Guild Wars 2

I’ve read with interest the threads complaining about the restrictions on farming for gold implemented through a recent patch. I wanted to add something to the discussion: that these restrictions reflect a business model for GW2 almost identical to that of Diablo III.

Remember: both GW2 and DIII are single purchase, non-subscription games. For A.net and Blizzard to continue to make money after the initial sale, they have to promote players to continue to invest cash in the game. DIII did this (brilliantly or insidiously, depending on your mood or opinion) by enabling a cash AH, then manipulating drop rates and difficulty levels to take advantage of the player’s natural intense desire to level up and get the best gear: you really can only get the best by paying gold in DIII, or investing a huge amount of game time . . . and gold seems the most efficient solution.

I think the same thing is going on here. A.net has created a non-subscription game. They only way they can sustain it is to encourage micro-transactions. To do this, they have to manipulate the gameplay rules to encourage (but not outright require) players to choose between a huge amount of game time or gems/cash. The restrictions on farming, the diminishing returns on dynamic quest rewards, the adjustment of risk/reward in dungeons: these decisions tend to starve players of gold, and to make them want to engage in cash transactions.

If I’m right, GW2 does have a regular recurring charge . . . just not a subscription. The player decides how much to pay, by deciding how much they want to buy instead of grinding for gear in-game (and for free.) A.net has to hit a sweet spot: creating enough incentive to buy things with cash, without making the game completely unplayable without a huge cash investment by the player. I think we’re seeing the first efforts by A.net to hit that spot in the recent round of patches.

Just my two cents,

Coroi

Also consider that they “want to give us more content for free than what you’d get with a sub-fee MMO.”

Pretty much Colin’s exact words right there. Makes me pretty excitebike to see what else is coming.

GW1 has survived for nearly a decade now without either a subscription or any such “brilliant solution”. Checkmate.

if you are having problems earning money, go to the low level (10-15 zones). The low level crafting mats have made me over 30 gold and my highest level character is level 48.

Having not played GW1, I can’t say. But did A.net implement similar restrictions on farming in that game? If not, we’re seeing something new, and similar to DIII.

Coroi.6195:

Having not played GW1, I can’t say. But did A.net implement similar restrictions on farming in that game? If not, we’re seeing something new, and similar to DIII.

same restrictions were in guild wars 1, they brought them over.

Well, Blizzard picked something up from A.net then . . . it’s clearly a good way to get players to spend money in game.

this is so not D3.

please dont even try to compare both game.

Also consider that the patch is bugged. Everyone is making a storm in a glass of water out of nothing.

Not saying the games are the same . . . GW2 is so much better than DIII in every way.

But the business models are almost identical: single purchase, micro-transactions, and altering the house rules to promote in-game purchases.

GW1’s system was designed to counteract builds which could solo content designed for eight character parties, and thus got 8x the loot. GW2 has no need for such a system because everyone who tags an enemy gets loot from it

you really feel they are trying to make you purchase more?

more what?

to me, right now, aside from bag space…. i dont feel interested by the payable content.

i think i could be interested if payable stuff included participation in a mega event, or dueling tournament.
or something related to guilds, for the guildmaster to pay for, since they are
the biggest fans usually.

server change, name/sex change are still very valid things to pay for too.

RebelYell: If it was necessary in GW1 for that reason, and not necessary in GW2 for that reason, then why is it here? If it’s a mistake and A.net withdraws it from a future patch, well, then I was wrong. But as it is, the system promotes in-game purchases.

Avatar: A.net would like your money to buy more of whatever gold can buy in less time that it would take to grind it out through gameplay . . . simple tradeoff of time for money.

Avatar: I agree with you, actually. Personally, I don’t feel a need to buy anything with my own cash. And when I do, I’ll rethink what I’m getting out of GW2. But for now, I’m having a blast with the game as it is, and don’t feel particularly affected by the restrictions, mostly because I don’t lack for the gold that I need.

Your two cents fails to recognize one important difference between these two games: gold is not used to gate off content in GW2. It is in D3. There is no content in the game that requires gear that can’t be obtained easily, by any player, within a short amount of time upon reaching 80. Exotics are easy to get, either by crafting them yourself, or by dropping a few gold on them, on the TP. The only thing that takes a long time and gobs of effort to acquire are COSMETIC skins.

With D3 though, if you want to play the most challenging content, you buy the gear for real money or you grind for ages. Name me one piece of content in GW2 that requires more than exotics to access. For that matter, name me something that requires any kind of gear to run. If you want, you can run explorable mode dungeons naked. Your success rate won’t be high, but you won’t be blocked from trying. To succeed though, you really only need rares or higher, although I think more than a few people would tell you that blues would even suffice.

There is a big difference in philosophy between these two games. D3 demands your money or gobs of your time to see it’s tougher content. GW2 demands you log in.

RebelYell.7132:

GW1 has survived for nearly a decade now without either a subscription or any such “brilliant solution”. Checkmate.

Yes, and Guild Wars 1 was also an “average” game. In the grand, objective perspective that is revenue, Guild Wars 1 was not a spectacular hit. Yet GW2 was hyped by the fandom as a revolution to MMOs that would explode into greatness.

I don’t see anything bad about GW2 being an average game though. It’ll still pay ArenaNet’s salaries.

takes off armor and runs into the defend magg section of CoF to corpse conga

“you know what? you’re dead right Blacklight”

<_< so much wrong with your stance and assumptions

“you can run x content in non exotic gear, you might not beat said content but you can run it”

here’s an honest question, who would bother once they realise they can’t do it? and if there’s a dangerous pitfal area like the aforementioned that kinda looks like a slip n slide which could cost you gold/time/patience why is there no “this is not a slip n slide” sign outside it?

bearing in mind there’s nothing sinister looking about it at all and it looks exactly like a slip n slide in this analogy.

Blacklight:

I agree that D3 gates the more difficult content much more drastically than does GW2. As you say, in D3, you simply can’t do some of the content without paying for gear.

But that doesn’t mean that GW2 doesn’t push players towards micro-transactions. As you say, many players will be able to complete all of GW2 without buying anything in the store. I intend to do that myself, and to enjoy it while I do so. But many players will see the restrictions currently put in place as time barriers that they would rather pay to overcome . . . probably the majority of players. And I think that A.net is banking on it, to sustain the extraordinary success of their initial sales.

So, still worth only two cents,

Coroi

Choose your poison folks..

Sigh.. I thought micro transaction would be cosmetic with the little boosts here and there, like League Of Legends does with its skin sales.

Sigh.. I thought micro transaction would be cosmetic with the little boosts here and there, like League Of Legends does with its skin sales.Seems this game is leaning more towards the pay to win crowd.

For everyone calling this pay2win? Have you paid yet? Short of the game price, I haven’t and I don’t think most people have. I am having no trouble banking some gold. I guess I am a winner.

I disagree with this assumption. The only thing you can buy that directly affects the game is gold. Gold only gets you so far, and can be made without any interaction with the gem market. The fact that you can buy gems with gold is almost a counter argument in itself. Of course they want you to use the buy gems, since it’s the only way for them to directly profit in the long term, but I can’t really agree with the idea that farming caps are an effort to push the micro-market.

For the love of Zhaitan, please close this thread!

The only evidence for his argument is a bug. You are not supposed to run into diminishing returns during normal play.

IT IS A BUG, not a conspiracy.

Then how will A.net continue to make money off of GW2 after the player’s initial purchase? Granted 2M purchases should hold them for a while, and maybe that’s all they were after. But if they want to sustain development over time they’ll need a steady stream of income. Creating a world in which players buy over time with player-driven investments, mildly but distinctly pushed by the in-game mechanics (e.g. farming caps) makes perfect sense as a business model.

And no, this is not ‘pay2win’ . . . . it’s more ‘pay2avoidaslightlyunreasonablegrind.’

Again, only worth 2 cents.

Coroi

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

For the love of Zhaitan, please close this thread!

The only evidence for his argument is a bug. You are not supposed to run into diminishing returns during normal play.

IT IS A BUG, not a conspiracy.

Did they say it was a bug? Asking out of curiosity.

Phy.2913:

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

For the love of Zhaitan, please close this thread!

The only evidence for his argument is a bug. You are not supposed to run into diminishing returns during normal play.

IT IS A BUG, not a conspiracy.

Did they say it was a bug? Asking out of curiosity.

Anet:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Patch-9-17-UPDATE-9-20/first#post192818

AND

Player Evidence:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Anti-Farming-Diminishing-Returns-SOME-TRUTHS/page/2#post196257

Box sales aren’t just for recouping the cost of development. People get their friends to play long after launch. Games are given as gifts during holidays and birthdays that may not coincide with launch. It’s not just action RPGs like Guild Wars and Diablo, either, but franchises such as Call of Duty using this business model. The cash shop is simply a bonus for the developer (ideally).

Manifold:

Haven’t the caps been confirmed as features, not bugs, conforming everyone to a certain “normal” style of play?

If not, and if the limits are entirely removed in a later patch, well and good; I will gladly eat my words. Until then, the only evidence for your argument is, well, that you say “IT IS A BUG.” [All caps do make it more persuasive.]

Coroi

Edited: the links above confirm only that the caps that A.net want to implement are bugged in their current form, not that Diminished Returns itself is a bug. In fact, the linked post only says that Diminished Returns is bugged with respect to speed clears, not anything else. So, I’ll wait to see what the final version of the gaming restrictions are.

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

Phy.2913:

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

For the love of Zhaitan, please close this thread!

The only evidence for his argument is a bug. You are not supposed to run into diminishing returns during normal play.

IT IS A BUG, not a conspiracy.

Did they say it was a bug? Asking out of curiosity.

Anet:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Patch-9-17-UPDATE-9-20/first#post192818

AND

Player Evidence:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Anti-Farming-Diminishing-Returns-SOME-TRUTHS/page/2#post196257

Good to know.

Coroi.6195:

The restrictions on farming, the diminishing returns on dynamic quest rewards, the adjustment of risk/reward in dungeons: these decisions tend to starve players of gold, and to make them want to engage in cash transactions.

The diminishing returns systems make me want to stop playing the game altogether, not buy more gems. Making the game into something that constantly and consistently punishes me just for playing is not a good way to get me to purchase gems, and makes me regret purchasing what gems I already have.

I agree with your point, I just think they are far far out in left field from that “sweet spot”.

Right now the game is in a state where it’s saying “Your time is worthless, you will not be rewarded for your effort playing the game.” and that is unacceptable. Currently the loot DR system kicks in 10-15 minutes into normal play, and for those people the event system is hitting, it’s 20-40 minutes. Both systems have an hour or more reset before they will allow you to get loot or rewards from events.

It is not okay to be able to only play the game normally for 40 minutes before being forced to stop playing for over an hour. I frequently only have around 2 hours to play, meaning that after less than an hour, the rest of my potential play time is completely wasted.

If the game ceases to allow you to play normally at all, that’s not something that is going to encourage people to buy more gems. Many people purchase gems to buy the convenience items and cosmetic unlocks, and those people will not be doing so if they can’t even play the game, which makes all those purchases worthless.

Implicitly telling your players that their investment of time and money into the game is utterly worthless is a terrible idea, and that’s precisely what these systems are doing.

There’s zero reason to purchase gems for the gem store items if you are locked out of playing the game by these systems. They are shooting themselves in the foot with this garbage.

I’ve purchased gems and would continue to do so, but not if the game is unplayable. That just means that my time and money investment is wasted.

I won’t be purchasing any gems or recommending the game to any of my friends until these systems are gone completely.

Eochaidh.4106:

Also consider that the patch is bugged. Everyone is making a storm in a glass of water out of nothing.

They have only acknowledged that the dungeon DR system is bugged, not the loot or event DR systems which they have not commented on at all yet.

People calling this pay to win have no idea what pay to win is.

WoT = pay to win.
Silkroad = pay to win.
DDO = pay to win.

GW2 is not pay to win.

agree 100%, i feel in gw2 after hit 80 like in d3 after beat infierno, just mindless grind without any reward, nerfing any good farming spot and forcing me to play how they want, i hope this change or the game fail as hard as d3 so new games dont copy this.

Duveth.5742:

agree 100%, i feel in gw2 after hit 80 like in d3 after beat infierno, just mindless grind without any reward, nerfing any good farming spot and forcing me to play how they want, i hope this change or the game fail as hard as d3 so new games dont copy this.

I actually tried D3. It was prettykittenfun.

How can a non-sub game “fail”, pay tell?

While I usually frown upon “cash shops” in games I completely understand the business need for them. These games do need to make a profit to be developed. GW2 is the first free to play MMO I’ve experienced where I don’t feel bothered by a cash shop. The game is so big and fun, I don’t yet feel the need to utilize it and not using it doesn’t hurt my game play.

As I am used to paying subscription fees for games, I won’t mind occasionally throwing some money ANet’s way for stuff from the Trading Company. I do love that I can choose when and how much to pay though. So long p2p games!