Guild Wars 2

naiasonod.9265:

serenke.4806:

I’d say everything is working as intended. Farming that area is already rewarding enough by giving you gold in form of crafting materials and rares (or ectos if you salvage them). Ascended chests should have a much higher chance of dropping in more challenging content (like fractals lvl 50).

WAI != sensible

Doesn’t have any necessary correlation to something being any fun at all either. As it presently stands, drop rates on a lot of things are mathematical comedies, with the only time-effective recourse for anything that can be bought being to buy it off the tp.

Let’s just ignore elephant in the room to do with how profitable it is for Anet to make gold hard to farm in the quantities anything truly desirable goes for, because some here will sorrowfully declare such to beer Isidro’s that Anet works so anything to foster gem to gold conversion and make money hand over dust selling nothing but transient ones and zeroes for real currency – let’s just set that entire explanation for why Anet loves to foster an environment in which farming is pointless aside, despite the fact that it explains everything quite entirely and we’d need look no further at all to understand very plausible reasons for every single thing Anet had ever done to farming in this game at all.

My common symptom of that businesses are it to make money and will very typically make choices that they expect will grow their profits is rarely a popular one amongst gaming community members that deliriously believe that these companies are their friends or have some sort of higher purpose and nobler calling than ‘people in any other business’

Let’s set that aside and look at what’s left for particle explanations, because I can’t think of any that aren’t more stretched than their need to be or more payphone if facts we do not have.

We know for a fact that Anet is a business.

We know for a fact that they are for profit and not done sort of charity.

We know for a fact that they sell gems that can immediately thence be spent on many things, but can also be converted into gold.

With these three facts alone, without requiring even the safest of assumptions, one would have a very sound basis to presume that Anet would be wanting to make a fiscal profit off selling gems.

One would be utterly faultless in talking these facts and assuming that if these facts are indeed factual, several other things are likely to logically follow, such as that Anet will this have strong incentive to maker or way and very effective to works real money on gems and acquire more gold for the equivalent of one hour’s worth of minimum wage pay than they could ever earn by farming anything in the game for that same equivalent hour.

The value simply isn’t there for farming. And I laugh with mocking pity at those that think it’s free to farm tour gold even if it’s a lot slower than any other method of acquisition, including even mediocre skill at dedicated flipping and marketeering.

For over hour’s worth of my salaried time, which is roughly $17.50/hour, 24/7/365, I could buy as of the time of this posting one $15 gem card for most of an hour’s worth of my employed time. That’s 1200 gems.

To buy 1200 gems with gold at this moment, I would have to spend 187g 20s.

To convert those 1200 gems to gold, I would make almost an even 120g.

There is nothing you, I or anyone can do to make anything resembling a consistent 120g an hour. Not even the most successful tp flipping a single person could get up to will yield profits that substantive.

Farming? You’re never going to make 120g a hour farming anything. You will, very typically, spend many hours to earn a fraction of that much gold. If you can reliably make 3-6g per hour if farming anything, you’re doing OK.

Anet has powerful incentive to make farming minimally lucrative. Compared to covering gems to gold, is absolutely trivial when eating the value of farming in game versus the buying power of a single hour’s worth of minimum wage real money expenditure.

And for those of us making far more than minimum wage, with way more likelihood of having $15 to spare than 15 hours spent numbingly farming?

It’s all economics. And Anet has no incentive at all to make farming even remotely competitive with the value coefficient of gem to gold conversion.

So what you’re saying is ,screw Silverwastes, get a second job and buy your gold?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6dyneheJW1r3a6jho1_500.gif

Zaxares.5419:

On the other hand, consider that all that farming is ALSO boosting supply of basic, fine and rare mats, which helps make it cheaper for players to obtain the rare skins and items they want. (In fact, the decline of Silk prices in recent months is almost directly tied to Silverwastes throwing out blue/green items like confetti. Remember all those players complaining about how expensive Damask was? Well, ANet DID listen. This is their solution!) This might even be an intentional move by ANet, considering that HoT will introduce Precursor scavenger hunts, and thus a lot more demand for T6 mats for Legendaries.

Damask prices have not changed, because ALL cloth is still ridiculous to get. Anet have not listened at all.

Also, you can get ascended chests anywhere an ascended crafting mat can drop.

Maxwell.7843:

Faux.1937:

The game is gold based tho… he made 1100g.

he can buy full sets of ascended armor.

He made 1100g from 6 weeks of intensive farming.
Of course a thousand gold is a lot, but let’s put things into context. He spent a lot of time doing this.

Also, through normal playing most players don’t come even close to having that many bags of loot. So you gotta look it that way too: if I play normally, what are my chances of getting some nice loot?

I think that a lot of players that complain about loot, do so because they feel that playing “normally” is not rewarding in terms of loot.
While poor loot is something that right now doesn’t bother me that much (I think I never posted in threads about unrewarding loot), I can understand these players’ point of view.

Osteg.8915:

Maxwell.7843:

How many hours did it take to open them all and sort everything out?

I spent over 10 hours on opening them all.

Thanks for answering, and thanks for taking the time to conduct this research, with the drops on the blog and all.

naiasonod.9265:

For over hour’s worth of my salaried time, which is roughly $17.50/hour, 24/7/365, I could buy as of the time of this posting one $15 gem card for most of an hour’s worth of my employed time. That’s 1200 gems.

To buy 1200 gems with gold at this moment, I would have to spend 187g 20s.

To convert those 1200 gems to gold, I would make almost an even 120g.
[…]

Can’t argue with maths.
But not all players have disposable income (students, young adults, etc). Moreover, the parallel is bit flawed because playing is something people do in their free time, working has timetables: you can’t phone your boss at 3am and say “hey boss, imma work 1hour now, send me 15€, kthanks gnite”.
So “time is better spent working rather than farming” is not an absolute rule, because the time you spend farming cannot be always converted in time spent working.

Some people can find farming relaxing or fun: in that case it makes sense to do it.

Absolute rule? Naw. I was giving a digestible example of how much it might cost me, in terms of time as valued by my salary, to do the thing.

An awful lot of people don’t seem to think of their time as being valuable or as a form of currency. The (to me) bizarre trend in MMOs is staggeringly in favor of people often apparently thinking that if it doesn’t cost real money, it’s free.

To me, spending 4000 hours trying to craft a legendary and work for as many changes at getting a precursor drop as I maybe even unreasonably could in those hours sounds like a lot of no fun to me. It sounds like tedious work.

I get paid to do occasionally very tedious work. I regard content as an acceptable trade for both my irreplaceable time spent doing it s well as it’s effective cost in terms of other things I could have done with that time instead.

4000 hours for a legendary I’m absolutely certain would feel like nothing but work to me to make would, if I forced myself to make on as such anyway, feel like it costed me about $70,000. That would not literally be the case, but in essence?

I have great value on that which entertains me. In my (to most I try to explain it to) thinking, my recreational time is budgeted specifically to be spent on amusement and frivolity. Great meaning and shrewdly assessed value might be found in it, but my entertainment hours are hours in which neither are the point, and if neither are found nor generated but I had fun, mission accomplished all the same.

If my entertainment hours fell like they’ve been hijacked by game designers more interested in putting sweat shop tasks before me of the most unfun variety, such as having to either farm for thousands of hours with no actual guarantee of getting anything I wanted out of it?

I won’t do it. I will be unhappy because I could not get the thing I wanted in a fashion I found reasonable. Unhappy me is far more likely to look for something else to do where I can do the sort of things I like.

Anet has a lot of incentive to make farming ineffective and gem conversion very attractive to people like me. I don’t fault them for it – they’re a business and that’s what businesses do – though I bewilder at those that read such said, clutch their pearls and gasp ‘No! It’s because of <insert arcane speculation on balancing something and it all being in or best interests here>’.

No. No, it’s too make money and the PR speak is just soothing elevator muzak played to keep these herds docile.

Nothing more.

I dunno what you guys are complaining about. Ascended drops so much from pvp bags. Granted Im not a pve player so maybe it only feels to me like they drop often cuz ive no use for them but stil i dont think its that bad for best gear in game. To the guy who made the comparison to d3, stop embarrassing the community. Its not like ascended gears have RNG power and such. (can you imagine if berserker piece for example randomly gave 100-200 power 100-200 ferocity etc? Shudder)

Osteg.8915:

I farmed them all in Silverwastes in 6 weeks.
I created a blog where I posted all the data:
http://anqeena.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Thanks for reinforcing my decision to not farm the Silverwastes.

naiasonod.9265:

If my entertainment hours fell like they’ve been hijacked by game designers more interested in putting sweat shop tasks before me of the most unfun variety, such as having to either farm for thousands of hours with no actual guarantee of getting anything I wanted out of it?

I won’t do it. I will be unhappy because I could not get the thing I wanted in a fashion I found reasonable. Unhappy me is far more likely to look for something else to do where I can do the sort of things I like.

Sadly, there aren’t enough of us who play MMOs who think this way. Far too many that would simply rather sit and do completely tedious, mindless, repetitive actions for pixels they don’t even legally own all while paying for the privilege to do so…

dietzero.3514:

Zaxares.5419:

On the other hand, consider that all that farming is ALSO boosting supply of basic, fine and rare mats, which helps make it cheaper for players to obtain the rare skins and items they want. (In fact, the decline of Silk prices in recent months is almost directly tied to Silverwastes throwing out blue/green items like confetti. Remember all those players complaining about how expensive Damask was? Well, ANet DID listen. This is their solution!) This might even be an intentional move by ANet, considering that HoT will introduce Precursor scavenger hunts, and thus a lot more demand for T6 mats for Legendaries.

Damask prices have not changed, because ALL cloth is still ridiculous to get. Anet have not listened at all.

Also, you can get ascended chests anywhere an ascended crafting mat can drop.

That’s untrue. Looking at the price for Damask, it’s actually fallen from almost 20g per bolt back in late September to its current price of 13.5g. This is matched by a similar fall in Silk prices over the same time period from 16 silver to 6 silver, which again is most likely from the oodles and oodles of blue/green drops we get in Silverwastes.

Prices for other cloth types have remained more or less the same, because the amount of lesser cloth we get through the Bandit chests is insufficient to keep up with demand. More than likely, the occasional price spikes we got is due to Silk falling to a low enough threshold that more players decided to try and go for Ascended armor.

dietzero.3514:

Zaxares.5419:

On the other hand, consider that all that farming is ALSO boosting supply of basic, fine and rare mats, which helps make it cheaper for players to obtain the rare skins and items they want. (In fact, the decline of Silk prices in recent months is almost directly tied to Silverwastes throwing out blue/green items like confetti. Remember all those players complaining about how expensive Damask was? Well, ANet DID listen. This is their solution!) This might even be an intentional move by ANet, considering that HoT will introduce Precursor scavenger hunts, and thus a lot more demand for T6 mats for Legendaries.

Damask prices have not changed, because ALL cloth is still ridiculous to get. Anet have not listened at all.

Also, you can get ascended chests anywhere an ascended crafting mat can drop.

https://www.gw2tp.com/item/46741-bolt-of-damask

Set the filter to All

Zaxares.5419:

dietzero.3514:

Zaxares.5419:

On the other hand, consider that all that farming is ALSO boosting supply of basic, fine and rare mats, which helps make it cheaper for players to obtain the rare skins and items they want. (In fact, the decline of Silk prices in recent months is almost directly tied to Silverwastes throwing out blue/green items like confetti. Remember all those players complaining about how expensive Damask was? Well, ANet DID listen. This is their solution!) This might even be an intentional move by ANet, considering that HoT will introduce Precursor scavenger hunts, and thus a lot more demand for T6 mats for Legendaries.

Damask prices have not changed, because ALL cloth is still ridiculous to get. Anet have not listened at all.

Also, you can get ascended chests anywhere an ascended crafting mat can drop.

That’s untrue. Looking at the price for Damask, it’s actually fallen from almost 20g per bolt back in late September to its current price of 13.5g. This is matched by a similar fall in Silk prices over the same time period from 16 silver to 6 silver, which again is most likely from the oodles and oodles of blue/green drops we get in Silverwastes.

Prices for other cloth types have remained more or less the same, because the amount of lesser cloth we get through the Bandit chests is insufficient to keep up with demand. More than likely, the occasional price spikes we got is due to Silk falling to a low enough threshold that more players decided to try and go for Ascended armor.

It was never even close to 20 gold, and the price only spiked because people stopped making it. Now the price is back to what it was in early September, and what it had been for months. And unless something is done about ALL cloth prices, it will stay at its ridiculous price. The small amount of extra low level cloth being added will evaporate soon.

Profit of 1100 G! That’s almost 7333 Gems, by current rates. Wow…

dietzero.3514:

Zaxares.5419:

dietzero.3514:

Zaxares.5419:

On the other hand, consider that all that farming is ALSO boosting supply of basic, fine and rare mats, which helps make it cheaper for players to obtain the rare skins and items they want. (In fact, the decline of Silk prices in recent months is almost directly tied to Silverwastes throwing out blue/green items like confetti. Remember all those players complaining about how expensive Damask was? Well, ANet DID listen. This is their solution!) This might even be an intentional move by ANet, considering that HoT will introduce Precursor scavenger hunts, and thus a lot more demand for T6 mats for Legendaries.

Damask prices have not changed, because ALL cloth is still ridiculous to get. Anet have not listened at all.

Also, you can get ascended chests anywhere an ascended crafting mat can drop.

That’s untrue. Looking at the price for Damask, it’s actually fallen from almost 20g per bolt back in late September to its current price of 13.5g. This is matched by a similar fall in Silk prices over the same time period from 16 silver to 6 silver, which again is most likely from the oodles and oodles of blue/green drops we get in Silverwastes.

Prices for other cloth types have remained more or less the same, because the amount of lesser cloth we get through the Bandit chests is insufficient to keep up with demand. More than likely, the occasional price spikes we got is due to Silk falling to a low enough threshold that more players decided to try and go for Ascended armor.

It was never even close to 20 gold, and the price only spiked because people stopped making it. Now the price is back to what it was in early September, and what it had been for months. And unless something is done about ALL cloth prices, it will stay at its ridiculous price. The small amount of extra low level cloth being added will evaporate soon.

It was about 18G at one point which meets the criteria of “almost 20G”. It also did not spike because people stopped making them. If you looked at when the spike started, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what the primary cause was for it.

Almost 18 gold is not ‘almost 20’…

dietzero.3514:

Almost 18 gold is not ‘almost 20’…

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/almost

Then according to your definition, Damask is right now almost 15 gold, when it was around 13 gold last September. OMG IT HAS GONE UP!!!111

I think comparing numbers is not for you.

dietzero.3514:

Then according to your definition, Damask is right now almost 15 gold, when it was around 13 gold last September. OMG IT HAS GONE UP!!!111

I think comparing numbers is not for you.

Being within 10% of something easily falls within the range of being almost. Almost is one of those ambiguous words similar to your usage of the phrase “never even close to 20 gold”. You then rely on how the word is commonly used and it quite often is used.

Let’s also not forget your usage of the phrase “Damask prices have not changed” when it’s clear that prices have dropped by roughly 25% from their high back in September. I guess this would be considered as no change at all to you?

If you want to argue over something as arbitrary as the meaning of ambiguous words/phrases then I can do the same. However, this offers nothing to the discussion.

Damask prices are the same as when I stopped playing the game so many months ago. They were ridiculous and extra punishing to cloth users then, and they are the same now.

And the price spiking to 18 gold, and then falling due to Anet trying to kill their own game with their NPE, is not a valid change.

Also, saying ‘around 20 gold, falling to 13.5 gold’ is completely disingenuous. An inflated fake number followed by a real number to make his point stronger? That is just weak.

Alright, you have a fair point with me saying “almost 20g” was not really the best choice of figures. (Although keep in mind that the various API sites only use sampled figures and the true figure could very well have spiked higher than 18g. It just wasn’t displayed.)

Nonetheless, the point that I was making remains. The price of Damask has consistently fallen since September, and if you observe the supply/demand graphs, supply of Damask is actually getting close to the equilibrium point where supply matches demand, meaning that prices are likely to fall even more. (And also bearing in mind that for many goods, a lot of demand on the TP are actually extreme lowball bids that will never, EVER get filled. Like the people trying to buy 255 Bolts of Damask for 81 copper. It’ll NEVER happen. This means that supply probably exceeds “real demand” right now.)

The funny part about all of this is that I actually AGREE with you that Damask is disproportionately hard to get compared to Elonian Leather or Deldrimor Steel. I WOULD like to see the Silk requirement get reduced to 50 Bolts, and for the supply of lower tier cloth to be increased. I’m just pointing out that ANet has moved to increase supply of Silk via the Silverwastes; the only problem was that they didn’t increase supply for the other tiers enough to compensate for the increased demand for Damask once players were getting a lot more Silk (which in turn spurs them to start trying for Damask).

Osteg.8915:

I was farming 2 – 8 hours a day. It was fun not to open them only, but to farm as well

I am speechless.

naiasonod.9265:

Maxwell.7843:

Can’t argue with maths.
But not all players have disposable income (students, young adults, etc). Moreover, the parallel is bit flawed because playing is something people do in their free time, working has timetables: you can’t phone your boss at 3am and say “hey boss, imma work 1hour now, send me 15€, kthanks gnite”.
So “time is better spent working rather than farming” is not an absolute rule, because the time you spend farming cannot be always converted in time spent working.

Some people can find farming relaxing or fun: in that case it makes sense to do it.

Absolute rule? Naw. I was giving a digestible example of how much it might cost me, in terms of time as valued by my salary, to do the thing.

An awful lot of people don’t seem to think of their time as being valuable or as a form of currency. The (to me) bizarre trend in MMOs is staggeringly in favor of people often apparently thinking that if it doesn’t cost real money, it’s free.

[…]

Yeah, you make a sensible point and I understand what you mean, I was just adding my thought to yours. :-)

Within 1000 champion bags, you make approximately 120 gold (at the minimum you can say) IF you sell everything. Rounding your number up (only champion bags), you would have made approximately 1440 gold. Within an hour, you can farm up to 100 champion bags if the chest train consistently keeps running. Considering you farmed 11800 champion bags, we can assume you spent approximately 180 hours this past month alone farming for those bags. That’s literally 7.5 days. Lets round that up to 8 days since we can assume you spent “some” time doing events/vinewrath. Now, judging by the extra bags you have (bags of gear), those would’ve profited you with approximately 80 gold if you sold them all. Overall, you probably made approximately 1520 (more-so or less) gold. Remember, this doesn’t include fees when posting/selling on the trading post.

Considering you farmed for approximately 8 days, that’s a total of 192 hours. If you work and make minimum wage of $7.25 at the federal level, you would have made $1392 (not including taxes, social security, ect.). Looking at the trading post right now, 800 gems ($10) is worth an average of 115 gold. Rounding $1392 up, you get $1400. If you had bought gems with that much money, you would’ve had 112,000 gems. If you had converted those gems to gold, you would’ve had approximately 16,100 gold.

Isn’t this awesome?!