Guild Wars 2

It’s the job of the Community Manager to “manage” us. To calm us down. There’s no reason for us to calm down. Anet responds to bad press and pressure. Every time they make a bad decision, we have to get up in arms or they won’t do anything about it.

They claim that they make decisions based on what they see from the playerbase. So, show them how the playerbase feels about their decision.

Don’t calm down. They need to change this.

Ugh…I just realized I’m spending my time finding ways to fix something that was broken in order to fix something that never needed fixing.

Anyway good luck y’all and….IT’S HALLOWEEN-ish !!

As I already said in other threads on the subject, if you need a different amount than the ones currently available, submit a support ticket and let support sort it out for now through a partial refund on your exchange or by converting the exact amount you need.

Koviko.3248:

Every time they make a bad decision, we have to get up in arms or they won’t do anything about it.

Oh I don’t know.
Have this community ever tried to not start raging the same second something is announced/released?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Errant Venture.9371:

Add an option buy gems in 100 gem increments instead of making 400 gems the smallest denomination possible. Problem solved.

THERE! Thank you, Errant Venture — that’s a solid suggestion with a reasonable tone. Thank you.

Forget about that. Make me able to buy 1 Gem if I want to….. I don’t care how. A slide bar, a check out box, perhaps an arrow to click to select preference amount, put it in another tab, create the option ‘buy different amount’ and make me select 1 Gem or any other costum amount, create a pop-up window, tell me to go somewhere where I can buy 1 Gem, put an item in the gemstore that makes me able to buy 1 Gem from then on… suggestions suggestions….

I would also like to add that I have never (to the best of my knowledge) converted Gold to Gems anyway, I always just paid real money and bought gems to help support the game, and to make my characters look nice. But, for some reason, this change just does not sit right with me at all.

What I would like to say is that the thing that is most upsetting to me is that the devs spent valuable time redoing this exchange system when the time would have been better spent (IMHO) adding new content.

I’m sorry I didn’t read the whole thread, but what confuses me about the new system is the numbers underneath the top exchange when you hover your mouse over any increment to purchase.

What do those mean???

And, though I am not fond of this new system in any way, at least…at least, make available smaller amounts to purchase. I’ve never purchased 400 Gems at one go. I do, however, usually purchase 100 Gems at a pop. I also miss the graph, as it was very helpful for knowing when to purchase said Gems.

All said aside, I would really rather have the choice to buy as many, or as few Gems as I desire.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the playerbase (Of course I don’t represent everyone from the playerbase duh, but I’m one of the rather quiet players, only saying something if even I as a quiet and well “rather” satisfied player and money spender gets kittened of from some things you pull off) :

• I’m really sorry to hear that, but at the same time, with the change to NPE the last time and this change now, what kind of audience are you honestly reaching / targeting for? I don’t want to offend anyone, seriously, but it seems like you want toddlers or mentaly disabled people be able to play your game, if they didn’t “get” the previous system, then I’d honestly just say screw it, if those peoples logical thinking or IQ is that limited, they’re just not supposed to play this game, leave them behind, seriously, please. I was always a big supporter of GW2, looked over many flaws of it and kept an blind eye over other stuff, just like yeah, that happens, it’s not good or perfect but ok, yeah they’re busy, yeah they’re not that big of an company so they’re not that fast and stuff with things than others, i’ll let it slide, GW2 is my little “boy” so it’s ok, in the future it will grow up and surely surprise me with something big that will make the wait and endurence worthwile up until now, so I cna laugh at all the other haters always complaining about Anet and how they don’t listen to their customers.

- But nope, instead you keep kicking me in my private parts, at least it feels / seems that way. No matter how much I try to believe any further in this game and the direction it is going, I just can’t ignore the simple fact anymore that it doesn’t seem that way, there’s only a few options or well possibilities why that is so, which are in my mind are either one of the following:

a) You are absolutly under the control of NCSoft and you can’t do all the things you’d really like todo for the game because of NCSoft’s “greediness”, which would really just be a huge shame for the GW Series and Anet themselfes since they’re doing nothing but hurting their image, the fanbase and the franchise, so you maybe just stop making anything GW2 related anymore and just move on to another game and leave GW2 R.I.P., leaving it to NCSoft to turn it into an full korean / chinese money grabbing gemshop game .

b) You really try your best, but somehow we say A and you understand B all the time.

c) Quote from Youtube error: "Sorry, something went wrong. A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation. If you run across on of them please tell them the following error code: “abcdblahblahblah1234”.

• No it’s not, absolutly not, or please tell me when did you ever enter an store on an online shop, where they limit your ways of purchasing or trading something in a way you have to buy or trade bulks of one currency for the other, and if you don’t have enough yet, you can’t buy or get enough to precisly match the price they’re selling it for, but no, you have to buy or well pay 200-300 more of what they actually need, just to get it, so you can get it but have an left overflow of the curreny you have absolutly no need for right now. It just makes no sense, it’s sorry, nothing but stupid.

• So, just because there weren’t as many, but as you said there still were people, who did that, you just think: “Yeah, screw them folks, there’s not that many of them, won’t make a big deal will it, right?”. So you just made an group of players buying at least some gems or trading at least some gold to gems or vise versa, completly obsolete, just screwing Anet because in the end because they of course now decide to not give a kitten anymore and to not purchase anymore at all, good job.

• Just revert it, end of story.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Tulki.1458:

Immediately before this patch: 10g = 70 gems.

Immediately after this patch: 10g = 57 gems (going off the 400 gem exchange rate).

They tampered with prices to make gems more expensive at exactly the same time as they removed the price history and made 400 gems the lowest increment you can buy in. Did anyone else see this? No other holiday event has had that big a fluctuation before.

Hey Tulki,

I wanted you to know I went immediately to see if I could get an answer on this, and don’t worry, there was no “stealth nerfing” of gem costs. What happened is a common occurrence with new builds: A whole lot of people made exchanges when the new build went live. And as you know the conversions are market driven.

So that’s why you saw the seeming discrepancy in the exchange rate. All is well, and it will continue to ebb and flow according to the volume of exchanges, as always.

No it won’t, that’s just a lie, at least in my humble opinion of another player in this game, no one in his mind would just blantly use this new exchange system without checking it out and seeing its disadvantages, except those who are, sorry again, not meant as an insult, toddlers or maybe mentaly not fully capable people who obviously play this game and give their support tickets and metrics to you, which must be, scaringly, a lot out there. And any programmer, coder, scripter, call it what you want, would write their code to at least consider the previous ingame metrics of exchange rates etc. to automatically adjust it’s rates to it as soon as the new build goes live with it, there may be a couple of minutes (which still even is a very high amount of time for code to calculate and adjust) to synchronise with it, but not after more than an hour into the new build, sorry.

Sorry for the long post, I just had to get this off my chest, feel free to delete this post if you don’t like it and / or give me an forum warning or whatever.

Regards

New players don’t have enough gold to convert at the lowest increment. How can this be for new players?

This answer doesn’t make sense…

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

How about the suggestion that I have seen posted around for FOREVER? Let us enter the number of gems we WANT TO PURCHASE, which will then tell us how much gold it will cost. It’s a really simple and straightforward interface change, and will prevent outrage like this from you forcing “locked” amounts.

I’ve seen other games do it in the past that had gem-to-gamecurrency conversions. You pick what you want to “buy”, you pick a quantity, and it tells you your purchase total. It functions pretty much exactly how the trade post works, so unless you’re going to start telling us the trade post is “too complicated” for new players (and yes, I"m getting EXTREMELY tired of being told the player base is stupid, in not so many words), then I think there are larger problems at work here.

(This being said, I’m not upset at you directly Gaile. I know you’re great with the community, and I know you’re taking the brunt for all the poor choices lately. But, there have been a LOT of poor choices lately, and I think this is the most blatant of them.)

lordkrall.7241:

I wonder how long it will take before ArenaNet simply decides to shut down the forums altogether. Every single thing ever done in the game is just met with massive rage and hatred here and very little constructive and useful comments.
Might be a better idea to just shut them down and spend the time and resources on the actual game rather than having to wade through all the kitten here.

Yes, we wouldn’t want a game that people enjoy playing would we?

Player base rage and hatred are the result of poor decision making.

I’m not saying the recent changes are bad, just controversial. The problem (in my opinion) is a lack of meaningful communication between the game and the player base.

The reason that this item is so hot, is because it was thrown out there with no discussion, and in response to a problem that was not perceived by the players.

Thanks Gaile for all the informations.
I have no problems with the changes but i can understand the angry players.

I like the ideas behind the option with the individual sliders AND the new system.
So you can change the amount of gems/gold on your own and have the “fast method” like it is in the moment.
Maybe a option when you click the icon for gem/gold.
They are so shiny when you hover with your mouse over it.
I tried to click them after the change, in the hope i was able to change there the amount of gems. XD

Make it clickable, so you have a new menu/window where you can select the individual number for gems/gold.
And add a information under the new information.

“Players trade Gold…. " >add new Information> “Click on one of the icons above, so you can adjust the number…”

Maybe o _o

Oh… and have a good night.
And greetings from germany. x_x

SRoode.7318:

What I would like to say is that the thing that is most upsetting to me is that the devs spent valuable time redoing this exchange system when the time would have been better spent (IMHO) adding new content.

Exactly. Any time spent on “improving the gem-buying experience” is time not spent on making the things I’m buying gems for them to make.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Errant Venture.9371:

Add an option buy gems in 100 gem increments instead of making 400 gems the smallest denomination possible. Problem solved.

THERE! Thank you, Errant Venture — that’s a solid suggestion with a reasonable tone. Thank you.

This is not a solution. What about sale items? Or for that matter, small items that don’t come as some clean multiple of 100 gems? There is no increment that will be satisfactory apart from 1.

lordkrall.7241:

Koviko.3248:

Every time they make a bad decision, we have to get up in arms or they won’t do anything about it.

Oh I don’t know.
Have this community ever tried to not start raging the same second something is announced/released?

Normally I would agree with you, but I think this is pretty egregious. This isn’t content that they needed to keep us in the dark about. This is pure marketing and it’s gross. I should be able to buy 101 gems if I want because if have 349 and just want exactly 450 gems to buy 5 BL Keys then that is what I want.

Gaile Gray.6029:

fellyn.5083:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

And yet in the history of this forum there has never been a post saying “the gem exchange interface is confusing me as a new player” or anything similar.

Really? You’re 100% certain there’s never been such a post? Good for you, then!

Concerns of this nature come in via tickets, when someone takes the wrong step, buys too many times, isn’t able to process the acquistion or exchange, etc. By the time someone’s on the forums, they’re usually comfortable with the systems.

I have kept quiet for so long with all these updates and the living story hoping that something nice might one day come out well, since I loved GW1 so much. But this is too much, you are saying people could not figure out the gem store but somehow figured out the travesty that is the ticket system?

How can the player base trust the devs if they wont say anything about changes that are coming instead of always saying well its easier for the new players, all the veterans can deal with it and suck it up. Who are you testing all the new content on that cant follow simple instructions or take the time to learn?

There are great suggestions in the thread already like adding the extra functions in a tab. Hopefully it wont turn out like the commander pin fiasco where they “listened to the players” but probably already had it planned out from the beginning not to charge extra for the colors to get good publicity.

I will continue playing the game but GW2 has forced my hand to resub SWTOR since they at least are adding content, help their player base and have TEST SERVERS.

lordkrall.7241:

I wonder how long it will take before ArenaNet simply decides to shut down the forums altogether. Every single thing ever done in the game is just met with massive rage and hatred here and very little constructive and useful comments.
Might be a better idea to just shut them down and spend the time and resources on the actual game rather than having to wade through all the kitten here.

you cannot expect a community to give constructive critisism about such nonsense. what they’ve done here is just not reasonable. let’s take, for example, the foil-wrapped candy that costs 25 gems… would you spend 70 gold for 400 gems, just for that? i don’t think so. even if they allow a 100 gem exchange it’s still a broken system because i only need 25 gems. when i go to my bank and want to exchange money, i can choose how much to exchange. and that’s good. because if they don’t allow me to do that i just go to another bank.

I just have to thank. With this new UI in gem store I’m free of temptation of buying gems.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Bellizare.5816:

LOL, looks like torches and pitchforks time.

And Gaile, people are reacting in an understandable manner.

It’s because they are angry.

The big question in my mind, is why?

Yeah, I was thinking the same about the pitchforks and torches.

I don’t discount players when they are upset, though, and I truly understand that sometimes things hit close to home and cause some angst, anger, upset, any sort of reaction. (I’d think it was possible to have the discussion without it devolving into unpleasantness, but then, I always was an optimist! )

I asked a quick question of a team leader about the changes. I thought the answers were pretty clear so I posted them. But if you want more info, maybe there’s more to be learned and I’ll ask about that tomorrow.

The way you treat the people in this forum with your so called ‘sarcasm’ tells enough of what Anet thinks of us.

Anet just destroyed these peoples perspective on the gemstore and trust and faith in the game. But I’m sure we’re all glad you understand this.

Carambola.1273:

I just have to thank. With this new UI in gem store I’m free of temptation of buying gems.

Accurate summary is accurate. Right now, they don’t deserve our money. At least they’ve made it unappealing to try to give it to them.

I would like to see a combination of the old system and the new one. Just give us a second tab, where we can choose how many gems we want to exchange. Since this system has already been in the game and you folks got the code, it shouldn’t take too long to implement.

To be honest, when I first tried exchanging gold for gems after the update I thought this was a bug, not a new feature. To say the least – I don’t like it at all whatsoever. It feels like the devs haven’t thought this one thru at all.
If I want to buy 5 WXP boosters I only need 495 gems. Not 500, not 400 nor anything else. All I need are exactly 495 gems.

there’s one simple solution that i’ve always wanted since launch, and that i kinda hoped this new UI would bring, but didn’t:

“buy a different amount of gems”. it’s simple. you keep the current pre-defined packs for convenience’s sake, but if anyone wants something different, they can just insert the amount of gems they want and the system will give them the price. so for example if someone just wants to buy one of those 150 gem items, they can do it by clicking this separate button, typing “150”, and seeing if the gold price suits their fancy.

I can’t believe u actually did this !?
Ur destroying everything and ur pushing us out of the game .. Please if u want ur players to stay … Do better then this !!
U can do better then this !

Sorry, 2:30am here so I’m not reading through 8 pages. However, my suggestion would be that anet allow you to ‘top-up’ your gems when you click on the Buy option of the item you want. So if you already have 325 gems and want to buy something for 400 gems you click it and get an option to top-up by 75 gems at the current exchange rate.

If that was in place I wouldn’t mind the bundled gold/gem packages being the norm on the TP all that much. At least I’d have a choice of ‘I only want this item and I’m 43 gems short’ and ‘I have too much real world cash I must swap for digital currency asap’.

Apologies if this has already been suggested – bed time now…

I will only say one thing.

You, Anet, dissapoint me.

How is it less confusing for new players to convert x gold to an uneven number of gems or vice versa?

Can’t read the whole topic, but please just revert it to what it was, this stuff is just ridiculous.

This is horrendous. I’m done.

Two years of playing, more than $500 spent on gems, more than 9,000 achievement points… This is a complete and total turnoff, coming from someone who doesn’t even convert gold to gems in the first place.

My first reaction when opening the new Gem-Gold exchange UI was this:

“Ok, streamlined presets that make for easy one-click purchases; alright, not bad. Now how do I buy a custom amount of gems?”

I honestly thought I overlooked the button that lets me input a random amount of gems. That’s why I came to the forum to double-check.

So having a button “buy custom amount” added to the current interface would feel a lot more natural to me.

Edit: Clicking the button would spawn a popup window, where you put in the amount of gems you want to buy and it shows you how much it would cost you in gold.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

New players don’t have enough gold to convert at the lowest increment. How can this be for new players?

This answer doesn’t make sense…

Ah but it does.

New, mad-keen player wants some gem store thing. Maybe just one foil wrapped candy (another thing I hate to see in games). Has nowhere near 75g. Now has to ask mum to get her credit card out.

It’s a dark pattern, plain and simple, to “encourage” additional real money spending.

It’s well known that the first real money transaction is the hardest to get. See numerous offers in just about every smart phone game, for that first RMT.

drowze.3709:

My first reaction when opening the new Gem-Gold exchange UI was this:

“Ok, streamlined presets that make for easy one-click purchases; alright, not bad. Now how do I buy a custom amount of gems?”

I honestly thought I overlooked the button that lets me input a random amount of gems. That’s why I came to the forum to double-check.

So having a button “buy custom amount” added to the current interface would feel a lot more natural to me.

This this this. This seems like a perfect solution…please ANet “fix” it by adding this button.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’d think it was possible to have the discussion without it devolving into unpleasantness, but then, I always was an optimist!

It’s very easy to see how this change leads to folks paying extra money for more gems than they want because they can no longer exchange in small increments. It feels like we’re being played to pay more.

And you don’t get why folks are angry about this? Really?

The new system is easier to get clear numbers on, BUT the old one shouldn’t have been removed.

This is a great example of catering to casuals. like the gem conversion system wasn’t simple enough

Koviko.3248:

The main issue is that we have to purchase gems in bulk of 400 gems. That’s too much.

1) 400 gems doesn’t match Gem Store prices. Of the 12 feature items on the gem store, only one could be purchased for gold without any gems left over.

2) 400 gems is expensive in gold. If I have enough gold for 200 gems but not enough for 400 gems, I can’t get 200 gems. But there are items on the Gem Store for 200 gems.

3) 400 gems is more expensive than “new players” could afford. It took me a year to have 75g. I wouldn’t still consider myself a “new player” after a year. If this is geared towards new players, 400 gems is a hefty price.

4) Conversion History let us know when to buy. Transparency helps the customer. We’ve lost the transparency. We have no idea when is a good time to buy or sell, now. We liked knowing.

This.
Also, Anet, please drop the “for the new players” bs. New player =/= incapable of understanding a simple gem-to-gold interface. You’ve been pandering to “the new players” for a while now and I can understand some of it, but this is reaching a new low. A microsoft low.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/187861/microsoft_xbox_live_points.html

Here’s how you make money Anet: Put things in the game people want to buy, release an expansion that people want to buy.

Here’s how you lose money and players: Keep trying to kitten people over so that they spend money by making the alternatives massively inconvenient.

You want to repeatedly give the finger to your customers? That’s fine, don’t expect me to be one of them.

And drop the “new player” bullkitten, no one is falling for it. Keep making updated of this quality and you won’t have any new players.

X T D.6458:

Here’s my proposal

Change it so we can buy in increments of

x100
x50
x25

Problem solved.

Not for anyone who ever once converted gems to gold as they are not in round increments of 25. They are now forced to have a random, albeit fairly small, (depending on exchange rate) amount of gems left over they can never use.

Custom conversion of an entered amount is the only fair way.

Oh my Gaile you seem like a nice person but your PR rep is going to have a heart attack when they see this

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.

What could be simpler than?

I want _ Gems. I must pay _ Gold.
I want _ Gems. I must pay _ Dollars/Pounds/Euro.
I want _ Gold. I must pay _ Gems.

The user can change the value in the first blank to match whatever amount the user wants. The other “blank” updates automatically.

Restricting the amounts one can purchase to certain set values does nothing to reduce confusion. In fact, it creates confusion over, “Why the bleep do I have to buy 400 if I want 100?” What it does do is force people to buy gems they do not want or need right now. It also fosters resentment over what might appear to be money-grubbing on the part of the business — whether that’s actually the intent or not.

As someone who only ever bought gems with cash, this new system doesn’t affect me in the slightest. (In fact, it kinda makes it more convenient for when I buy gems to trade for gold, since I often sell the gems in the same 400/800 etc. bulk packages that I bought them in.)

BUT, I do agree that making the new system more flexible would be a good idea. Allowing people to purchase gems in 100 step increments (or maybe even smaller), seems like a fair compromise.

Dark Master Chief.7930:

Gaile Gray.6029:

fellyn.5083:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

And yet in the history of this forum there has never been a post saying “the gem exchange interface is confusing me as a new player” or anything similar.

Really? You’re 100% certain there’s never been such a post? Good for you, then!

Concerns of this nature come in via tickets, when someone takes the wrong step, buys too many times, isn’t able to process the acquistion or exchange, etc. By the time someone’s on the forums, they’re usually comfortable with the systems.

I have kept quiet for so long with all these updates and the living story hoping that something nice might one day come out well, since I loved GW1 so much. But this is too much, you are saying people could not figure out the gem store but somehow figured out the travesty that is the ticket system?

How can the player base trust the devs if they wont say anything about changes that are coming instead of always saying well its easier for the new players, all the veterans can deal with it and suck it up. Who are you testing all the new content on that cant follow simple instructions or take the time to learn?

There are great suggestions in the thread already like adding the extra functions in a tab. Hopefully it wont turn out like the commander pin fiasco where they “listened to the players” but probably already had it planned out from the beginning not to charge extra for the colors to get good publicity.

I will continue playing the game but GW2 has forced my hand to resub SWTOR since they at least are adding content, help their player base and have TEST SERVERS.

I also couldn’t help but be amused by the sarcasm directed by Gaile at a member of the forums who was trying to make a rather relevant point. I understand the pressure’s got to be pretty heavy right now, but I would advise the dev team to remember that this sort of lashing out reflects negatively on their brand as a whole, particularly in the eyes of people who might stumble upon it just in passing.

I can also attest from experience that the ticket system was a FAR greater headache in need of much more urgent fixing than any percieved (imagined?) problems with the gold/gem conversion interface. As such, I have a pretty hard time believing that newcomers to the game would navigate the former seamlessly in order to express bewilderment at the latter. All in all, this change feels poorly thought out – and in the spirit of offering constructive suggestions, mine for the time being is to immediately change the conversion interface back to how it was before, down to the last pixel. This will still leave room for more gradual and subtle improvements to be made further down the road after considerable time spent tweaking, testing, and anticipating potential downsides that would impose undue inconvenience upon veteran players.

Guys and gals. Let us all vote to return the OLD one. They r just milking us. $_$

This new system really sucks, I can’t buy anything under 400 gems because i’m force to use 75 gold to get it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.

I am trying to remember the last time that, in order to buy a t-shirt at Macy’s, I first had to buy tokens that were only sold in denominations greater than the price of the items I desired to purchase.

The goal was to increase revenue without providing any more product or better service to the customer. The closest thing to making, “the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences,” actually going on here is Anet’s attempt to follow retail trends surrounding creative repackaging in order to increase revenue while providing less product.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

You have a point.

[suggestion] Please avoid unethical business practices.

Gaile, this is shameful.
All I ask is a bit of decency.
This really make some of us feel like customers of lesser category for you :/

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

lolwut.
What did I just read…my mind can’t even comprehend the amount of kittens.
You claim you have made it for the newer players because it was confusing? Fine.
What was the problem to add “Custom amount” link in bottom of window though?
I was new player once, never had issues with gem store.
Why do you still think majority of people will buy that bs PR dropped from the suit guys in 2014?

Here are my three suggestions:

1. Smallest increment for gold-gem conversions should be the cheapest gemstore item. If you want to jump up to 200 or 400 for the next rate, that’s fine, but someone should be able to impulse by a booster, or for halloween, shiny candy without have to get more gems than they plan to use in the immediate future.

2. The gem-gold conversion increments should be based on how many gems you spend, not how much gold you earn. This is the thing that really bugged me with the new system, as there is pretty much nothing in the gemstore that is bought with a gem amount that isn’t a multiple of 5, and noone wants to be stuck with an odd number of gems that they will almost never get to use.

3. Give us a button that allows us to convert all of our gems to gold, especially if you stick with the gem-gold conversion increments being based on the amount of gold you will get. Pretty much the same as point 2, give us an option to get some use out of the handful of gems that would otherwise sit in our accounts unspent because there is nothing that can be bought with so few.

I will say this much, having denominations calculated like that is fine by me to save me the trouble of getting exactly the number of gems even by a little bit. But I think it’s best to have the option of having players type in their denomination rather than flat out removing it altogether.

I feel like replacing the old system with this is a very poor decision. While this system is easier to use, it’s frustrating for people that do not want to purchase a large sum of gems. You should have instead incorporated this new system WITH the old system. I would only use the conversion if I was off by a few gems (eg: 200 gems in wallet, desired item is 250 gems, use conversion to get 50 gems).

The new system is easy to use but you need to bring the old system of choosing any desired amount back as well.

A smaller amount of gems like 100 would be good so that you can adjust your exchange to what you need.

But also, i understand that you want to make it more simple, but why not have it both ways? The new way were you can pick a set number AND for the more experienced, give them a box were they can choose their own number like in the old system. Does not have to take more space, just add a line in the bottom for those who want to choose their own numbers. This way both groups are happy

So just logged in and took a look it’s $200-300 for a pay to win Legendary. Looked through the preview option that they’ve added since I last really played. Gawd those models look old and dated. How about MAYBE $20 maybe.