Diminishing Returns.
Actually, the DR system is needed to stop farmers as much as it was needed to stop bots. Farmers add a huge amount of inflation to the game and thus increase the price of items for the real players (those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm).
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
Actually, the DR system is needed to stop farmers as much as it was needed to stop bots. Farmers add a huge amount of inflation to the game and thus increase the price of items for the real players (those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm).
Please provide empirical evidence of this.
Farmers, like everyone else, need to participate on the open market, and must compete to sell their goods.
Individual players, on the other hand, when faced with DR, are forced to either the TP or the cash shop (then the TP) because they’re denied the capacity of self-sufficiency.
Individual players, on the other hand, when faced with DR, are forced to either the TP or the cash shop (then the TP) because they’re denied the capacity of self-sufficiency.
Using your expression, real players are not hit with DR. Only farmers are. When farmers grind the game in order to get gold, they are basically supplying the game with a huge amount of gold, which means they can afford things the real players could not. This leads to more farming in order to deal with the increased prices, which in turn leads to more inflation, and so on.
ArenaNet limited the ability of farmers to exploit the game this way by using the DR system, which restricts the income of a farmer so it’s not THAT much more than the one of a real player. As a result, prices on the TP would not increase as much, and we would not divide the game between real players and grinders…
…But ArenaNet failed to account for TP manipulation. Since exploiting the TP has no limit, unlike farming, a lot of people just used the TP to make small fortunes easily, quickly and without the need of skill (much like farming). Hence inflation, high prices, and etc, etc.
The solution here is to cull TP manipulation and TP manipulators, not to remove DR.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
Except ArenaNet just jacked up the demand for ectos and t6 mats by 5000% while leaving the drop rates and diminishing returns in place.
This means the prices are skyrocketing but nobody has the option to actually go out and collect them themselves due to Diminishing Returns.
No “fix” to the markets should ever be a sock to the gut of the individual player on the ground.
(edited by plasmacutter.2709)
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
Because sane people can’t go out and fetch them themselves, thus cutting TP demand enough to make the overpriced ones “not sell”.
When the option to “go get it yourself” is not there, you are a hostage to the TP.
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
Because sane people can’t go out and fetch them themselves
Irrelevant to my question. I did not ask why is there a demand for ectos, rather why only a minority can afford their current prices.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
Because sane people can’t go out and fetch them themselves
Irrelevant to my question. I did not ask why is there a demand for ectos, rather why only a minority can afford their current prices.
Sorry, I will not allow you to simply toss out what I’m saying “by fiat”. I will simply cease responding to you if you don’t want to actually tackle the issue here, which is people unable to be self-sufficient due to an inability to fetch the mats they need themselves.
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
Because sane people can’t go out and fetch them themselves
Irrelevant to my question. I did not ask why is there a demand for ectos, rather why only a minority can afford their current prices.
I will simply cease responding to you if you don’t want to actually tackle the issue here
…Which is people not being able to buy items from the TP due to those items being incredibly expensive, since a few grinders and TP manipulators have acquired small fortunes and thus have increased the price of items beyond what is within reach of the real players.
So there we see why farming is bad and thus needs to be limited by DR, plus why TP manipulation is bad and so should be limited in some way.
DR is great. It’s not enough, though.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
This means the prices are skyrocketing
And guess why so many people can afford to buy such expensive ectos, while most players can’t?
Because sane people can’t go out and fetch them themselves
Irrelevant to my question. I did not ask why is there a demand for ectos, rather why only a minority can afford their current prices.
I will simply cease responding to you if you don’t want to actually tackle the issue here
…Which is people not being able to buy items from the TP due to those items being incredibly expensive, since a few grinders and TP manipulators have acquired small fortunes and thus have increased the price of items beyond what is within reach of the real players.
So there we see why farming is bad and thus needs to be limited by DR, plus why TP manipulation is bad and so should be limited in some way.
DR is great. It’s not enough, though.
All these people with “small fortunes” earned them by farming before the DR was put into place.
All DR does is burn the bridge the rest of them used to get to their “1-percenter” ivory tower.
Because we don’t have the ability to gather our own mats, we’re forced to buy from these de-facto monopolies produced by the imposition of DR.
They get richer, we get poorer, and we, unlike them, are forced to the cash shop to fill their coffers.
(edited by plasmacutter.2709)
Actually, the DR system is needed to stop farmers as much as it was needed to stop bots. Farmers add a huge amount of inflation to the game and thus increase the price of items for the real players (those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm).
Punished for having more time on your hands. Just amazing!
Whose of us that play more and love to craft must have paid less or are maybe just 2nd class citizens/players.
:(
We’ll stop to sleep when the game is the best possible game we think it can be.
We’ve been awake since March 2007! Please help!
“GW2 the game with more rolls than roles!”
We’ve been awake since March 2007! Please help!
“GW2 the game with more rolls than roles!”
Just thought I’d add some facts about ecto demand/supply to the discussion…
Looking at the data from http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721 the prices of ectos start to rise from around 1 November.
Prior to this date, the volume supplied (sell listings) seems to be ranging between 15k-22k, and the volume demanded (buy orders) seems to be averaging around 64k-66k.
Since then, supply has dropped to an average between 4k-6k (occasionally peaking at 10k), while demand increased to average between 72k-75k.
Note however, that this increase in demand started to happen about a week prior to the November 15 patch.
All these people with “small fortunes” earned them by farming before the DR was put into place.
All DR does is burn the bridge the rest of them used to get to their “1-percenter” ivory tower.
Because we don’t have the ability to gather our own mats, we’re forced to buy from these de-facto monopolies produced by the imposition of DR.
They get richer, we get poorer, and we, unlike them, are forced to the cash shop to fill their coffers.
I believe DR has been in place since the game launched and it just took time for people to advance far enough to notice it (but I could be wrong on this).
There can be no de-facto monopoly on ectos (or T6 mats) because they are quite heavily traded. I’m often buying ectos to use in crafting exotics, and I can place a buy order for the ones I need above the current buy price but below the current sell price and have if filled in less than 2 minutes. It’s a similar situation when I buy T6 mats from the TP.
All these people with “small fortunes” earned them by farming before the DR was put into place.
All DR does is burn the bridge the rest of them used to get to their “1-percenter” ivory tower.
Because we don’t have the ability to gather our own mats, we’re forced to buy from these de-facto monopolies produced by the imposition of DR.
They get richer, we get poorer, and we, unlike them, are forced to the cash shop to fill their coffers.
I believe DR has been in place since the game launched and it just took time for people to advance far enough to notice it (but I could be wrong on this).
There can be no de-facto monopoly on ectos (or T6 mats) because they are quite heavily traded. I’m often buying ectos to use in crafting exotics, and I can place a buy order for the ones I need above the current buy price but below the current sell price and have if filled in less than 2 minutes. It’s a similar situation when I buy T6 mats from the TP.
Don’t worry you are wrong on it, they added it about a month or so after. A monopoly develops when you have less sources, aka adding a DR diminishes sources.
Don’t worry you are wrong on it, they added it about a month or so after. A monopoly develops when you have less sources, aka adding a DR diminishes sources.
That is nothing like the definition of a monopoly… you are defining scarcity. If you look at the graph I linked in a previous post, you will see the scarcity of ectos in the TP kicks in around 1 November, long after DR had been implemented. This is probably the effect of mass banning of bots that happened around this time, and the only relationship to DR is that players are still affected by it.
All these people with “small fortunes” earned them by farming before the DR was put into place.
You can see, then, how farming without DR in place has already hurt the game – if even when it lasted a few weeks it was enough to make such a gap betwen farmers and real players, imagine how big this gap would have been if DR had not been introduced to slow it down.
Whose of us that play more and love to craft must have paid less or are maybe just 2nd class citizens/players.
As opposed to those who have less free time being 2nd class citizens?
In real life, time is not better than skill. A Chinese factory worker who works 20 hours per day does not get the same salary Bill Gates gets working less. Skill, talent, knowledge, ability – in real life, all those are more important than time spent. It’s only to be expected that the same would happen in game; in other words, that merely time spent (and time spent doing something so mindless as farming, that bots could do very well) would not be a recipe for success.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
hilarious people actually dont want that removed because they dont like to farm and others do, so since they dont farm, dont want a person who wants to be devoted to farming have that self-pleasure by the simple fact hes going to become richer than you, some people actually like to gather resources or items, then you all are mad because maps are empty, you all never stop to amuse me, haha.
I took an arrow to the knee
I have to agree with those calling for it’s removal. The DR system is not player friendly and in my opinion seems a bit hypocritical to Anet’s design principles. If Anet defines a “grind” as “repetitive gameplay that is not fun”, I feel that being effectively forced to stop earning mats when you want to, then carry on later is an artificially extended “grind”. Why? Because it’s simply not fun being told what I can or cannot do with my time.
To me, it feels that the main point of Anet’s Manifesto & all their promises so far is that we as players should be able to play as we want to, and have fun doing it. I feel that DR is in stark contrast to this by forcing players to either stop what they’re doing & stop having fun working towards their goals, or to hit the TP & face prices that can too often cause you to have to grind gold to afford what you want, which will be impacted by DR too.
Some would say that all of this is to point players to the cash shop, but the key thing to remember here is that it would take a ludicrous amount of money to convert enough gold to afford many things in the game. Prices that would drive many potential buyers off. Take legendaries or crafted ascended gear for example. I’m sorry, but I’d rather put that money toward paying the bills or eating for the month. Not to mention the fact that many people don’t like the idea of paying real money for virtual currency, myself included.
To sum it up, all I want is for this game to thrive by sticking to it’s merits & avoiding pitfalls that could potentially cripple it’s long term viability, or instill a sense of distrust in the community toward the devs. The both of which have been the downfall of too many potentially great games in the long run. If I didn’t absolutely love it, then why would I take the time to address any concerns?
DR is a horrible idea. It only leads to more grinding, and it’s a cop out mechanic to stop bots and farmers. Let people just play. Oh, and can they please fix the Champion drops? It’s always a long fight for next to nothing, IF something drops at all.
Does anyone know EXACTLY how DR works? I mean, like, the official code in the game and how it affects drops, and after how much time? And does it only affect the zone that you were in when DR kicks in, or does it affect the player across all zones? And how long before it wears off? I think a little information about how it works will help us really decide how to handle it.
Forgive me if I should already know this information, but I don’t remember seeing an official announcement from A-Net or a post by someone who had really done the math to accurately trace the affects of DR. I’m not denying its existence; I just wonder if anyone really even understands exactly how it works.
On a more positive note, I do a small amount of solo farming, and I can almost always bring in 2-4 gold/hour in several well-known zones without noticing any sort of Diminishing Returns. While this may not seem too impressive, it is more than enough for me to do what I want, including purchasing 2 full exotic armor sets, multiple exotic weapons, 4 fully leveled crafts, full dye unlocks, and over 10g still in my bank without ever spending a penny of my own RL money. I don’t have a legendary or anything but I am still really enjoying the game without being affected by this “game-breaking” mechanic called DR.
Maybe some people just have unrealistic expectations for $$$m drops, or “leet-ism,” but I don’t think that DR is something that the average player needs to worry too much about.
Except ArenaNet just jacked up the demand for ectos and t6 mats by 5000% while leaving the drop rates and diminishing returns in place.
Yup. Farmer farm ectos… not just gold. The reason ectos are so pricey is insane demands placed on needing ectos for Ascended with a supply tuned for making Exotics semi-precious. So yeah before you needed 50 now 1000? Besides which people really don’t need gold for much right now (tier 3 cultural and commander not being as popular as stuff you get with STACKS of ectos).
LF2M Max Ascended Only!
Actually, the DR system is needed to stop farmers as much as it was needed to stop bots. Farmers add a huge amount of inflation to the game and thus increase the price of items for the real players (those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm).
funny, Arenanet disagrees. Quoting them: “we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm.”
http://www.guildwars2junkies.com/2012/10/05/john-peters-tackles-reward-diminishing-return-issues/
or on the official forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Let-s-Start-the-Karma-DR-Dialogue/page/5
Safe to say they agree that farmers should never run into the DR, now they just have to implement some fix so that we actually don’t…
I have to agree with plasmacutters’ original post and with his implied definition that a “real” player is a player that is not a bot!
Sorry Erasculio, but I disagree with your definition of what constitutes a real player; i.e. “those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm.” Your definition appears to be based upon what you perceive to be fun. Others perception of fun is bound to different from yours… if farmers are having fun “their way” why should that be a problem?
Diminishing returns is a daft game mechanic that sucks as much fun out of the game for me personally as the bots ever did.
I think it’s a content issue.
Sure, a handful of people already have a legendary but this step in between shouldn’t be achieved in 1 week in Anet’s view I suspect. This is a big part of why there is DR and RNG.
Prices go up for ecto’s and such to make sure it takes you longer to get it. RNG is added also to make sure enough people need to spend a lot of time in FotM to get their rings.
It’s an easy way to give content a longer expiration date. Of course if you go to far in that it’s called grind and I think that’s where some borders have been crossed now for a number of people.
I wonder how happy people will be when they got one of those expensive infusions done and a few months later a new level of infusion is added that makes this one obsolete. So it will have to be made easy again, invalidating all the effort done by people at this moment. It’s a form of treadmill and each person will have their own opinion about that.
Since casual players take longer to do these things, one could say though that such treadmills are not casual friendly at least.
It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.
In all my years of gaming i have never, ever seen a company lay the responsibility of botters and farmers squarely on the shoulders of legitimate players.
DR is without a doubt the stupidest way to deal with botters i have ever seen…and to me is further proof that Anet has no idea what they are doing and that this game is headed for oblivion.
Ok firstly is “farming” not a legitimate form of game play?
Saying farmers are “not real people” is a tad ridiculous….. They just play different from you, and that makes them….. wrong? Sorry I can lend you a ladder to get over yourself if you like…….
I like farming, if I spend more than 1hr trying to get a group for a dungeon run, I go off and farm, why not, what else should I do, try to recapture the temples in Orr on my own?
Secondly – economics………
It was not farmers that created the problem on the TP, how do I know this? Simple really, its the trader that makes the money (through speculation) not the grower (ask any REAL farmer)
SO you have say 10 guys farming away, collecting stuff, random stuff, bags get full, what do they do, TP from the comfort of their farming zone, what price do they sell at? The next best one, they are farming remember, a repeating task, they don’t care about 1 silver here or there, its not important, they will be farming for hours, the price fluctuation can either be favourable or unfavourable, take the second highest price you can get and carry on farming.
Why the second highest price
Traders – Traders put 1 item up for a lower price, hoping that a player wishing to sell his goods will see the "lowest price on TP " set his the same and carry on, the trader then buys them up, and sticks them back on the TP 2 or 3 silver higher (or where the MOST amount of that item sits at).
Farmers are providing goods at a price, because they have spent hours repeating the same task over and over again, traders are sat with the TP screen open looking at price fluctuations and taking a risk……
I don’t have a problem with either player, they are player the game a) as a grinder or b) as a economic challenge style game.
Their choice
Now back to the DR, if the above situation I have outlined is true (and it is, look at all those low priced tier 6 mats where there is only 1 available at that price and you will begin to understand).
How does removing the DR negatively impact the economy? If there are more items up for grabs, the traders margin is reduced, if their is very little profit in trading, less people will do it, the less that speculate on price hikes, the lower the price of materials.
Secondly if the DR is reduced, people will just go and farm their own mats, meaning that the trader loses out again, firstly on stock, secondly on customers (except those that wish to buy mats for an alt etc. etc._ This will reduce the price of materials again, (making farming less viable for gold, and more viable for crafting your own kit (as an aside)) win/win (in terms of reducing the amount of gold in the game)
Problem – Precursors, if I got a precursor now, and sold it for the stupendously large amount of gold required to buy one from the TP, I would become a trader, with current Tier 6 drops and ectos, I could double my money within a week if not less, by cornering the marker.
When there are LOW amounts of drops, it allows a few select traders to CORNER a market (supply and demand), if the DR is taken away, their power to control that market diminishes.
Soo if you want the DR to remain purely because you think the economy will go AWOL, you are misguided. The ONLY players that should want DR to remain are traders.
My post is not a judgement on any play style, all are valid in my opinion, this is a game, played by thousands of people, with thousands of likes and dislikes.
Keep the DR – Fine, when I get a precursor (and I will, its just time at the end of the day), I will become a trader
Get rid of the DR – Fine, I can make different armour sets, specific for different things (solo, PVE, Dungeons, WvW and fractals)
The second one for me, allows me to play different aspects of the game instantly, the first one requires that I spend a month or so, going for the precursor, trading on the market, building those sets and then off back into “playing” the game.
In my opinion, removing the DR will allow more play styles but that’s because, gear is starting to limit what people can do, which is a shame
Actually, the DR system is needed to stop farmers as much as it was needed to stop bots. Farmers add a huge amount of inflation to the game and thus increase the price of items for the real players (those playing the game to have fun, as opposed to those grinding the game to farm).
Please provide empirical evidence of this.
Farmers, like everyone else, need to participate on the open market, and must compete to sell their goods.
Individual players, on the other hand, when faced with DR, are forced to either the TP or the cash shop (then the TP) because they’re denied the capacity of self-sufficiency.
Exactly why they need to remove DR in open world.
Since adding DR, lowering drop rates of rares to almost nothing, making globs of ecto almost nothing (roughly 30%) it’s now impossible to farm open world for items for crafting whole exotic sets or saving up for a legendary.
There is no evidence that inflation is caused by farmers, there is PLENTY of evidence showing that DR harms the community by making the game unplayable.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
In all my years of gaming i have never, ever seen a company lay the responsibility of botters and farmers squarely on the shoulders of legitimate players.
DR is without a doubt the stupidest way to deal with botters i have ever seen…and to me is further proof that Anet has no idea what they are doing and that this game is headed for oblivion.
I think Blizzard’s IP bans in Diablo 2 for entering and leaving X number of games in Y amount of time beats DR for stupidity. Bots just run on timers, real players have to sit out of runs to cool off.
I love this nonsensical dribble of “farmers” vs “real players”. I enjoy my daily pleasant Frostgorge run around slaying Dredge, Grawl, Skelks and the odd Claw of Jormag that pops in, it is called playing the game. I do it because it’s fun and I am earning money towards a special weapon, everything I sell on the TP I am adding to the community without people farming you “real players” wouldn’t have your bloody items to complain about being overpriced. I simply match the lowest seller, if people are willing to pay 30s for Ectos and 25s for Blood that is their choice not mine, I prefer to collect my own materials through, wait for it guys….FARMING! * gasp! *
I love this nonsensical dribble of “farmers” vs “real players”. I enjoy my daily pleasant Frostgorge run around slaying Dredge, Grawl, Skelks and the odd Claw of Jormag that pops in, it is called playing the game. I do it because it’s fun and I am earning money towards a special weapon, everything I sell on the TP I am adding to the community without people farming you “real players” wouldn’t have your bloody items to complain about being overpriced. I simply match the lowest seller, if people are willing to pay 30s for Ectos and 25s for Blood that is their choice not mine, I prefer to collect my own materials through, wait for it guys….FARMING! * gasp! *
Exactly. When did farming your own mats become a product of evil? LOL
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!