Guild Wars 2

Sithaco.4673:

Serum.4067:

As a frequent gem purchaser, maybe 10-20 dollars every paycheck, this change will keep my money in my wallet. Never buying gems again as long as this system is in place. Very distasteful ANet. You’ve lost yet another customer with your unnecessary changes and horrible decision making. I know a cash grab when I see one. Sad to see such a revolutionary and innovative videogame slowly being ruined due to poor management. You’re bleeding yourselves out….

They were probably expecting this, but worked out they will make more profit then losses, from the people unnecessarily buying extra gems.

In the short term anyways.

CorvusofMorlich.8450:

islarose.7356:

Sithaco.4673:

I love how they seem to focus on fixing problems that no one here has heard people complain about, rather then fix the problems people are very vocal about.

Preach.

A thousand times THIS.

You know, I’ve played a lot of games, and almost every AAA title available. I know there are always discontent players, and they come with the territory. I’ve never counted myself one of them. Until now.

I’ve never seen a game implement such mind boggling changes before or since GW2. Two years into the development of this game, they decide to change a very simple, effective, and rather self-explanatory ui for “new players” – despite the new players of the last two years managing just fine, when there are many other issues, that are given much more weight among the existing players, that go unaddressed.

Trust me, the gem conversion ui wasn’t the element chasing away or hindering new players. I get it, if this is an attempt to encourage more gem sales rather than conversions, or something, but I still can’t see the logic behind investing your resources into this, of all current issues. Whoever is managing this, and giving these very poorly thought out projects that reflect an overwhelming disconnect with the player base needs to be put under review. Because that person is FURTHER hurting your game and your loyal players.

I honestly feel bad for your dev team, because this is just another entry in an embarrassing streak of blunders. This game could be improving, you could be retaining the players who are bored out of their minds, having exhausted every element of available content, but instead you insult the intelligence of both the veterans and the new players by thinking the game needs to be made simpler…. That is the last thing GW2 needs, it’s plenty simple enough by comparison with every other major competitor on the market. If not the simplest.

We were all new players once, and it would seem the majority of us did not have an issue with the conversion ui. It’s nice that you’re considering the few who opted to write tickets rather than spending the few seconds it takes to understand the very simple (and informative!) ui. Perhaps you’re broadening your demographic to the simple minded?

FINALLY, I’m curious as to how many “new players” have the gold to even bother with conversions? What about the wealth of items in the store that are less than 400 gems, like most of your consumables? And is this tied to your practice of pricing cosmetic items at amounts that exceed the gem purchase options, ensuring additional purchases/higher revenue? Not only does one have to buy more than they need when purchasing with cash, but now we can’t even convert gems in a precise manner with our game currency? I assume so, as now converting gold to make up the difference is prohibitive. Is this an attempt to show gem store sales in a more favorable light, seeing as players won’t be able to collect their “change” (9 gems? seriously?) and thus are more likely to spend it?

I don’t have any constructive feedback but I’m scratching my head as to why this change was really needed. I’ve seen the reasons and there be something I’m not getting.

KStudios.2850:

Skarg.6834:

Another case of making quality of life worse with an update.

There’s nothing else to really say here…

Why?

WHY?!

Are you trying to force us into buying gems? I can’t see any other reason for this change. I’m trying not to go all tin-foil hat conspiracy mode here,but… What other purpose does this serve? The lowest option is seriously 400 gems? What in the gods names names was wrong with the previous system?

First forcing us to map with the new trait unlock system…

Then the breaking down of the leveling system that only made the game more tedious and and highly unfriendly to new players…

Now this…

I don’t even…

Who are you people?… And what have you done with the Anet execs that designed the game we fell in love with and took the MMO gaming world by storm in 2012? Cause you’re certainly NOT they.

I agree, Anet died today. Ashes on the wind. Nothing they could ever do will make up for the hate they bred in me with this change. Looking at the Tera installer right now.

Hello,

We have a game quality, but Arenenat chose destroy him with bad choice ! I want to choose the amount, not to be impressive there. Especially that the prices have wrongly to rise all at once. Who coincidentally nop ?

And sorry for my english, i’m french … I want to talking and want listening …

Bye bye !

People of this thread, do NOT worry

I’m really sure ANet is listening to our feedback and working on the fix to the problem *, just like trait system, hobosacks, lags, FPS issues, and many other game breaking bugs!

.* ANet to English translation: shoving the problem under a virtual carpet waiting for every one to accept their fate/forget about the mess.

Every month I buy $20 worth of gems and sometimes I also buy a percent of my income with gold. This month I’ve already made purchases and have 628 gems remaining, not enough to buy the new Count outfit. I was planning to buy gems with gold but was stopped by the unexpected need to buy 400 gems, when I wanted only 72. No purchase for me. Maybe next month, if it’s still for sale and I haven’t reconsidered.

Wtf. Yesterday in old system – 100 gem = 14,20 gold
Today after STUPIDY exchange system 100 gem = 19.25 gold….

Change back to old system exchange or i smell that alot ppl will stop play gw2.
Or change one option to buy 100 gem for gold…

This path is baddest path ever. Copy-paste old halloween, stupid exchange system….

Last year was gratefully, now is bad.. very bad >< Alot of breaks with LS for months, 1 new map giving in parts no new dungs… wasnt SAB… in mine opinion you still break and break game in every next paths. Gw2 have 2 years…. most of games (even Neverwinter or Aion) gave alot of new maps, instances etc…

Bad Anet.

Constructive criticsm:

“The old system was better in any possible respect. Bring it back ASAP”.

There, done.

This must have been the “point of no return” Anet was talking about.

I get the feeling a lot of players won’t be returning for the next updates.

Wasbunny.6531:

Somewhere in the world there is one 9 year old who is looking at this change and saying, “Whew, finally I can understand how to buy gems with gold without hurting my brain.”

So yes that single player thanks you for this. Mission accomplished.

But, but, but, the game is rated “T”

So if i want to buy the Noble Count Outfit that cost 700gems, i have to exchange to 800 and lose money!?

If anet thing this will work to make me(others) buy gems with real money guess what!? i wont buy the outfit and done!

Aexo.6491:

Not spending another cent on this game so long as this system exists, full stop.

Serum.4067:

As a frequent gem purchaser, maybe 10-20 dollars every paycheck, this change will keep my money in my wallet. Never buying gems again as long as this system is in place. Very distasteful ANet. You’ve lost yet another customer with your unnecessary changes and horrible decision making. I know a cash grab when I see one. Sad to see such a revolutionary and innovative videogame slowly being ruined due to poor management. You’re bleeding yourselves out….

I completely concur… I honestly wished I’d noticed this change before I picked up the new outfit. And I’m just about the same in habit, approximately $10-$20 per paycheck. So that’s now three of their TP-whales they’re losing until this system reverts back to old form. Do I hear more? This needs to backfire so hard.

DDRitter.1872:

Best option should be: How many gems do you want? Fill field form. Then you show the costs. Accept or Cancel. Simple.

If the intent really was to make the UI less confusing, that is exactly how it should have been implemented. It can’t possibly get any more clear and customer friendly than that.

Rather than this current UI which not only makes sure that the smallest conversion rate costs a sizeable chunk of gold (70-80 gold is quite a lot for the newer players who are supposedly the target audience for this change) and also cleverly uses big conversion rate gaps in order to create some excess gems – which in turn are supposed to cause the “Oh, I got X amount of gems and this item only costs Y more… Maybe I should get some more gems” -reaction.

Aren’t ArenaNet staff trained professionals who have been around the business for quite some time? I mean, you break a system that had no flaw in the first place, then ask us for constructive feedback on how to make it better? Shouldn’t it be self-explanatory? Then again, you probably knew that.

What’s worse?

Maliciously altering an already perfect system just to rake in more money at the expense of your player-base?

or

Expecting us all to really be that naive? It’s a proverbial slap in the face to everyone who has stuck around despite everything.

If you’re in need of more revenue, fine, that’s totally understandable, as you’re a business just like any other, but you should go about that by making new content to attract more customers, not squeezing your current customers for even more money in such an insulting way as this.

The kindest way I can put this is it sounds like empty PR speak. But it’s the first day of this release and you’ve always played fair with us in the past so I’ll give the benefit of the doubt.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• 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.

I can’t make this constructive.
You’re alienating experienced people for the new people. That is always BAD. You can make things easier for new players without sacrificing things experienced players use.

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.

This…does not make sense to me. I can understand new players having trouble, I’ve been there and I don’t begrudge Anet trying to make things easier for them. If you want it to be like other shopping experiences, that’s fine. But if you’re going to claim that as a reason, then your system should match it.

Any time I’ve used a shopping system that had presets like that, it started with smaller units. They start with the smallest useful amount, in your case I think that’s around 25-50 gems. All good shopping systems I’ve used that have presets also allow you to input a custom amount which is what you had previously. You can make the presets the default, you can hide the custom amounts behind another click, but you still need them to have a robust system. Pure and simple, you have a better shopping system with it than without.

It would have been so much better had you left the ability to add custom amounts. There would have been almost no additional coding for you, just a slight UI adjustment to account for it. I’m baffled at any reason for not leaving this feature. It doesn’t make sense.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• 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.

This is irrelevant. Why does the buying habits of the majority invalidate the buying habits of the minority? You’ve taken away something that I could use and replaced it with something I can’t use. How is this good?

For those casual players that have a harder time earning substantial amounts of gold you have effectively made it impossible to buy gems for long periods of time. If your business model is based on gem sales, why make it harder for people to buy them? That feels counter intuitive for me.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• 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.

This…this……this enrages me. I can’t begin to describe to you the amount of alienation and anger this statement inspires in me. “When it’s practical and desirable”? So you do something that your customers don’t like, then you say you’ll fix it when it’s practical? No, when you do something that your customers don’t like you fix it immediately or you risk losing customers. This is not a threat, it’s how the business/customer relationship works. If a customer is dissatisfied, the business makes it better or risks the customer leaving. I won’t leave over this, but if it’s not acted on soon then I’ll have a hard time accepting future changes I’m on the fence about.

I’m not trying to be mean or antagonistic, but that’s kind of human nature. There’s only so many things a person will accept that they don’t like before they start to act on it. For me, this is that turning point.

Bottom line, put the custom amounts back on the TP in some form. At the very minimum, put the presets down to 25 gems. Anything less and all you’re doing is alienating your customers.

My solution : Revert the change or add a custom selection.
To avoid future mistake, blame the higher manager that let this change pass (salary cut/downrank/no profit shared). Management is about to take responsabilities, this guy have to take it.

KStudios.2850:

Aexo.6491:

Not spending another cent on this game so long as this system exists, full stop.

Serum.4067:

As a frequent gem purchaser, maybe 10-20 dollars every paycheck, this change will keep my money in my wallet. Never buying gems again as long as this system is in place. Very distasteful ANet. You’ve lost yet another customer with your unnecessary changes and horrible decision making. I know a cash grab when I see one. Sad to see such a revolutionary and innovative videogame slowly being ruined due to poor management. You’re bleeding yourselves out….

I completely concur… I honestly wished I’d noticed this change before I picked up the new outfit. And I’m just about the same in habit, approximately $10-$20 per paycheck. So that’s now three of their TP-whales they’re losing until this system reverts back to old form. Do I hear more? This needs to backfire so hard.

/signed

The fourth gem whale. $50-75/mo. No more. Not until they pull their heads out.

If new players really are having an issue, which I highly doubt they aren’t as I figured this out first time when I started a few months ago, give us an advanced option where we can choose how many gems we want to buy.

I’ve rarely bought gems with gold, usually buy them straight out but this change has made me rethink if I should support GW2.

I made it to about page 7 or 8 of this thread… took a while, and now I don’t have time to play.
But what is worse… now I don’t really WANT to play.

I was seriously thinking about buying an additional character slot recently.. but being the cynic I am, I try to never pay full price for anything, because, only people who have so much money they can throw it at anything and everything they want without batting an eye, and complete idiots (or people with no self control whatsoever… pretty much the same thing in my book), actually pay full price for anything. So I figured I’d wait for the right market conditions to convert gold to gems, and shoot for a previous on-sale amount of gems that a character slot would cost.

But now…

Well, now it isn’t just the easily apparent issue of “the sale price of an on-sale character slot doesn’t match any of the preset gem purchase amounts”… it’s the whole “fleecing your customers” mindset that this seems to stem from.

Not sure if anyone previous, has brought up the connection with the trading post, and how they “fixed it to be less confusing” by not letting you see what actually goes in your pocket from a sale, and instead showing the fees off to the side, making you do the math to end up with your actual profit… because we all LOVE to do math, instead of these computer thingys that can do it a million times faster and more accurately.

Oh, but it’s not about what the customer wants, is it? It’s about what we can get out of them.

Everywhere you look, companies providing a product or service employ more and more methods of just plain lying to their customers, in an effort to get as much out of them as possible before they are distracted by the next “thing” to come along.

Being the jaded person I am, I honestly think many of them really don’t care about their customers beyond what they can get out of them… but what makes me sad is that I’m pretty sure there are some that just “buy into” the “marketing research” that seems to pervade our world, that says you WILL fail if you don’t employ the very same methods.

“Everyone else is doing it, so you need to also, otherwise those drooling simpletons out there will just get hooked by someone else’s flashy, shiny, zero substance, bait and switch, bullkitten, and completely forget about you”

I don’t know if Anet is one of the “evil to the core, we care only about the money and will stop at nothing to milk every last penny out of our customers” type companies, or if they are just one of the “but everyone else is doing it this way, and we are just going to die a slow, agonizing death if we don’t follow suit” kind of companies…

And frankly, at this moment, I don’t really care.

I think Sickdreamz.8401 summed it up nicely earlier in this thread:
“When are these kids gonna ever learn, you want a successful business that will never die? Concentrate on quality and they will stay and play”

It’s apparent that Anet is concentrating on ways to part a fool with his money, instead of offering a quality product.

So I’ll possibly play a bit longer, until I finish my in game bucket-list… But you have lost any chance of ever getting any more of my money Anet.

And I hope your death as a company isn’t as slow and agonizing as you feared, though I suspect it very well may be…
However, on the flip side, if these methods sustain, or even bolster your company… I fear the stain on your soul may never wash out, so… kind of a lose-lose.

My condolences.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

Increments should be 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1200, 2000.
This covers your bases and still keeps things simple.

Add a custom amount button that lets people put in a custom amount like they could before.

That’s it.

I’m sorry, but my patience runs thin when you want to say this is for “convenience” when the denominations are 400, 800, etc. And you just released an outfit for 700. Really? With a straight face your going to say that this new system benefits the customer? Just stop.

Own up to the fact that its a coercive tactic. I won’t call anet monsters for it, they are a business. But this charade of trying to play it off like it’s “better for players” is bull. Period.

My feedback to the team is that this will leave me with weird and apparently random amounts of gems when buying gold for gems, and that makes it feel like it’s really out of my control so I don’t want to do it. I don’t like feeling out of control with my money.

If the old interface was confusing, please give us an option to use it while keeping the new interface as a default. I don’t mind an extra step to the process but I don’t want my control removed completely.

I’d also like to see the graph return as that gave me a good idea of what the economy was up to and when might be a good time to convert my money.

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.

I understand the reasoning but the result is below,

.1- new players get an easy system, vets get a system they have enjoyed taken away. We were new players once and were fine and have stayed the course.

2 – the UI is clearer defintely and looks good. Having increments was unnecs though, a separate button for the rest of us to choose our amount in a slider as before would have given you the best of both worlds. The very minimum should be small increments, but realistically none should exist. There will always be confusion and there is a limit to how far you can dumb a system down.

3 – the uniqueness of such a great and lauded system has been heavily watered down.

4- a kitten storm on the forum. Many posts are unnacceptable, but the tone suggests an overwhelming feeling towards the changes. This shouldnt be wholeheartedly ignored as feedback, since it shows an unwelcome change.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

Interestingly enough, many players’ suggestions fall into oblivion, even though most are really about game breaking (or at least experience hindering) issues.

So, let’s say, if I submitted a ticket because it was too confusing to have a legendary for me, would you remove legendaries for every other player? I think not, so why does the team do that with the rest of the game? Sincerely, it seems like all you care about is money and new players to buy a new game. Here’s a secret: if you made a high quality expansion (not 3 missions then 6 months before a broken update) instead of awful, useless, terrible, and buggy updates, new players and veterans would buy it. It’s hard to believe, is it not?

And if I’m being too rude, I’m sorry: I’m confused by good manners, so I removed them from my education.

islarose.7356:

KStudios.2850:

Aexo.6491:

Not spending another cent on this game so long as this system exists, full stop.

Serum.4067:

As a frequent gem purchaser, maybe 10-20 dollars every paycheck, this change will keep my money in my wallet. Never buying gems again as long as this system is in place. Very distasteful ANet. You’ve lost yet another customer with your unnecessary changes and horrible decision making. I know a cash grab when I see one. Sad to see such a revolutionary and innovative videogame slowly being ruined due to poor management. You’re bleeding yourselves out….

I completely concur… I honestly wished I’d noticed this change before I picked up the new outfit. And I’m just about the same in habit, approximately $10-$20 per paycheck. So that’s now three of their TP-whales they’re losing until this system reverts back to old form. Do I hear more? This needs to backfire so hard.

/signed

The fourth gem whale. $50-75/mo. No more. Not until they pull their heads out.

Now we’re talking! We need more! This has gone too far this time.

How is it easier for new players when buying gems with in-game gold starts at 75 gold? It took me a year of playing to get that wealthy.

It seems to me that the only thing that gets easier for new players is to not convert any gold at all and use real money instead.

Which is fine, if you admitted that much.

ShadowKatt.6804:

I made it to about page 7 or 8 of this thread… took a while, and now I don’t have time to play.
But what is worse… now I don’t really WANT to play.

I just came back to the game today, after having played ArcheAge, WildStar and SWTOR for the last month or two – having been bored out of my skull and with no desire to farm in GW2 – and I don’t know if I’m going to bother logging in tomorrow. I mean, they make these ridiculous decisions, then try to justify it with horrible reasoning, and just when you think, maybe they’ve learned, maybe they’ll focus on what actually needs to be done, and “it can’t get worse than that”… they totally outdo themselves.

My hope for this game has been waning since the launch of LS2 and the stark contrast to the fun that was LS1.. but now? Now it’s just bad. I want to want to play this game, I want to enjoy it, and yet I can’t. And these decisions just kill any hope I have for the future, and the potential that they’ll eventually figure it out and offer something worthwhile.

Sure, they’ve been trying to balance with the China client, and perhaps they’re preparing for an influx of new players, but they’re also kind of setting the grounds for a second mass exodus by repeatedly insulting and alienating their players. And that’s unfortunate and unwise.

I was a producer for an indie dev, obviously on a different scale, but I honestly can’t understand this change. I can’t figure out the logic of the person who made this call, and others like it. It’s like they’ve never played an MMO beyond some precursory QA testing. They just don’t get it. They seem to have never have lived the MMO player experience, with the rise and fall of title after title. And that’s sad, because this is a beautiful game with amazing potential.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

And if I’m being too rude, I’m sorry: I’m confused by good manners, so I removed them from my education.

Oohhhhhhh snap.

This is simply atrocious. This smells like planned cash milking from players, offering gems only in increments that doesn’t even fit the prices in the gem store. Want to buy both that 700 gem outfit, and that 200 gem accessory? Sücks for you, you gotta get 1200 gems, and let the rest of those gems röt.

I’ve never been a gem whale, I’ve only spent a total of 80 €, but I have enjoyed converting some of my ingame gold to the occasional black lion key, and therefore participated in the gold sink that is necessary to sustain an MMO economy.

And enough of the “new players are dümb didly didly doo”, if that’s the problem try fixing it by not taking a dümp on the rest of us who understands the system.

Must not… provide a sarcastic answer… to the title question… must resists…

But anyway I like the new interface, it’s nice and informative and although I do think having the ability to select specific amount would have been ideal in addition to what they did I don’t take it as any sort of personal insult, mostly because I’m a fairly self confident type of guy and thus don’t take every little things all that seriously or personally.

I honestly don’t like the new conversion system. At the very least I can understand making a new interface that’s easier to use, but why take away the ability to customize the amount of gems you want to acquire? It just doesn’t make sense. Rather give both options so that all players are happy than just give one very restrictive option to placate newer players.

Quite honestly, I mean this with all respect, but ANet is really dropping the ball lately. I don’t know what kind of company makes changes that upset their long term customers who have supported them over these past two years, and then try to defend it as if our feelings are invalid.

So Gaile asked for suggestions on how to fix this – that’s just hillarious! The problem and the solution are so simple and they stare you right in the face. Will you seriously not see the corpse in front of you if someone won’t come to show you a death certificate? Is that corpse a happy citizen enjoying his zhaitaffy icecream until this happens? =))

But fine, let’s play this game.

The interface was changed, that’s great. A good change. And what do we get with the new change? Limitations to how many gems we can buy. Increments of 400. We can no longer buy what amount we wish to buy, we are forced to buy 400. A useless, unneeded and unasked-for change. And this change was not discussed with the community to see what the players think about it and see if it is needed BEFORE IT WAS IMPLEMENTED, it was completely unannounced slammed into our faces. And about the useless part – it’s useless to the players, but not to ANet, right? Because this forces people to either spend a lot more gold than they wished or to just buy gems with cash. And if you have 300 gems left over and you want something which costs 350 gems, what do you do? Do you buy 400 more gems with gold and use only 50 of those, or do you chunk in another 10 euros and get 800 more gems? Mmmmm. But, hey, this isn’t a cashgrab. Because of reasons.

You want a suggestion? Remove the fixed increments. Let people buy as many gems as they wish. NO FIXED INCREMENTS. Is that a simple enough suggestion?!

Pretty much my only complaint about the old system is that the exchange worked the wrong way round. Nobody wanted to type in the gold value they want to turn into gems – they wanted to type in the number of gems they want to buy and get told how much it would cost.

Maybe this is what they were trying to fix when they screwed this up? Like I gigantic failure to understand the problem resulted in this being implemented as a solution?

This new system is stupid and Anet is stupid for thinking you can blame it on ‘easier for newer players’ and get away with it.
The old system wasn’t exactly rocket science and did it’s job well.

The new system is blatantly broken, due to the way gems are bought now you will either always have to many or not enough.
Yeah, it looks nicer but it’s completely useless to anyone, well, maybe not useless, but certainly stupid enough to turn a majority of players away from using it.

No, I’m not going to buy gems, with gold or with dosh until the system is changed to a state were you can select how much gold and how much gems to buy/trade.

The repeated excuses by Anet were they simplify or ruin a system in a game to make it easier for ‘new players’ is starting to become really tiresome and it’s only a matter of time before they see their player base drastically shrink over this.

Please either add a custom amount button and/or change the increments of fixed gold/gems to more reasonable ratios.

Next outfits at 700 ? copy paste !!!

Look : http://hpics.li/944c738 and next image !

islarose.7356:

KStudios.2850:

Aexo.6491:

Not spending another cent on this game so long as this system exists, full stop.

Serum.4067:

As a frequent gem purchaser, maybe 10-20 dollars every paycheck, this change will keep my money in my wallet. Never buying gems again as long as this system is in place. Very distasteful ANet. You’ve lost yet another customer with your unnecessary changes and horrible decision making. I know a cash grab when I see one. Sad to see such a revolutionary and innovative videogame slowly being ruined due to poor management. You’re bleeding yourselves out….

I completely concur… I honestly wished I’d noticed this change before I picked up the new outfit. And I’m just about the same in habit, approximately $10-$20 per paycheck. So that’s now three of their TP-whales they’re losing until this system reverts back to old form. Do I hear more? This needs to backfire so hard.

/signed

The fourth gem whale. $50-75/mo. No more. Not until they pull their heads out.

/signed.

I spent a lot on this game both as thanks for the new content and to support future content.

Looks like I was supporting the wrong people with the bad ideas.

I’m here to discuss it:
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.
NOPE.

Like the new interface, but the fact that I can’t customize the amount of Gems I want to buy is ridiculous, and the fact that none of the amounts offered (as I believe you have been told) match ANYTHING on sale is not only exploitative, but insulting. Did someone actually sit down and think that the playerbase is too stupid to realise that we will end up buying more gems than we need just to get the things we want?

Please, either remove the preset amounts altogether, or at the very least allow us ALSO to add custom amounts.

My constructive criticism:

1. Put in the old UI alongside this with every functionality. Not having to keep guessing the amount of gold you need to put in for gems for instance is good, but only together with the option of custom amounts. Also removing the history graph is just a blatant, shameful attempt to keep customers in the dark. Imagine if people at the stock market could only ever see current rates.

2. Apologize to the playerbase for trying to screw them over and sugarcoating it with obvious nonsense about new players and convenience that no one kittening believes.

3. Stop insulting the playerbase’s intelligence with moves like the one mentioned in point 2. Veterans are no fools. New players are not mentally handicapped.

4. Read up on current business practices, what is trending and what is not acceptable anymore (hint: this).

5. Have some dignity and get rid of the utterly incompetent skrittheads sitting in the business/management department to whom nothing is sacred on their crusade for the almighty buck. I’ll have to add, they are trying to win battles in that crusade equipped with rubber swords and catapults that shoot flowers and supplies at the enemy. Meaning they have absolutely no idea what they should be doing to actually not alienate players and increase profit. Which is, read up on actual player suggestions, do stats on which aspects are most popular, and work on those. It’s really not rocket science.

/signed

RIP gem store

Requiew.6893:

Next outfits at 700 ? copy paste !!!

Look : http://hpics.li/944c738 and next image !

That’s for the Chinese game: skulls are a bit of a touchy subject.

About the cost: you can buy 800+400 gems, you’ll get the outfit and a finisher! Or you can simply buy 800 gems and lose money in the process to revert your gems into gold, it’s more convenient and less confusing!

Gaile Gray.6029:

• 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.

I’m sorry Gaile, but I have to come back to this. I’m trying to understand it and I can’t. How are you defining new players? Is this for players new to the game, new to using the TP, new to the CE, new to shopping online? What are you defining as new? What scenarios were happening that prompted this change?

Unless they buy gems with cash, a player won’t be able to afford gems for the first 6 months of the game. Maybe 3 if they farm a lot. If you farm enough to be able to buy gold after 3 months are you still new to the game?

If they’re new to the game do they really understand what you can do with the things you buy on the gem store? And if not, are they buying gems anyway?

If it’s a convenience issue, why don’t the presets match the cost of things in the store or vice versa? When I click on an item to buy, why doesn’t it just ask me if I want to buy that many gems if I don’t have enough?

I have a feeling there is a fundamental disconnect between what the players see as a workable system and how things progressed on the dev side to make this system. What did you see happening that made you want to do this? Why did you make the decision to remove the old system instead of adding to it? What scenarios did you play with this system compared to the old system to see what problems it fixed/created?

Nothing in this is making sense to me and I’m really trying to understand it. Maybe if I understand how this went through development I can understand it better and accept it.

Seriously, I’m not trying to be snarky or sarcastic here. I want to understand.

Just put a 1 gem and a 10 gems (and even 50 and 100 if possible) option and everybody will be ok I guess… Even the “new” players… (you know I was a new player more than 2 years ago and I’m still here ? And 2 years ago, if the minimum price for gems was 75g, I don’t think I’d buy gems…)

To be honest i’m too disappointed to write down a “constructive criticism” not mentioning that i would be able to, of course.

After all the money i gave to anet, considering the game worth to be supported with a monthly fee from my side, this is the time to stop all this mindless love. I’m sorry but i feel insulted as a player and as a person provided with a brain too. And so i think about new players: they don’t deserve to be treated like children with special needs.

Just a hint: changes like this one, should be tested before, introduced with a sperimental period, alongside with the old features to see if they reveal successful among players or not.

If you just wanted to make business this is not the right move. You could have received much more money from me with the old system. That’s what.

I’m very sad now.

I’m all for trying out new things, but this is just awful.
I really don’t want to give away 80 gold for 400 gems when i don’t need that much. I mean, if the exchange rate was 1:1, MAYBE i would think about doing it, but now i’d just make a pretty hefty net loss and be left with extra gems i can’t spend..
You wanna make it easier for new players? Fine. I’m willing to believe that reason (even if the method to do it is hilarously misguided). But you don’t have to do that by making it “harder” for old players. How about just keeping the new system, but giving us the OPTION to type in a custom amount if we choose to?
Anet can continue to milk the system, people with less gold on hand can still afford keys for chests, everybody’s happy… ish.

15 pages yet no Vayne, where is he ? i miss him, is he on a payed vacation ?

ontopic: just add a custom setting so that players can buy how many gems/gold/whatever they want.

Tulki.1458:

The damage is already done, even if they revert it back. They artificially inflated gem prices the moment the patch released, and ripped the price graph out of the game UI and disabled the gem price function call on the API to hide it. That’s why if you go to GW2spidy the gem price graph hasn’t updated since the patch but everything else has.

Don’t even think for a second that this change was done to accommodate a certain type of player. Gem prices don’t naturally spike 22% in the span of ten minutes, not even on a patch day. That has never happened in the history of GW2, even on the anniversary.

I’ve defended this game since launch, but this…this is just too far. I’ve never seen gem prices spike anywhere near that much overnight. It just doesn’t happen. And that this happens just when the history graph disappears and the API stops working? It’s not fishy, it’s obvious.

I think it might be time to move on. There’s something sinister going on behind the curtain.

apocalyps.7106:

15 pages yet no Vayne, where is he ? i miss him, is he on a payed vacation ?

ontopic: just add a custom setting so that players can buy how many gems/gold/whatever they want.

I’m here. I’m perfectly fine with most of what’s been said here…and have nothing constructive to add.

if you want to make new AND old players happy leave the new interface as it is plus add a “buy custom amount of gems” button. problem solved <3

I’m currently sitting on 1 spare gem. Is that gem going to live there forever since i can’t buy 399 for the next 400gems item? can’t believe how messed up this is.