Guild Wars 2

Cuddy.6247:

Ayrilana.1396:

All that I am seeing is you regurgitating/plagiarizing that article. Prices of all precursors could go to 5000 gold and you would not see a massive increase in prices everywhere else.

Mad cuz bad. Just because you’re ignorant and fail to understand inflation doesn’t mean the rest of the educated world does.

And no one here ever said you have to see all prices raise with inflation. That’s not how inflation works. Inflation just means that your currency buys less of a percentage. That’s a critical definition, because monetary growth will accompany inflation or buying patterns will be redefined.

In a video game, you see buying patterns redefined quite often because the sectors that see inflation, really see inflation. That means you have a larger redistribution from the inflated market sectors to the stable market sectors. Consumers aren’t willing to catch up with the market on it, which means it will continue to climb higher until it eventually crashes. Stock Market of 90s, anyone?

Here’s the problem though. You’re not understanding it correctly. It’s understood that as inflation rises, every dollar (or unit of currency) buys a smaller percentage of a good or service. This is straight off investopedia if you want to see where I took that from. In this game, inflation would cause 1G to lose its purchasing power.

However, you’re arguing something else completely that has nothing to do with it. You’re suggesting that because of precursor prices rising due to increased demand that there’s inflation because players now have less purchasing power as they cannot purchase as much of the other items as they could before when they buy their precursors. That’s like suggesting that we’re experiencing inflation when people buy cars because they cannot now use that money on other items.

Inflation is the loss in purchasing power of a currency, not your personal purchasing power because you have your funds tied up elsewhere.

Edit:

I’ll also add that you’ve stated that inflation is the sustained increase in the general level of prices of goods and services vyou’ve also stated that as inflation rises, currency buys a smaller percentage of a good or service. What you’re assuming is that if one market of items increase due to independent demand and supply mechanisms, this means inflation.

How does the increase of precursors affect the general price level of goods in the TP?

Just because the prices of precursors increases, doesn’t mean there’s inflation everywhere else in the ecoming. Inflation isn’t measure off one market of goods (luxury items).

Cuddy.6247:

Ayrilana.1396:

All that I am seeing is you regurgitating/plagiarizing that article. Prices of all precursors could go to 5000 gold and you would not see a massive increase in prices everywhere else.

Mad cuz bad. Just because you’re ignorant and fail to understand inflation doesn’t mean the rest of the educated world does.

And no one here ever said you have to see all prices raise with inflation. That’s not how inflation works. Inflation just means that your currency buys less of a percentage. That’s a critical definition, because monetary growth will accompany inflation or buying patterns will be redefined.

In a video game, you see buying patterns redefined quite often because the sectors that see inflation, really see inflation. That means you have a larger redistribution from the inflated market sectors to the stable market sectors. Consumers aren’t willing to catch up with the market on it, which means it will continue to climb higher until it eventually crashes. Stock Market of 90s, anyone?

You’ve stated multiple times that inflation means that currency buys less of a percentage. No one is arguing that. However, the same amount of currency buys the same amount, or in some cases even more, of a very large number of items. But in this case, it is only a very small market of things that are showing an increase of price. (Or in accoradance with the most basic definition of inflation: The same amount of money is buying a smaller percentage of very specific goods. In other words, the price is going up.)

So in this case, precursors, silk, and T6 mats (being the ones in question) are indeed falling under the definition of inflation, in that the same amount of money buys a smaller percentage of those items. But you can’t use those as any sort of measure of inflation. Because if our currency is indeed buying less of a percentage, then you would see the same across the board. Thats how it works. It doesn’t ONLY effect certain markets, but ignore the others. Inflation effects all other markets as well.

So I think most everyone can agree that increasing prices of certain mats or precursors is happening and does effect everyone trying to get those things, even by the definition of inflation being currency buying less of a percentage isn’t happening over the whole economy. Which is where the argument that the term is being used incorrectly is coming from.

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

BlueBoy.1236:

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Completely agree, even with the rewards revamp of the dailies monthlies, it’s still a problem. I spoke at length about this over a year ago when multiple threads opened, talking about the inflation of the gold standard in the TP and the lack of rewards from doing the most basic of things like killing monsters that should drop the loot you need for crafting instead of trying to use a double RNG standard in which there’s a drop rate for a bag then a second drop rate for what you may or may not get from said bag. It’s part of the grand design now in games however.

Others wrote about it when this game launched that it would change the market of mmo’s. It has but not in the way they thought it would, it’s made things worse. Now because of the apologists here in the GW2 forums and in other places online who’ve basically stood by and allowed these changes to not only happen but continue, the rest of the themepark mmo’s out there with anything other than a subscription, have a similar model. “Purchase in game currency in order to progress” seems to be the theme of not only new themeparks but also older themeparks who’ve changed their models to try to attract the unwary and the trusting doe eyed masses eager to hand over everything they own for a chance at a virtual item.

lordhelmos.7623:

Lately I have been playing less and less of Gw2, which in a way can be a good thing as I am now rediscovering some good single player games I missed out on while time sinking into Gw2.

Let me start off by saying that “Progression” in Gw2 is very different from other games. By progression I mean having nice things, building towards something of value, collecting legendaries, and generally having nice things.

Ascended armor and Legendaries has soared up to astronomical value, with forging a set of light armor totaling over 1200-1500g in materials and/or months worth of time performing tedious grind tasks and mat collecting. Forging legendaries is even worse.

Inflation has caused all basic necessities for “Progression” to soar to levels way beyond the reach of anyone but a Black Lion tycoon.

The acquisition of any high end items is directly tied into crafting and the market, with minimal ways of obtaining them alternatively (considering the randomness of chests, and the even lower likelyhood of any reward being of a specific stat combination that is usable to you).

When “progressing” towards things such as Legendaries and Ascended Armor, players can work hard and seemingly get nowhere.

The game’s end progression has essentially turned into a giant wallstreet simulation that greatly rewards investors and marketers (especially ones with large amount of gold) vs. people who actually play the game for standard rewards.

Lackluster rewards and incentive has always been a problem in Gw2. I thought the addition of the collections was a good idea, but even the rewards from them are still pretty terrible.

Many people I know are just getting tired of logging in because there is nothing to do but grind for a goal that is further away then pluto, get fed up and buy gold to get what they want, or log in for a few minutes to stand in front of the black lion and play the market because its easier to advance via trading than playing the actual game.

This has lead to this sort of era of stagnation in Gw2, where people are just feeling like they are wasting time due to all the rewards being tied to the market and very little incentive or advancement beyond hoarding gold and manipulating trades.

The game has become a splitting image of the great American Depression, complete with the sad carnies begging for coins in the middle of lions arch.

While I see the need to keep gold valuable in order to support the game through the gemstore, I feel that the balance and the emphasis on wallstreet play in the game is too much. So much to the point where standard players who are doing basic reward play are scratching their heads wondering why they are wasting all their time and what this secret is in order to get into the mile high club (who are really just a collection of investors that gained all their wealth before the market inflated and everything valued up to a point to where its out of reach of normal players).

This kind of world is just not fun. I for one will be taking a break, with sparse logins to check the health of the game, unlock stories, and generally see what changes in the future.

Wanze.8410:

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Can, but not a good idea. Just makes people on the forums go “look, ANet banned this dude, clearly he’s onto something and they’re trying to suppress it”.

Having some trouble with the forums. Let me just post this here for a second until it clears up so that people can stop trying to change the subject with misinformation on the true definition of things here.

Inflation: a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money. It’s exactly what we’re seeing here in this economy. Increase of prices and the fall of value of money brought on by the purchasing and conversion of currency from an outside source, gold, which then prompts the developers to squeeze even more out of the drop rates causing the prices to go higher causing more people to have to buy more gold etc etc etc. It’s happened before, Diablo III, Blizzard had to shut that entire economy down because the prices became so astronomical that it was simply out of reach for most of the playerbase.

And no you don’t have to be an expert in the field to know a bad deal when you see one.

I don’t think this definition is actually correct and that does matter in this discussion. For instance, I don’t believe prices need to change for inflation to be a ‘thing’.

Wanze.8410:

BlueBoy.1236:

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Do you need a hug? (>^.^)> I’m sry if i fail to make it sarcastic enough

Before anyone makes stupid assumption abt this inflation thingy, please read this thread first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy

It covers a lot parts of the in-game economy. From gems, to prec price, to silk price, to almost anything that has to do with in-game economy.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t think this definition is actually correct and that does matter in this discussion.

You’re free to look it up in any dictionary.

BlueBoy.1236:

Wanze.8410:

BlueBoy.1236:

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Do you need a hug? (>^.^)> I’m sry if i fail to make it sarcastic enough

Before anyone makes stupid assumption abt this inflation thingy, please read this thread first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy

It covers a lot parts of the in-game economy. From gems, to prec price, to silk price, to almost anything that has to do with in-game economy.

Thanks for referring me to my own thread for advice.

tigirius.9014:

Obtena.7952:

I don’t think this definition is actually correct and that does matter in this discussion.

You’re free to look it up in any dictionary.

One step ahead of you. I even posted why I think the ‘definition’ you posted wasn’t accurate.

https://dictionary.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEV7sdi4tUojkA3PwPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--?p=inflation&.sep=

You have made a small but critical error in your post. You don’t need to satisfy the condition of prices going up AND purchasing power to go down to have inflation.

Wanze.8410:

BlueBoy.1236:

Wanze.8410:

BlueBoy.1236:

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Do you need a hug? (>^.^)> I’m sry if i fail to make it sarcastic enough

Before anyone makes stupid assumption abt this inflation thingy, please read this thread first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy

It covers a lot parts of the in-game economy. From gems, to prec price, to silk price, to almost anything that has to do with in-game economy.

Thanks for referring me to my own thread for advice.

only the first sentence refer to you. OMG this thread is making me crazy.

BlueBoy.1236:

Wanze.8410:

BlueBoy.1236:

Imma just make TLDR of all complains here: I can’t afford some things that i want, so therefore there’s an inflation happening.

Cant Anet just ban this inflation dude?

Do you need a hug? (>^.^)> I’m sry if i fail to make it sarcastic enough

Before anyone makes stupid assumption abt this inflation thingy, please read this thread first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy

It covers a lot parts of the in-game economy. From gems, to prec price, to silk price, to almost anything that has to do with in-game economy.

There’s also another phrase that pretty much describes what’s happening when apologists keep allowing these things to happen (and explains in a round about way, how our recent US politics has ended up releasing yet another bank designed bill in our government that’s been copy/pasted verbatum.) It’s why Vegas is so popular as well. “There’s a sucker born every minute.” ~ David Hannum? Which is why I think these things are allowed to continue, why people keep accepting them as unchangeable facts of life, and why people continue to support them with their wallets.

Unfortunately, however, this trend has started to affect the entire rest of the themepark MMO’s out there which isn’t a good thing at all. No one should pay to progress even if it is for items people might think others actually don’t HAVE to have in order to play. I think South Park actually pointed out exactly what’s happening to the MMO world with one of their recent episodes (even though they were pointing at the mobile game market specifically I think it definitely applies here.)

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

Would it be fair to say that the problem here is more one of “supply of goods”? Or, to put it more precisely, “generation/production of goods,” i.e. farming/looting/etc.

I’m sure glad GW2 isn’t one of those ‘pay to progress’ themepark MMOs then. You don’t need to pay a dime aside from the original box to get the any level of gear, including BiS. In fact, you can’t even get the BiS gear by only paying. Smart team we get with Anet.

Labjax.2465:

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

Would it be fair to say that the problem here is more one of “supply of goods”? Or, to put it more precisely, “generation/production of goods,” i.e. farming/looting/etc.

I think it would be fair to point out that nowhere does he mention the problem inherent to allowing outside money into the economy. Much of what he talks about is loot balance but that’s not the only issue, and avoidance of the issue, which is Anet being their own gold farmers, is a very big factor in turning a games economy upside down like we’re seeing. Outside money (in the real world it’s called counterfeit) can completely collapse an economy. Without doing anything about it and avoiding the subject entirely, I think the problem is clear and I think we have our answer as to why Blizzard closed down the Real Money Auction House experiment in Diablo III before releasing the console versions of the game. It destroys economies.

Loot has very little to do with it and I would add, that if loot were the sole issue here, we’d see fewer nerfs of farming areas than we’ve seen over the years. The problem is that they haven’t found another way to make money so they’ve locked themselves into a single method of obtaining profits and now they can’t get out of it, so they defend it.

I think the developers are aware of some of the problems and have recently made small steps to improve the experience for ascended armor. For example, the bandit chests in Silverwastes drop jute/wool/linen scraps while the bags of gears provide silk scraps. This makes it easier for players to be self-sufficient with the materials needed to craft Bolts of Damask, the most expensive material for ascended armor.

Do the players need to play for a longer period of time to farm for a specific legendary than a year ago? This is the most important question we need to answer in this thread, but almost impossible to quantify. OP seems to be sure of his case that it will take longer now because of the price increase of materials needed for legendaries. But there can be a case made to say that the opposite is true. Tier 6 materials drop more often thanks to increased magic find and huge farming events during the Living Stories.

Obtena.7952:

I’m sure glad GW2 isn’t one of those ‘pay to progress’ themepark MMOs then. You don’t need to pay a dime aside from the original box to get the any level of gear, including BiS. In fact, you can’t even get the BiS gear by only paying. Smart team we get with Anet.

yeah, let’s see how many hours do you play a day? how long did it take you to get a full set, and how many precursors dropped for you? were you there during the island event? be honest now.

my point is either you won the virtual lottery or you’re one of those people with endless hours on your hand who can spend whole days in game. The rest of us have responsibilities. And you have to understand where this is coming from, I’m a legit farmer type player, I go out and get the goods and then sell them.

tigirius.9014:

Labjax.2465:

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

Would it be fair to say that the problem here is more one of “supply of goods”? Or, to put it more precisely, “generation/production of goods,” i.e. farming/looting/etc.

I think it would be fair to point out that nowhere does he mention the problem inherent to allowing outside money into the economy. Much of what he talks about is loot balance but that’s not the only issue, and avoidance of the issue, which is Anet being their own gold farmers, is a very big factor in turning a games economy upside down like we’re seeing. Outside money (in the real world it’s called counterfeit) can completely collapse an economy. Without doing anything about it and avoiding the subject entirely, I think the problem is clear and I think we have our answer as to why Blizzard closed down the Real Money Auction House experiment in Diablo III before releasing the console versions of the game. It destroys economies.

Loot has very little to do with it and I would add, that if loot were the sole issue here, we’d see fewer nerfs of farming areas than we’ve seen over the years. The problem is that they haven’t found another way to make money so they’ve locked themselves into a single method of obtaining profits and now they can’t get out of it, so they defend it.

Although that does make sense, what is this outside money? Gem to gold conversion? Its already part of the game. From what i understand its the same pool that houwes gold to gem conversion and operates on the same principle. The only outside money wpuld be from gold sellers, and we know anets stance on them.

pdavis.8031:

tigirius.9014:

Labjax.2465:

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

Would it be fair to say that the problem here is more one of “supply of goods”? Or, to put it more precisely, “generation/production of goods,” i.e. farming/looting/etc.

I think it would be fair to point out that nowhere does he mention the problem inherent to allowing outside money into the economy. Much of what he talks about is loot balance but that’s not the only issue, and avoidance of the issue, which is Anet being their own gold farmers, is a very big factor in turning a games economy upside down like we’re seeing. Outside money (in the real world it’s called counterfeit) can completely collapse an economy. Without doing anything about it and avoiding the subject entirely, I think the problem is clear and I think we have our answer as to why Blizzard closed down the Real Money Auction House experiment in Diablo III before releasing the console versions of the game. It destroys economies.

Loot has very little to do with it and I would add, that if loot were the sole issue here, we’d see fewer nerfs of farming areas than we’ve seen over the years. The problem is that they haven’t found another way to make money so they’ve locked themselves into a single method of obtaining profits and now they can’t get out of it, so they defend it.

Although that does make sense, what is this outside money? Gem to gold conversion? Its already part of the game. From what i understand its the same pool that houwes gold to gem conversion and operates on the same principle. The only outside money wpuld be from gold sellers, and we know anets stance on them.

You have only their word to go on for that and this my friend has been pointed out multiple times, where did the gold come from in the launch of the game? no one had any yet. And where did it come from several times throughout the life of the game especially at hard hitting times, you cannot honestly believe that at no time in the life of this title that they didn’t infuse that market with stacks of gold from nowhere in order to “maintain the balance”. They’ve basically admitted that they’ve done that even though they’ve completely left out the parts of when and where.

It’s as mysterious a number as the number of players that steadily login.

tigirius.9014:

Obtena.7952:

I’m sure glad GW2 isn’t one of those ‘pay to progress’ themepark MMOs then. You don’t need to pay a dime aside from the original box to get the any level of gear, including BiS. In fact, you can’t even get the BiS gear by only paying. Smart team we get with Anet.

yeah, let’s see how many hours do you play a day? how long did it take you to get a full set, and how many precursors dropped for you? were you there during the island event? be honest now.

my point is either you won the virtual lottery or you’re one of those people with endless hours on your hand who can spend whole days in game. The rest of us have responsibilities. And you have to understand where this is coming from, I’m a legit farmer type player, I go out and get the goods and then sell them.

I cant speak for anyone but i obtained a full set of ascended gear and mostly farming it, it about 3 months. I generally play 3-4 hours a day, for about 24 hours a week on average. Took 2 months to get a legendary with the same play schedule. Granted i didnt buy the pre but was gifted it.

tigirius.9014:

my point is either you won the virtual lottery or you’re one of those people with endless hours on your hand who can spend whole days in game. The rest of us have responsibilities. And you have to understand where this is coming from, I’m a legit farmer type player, I go out and get the goods and then sell them.

You’ve made some very poor assumptions about the kind of player I am and your point is weak because of it. We are the same kind of player; 95% of what I do is farming dailies by leveling alts and farming Orr/high priced mats; I’m the most boring player you can think of based on all the content available in the game.

I can’t explain why I have a legendary; based on your claim I shouldn’t have. I can only think that your view is because I must be more efficient/knowledge at farming and/or more aware of how to make money doing it than you think is possible.

tigirius.9014:

pdavis.8031:

tigirius.9014:

Labjax.2465:

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

Would it be fair to say that the problem here is more one of “supply of goods”? Or, to put it more precisely, “generation/production of goods,” i.e. farming/looting/etc.

I think it would be fair to point out that nowhere does he mention the problem inherent to allowing outside money into the economy. Much of what he talks about is loot balance but that’s not the only issue, and avoidance of the issue, which is Anet being their own gold farmers, is a very big factor in turning a games economy upside down like we’re seeing. Outside money (in the real world it’s called counterfeit) can completely collapse an economy. Without doing anything about it and avoiding the subject entirely, I think the problem is clear and I think we have our answer as to why Blizzard closed down the Real Money Auction House experiment in Diablo III before releasing the console versions of the game. It destroys economies.

Loot has very little to do with it and I would add, that if loot were the sole issue here, we’d see fewer nerfs of farming areas than we’ve seen over the years. The problem is that they haven’t found another way to make money so they’ve locked themselves into a single method of obtaining profits and now they can’t get out of it, so they defend it.

Although that does make sense, what is this outside money? Gem to gold conversion? Its already part of the game. From what i understand its the same pool that houwes gold to gem conversion and operates on the same principle. The only outside money wpuld be from gold sellers, and we know anets stance on them.

You have only their word to go on for that and this my friend has been pointed out multiple times, where did the gold come from in the launch of the game? no one had any yet. And where did it come from several times throughout the life of the game especially at hard hitting times, you cannot honestly believe that at no time in the life of this title that they didn’t infuse that market with stacks of gold from nowhere in order to “maintain the balance”. They’ve basically admitted that they’ve done that even though they’ve completely left out the parts of when and where.

It’s as mysterious a number as the number of players that steadily login.

So they are lying to us, and infact inflation is running rampant, but its all part of their design so that more people buy gems. Which is why they havent brought precursor crafting, because it will crash the market and they’ll stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also John Smith is actually a secret cabal whose only goal is to empty our wallets through this game so they can take over the world. But dont forget, anet is actually a division of the illuminati, and Jormag is a symbol of Satan…

/tightens tinfoil hat

Seriously though, JS has explained the gem conversion on many occasions, and there is no reason for him, or anyone else to lie. Also do you have any quotes to back up the infusion of gold on those occasions?

tigirius.9014:

Loot has very little to do with it and I would add, that if loot were the sole issue here, we’d see fewer nerfs of farming areas than we’ve seen over the years. The problem is that they haven’t found another way to make money so they’ve locked themselves into a single method of obtaining profits and now they can’t get out of it, so they defend it.

Mm. I don’t see how allowing outside money in is the determining factor. John has implied indirectly several times – if not stated outright – that the economy actually has a lot of room for gluts of items, so I imagine a glut of currency would be much the same (with some elasticity in bouncing back to desired levels).

If the topic is legendary and ascended items, the reason I mentioned supply is because… if you look at it as cause and effect (with the main complaint being trouble with affording items), what’s the real cause here? The effect is something like: Highly desired items are further and further out of Average Joe’s reach.

Now if inflation occurs, then on the surface, we have conclusions like the OP’s: Price goes up because of inflation, therefore gap for Average Joe increases. But this can’t be the whole picture, can it?

Let’s say the average price of T6 mats goes up steadily. Now they are more pricey for Average Joe, but if Average Joe can sell them for that same price, then he has ways to obtain currency through selling looted items – ways that roughly match the increasing price of items.

In isolation, this means there shouldn’t be a gap increase. Of course, if we take into account the other ways that Average Joe can sell items to make money, then maybe there is. Maybe he sells T5 mats, so that he can buy T6 mats. But buy/sell price of T5 mats is not going up at the same rate as that of T6 mats.

So then he does have a gap because he’s selling T5 to buy T6 and he can’t match the difference same as he once was able to.

This is why I asked about supply: Say we’re talking about the example above and the average drop of T6 is already something like 5% compared to T5 50% (e.g. 1/10 difference in drop rate). Now if we had a scenario where the market has a consistent glut of T6 mats, such that buying them costs the same or less than the profit from selling T5 mats, then Average Joe can do just fine. Even more so if the glut is so great that any source of currency can put the desired items within easy reach.

And I think this is where the conversion of mats in MF tries to balance out exactly these sort of price imbalance scenarios. But say we go beyond the conversion balancing to the more complex buying/selling of all dropped items and we’re assuming (hypothetically) that the farming for various items starts going down, due to something like player activity.

We go way below “glut” levels and see the curve of pricing start to play out with realistic supply and demand; those who can afford X rare item(s) can’t compensate in cost as easily as they once could because the gap between X rare and X common is increasing. In theory, over a looooooong period of time, the percentages should be relatively even (especially taking into account systems like the mat conversion). But if we’re talking about things with a 1% chance or lower, for example, then the lack of a hefty supply becomes increasingly problematic for Average Joe.

It looks like inflation to him because the price of those desired items keeps going up (as does the price of many other items) but in reality, he’s SOL because his regrettably average rate of currency acquisition cannot match the dwindling supply of desirable items.

As in: If there are 10 stamps of one kind in the world, 10,000 collectors, and every collector really really wants that one stamp, then no amount of money is going to change the fact that only 10 different collectors can own the stamp at any given time. And because the demand is high, the value of the stamp can skyrocket, in relation to the high points of wealth that the richest stamp collectors are at – as opposed to the value being tied to the price that thousands of people are willing to pay for, individually; which is more what you see when supply is equal to or greater than demand.

Hope that makes sense. I’m not an economist, so there may be some fudging of terminology. But the principles should be relatively on point.

In short: Sort of inflation but not really?

The secret to my success:

I just outrun inflation.
On my mount.

Wanze.8410:

The secret to my success:

I just outrun inflation.
On my mount.

Are you open world dueling at the same time?

tigirius.9014:

You have only their word to go on for that and this my friend has been pointed out multiple times, where did the gold come from in the launch of the game? no one had any yet.

As you have already known, the initial pools of gems and gold were seeded by Anet at the start of the game – and they are long, long gone. They were also really insignificant compared to the current market.

tigirius.9014:

And where did it come from several times throughout the life of the game especially at hard hitting times, you cannot honestly believe that at no time in the life of this title that they didn’t infuse that market with stacks of gold from nowhere in order to “maintain the balance”.

Why would they do that? There was always more gold than gems entering the exchange – adding even more gold on top of it would have been a quite curious and counterintuitive method of “maintaining the balance”. Unless of course you are using some extremely nonstandard definition here, with either “maintaining” or “balance” having an exact opposite meaning to the one commonly used.

pdavis.8031:

Mo Mo.1947:

You don’t need ascended armor to play the game. I have one ascended armor piece on one character and I’m doing just fine.

There are a lot of cheap options for exotic level armor and gear, and as long as you have those you can do almost any of the content in game without noticing issues.

You don’t even really need specific armor/weapon variants like berserker’s or rabid and all that. Those are fine tuning elements that aren’t required to successfully complete content.

In fact I don’t even think about traits on my PvE characters until I reach level 80. Even traits aren’t required to complete most content in the game.

While thats true, thats not the point the OP is trying to make. In this form of progression, whether it’s ascended for stats or skins, or legendaries for skins and effects, the prices involved are increasing, for a variety of reasons, and that makes it more difficult for the average player to obtain.

While many disagree that it is “inflation” that is causing the prices to rise, they do agree in general that it does take some time and effort even for a causal player to obtain these things.

If casual players could have all the things that hardcore players could have then what rewards would there be for hardcore players?

Casual players can’t have it all. That’s so lazy and entitled. If you don’t want to be a hardcore player then accept that you can’t have all the hardcore rewards. GW2 let’s you have everything you need for a reasonable amount of effort. Everything else is a grindfest to reward hardcore players.

The OP’s complaint is just as invalid as if I complained that the hardcore WvW players had more rank ability points than me. Since I haven’t hardcored WvW, I have to choose what WvW ability lines I want to unlock and wait for the rest.

Instant gratification would spit in the face of all the people who have put so much time and effort into the game.

Mo Mo.1947:

pdavis.8031:

Mo Mo.1947:

You don’t need ascended armor to play the game. I have one ascended armor piece on one character and I’m doing just fine.

There are a lot of cheap options for exotic level armor and gear, and as long as you have those you can do almost any of the content in game without noticing issues.

You don’t even really need specific armor/weapon variants like berserker’s or rabid and all that. Those are fine tuning elements that aren’t required to successfully complete content.

In fact I don’t even think about traits on my PvE characters until I reach level 80. Even traits aren’t required to complete most content in the game.

While thats true, thats not the point the OP is trying to make. In this form of progression, whether it’s ascended for stats or skins, or legendaries for skins and effects, the prices involved are increasing, for a variety of reasons, and that makes it more difficult for the average player to obtain.

While many disagree that it is “inflation” that is causing the prices to rise, they do agree in general that it does take some time and effort even for a causal player to obtain these things.

If casual players could have all the things that hardcore players could have then what rewards would there be for hardcore players?

Casual players can’t have it all. That’s so lazy and entitled. If you don’t want to be a hardcore player then accept that you can’t have all the hardcore rewards. GW2 let’s you have everything you need for a reasonable amount of effort. Everything else is a grindfest to reward hardcore players.

The OP’s complaint is just as invalid as if I complained that the hardcore WvW players had more rank ability points than me. Since I haven’t hardcored WvW, I have to choose what WvW ability lines I want to unlock and wait for the rest.

Instant gratification would spit in the face of all the people who have put so much time and effort into the game.

Oh i totally agree. However this game offers nothing that an average player cannot obtain. Ive gotten a full set of ascended and a legendary and working on a second set. For someone who doesnt play as much as a hard core player, it takes longer and you have to play more intentionally. When doing mine, as i said earlier, i only play about 24 hours a week. But was still able to get it. And thats the problem, peopel dont want to have to work for it, and seem to think that such things are beyond them but dont want to work for it.

Obtena.7952:

Astralporing.1957:

jweez.7214:

Ascended items were never ment for the average player.

Yes. This is a problem.

I don’t understand why … the average player does not benefit from 1-2% increase in stats Ascended armor gives you.

Actually, funny thing about that. Sorry to beat on something so old, but, they did say something along the lines of everyone having the same stats gear at max level. That’s besides the point. The truly funny thing about that is that when they were releasing ascended gear they said it was to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries, in terms of progression. Yup, bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries, the sad part is the gap still exists between ascended and legendaries – take a wild guess what it is.

I don’t think the difficulties to get legendary change that much. Since everything go up in price, means you get more money too.

Also Anet keep adding rewards, gold from dungeon, champ bag, you can salvage fractal exotic drop for inscription… etc

basically you are making more money than before, even though legendary are more expensive.

Hello,
I did not read everything but regarding some of the firs posts …

After several months pause I came back in the game around 4 months ago (in september).
With the stuff I collected since I started playing (1 month after launch), I could go to 500 in artificier and tailor.
I created 1 ascended weapon and 1 ascended piece of armor.
And now I’m blocked.
While we can easily get wood and metal, silk is another mather. As well as cotton … required for some parts and so also very expensive.
And considering the huge (which is not a big enough word) amount of silk required, I’m just demotivated again. It is just so many hours of gaming for so few parts …

I could buy it at BL, but then this wouldn’t let me so much money for the other components and gems (with gold).

Imarion

While you can play the 90% game using Exotics only, I will have to agree with OP since we’re talking about progression, not playability.

It’s a bit hard to get Ascended due to prices and along with it, Legendary. Since we’re talking about progression, we should not stop at Exotics – need to aim higher, but as a casual player who is easily bored to death by Ori Node farming, Dungeon runs, Champ trains, Teq and 3h Wurm, Gold is becoming scarce atm.

Essence Snow.3194:

Using decline from a spike as evidence to counter inflation is disingenuous.

Using luxury goods to observe inflation in the first place is disingenuous.

I personally saved up enough gold(after wardrobe change) to buy a precursor and then saved the mats to make it into a legendary. I’m an only somewhat hardcore player. I did it by buying black lion weapons then selling them later when the prices go up. And also running lots and lots of dungeons. If u you want a legendary and u didnt get a precursor drop. it can take about 6 months or longer to save for it depending on how much you play. That why they are called legendary however, i think that is totally justified. You speak of inflation but it just sounds to me like you want things to be easier… If i can do it so can others.

If you transfer the current real world economics in to a virtual system and let them run together with the inconsiderate human preferences, you can see all the systems flaws in their glory.

Zero Day.2594:

Obtena.7952:

Astralporing.1957:

jweez.7214:

Ascended items were never ment for the average player.

Yes. This is a problem.

I don’t understand why … the average player does not benefit from 1-2% increase in stats Ascended armor gives you.

Actually, funny thing about that. Sorry to beat on something so old, but, they did say something along the lines of everyone having the same stats gear at max level. That’s besides the point. The truly funny thing about that is that when they were releasing ascended gear they said it was to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries, in terms of progression. Yup, bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries, the sad part is the gap still exists between ascended and legendaries – take a wild guess what it is.

None of that says anything about how Ascended items are meant for the average player. There are no legendary armor either, so there is no ‘bridge’ to gap there. I don’t even see a bridge that needs to be gaped for the weapon side. They have the same stats … ?

Bernie.8674:

Thaddeus.4891:

Never had to do dungeon to craft my acended armor or weapons. It just take time because of time gated recipe.

How did you max your crafting then? I saw a screenshot from back in the day and saw that T6 materials were going for coppers. These days they go for tens of silvers. There’s no way to get all those mats without farming dungeons.

I have good news for you : those mats also drop outside of dungeons.

Since i played GW2 i have farmed maybe 20-25k gold in total, and i only have been
2 times in a dungeon.

Well, I made the Meteoroligicus and Kudzu, I spend about 40 gold on the storm and about 18 months later 400 gold on the leaf…. If I wait another 1.5 year with this I’m hoping it will not be 4000 and @5 years I surely hope it will not be 40000 gold….

for legendaries the devaluation of gold seems quite high…
We will see what happens in the future.

Zraak.4590:

If you transfer the current real world economics in to a virtual system and let them run together with the inconsiderate human preferences, you can see all the systems flaws in their glory.

Anyone have a clue what this means?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Zraak.4590:

If you transfer the current real world economics in to a virtual system and let them run together with the inconsiderate human preferences, you can see all the systems flaws in their glory.

Anyone have a clue what this means?

It means that he fancies himself.

pdavis.8031:

Wanze.8410:

The secret to my success:

I just outrun inflation.
On my mount.

Are you open world dueling at the same time?

I bet he is – with [HATS] guild cape flapping behind.

kuittaa.7360:

pdavis.8031:

Wanze.8410:

The secret to my success:

I just outrun inflation.
On my mount.

Are you open world dueling at the same time?

I bet he is – with [HATS] guild cape flapping behind.

And in Cantha no less.

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

It doesn’t matter to the average player WHY the things they want are so expensive. The point is the ‘good stuff’ in the game is FAR out of reach of the average player. Anything constructive to say to the OP at all? Are you concerned at the price of stuff?

Wynne.3908:

John Smith.4610:

Remember that changes in the overall supply of currency doesn’t mean inflation.

Here’s a snippet from an awesome game economist team:
“Changes in the money supply dwarf the changes to prices. While the money supply grew more than thirteenfold, the CPI fell by almost a quarter. It‘s clear that these series aren‘t strongly correlated. The existence of money alone doesn‘t contribute much to inflation. Money that isn‘t being spent won‘t affect prices. This brings us to the concept of the velocity of money, i.e. frequency with which a given quantity of money changes hands in transactions. It can be stated as the total value of all transactions in a period, divided by the money supply. In our case, we shall be using monthly measurements, i.e. market transactions per month divided the average money supply that month. Only transactions on the general market are included.”

edit: In case it’s not clear, this is not from me or speaking of our game.

It doesn’t matter to the average player WHY the things they want are so expensive. The point is the ‘good stuff’ in the game is FAR out of reach of the average player. Anything constructive to say to the OP at all? Are you concerned at the price of stuff?

What exactly is this average player which you speak of?

the “good stuff” would just be the regular stuff if everyone had it.

But stats are all affordable and while changing the stats on the fly like you can do with legendaries may be nice, it’s just a qol improvement that you can do without. Looks are personal preference. I dont find the legendary skins all that great e.g.
So, you cant really say that the good stuff is out of reach of the average player, when it is your own fault for deciding that the good stuff is the rare stuff..

Of course.. there is also the matter of deciding on what exactly “the average player” is and how much time/effort qualifies as “out of reach”.

BlueBoy.1236:

Ascended and legendaries are luxury items. It’s supposed to be expensive, and a long-term goal. That’s the reason why anet make it time-gated.

Take a look at ecto’s price instead. It’s relatively stable for the last 6 months. The gem price is maybe a bit out of control, compared to 2 years ago. But it happens to any gemstore/market store items in all mmos

If only they were … when, in WvW, you go 1:1 with you all in Exotic and your opponent all in Ascended …

They’re a “nice to have” in PvE, they’re obsolete in PvP but they DO play a major role in WvW … they should have made those just a skin …

You are a bit wrong in actually pinning down the culprit. From the very beginning the acquisition of cloth has been borked. You drown in leather, you drown in metal – you’re never to drown in cloth.

It used to be ok as long as the intermediate materials (cotton, wool, linen) was only used to level crafting to 400. After you got your character to 80 and crafting to 400 and you had your toon decked out in exotics there was no need for linen, silk, wool or cotton – so the prices stabilized, albeit at a pretty high standard.

Now with ascended cloth these items are in demand more or less continuously (especially with the silly 100 silk sink) and since the supply situation NEVER got fixed … prices are skyrocketing.

Same with T6 blood – there’s no reason to not run Berserker in PvE and T6 blood was hard to come by and with almost everyone doing berserker armors and weapons … that’s another pool that’s not gonna be filled in the long run and will thus suffer from highly inflated prices.