and still don’t have a single Legendary! Though I have 17 characters and GG alts cost a lot.

Off topic, to think of all the ascended gear we’ll now have duplicates of… ouch! Can we get a one time ascended gear stat reselect please?

LordByron.8369:

Lol no….
Unless you exploit no dungeon can net the same as TP…..
Not even the Golden age of Cof1 could and it was nerfed…..

Wonder why TP is immune to any profit balance…

The only thing that could come close is exploiting dungeon paths….but its obviously ban worthy.

What exactly was going through your mind when you thought that was a good answer? You can use as many “….” as you like, you failed to address ANY of the points or questions raised and since when is “10-100x” “the same”?

If you started to use evidence instead of hyperbole and simply stating “muh balance!!!!”, then perhaps you wouldn’t have to backtrack/sidestep so much after your posts had been pulled apart.

LordByron.8369:

Lol no….
Unless you exploit no dungeon can net the same as TP…..
Not even the Golden age of Cof1 could and it was nerfed…..

Wonder why TP is immune to any profit balance…

The only thing that could come close is exploiting dungeon paths….but its obviously ban worthy.

Because it’s completely driven by players supplying and demanding items. It is no different than a player finding a little played area and making a killing off loot in that area, and never telling players.

So let me make 2 things clear:
1: playing the trade post to make money has never been a banning offense in ANY game that has such a market. Hell, most games WITH such a market encourage that behavior. In fact, one game someone mentioned, you can actually make hundreds of thousands to millions of ingame currency just playing the market demands. If it’s a banning offense to make profit off people selling low and buying high, you might as well ban everyone in the game.
2: not disclosing an area you’re farming for massive profit is not exploiting or a banning offense. Do you think Microsoft is dumb enough to make Win8 opensource? No? Then why would a player be dumb enough to compromise what amounts to their trade secret regarding how they make money?

Lastly, any game that bans for either of the above is a pitiful MMO.

Gene Archer.8560:

To prevent any problems, the, I guess we’ll call them “extra” items for now, that would be added to the various merchants would most likely need to be account bound on purchase. Crafting materials could remain safely unbound, imo, since that’s what can currently happen with laurels and the mat bags anyway. But any full item or skin would need to be bound on purchase I think.

I was actually thinking of account binding while laying in bed last night. And looking over your previous posts you did mentiont this and I didn’t see it so you are ahead of the curve.

I like this because it removes the ability to convert any other currency into gold. This removes a largest portion of the gold problem. That still leaves increased saving of gold but I think this is a smaller portion of the problem that isn’t large enough to prevent at least trying this. Of course I say this without any actual data that JS can’t and won’t provide to us so I just hope he isn’t looking at this and shaking his head.

I feel that this could be fairly easy to test out as well by slowly introducing items to already existing vendors. The hardest part is deciding which items to sell and for how. For instance I don’t think its fesable to have a copy of every exotic armor piece in the game available for sale. But maybe crafting components such as insignias would be. As for the price it helps that they are fixed and determined by Anet. So if it becomes too easy to buy an item with another currency that no one buys it with gold, the prices can be quick fixed in the next patch.

Beyond the numerous walls of text in this thread for or against the “punishment of the rich” issue around, where is ANY evidence that:

• This increase request is in ANY way needed to improve the game?
• How would this not be a negative for EVERY player that ever sells something on the TP?

Let’s be honest, this request has NOTHING to do with being “RICH” in GW2. It is direct attempt to “punish” (yes, I used the word) those that choose to “play the BLTP”. If Anet does not feel it necessary to put limit or stop his way of “playing the game”, then those that choose to be full time traders are doing nothing against the rules of the game that requires them to be “punished”.

I tend to think all this, “Kill all the TP fippers!!!!” mentality, comes from general angst about the Precursor status on the TP but this suggestion is like using a Bush Hog (huge lawn mower pulled behind a tractor for you city folk) to kill one weed. From the player perspective, the Precursor issue is “broken” as it is almost impossible for the causal player to obtain one. From the game perspective it is likely right where Anet wants as Legendary weapons really shouldn’t be in everyone’s inventory (but that’s just my opinion).

Brother Grimm.5176:

Beyond the numerous walls of text in this thread for or against the “punishment of the rich” issue around, where is ANY evidence that:

• This increase request is in ANY way needed to improve the game?
• How would this not be a negative for EVERY player that ever sells something on the TP?

Let’s be honest, this request has NOTHING to do with being “RICH” in GW2. It is direct attempt to “punish” (yes, I used the word) those that choose to “play the BLTP”. If Anet does not feel it necessary to put limit or stop his way of “playing the game”, then those that choose to be full time traders are doing nothing against the rules of the game that requires them to be “punished”.

I tend to think all this, “Kill all the TP fippers!!!!” mentality, comes from general angst about the Precursor status on the TP but this suggestion is like using a Bush Hog to kill one weed. From the player perspective, the Precursor issue is “broken” as it is almost impossible for the causal player to obtain one. From the game perspective it is likely right where Anet wants as Legendary weapons really shouldn’t be in everyone’s inventory (but that’s just my opinion).

Let’s all calm down and stop making such emotional statements that only stoke the flames. Except for a few persistent posts I think some progress has been reached recently

Brother Grimm.5176:

Let’s be honest, this request has NOTHING to do with being “RICH” in GW2. It is direct attempt to “punish” (yes, I used the word) those that choose to “play the BLTP”. If Anet does not feel it necessary to put limit or stop his way of “playing the game”, then those that choose to be full time traders are doing nothing against the rules of the game that requires them to be “punished”.

I disagree. This is asking for the incentives to play the BLTP to be reduced. There’s just too much money to be made there and it’s unfun for other players.

When they nerf champion bags it’s not to punish people who run the champ train. It’s to a) balance the economy and b) encourage people to do other stuff.

LordByron.8369:

DarkSpirit.7046:

The other contradiction I noticed in this thread, is that you guys say rich people are hurting the market and making life miserable for so many poor people by raising prices everywhere. Now, if it is so easy to be rich by playing the TP, then why are there so many poor people?
.

This is the best question possible…

The answer is the most interesting

Because other people play Guild Wars 2 and not “John’s Smith market tycoon”.
(remember the “play the way you want” that should mean a minor activity shouldn t nor profit 10-100X other nor influence other players playstile)

That still doesn’t make sense.

If it is so easy to make gold from the TP, as people here claim, then why can’t they simply play the TP whenever they run low of gold? Thus staying above the poverty line. If there are so many poor and desperate people, as people here claim, and the TP is so easy to earn gold from, then there is a contradiction.

The knowledge on how to play the TP has always been free. All they need to do is to google for them. Furthermore, people here say that playing the TP doesn’t require much time investment and it is almost risk-free. If it is such a convenient fountain of gold, why not people simply use the TP whenever they run low of gold? It is a contradiction in argument if there are so many poor and desperate players, yet have such a convenient fountain of gold in the SAME game!

It can any combinations of these reasons:

1. People are too lazy to google for information to make themselves rich? This is vehemently denied by people here.
2. The TP is not as easy to play or doesn’t earn you as much gold as believed?
3. There are really not that many poor people in the game as believed.

Wanze.8410:

Just a wild idea:

What if you could pay on the TP with other currencies than gold?
Or lets just make a totally seperate TP with karma as currency.
It would definately give regular players a higher “income” through regular events.
But it would open up a way for TP players to earn karma, which I am not sure, is good or bad.

While I don’t see any major problems with this I don’t think it would be change Anet would be willing to implement as it hinders the idea of playing all different game modes. With this I can turn gold into another currency and avoid any part of the game that is needed to gain this other currency.

TooBz.3065:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Let’s be honest, this request has NOTHING to do with being “RICH” in GW2. It is direct attempt to “punish” (yes, I used the word) those that choose to “play the BLTP”. If Anet does not feel it necessary to put limit or stop his way of “playing the game”, then those that choose to be full time traders are doing nothing against the rules of the game that requires them to be “punished”.

I disagree. This is asking for the incentives to play the BLTP to be reduced. There’s just too much money to be made there and it’s unfun for other players.

When they nerf champion bags it’s not to punish people who run the champ train. It’s to a) balance the economy and b) encourage people to do other stuff.

So just because it’s “unfun” for other players it should be nerfed? Alright, champ trains, dungeons, and world bosses are unfun for me. Nerf it plox, anet. You do see how ridiculous that is, right? If there’s that much “money to be made” on the trade post, there’s vastly easier solutions than suggesting ideas that impact low-cash players far more than it ever affects TP players. You know, like educating players on HOW money is made on the trade post.

Unfortunately, in any game with a market like this, asking to reduce the incentive, or profit, of taking advantage of market trends, is basically saying “I cant make money, therefore market wolves shouldnt make money either.” In fact, many of the other games that encourage market manipulation, encourage it so much that they openly support players using cutthroat tactics to defend, take over, or destroy profitability of markets. There are entire clans and guilds dedicated to such activities.

Obviously Anet doesnt encourage such tactics, but they do not outright ban people for doing it either. In fact, some members of my guild had been bored enough at one point that they establishekittenhril ingot wall at roughly 85c with 2.5 million in the wall just because they had that many stacks of the stuff lying around.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Beyond the numerous walls of text in this thread for or against the “punishment of the rich” issue around, where is ANY evidence that:

• This increase request is in ANY way needed to improve the game?
• How would this not be a negative for EVERY player that ever sells something on the TP?

Let’s be honest, this request has NOTHING to do with being “RICH” in GW2. It is direct attempt to “punish” (yes, I used the word) those that choose to “play the BLTP”. If Anet does not feel it necessary to put limit or stop his way of “playing the game”, then those that choose to be full time traders are doing nothing against the rules of the game that requires them to be “punished”.

I tend to think all this, “Kill all the TP fippers!!!!” mentality, comes from general angst about the Precursor status on the TP but this suggestion is like using a Bush Hog (huge lawn mower pulled behind a tractor for you city folk) to kill one weed. From the player perspective, the Precursor issue is “broken” as it is almost impossible for the causal player to obtain one. From the game perspective it is likely right where Anet wants as Legendary weapons really shouldn’t be in everyone’s inventory (but that’s just my opinion).

This is true. As I mentioned a few pages back, most people are ok with attacking rich players, because it’s the acceptable norm for a majority of the population. They feel it’s unbalanced because they can’t be rich too, so they want artificial barriers placed on the top 2%.

The flaw with this entire argument of “punishing the rich” is that the complainers assume there’s no balance. However, all players in this game are created equal in terms of rules and mechanics. The anomaly here would be people who abuse bugs or exploits (i.e. Snowflake salvaging), but Anet takes care of them right away. Each player is different in terms of how much time they can play, and how much they can understand game mechanics.

Not every player is good at SPvP or WvW. Not every player is good at solo dungeon runs. And not every player is good at investing in the market. So if you want to argue for rules that punish rich players because they’re good at what they do, you must also have the same arguments for high ranking SPvP players who are good at what they do. For example – players with SPvP rank of 50 or higher must have their damage output reduced by 10%.

tl;dr: Asking for a tax on players good at trading is like asking for players good at SPvP to do less damage.

Wanze.8410:

They ARE adding rewards constantly that arent obtainable by just gold, which in my eyes devalues the dependance on gold every time, even though a little.

Not at a meaningful rate or magnitude, however.

Wanze.8410:

But no matter, how much easier you make it to obtain in demand items with earned currency other than gold, the TP will still be there. And as long as the TP is there in its current state, I will be able to make more gold on it than other players through other means.

Which become absolutely meaningless the moment items become actually obtainable through other means. The only reason this is a problem is because the trading post is essentially the -only- effective method of obtaining anything, cheap or expensive. And that becomes compounded by how little everything else in game pays out compared to just sitting at the tp.

But when you boost all the other currencies to be on par with gold, it doesn’t matter how much gold you amass to use on the TP, because other viable options outside gold and the TP will then exist. The current problem is that there aren’t other viable options. Laurels are very limited in what you can purchase, as is karma. And most of the things you can purchase with them are things that people just wind up using in an attempt to make gold, because gold has been made into the only worthwhile currency.

Wanze.8410:

In my eyes it wont matter how much rewards Anet introduces that are unobtainable by playing the TP, people who complain about my income now, will keep complaining.

Why? The main arguments when it comes to that is that, well, because you (general you) flip, you gain access to essentially everything the game has to offer despite not really taking part in activities and such, because gold drives everything in this game. But if all currencies drive everything in the game, gold simply becomes a preferred method for those who…prefer it.

Also, the point isn’t to make things unobtainable via the TP. The point is to bring everything else up to a rate similar to the TP (in my suggestion at least). The idea isn’t to render the TP and gold useless. Merely remove the stranglehold it has on the game.

Wanze.8410:

So thats why i think your suggestion was kinda off topic because it didnt suggest anything on how to effectively nerf possible profits on the tp and i think thats what we are trying to do here.

That strikes me as a futile effort since anything that nerfs the tp even slightly is being called an unfair punishment.

Wanze.8410:

Just a wild idea:

What if you could pay on the TP with other currencies than gold?
Or lets just make a totally seperate TP with karma as currency.
It would definately give regular players a higher “income” through regular events.
But it would open up a way for TP players to earn karma, which I am not sure, is good or bad.

What would TP players do with karma, though?

Like, don’t get me wrong, this seems like a workable idea, I’m just not sure it would…actually work? Not from a problematic standpoint, though. I see no problems arising from this. It’s just, there’s not much to do with karma, so would people actually do a “karma only” trading post?

Using karma as an alternate currency, however, I do think would work. ANet would just need to set a number as to how much karma is equivalent to a gold, and go from there.

Idk how to make this any more clear.

It’s NOT the players that are the issue. It IS the level to which a method or the mechanic is out of sync with the rest of the game that is the issue.

It does not matter what the method or mechanic is. Any would have the same issue if it had the same effects. Just like how CoF p1 farming was out of balance, there was also an issue there.

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk how to make this any more clear.

It’s NOT the players that are the issue. It IS the level to which a method or the mechanic is out of sync with the rest of the game that is the issue.

It does not matter what the method or mechanic is. Any would have the same issue if it had the same effects. Just like how CoF p1 farming was out of balance, there was also an issue there.

But if the methods or mechanics are available to all players, why aren’t more people doing it? If more people did it, that means the velocity of the acquired wealth is put “in balance”. Again, the TP does not create coin. It shares it among players. The more players doing this, the less of it can be spread.

This goes back to the level of understanding of the mechanics. Laymen’s term: Skill. Some players are skilled at the market. Some players are skilled at SPvP. If you want to nerf one, you must be able to make the same argument for the other.

Situation A: Player makes too much money because they know how to use the TP.

Situation B: Player always wins SPvP matches because they know how to use their Thief.

Proposed solution to A: Nerf TP player’s ability to make money

Proposed solution to B: Nerf Thieves.

So basically, the whole argument can be summed up as: “I’m not as good at X/Y/Z thing in game, so we should limit X/Y/Z to balanced it out”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk how to make this any more clear.

It’s NOT the players that are the issue. It IS the level to which a method or the mechanic is out of sync with the rest of the game that is the issue.

It does not matter what the method or mechanic is. Any would have the same issue if it had the same effects. Just like how CoF p1 farming was out of balance, there was also an issue there.

But if the methods or mechanics are available to all players, why aren’t more people doing it? If more people did it, that means the velocity of the acquired wealth is put “in balance”. Again, the TP does not create coin. It shares it among players. The more players doing this, the less of it can be spread.

This goes back to the level of understanding of the mechanics. Laymen’s term: Skill. Some players are skilled at the market. Some players are skilled at SPvP. If you want to nerf one, you must be able to make the same argument for the other.

Situation A: Player makes too much money because they know how to use the TP.

Situation B: Player always wins SPvP matches because they know how to use their Thief.

Proposed solution to A: Nerf TP player’s ability to make money

Proposed solution to B: Nerf Thieves.

So basically, the whole argument can be summed up as: “I’m not as good at X/Y/Z thing in game, so we should limit X/Y/Z to balanced it out”

That would be like if thiefs were obviously OP

Everyone has access to a thief right? If everyone played thief then there wouldn’t be an unbalance. It’s the same logic.

It’s not that the player is that much more skilled it’s that the thief is so much OP than all other professions that would be the issue.

Suggestion:

Modify Wallet. Include automatic savings account. All gold goes into the savings account and can be removed at a rate of 2 gold per hour based on play time.

No changes to TP required. All players can participate in all aspects of the game without worrying about ever having more than any other player.

Note: all other forms of “currency” are converted to gold and stored automatically into the savings account.

To avoid exploitation of play time, the inactive play time will be shortened to a duration of thirty seconds. A required 5 minute “cool down” will be instituted for inactivity kicks. During the cool down period the player will be unable to log in to a character. The duration of the “cool down” will increase by five minutes for each inactivity kick within a rolling 24 hour period.

Exception: Gem to gold conversion. Gold converted will automatically be available to use outside the savings account.

Essence Snow.3194:

That would be like if thiefs were obviously OP

Everyone has access to a thief right? If everyone played thief then there wouldn’t be an unbalance. It’s the same logic.

It’s not that the player is that much more skilled it’s that the thief is so much OP than all other professions that would be the issue.

Doesnt stop people from applying illogical arguments to the situation, much like what’s happened in this thread. “He plays thief too good, he must be nerfed.” “They make too much money off the TP, it should be nerfed.”

The tradepost makes a lot of money for a relatively few players because others either dont have the skill to do it (I cant pvp well, so should they nerf spvp?) or the time to dedicate to finding these methods (“I can only play 20 minutes a day, I should be able ot make a bazillion gold a week just like everyone else with less effort”). Naturally, less competition means those players can make vastly more gold than they could with even 1 competitor.
If more players were able to play the market, and play it with even mediocre skill, they’d be able to make money just as easily. It’s not even that hard to get into either. Crafting materials are a good way to start. Buy raw materials with a buy order, refine them into the processed material, then get rid of them with an undercutting sell order. You might make a piddly amount of coppers off each “batch,” but it’s certainly an easy way to start. Not to mention if you’re only doing bundles of 10-30 of a resource, you’re not going to be out hundreds of gold if your sale flops.

brittitude.1983:

Suggestion:

Modify Wallet. Include automatic savings account. All gold goes into the savings account and can be removed at a rate of 2 gold per hour based on play time.

So, I want to level crafting to create my ascended gear, but I can’t because I spent 2g on mats and now I can’t buy any more for an hour? Players can’t buy stuff from the TP, other players farming and selling mats can’t sell their stuff because they get undersold before people can buy things. Economic disaster.

This doesn’t solve any problems, it just creates new ones.

brittitude.1983:

Suggestion:

Modify Wallet. Include automatic savings account. All gold goes into the savings account and can be removed at a rate of 2 gold per hour based on play time.

No changes to TP required. All players can participate in all aspects of the game without worrying about ever having more than any other player.

Note: all other forms of “currency” are converted to gold and stored automatically into the savings account.

To avoid exploitation of play time, the inactive play time will be shortened to a duration of thirty seconds. A required 5 minute “cool down” will be instituted for inactivity kicks. During the cool down period the player will be unable to log in to a character. The duration of the “cool down” will increase by five minutes for each inactivity kick within a rolling 24 hour period.

Exception: Gem to gold conversion. Gold converted will automatically be available to use outside the savings account.

I can easily spend 100g a day on materials for ascended equipment. Should I have to log 50 consecutive hours of gameplay just to be able to buy those materials? I do hope you see how ludicrous that is. Not to mention if I’m leaving the computer to go make food I’m not going to log out unless I was going OUT to eat at a restaurant or something. Oh, and what if I decide to browse the forums for a few minutes while waiting for a friend to log on? There’s a reason the current inactivity timer is close to an hour in length.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Essence Snow.3194:

That would be like if thiefs were obviously OP

Everyone has access to a thief right? If everyone played thief then there wouldn’t be an unbalance. It’s the same logic.

It’s not that the player is that much more skilled it’s that the thief is so much OP than all other professions that would be the issue.

Doesnt stop people from applying illogical arguments to the situation, much like what’s happened in this thread. “He plays thief too good, he must be nerfed.” “They make too much money off the TP, it should be nerfed.”

The tradepost makes a lot of money for a relatively few players because others either dont have the skill to do it (I cant pvp well, so should they nerf spvp?) or the time to dedicate to finding these methods (“I can only play 20 minutes a day, I should be able ot make a bazillion gold a week just like everyone else with less effort”). Naturally, less competition means those players can make vastly more gold than they could with even 1 competitor.
If more players were able to play the market, and play it with even mediocre skill, they’d be able to make money just as easily. It’s not even that hard to get into either. Crafting materials are a good way to start. Buy raw materials with a buy order, refine them into the processed material, then get rid of them with an undercutting sell order. You might make a piddly amount of coppers off each “batch,” but it’s certainly an easy way to start. Not to mention if you’re only doing bundles of 10-30 of a resource, you’re not going to be out hundreds of gold if your sale flops.

That’s not the issue. It’s the ability to be able to based on the design, not the actual players ability based on skill.

Just so everyone knows, ignoring trolls is an option.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Essence Snow.3194:

That would be like if thiefs were obviously OP

Everyone has access to a thief right? If everyone played thief then there wouldn’t be an unbalance. It’s the same logic.

It’s not that the player is that much more skilled it’s that the thief is so much OP than all other professions that would be the issue.

Doesnt stop people from applying illogical arguments to the situation, much like what’s happened in this thread. “He plays thief too good, he must be nerfed.” “They make too much money off the TP, it should be nerfed.”

The tradepost makes a lot of money for a relatively few players because others either dont have the skill to do it (I cant pvp well, so should they nerf spvp?) or the time to dedicate to finding these methods (“I can only play 20 minutes a day, I should be able ot make a bazillion gold a week just like everyone else with less effort”). Naturally, less competition means those players can make vastly more gold than they could with even 1 competitor.
If more players were able to play the market, and play it with even mediocre skill, they’d be able to make money just as easily. It’s not even that hard to get into either. Crafting materials are a good way to start. Buy raw materials with a buy order, refine them into the processed material, then get rid of them with an undercutting sell order. You might make a piddly amount of coppers off each “batch,” but it’s certainly an easy way to start. Not to mention if you’re only doing bundles of 10-30 of a resource, you’re not going to be out hundreds of gold if your sale flops.

It’s true that this same type of argument has brought about heated debates in the past. Casual players don’t have as much time to play as Hardcore players, but want access to the same items/wealth. So they want to either nerf the Hardcore player’s ability to get the best items/wealth, or allow Casuals to have increased gains to be “in balance” with Hardcores.

In the great circle of life, the true core reason to these threads is “Entitlement”. People feel they should be rich too, which in itself isn’t a bad desire. But if one class of player can’t do it (for whatever reason), then either let them do it easier, or don’t allow the other class of player to do it.

Increase taxes on rich players or high value transactions, or targeted Gold Sinks for the wealthy is merely punishment… because other players can’t be on the same level.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s true that this same type of argument has brought about heated debates in the past. Casual players don’t have as much time to play as Hardcore players, but want access to the same items/wealth. So they want to either nerf the Hardcore player’s ability to get the best items/wealth, or allow Casuals to have increased gains to be “in balance” with Hardcores.

In the great circle of life, the true core reason to these threads is “Entitlement”. People feel they should be rich too, which in itself isn’t a bad desire. But if one class of player can’t do it (for whatever reason), then either let them do it easier, or don’t allow the other class of player to do it.

Increase taxes on rich players or high value transactions, or targeted Gold Sinks for the wealthy is merely punishment… because other players can’t be on the same level.

Punishments that the players being targeted are able to easily pass off on THEIR customers, therefore punishing the players that were the intended beneficiaries of the punishment.

Most of those threads fall flat on their face once players are forced to understand that even casual players can win on the tradepost. And they can do so without trafficking high-value items too.

Beyond that, I find the sense of entitlement pitiful. If you cant put the work in for it, dont expect to make as much money.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s true that this same type of argument has brought about heated debates in the past. Casual players don’t have as much time to play as Hardcore players, but want access to the same items/wealth. So they want to either nerf the Hardcore player’s ability to get the best items/wealth, or allow Casuals to have increased gains to be “in balance” with Hardcores.

In the great circle of life, the true core reason to these threads is “Entitlement”. People feel they should be rich too, which in itself isn’t a bad desire. But if one class of player can’t do it (for whatever reason), then either let them do it easier, or don’t allow the other class of player to do it.

Increase taxes on rich players or high value transactions, or targeted Gold Sinks for the wealthy is merely punishment… because other players can’t be on the same level.

Punishments that the players being targeted are able to easily pass off on THEIR customers, therefore punishing the players that were the intended beneficiaries of the punishment.

Most of those threads fall flat on their face once players are forced to understand that even casual players can win on the tradepost. And they can do so without trafficking high-value items too.

Beyond that, I find the sense of entitlement pitiful. If you cant put the work in for it, dont expect to make as much money.

And the same can be said of PvPing in either SPvP or WvW. If someone doesn’t have time to learn the mechanics of a profession, nerf it so they don’t have a hard time dealing with opponents using it.

Knowing how rules and mechanics work is skill. Not all players are equally skilled, therefore there can be no true balance. When Anet “balances” professions, it’s because the mechanics of one profession offers more advantages over another. I’ll admit as much. So yes, there are times when skill doesn’t apply. But in the market, there’s no multiple TPs to compare with each other. There’s only one, and the rules apply to all players equally.

comment by Smooth Penguin. “But if the methods or mechanics are available to all players, why aren’t more people doing it? If more people did it, that means the velocity of the acquired wealth is put “in balance”. Again, the TP does not create coin. It shares it among players. The more players doing this, the less of it can be spread.”

This is dead on. people are able to make more gold from tp, because not many choose to do this. there is only so much coming in and so much going out. More people = less pie per person, less people = more pie per person. Saying the fault lies in the mechanics and not the player is ridicules.
That is the same as putting the blame on the pie pan on how big a piece each person gets.

Schizo.1375:

Just so everyone knows, ignoring trolls is an option.

If you were referring to my post, it is very much on topic and while some people might not agree with it, I don’t think that it is fair to dismiss it as trolling.

My suggestion is basically what is being requested in this thread: Level the playing field for all players to allow them to play how they want without anyone being able to make gold faster than another player.

Hard core players can make more gold than other players. Players that farm or craft for profit can make more gold than other players. Dungeon runners can make more gold than other players. TP players can make more gold than other players.

To reduce this disparity, limiting the gold per hour is the only way to create an absolute way to assure that players can earn the same amount though any activity in the game. While maybe 2 gold per hour is low to those players that have a niche and can earn more than that per hour, some casual players or players that prefer not to be more hard core at something can not fairly earn that much. I did an analysis of the areas of play and what can be earned fairly per hour then averaged it.

First step: determine what other game mechanics allow players to earn straight gold.
1. Events
2. Dungeons/Fractals
3. Champ farming
4. WvW trains
5. PvP

Second step: calculate the maximum average per hour gold that can be earned through these other methods.
Assumptions: level 80 character in max stats with a five person group of similar characters.

1. Events.
Assumption: Events are completed in level 80 area, one every 5 minutes, earning gold tier rewards.
12 events @ 1.86s = 22.32 silver.

2a. Dungeons.
Assumption: Arah dungeon paths are completed so no DR is in effect.
3 paths @ 3 g = 9 gold.
2b. Fractals.
Assumption: 2 bosses completed with max reward in bonus chest.
2 chests @ 4s = 8 silver.
(Note: I don’t play fractals and the wiki has limited info, so this could be incorrect)

3. Champ farming
Assumption: Frostgorge Sound train
5 champs/10 minutes = 30 champ bags. Average 3s per bag = 90 silver.

4. WvW trains
Assumption: attacking towers in a zerg with little resistance, gold tier rewards on events, damage to each champ defender.
10 towers = 10 champ bags. Average 3s per bag = 30 silver.
10 events @ 1.86s = 18.6 silver.
Total 48.6 silver

5. PvP
Assumptions: Team arena, all wins, minimum 7 minutes
8 fights @ 30 s = 2.4 gold

Average gold per hour across each area: 2.18 gold.

Since the main issue is with the amount of gold that can be earned on the TP, I did not include that as an acceptable means of earning gold to be used in the average.

Aidan Savage.2078:

I can easily spend 100g a day on materials for ascended equipment. Should I have to log 50 consecutive hours of gameplay just to be able to buy those materials? I do hope you see how ludicrous that is. Not to mention if I’m leaving the computer to go make food I’m not going to log out unless I was going OUT to eat at a restaurant or something. Oh, and what if I decide to browse the forums for a few minutes while waiting for a friend to log on? There’s a reason the current inactivity timer is close to an hour in length.

Actually, you can play the game and gather all the materials needed for ascended crafting without buying anything on the TP. I’m sure it will take longer, but everything is time gated, so I don’t think that this is necessarily a detriment to the idea.

It goes along with the idea that there needs to be a more level playing field since income disparity is becoming a concern for people in this thread.

Maybe I was being a little dramatic with the 30 seconds, that can be modified. I’m not adverse to having the idea improved upon. There were a lot of complaints about AFK people during the lion’s arch events, so maybe just PvE needs a change in the timer. Would 5 minutes be more acceptable?

There would need to be a way to prevent exploiting the time-gate on the ability to withdraw the gold. Do you have a more optimal solution?

brittitude.1983:

There would need to be a way to prevent exploiting the time-gate on the ability to withdraw the gold. Do you have a more optimal solution?

I think Gene Archer has provided the best idea so far which people seem to be ignoring.

Still thinking that the best “nerf” is to just make gold less important by bringing other currencies up to the level of gold.

Edit: Aaaaaaand, ninja’d by Schizo, essentially. Dat timing.

brittitude.1983:

If you were referring to my post, it is very much on topic and while some people might not agree with it, I don’t think that it is fair to dismiss it as trolling.
….

I didn’t mean you

tolunart.2095:

brittitude.1983:

Suggestion:

Modify Wallet. Include automatic savings account. All gold goes into the savings account and can be removed at a rate of 2 gold per hour based on play time.

So, I want to level crafting to create my ascended gear, but I can’t because I spent 2g on mats and now I can’t buy any more for an hour? Players can’t buy stuff from the TP, other players farming and selling mats can’t sell their stuff because they get undersold before people can buy things. Economic disaster.

This doesn’t solve any problems, it just creates new ones.

The suggestion wouldn’t prevent anyone from buying or selling anything on the TP.
The amount of gold available to a person might require them to save up for something, but this happens anyway for a lot of players. It would be similar to the beginning of the game when players all started off at 0 and had to play the game to earn more money.

I do agree that the economic market would shift, but I’m not sure if it would be considered a disaster. With less gold available to buy things, then more items would be priced downward with supply being added, but demand unavailable to buy those things.

Schizo.1375:

quote]
I didn’t mean you

Thank you.

Obtena.7952:

brittitude.1983:

Actually, you can play the game and gather all the materials needed for ascended crafting without buying anything on the TP. I’m sure it will take longer, but everything is time gated, so I don’t think that this is necessarily a detriment to the idea.

It is a detriment because the largest time gate is alot shorter than the time it would take to gather ALL the mats you would need yourself.

^This so much. I dont even know if brittitude even understands the amount of materials required for an ascended set, let alone multiple.

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gw2-ascended-armor-crafting-armorsmith-total-mats-full-set_thumb.jpg

Do you understand just how much time that would take to gather for without buying a single piece? 480 iron nodes minimum. 535 mithril nodes. 220 platinum nodes. 42 hours straight if it took me 2 minutes to gather and then move to the next node. roughly 11 days if I can only play 4 hours a day. And that’s just the amount of time it takes to gather for the Deldrimor steel ingots needed for a heavy set.

I’m too disgusted to even bother illustrating how much time it would take to farm 7500 silk scraps.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
? William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

The TP functions extremely well for what it was designed to do. Allow players to sell unwanted and buy wanted items for coin as well as acting as a coin sink.

The opportunity that allows TP players to earn money is a fault in all the other players using the TP. They either consciously or unconsciously willing to trade coin for instant gratification. “I want coin for my item NOW!” “I want that item NOW!” Players treat the TP as if it was another NPC vendor. Relatively few players question the prices presented to them on the TP screen. It only takes one or two bad experiences of pricing the item yourself and not having it sell in 24 hours or even a week to revert to choosing the sell now price.

It’s tough to code around human nature.

On top of it the call for change isn’t because the TP itself is faulty in some way, it’s because some players are jealous of others. Those others become scapegoats for every annoyance on the TP. Dye prices shoot up after announcement, it’s those kitten rich TPers. Item price collapses after announcement, it’s those kitten rich TPers. I can’t afford that extremely rare item I want, it’s those kitten rich TPers. I can’t sell my extremely rare item quickly because those kitten rich TPers undercut me.

And Dark Spirit is right, if it is so easy to make a killing on the TP, and players are complaining they don’t have enough gold, then why aren’t players flocking to it? It’s not because they are taking the high road and “play the game”. We are talking players who devolved general gameplay into champ trains, boss trains, farm trains and speed runs to get reward. If reward is the driving factor and TP playing is so rewarding and easy to do then why the call to “fix” it or punish the wealthy (well just the wealthy who use the TP)?

Schizo.1375:

brittitude.1983:

There would need to be a way to prevent exploiting the time-gate on the ability to withdraw the gold. Do you have a more optimal solution?

I think Gene Archer has provided the best idea so far which people seem to be ignoring.

The main issue is that what would define the relation of x karma = y gold? The same “sooper pooper sekret 4moola” used to define hold much gold a gem is worth?

Beyond that, there are already ways to convert karma into gold using the MF by purchasing karma equipment and then forging them into salvageable gear. This can be highly profitable because this is one of the methods you can use to “farm” linen scraps.