Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

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.

See ANet? Even Vayne, who ALWAYS sees the bright side of updates, is disappointed. Even if the most optimistic of us all doesn’t like the change, it sure isn’t a good one!

brokenrabbit.6538:

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.

actually it easily could.
see the gem exchange is feuled by people buying gems, now people are angry, they dont want to support anet, but people still trade gold.

the rate goes up, because its based on gold in the system versus gems in the system. This combined with Popular halloween in GW2, and a system which will generally cause more spike purchases of gems, (since everyone who wants to exchange needs to buy 400s at a time) essentially guarantees increased gold to gem ratio. My guess it will get higher.

the only balance is that it will look more attractive to those who want to buy gold. they may bring the rate down.
still, anet will profit, so in the short term its probably a big win. The marketing feedback though, may lead to an overall negative outcome. If people lose trust and leave the game, yeah they will make more per player, but they will lose a lot of players

Hello,

What happend with the gem exchange? I only can buy in certain amounts? Thats not very friendly? I liked it way better when i could just decide how many gold i wanted to spent on gems now its 400 800 1200 2000 so whenever u are a casual player u cant buy anymore in little amounts so to save up overtime…imo a very bad change I have never been good in saving up so i buy some gems for 1 gold every time and that is now gone? Wow well thanks a lot.

Greets

One step forward, two steps back.

Yeah, this does make it easier to make quick purchases through gems. But the price categories line up with very few of the items actually available on the gemstore. And converting gems into an amount of gold makes NO SENSE at all.

How about this: change it back to what it was, and allow people to buy specific items directly through the gemstore. There’s a button which says “buy with gems” and then you put a button that says “buy with gold” and it shows you how much gold you have to spend and you click on it and you buy the thing. One click, no muss, no fuss.

I am so very, very tired of yelling at ANet this week. So. I’ll keep this simple.

/Signed

And also regarding the sudden and dramatic change in the exchange RATE of gold to gems being generated solely by the new build…prove it. Wait, you can’t because you got rid of the trend history.

Putting that aside, we know it’s a lie. We know it was a price fixing. I’ve seen patch shifts in the market before, heck I count on them to make ANY sort of real amounts of gold since you started nerfing loot. A regular patch will move the exchange by maybe half a gold in a DAY of play. A big patch usually moves 1-1.3 gold in a day.

Your new exchange moved it anywhere between 3-4.5 Gold in less than 5 hours.

The math doesn’t add up. It. Does. Not. Add. Up.

It is nice to be able to pick the amount of gems I want and the gold cost auto calculate; however, I hate being forced to buy more than I want when converting gold→gems or not being able to convert all my gems→gold. These arbitrary increments only serve to rob players of their money or gold. A 1 gem increment has to be available on both sizes of the conversion before the full value can be used.

I don’t even know why you have a gem/gold conversion tab to begin with because you could simply have the auto converted gold price next to every item in the shop. Then players could directly buy items for gold, while player that wanted to buy gems and covert to gold could simply buy it as an item “Convert 1/10/100/1000 Gems to Gold” which also auto calculates the gold value.

This conversion step is a waste of time.

If you’re insulted by this, and taking it as “arenanet thinks I am dumb”, then the problem is you, not arenanet.
Come up with a problem for the simplification and streamlining of content other then “Because it makes me feel insulted”, and we’ll talk.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Vayne.8563:

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.

See ANet? Even Vayne, who ALWAYS sees the bright side of updates, is disappointed. Even if the most optimistic of us all doesn’t like the change, it sure isn’t a good one!

You really don’t get me at all…or you simply ignore my negative posts.

Imagine you’re on a trip to Madagascar and want to buy a souvenir for 25 Malagasy ariary; unfortunately, the currency exchange guy only lets you exchange 400 Malagasy ariary. ‘Why?!’ – you ask; ‘Some travelers found it confusing that you can exchange any amount of dollars,’ – he says. ‘What? I’ve never seen such people, everyone I travel with can deal with currency exchange quite fine!’ – you say; ‘I tell you there are such people. Period.’ – he says. ‘What I gonna do with the extra 375 Malagasy ariary?’ – you say; ‘Spend it the next time you visit Madagascar,’ – he says; ‘But I’m never coming here again!’ – you say; the currency exchange guy smiles and shrugs.

Gaile,

thank you for jumping in and posting the reasoning behind the change, but I’m afraid it doesn’t really help in this case. I feel like explaining.

Why people are raging:

• They feel like ANet is covering marketing decisions with good intentions, this being not the first time. The new system forces to buy extra amount of gems for small purchases; once done, the extra amount of gems forces people to get more gems to spend on something else as otherwise it will feel like wasting money. Unfortunately, many people past the teenage age have seen similar systems many, many times and know how they feel about those.
• ANet’s gem shop has always been the best in terms of honesty among many non-sub games: only cosmetics and convenience, no P2W. Tactics which can be considered by players as dishonest undermine the trust in the model for many people (me included). Similar marginal tactics have already been used previously with 900 gems, 500 gems pricing.
• They feel like they’ve seen it before and know how it ends. Windows 8 told us it was comfortable easy; I spend most of my day at a PC and I hate it at how unintuitive, non-customizable and counterproductive it is. Microsoft knows better, as always… yet the sales were awful and now Microsoft has to roll out a free OS, removing their “improvements”.
• They feel they can come up themselves with similar “required” reasoning for anything which requires a change, depending on the goal. Like, “cannibalism is okay because human body requires meat to function properly”. The evident faults in the reasoning are omitted for the sake of the goal.
• Game designers have known for a long time how “removing things” affects players, especially loyal ones. If you remove freedom they had once, they are not happy. If you do it multiple times (limited skins, server identity, traits, phasing out BL key skins, mixable town clothes, PvP armour skins, NPE level gating, estimated profit, variable amount gem exchange), they start raging with torches and pitchforks. It kind of builds up.

Why people are not giving feedback:

• Because previous system worked for them.
• Because there is one best source to model currency exchange after (if you’re aiming for increasing usability, not gem sales): real world. Look at the example in the beginning – it describes the situation perfectly. Luckily, 375 Malagasy ariary is less than a dollar; this is not the case with gems though.
• Because artificial limits are nothing but usability, no matter how many times you say it. Even if we omit the currency exchange model, one can always take out their wallet and see what banknotes they have inside: 1, (2), 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 dollars. Why? Because it was determined to be efficient. Now tell me of an ATM which only gives you 400 dollar banknote – I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that; when they give out money, they even mix large cash with small cash!
• Because customization (along with backward compatibility) is the core of usability which has been used for a long time. That’s why so many people prefer Linux to Windows. Want a new UI without testing it? Okaaaay… but then just add a large horizontal arrow bar on the bottom which switches to the old UI. Here, I fixed it!

That’s my share of feedback. I don’t think it will change anything, really, because businesses are ruled by marketing departments nowadays, not the “we want to create the best game ever and make all the gamers in the world fall in love with it for the rest of their lives and never feel cheated or tricked” departments.

Vayne.8563:

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Vayne.8563:

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.

See ANet? Even Vayne, who ALWAYS sees the bright side of updates, is disappointed. Even if the most optimistic of us all doesn’t like the change, it sure isn’t a good one!

You really don’t get me at all…or you simply ignore my negative posts.

Most of the time you are optimistic, and I must admit I barely see any negative posts from you. It was not a criticism towards you at all.

/signed

I bought a lot of gems since I started in GW2, way more than I would like to admit… but if its going to be like this, I’m not spending another penny until this is changed back. Bonus points if we get an apology over this bad move and/or new content.

I’d rather go and make purchases in a game that allows me to buy exactly what I want without any leftovers… swtor, here I come!

I have a question, I have 1 (ONE) Gem leftover from recent transactions. With the current system, that 1 (ONE) Gem will remain in my account wallet for eternity, because there is nothing to buy for 1 GEM, I can’t trade it for gold AND I can’t buy for example 399 Gems to make 400 Gems to buy something. So yeah… that 1 (ONE) Gem will stay there forever right?

I usually buy a set amount of gems per month as a treat for myself. After spending most of them, I am usually left with about 20 or 25 gems left, which I always converted back to gold to get rid of the ‘loose change’ as it were. Now I can’t, or I can but only if the lowest amount of gems > gold is a number that 20 or 25 is divisible by.

Having said that, it’s not exactly the end of the world.

I do not like the new Gem exchange. I only wanted 200 gems, why did you change it, Please change it back.

Just having an extra line providing us the ability to input a custom amount of gems or gold? (see attachments)

We would still have the QoL of just pressing 1 button to buy bulk amounts and an improvement over the old system (which was convoluted, as I had to input gold to see its conversion to gem, then if that wasn’t the amount I was shooting for I had to tweak my numbers)

Another fail by Anet. Now how will be spend the 1-9 gems that we have left!?

KDXX.9520:

I am so very, very tired of yelling at ANet this week. So. I’ll keep this simple.

/Signed

And also regarding the sudden and dramatic change in the exchange RATE of gold to gems being generated solely by the new build…prove it. Wait, you can’t because you got rid of the trend history.

Putting that aside, we know it’s a lie. We know it was a price fixing. I’ve seen patch shifts in the market before, heck I count on them to make ANY sort of real amounts of gold since you started nerfing loot. A regular patch will move the exchange by maybe half a gold in a DAY of play. A big patch usually moves 1-1.3 gold in a day.

Your new exchange moved it anywhere between 3-4.5 Gold in less than 5 hours.

The math doesn’t add up. It. Does. Not. Add. Up.

I remember when Belinda’s Greatsword skin was released, the spike in GEM price was huge

Honestly, what’s to talk about? They went full kitten with this. You never go full kitten. What they should have done is allow you to enter the amount of gems you WANTED to buy, and it would show you how much it would cost. Not the reverse, which was utterly annoying.

But I know I won’t be buying gems until things are fixed.

(Honestly, I’m over the forum profanity filter. Maybe I WANT to turn it off. I have an account, I have profanity filter off in game. Make the filter on unless you log in and turn it off as a suggestion. Is it that difficult?)

Didn’t see this thread, just the handful in the BLTC forum.

If you insist on this please add an option to sell all gems at once, rather than force us to sell piecemeal and end up with leftovers. Also add an option to allow us to buy a specific amount of gems. I’m willing to accept increments of 100 gems. 400 gems is a rather high bar for a lot of players to buy at one time, in terms of gold, and that was before this spike to 20g per 100.

I don’t know how you expected us to react over this but it nobody there should have expected anything but outrage. While players had asked for the ability to buy a specific amount of gems for whatever gold was required rather than guessing consecutively, this isn’t what they were asking for.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-the-new-Gem-conversion-Merged/first

I don’t know who came up with this briliant idea but you’re missing something A-net I want (and more people want)100 Gems not 400 as I already have that and the ghostly mini’s cost 500.
Over the last couple of months I really wondered if you LISTEN to the idea’s and feedback of the players and the longer I think about it the clearer the anwer becomes NO!
Where this is a good start you guys should’ve thought about the people that just need a few extra gems and given them the option to get them even less then 400 but did you do that no you didn’t as that would be a smart move and it seems that A-net is against smart moves.

I hope you guys would do us a major favor and start to LISTEN to the feedback and actually do something about it instead of farting around like you’re doing now.

But I honestly doubt that someone is going to read it but atleast this makes me feel better.

-One major disapointed player (just like many)

Well. Well . Well. There you just lost 20€ I wanted to spend Anet. Sure it is not much. But think about how many people will do the same. You will lose more money then you gain in the long run.

I have 6 gems that I cannot convert to gold. Thanks for stealing my money anet

I want to buy something for 200 gems but the minimum is 400. Thanks for stealing my money anet

I want to convert 200 gems to gold. I have to do 9 transactions for it. Thanks for wasting my time anet

But I can’t convert the whole thing because i get stuck with 6 gems remaining (at current values) which is less than 1g. Thanks for stealing my money anet

tl;dr: this new gem exchange is borderline criminal, in my opinion

penelopehannibal.8947:

Having said that, it’s not exactly the end of the world.

While I agree with the statement, it’s still an absolutely horrid augment to the game. This is evidenced by the near-universal panning of the patch since it went live.

However, the part to be up-in-arms about is the speculation behind the change, which was only exacerbated by the official response from the community manager and the team lead in charge of the change in question.

I believe many people in this thread came to a relatively similar conclusion that this was a purely business motivated decision. The fact that ArenaNet would lie to our faces about it (and in a none too endearing tone) is even worse.

Not to throw Gaile under a bus because I know she likely had no direct involvement in any of the changes. And sitting inside the heat of an angry player base is probably not her favorite part of the last 24 hours, but there’s no way even she believed those words when she typed them.

Am I right that Anet removed the option to buy arbitrary number of gems?
I usually buy like 100 at a time, or however my actual balance allows. This makes absolutely no sense, why did you take this away? Did it harm anyone?

Please restore previous gem exchange or allow us to buy arbitrary number of gems.gold in the exchange panel.

This is a horrible change. The old system was so much better as it allowed me to buy the exact number of gems that I needed.

The concept presented by Dawntree looks like the best solutiom IMHO.

I want to be able to spend as many gems (or gold) as i like. Why should you force me to purchase an ‘amount’??? If have 750 gems, I want to buy 750 gems worth of gold! if I had 120 worth of gems, and I wanted to spend them all on gold, why couldn’t I? Today I had 650 gems, and wanted 50 gems to get an outfit. I couldn’t get the 50 gems with my gold, so I go without. This is not fair for either party (gem buyers AND gem sellers). Do not punish us because you have no faith in new players intelligence. It is unfair and rude.

I wouldn’t care if it was something like 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600…but 400 min @ 400 increments is kitten stupid and reeks of greed

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.

Let’s tackle each point in order:

* 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.
Okay, fine. New players have a hard time with it but it should not have removed the “veteran” option of being able to convert as-is. GW2 is only my second most played MMO and the first I’ve played with a cash conversion. I figured out pretty quick that converting x amount of gold yielded y gems at least once I’d got past the wildly different playstyle compared to City of Heroes.

EDIT – I’ve just had a look in-game and it’s a confusing layout. Buying gold on the left depletes from the right and vice-versa. I don’t see how that’s easier or simpler than the old ‘convert this and you’ll get xxx’

* 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.
It feels more like a voucher/reward card system by only allowing certain amounts. Or like the old Microsoft points system for Xbox Live (which they’ve abandoned for precise money amounts).

I’d prefer something like the Steam wallet. That gives you options to put in prefixed amounts OR the exact amount of your purchase. But that’s obviously a basket system where purchases get lined up before exchange.

* 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.
Actually that was me. One of my first gem purchase were the khaki shorts. After gathering up about 15-20 gold I converted 12ish of it to gems just to buy them. I later went for the Layered Vest and Casual Hoodie in an as-and-when. When permanent tools came out I decided to buy a gemcard, bypassing the conversion altogether. But I appreciated having the option available to convert back and forth in particular amounts.

* 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.
Just add a custom amount option at the bottom and put ‘advanced’ or ‘veteran’ or some other suitable warning. Best of both worlds then. Vets still have a full custom option and newbies can pick bulk packs.

Aveinda.9260:

I want to be able to spend as many gems (or gold) as i like. Why should you force me to purchase an ‘amount’??? If have 750 gems, I want to buy 750 gems worth of gold! if I had 120 worth of gems, and I wanted to spend them all on gold, why couldn’t I? Today I had 650 gems, and wanted 50 gems to get an outfit. I couldn’t get the 50 gems with my gold, so I go without. This is not fair for either party (gem buyers AND gem sellers). Do not punish us because you have no faith in new players intelligence. It is unfair and rude.

hint, its not really for new players, its so you have no choice but to buy 400 gems with gold, or 800 gems with cash.

you can either spend your excess gems on another item, or you can convert it back into gold, at 30% loss.

So you ll either have to pick up some crappy cheap items you normally wouldnt buy, or you can get even more gems until the things you want go in evenly to how many gems you have (close to evenly)

This could also hurt the economy and future revenue from gem store sales.

Since it’s far less attractive to convert gold to gems now, less gold will be drained from the economy, potentially leading to more inflation.

Gem Store sales are percentage based. It’s now less appealling to buy gems for them, since you’re left with gems you might not be able to use, impacting the ‘impulse buy’ that drives a lot of sales.

Bad for us, but bad for Anet too.

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.

Did Gaile just Clark Gabled us?

“Frankly my dears, i don’t give a kitten .” Walks away

YOU GUYS ARE NOT GETTING IT AT ALL. Sorry for the caps, but I needed to draw your eyes somehow. It might be long, but please if you’re a player reading this thread, read this.

This is not going to change. This is the biggest community backlash in Guild Wars 2 history, and they have done literally nothing to fix it. Instead, they’ve created a false front of asking for “feedback”, acting like this is all some big mistake and they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They’re trained professionals and know exactly what they are doing. If they wanted to “fix” this, it would have been done by now, as there are two extremely simplistic ways of going about it. They could have either reverted the system back to its previous state, or added in an option for purchasing an increment of 10 gems. Has either of these happened? No and you’re living a pipe-dream if you think either will. The amount of revenue generated by causing players to either save up huge amounts of gold, or cave and buy gems, far outweighs the loss of players some players refusing to purchase gems. “Sad”, is an understatement for what many players feel about this recent change, but there is nothing you can do to stop it. People will either grow used to it or fade away, choosing to leave the game altogether. Neither of which is going to drastically impact their sales enough to fix this issue, and I use the term “fix” loosely, as this is the system they really want. Welcome to how things are now going to be done around here. Wouldn’t it be amazing though if ArenaNet actually tried to make more revenue through putting out solid content, thus attracting a large audience, instead of squeezing their current customers for more money who stuck around through everything?

Oh, and if I actually get a red response, since the only argument presented as an excuse for this colossal screw up, is that new players found the previous system confusing, allow me to retort.

• Players who are new, do not have access to nearly enough gold that is needed to purchase the now standard increment of 400 gems.

• If they do have enough, then they’ve been quite a busy little worker, haven’t they? Not really “new” to the game then, many would say.

• You claim these issues stem from players who have submitted tickets, claiming the said issue was too complex. If someone finds it that drastically hard to simply type in a number (gold) and look at the other number that results from it (gems), they are probably not age appropriate to be playing the game in the first place.

• If X amount players submitted tickets saying they find the process to acquire a legendary weapon too complex and confusing, would you then drastically simplify it at the expense of everyone who came beforehand? Exactly.

I will be truly amazed if anyone from ArenaNet tries to even take on this argument. It won’t be much of a surprise if it’s just swept under the rug like everything else that could possibly compromise the business model you want.

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:
…..
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 made my bullkitten detector going of scale….

On a more serieous note
- The cheapest TP item atm is 25gems

So everyone with less than 25gems should be able to exchange them into gold or add up gems to 25.

There are 2 ways to do this
1) be able to convert 1 gem into gold
or
2) be able to buy 1 gem with gold

As 1 gem is useless to buy anything with, buying 1 gem with gold is probably to difficult to understand for the “new” player

Therefore i suggest:

• be able to convert 1 gem into gold (i dont mind doing this 24 time to get rid of my leftover gems)

• the minimum amount gold -> gem conversion should be 25 [aka cheapest TP item]

The thing is, I can’t even spend my 750 gems on gold now. I can spend 678gems and get 100 gold, but what happens to the left over 72 gems?? This is madness. And irritating.

Needs “Buy 100 gems” option.

Also perhaps the option to type in the number of gold/gems you want to buy, like before.

Just my opinion.

I think the best solution to the gold to gem conversion system is:

Everything on the BLTC has a gem price next to it currently.

Add the ability to mouse over the gem value, and it will display a gold value based on the current conversion rate at the time of mouse over.

A person can click this gold value and auto convert to make the purchase on the item.

They won’t have to worry about the math themselves, or worry about sliders or any of that.

Than keep the manual gem to gold/gold to gem conversion system as it was for the power traders, or the people just seeking to dump off the remainder of their gems into gold.

In the interim, if you insist on incremental value (for the sake of the new player confusion), set the incremental value to 25, as it will fit far more items at their current prices. The incremental value needs to be the most common denominator.

This is just a greedy money grab.

ANET if you want to make more money, the right way is to make a good game, a good update/expansion, or simply put out more gems store items.
Not by dumbing down the exchange method in order to force players to buy more gems than needed.

All this ragestorm shouldn’t come up in the first place, you brought it up and are accusing that players are ranting and not giving good suggestion…..lolwut?
You broke a fine system and are asking people to give suggestion on how to fix it? Stop kidding me lol.

And do you really think that “confused” new player will have so much gold to buy 400 gems straight? Giving the reason “helping confused player” just seems to be the worst lie ever.

This is disgusting.
You just lost my faith in you, and I believe many people’s too.
And I don’t think it will benefit your business in the long run.
Good luck milking every single penny out of your players. lol

This is crap. Its easy to use, yes. BUT where is that extra window where u can convert the ammount YOU would like to convers as DAWNTREE has illustrated further up on this page. That is how it should have been done!

And with the cost gems have… U’ll have to save up A LOT of gold to get 400 gems….

One simple but elegant solution for both parties could be lowering the minimum of from 400 to 100 gems.

The nature of gem prices is in hundreds of gems, I never found myself getting less than 100 gems. I like nice looking numbers. Buying directly 100 gems with the new layout is my personal most optimum.

What I don’t get in all of this, is that all the changes or fixes players ask for all the time are pretty much ignored. Condition fixes? Nope. Craftable precursors? Nope. The return of Tribal armor? Nope. New weapons, classes or races? Nope. New, meaningful end game content? Nope. Dueling? Nope.

But when it comes to stuff that no-one actually asks for, or in some cases is even detrimental to the game as a whole, sure, no problem. Let’s add that stuff.

Reworked trait system that makes leveling more of a pain? Yep! Turning town clothes into tonics that can’t even be dyed, despite some people spending money to buy it? Yep! Reworked gem conversion system that introduces huge inconveniences? Yep! More outfits when people are asking for armor instead? Yep! Changes to the story system to black lion keys can’t be farmed anymore? Yep!

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. As a gamer who has supported this game for two years and even spent money on it where I can, I frankly feel insulted. I actually feel bad for vets who keeps trying to give the devs constructive feedback as to how they can make the game better, only to have it constantly ignored. Instead, we get changes that we not only didn’t ask for, but ones that actually inconvenience us or make certain game systems worse, rather than improving them.

I don’t get it. I just really don’t get it. Does ANet have absolutely no interest in keeping their long-term customers? Is there really such a severe lack of understanding between the devs and the players, that these kinds of things keep happening over and over again? Or is it simply a blatant disregard for player wishes in favor of making as much money as possible?

Aveinda.9260:

The thing is, I can’t even spend my 750 gems on gold now. I can spend 678gems and get 100 gold, but what happens to the left over 72 gems?? This is madness. And irritating.

buy gold in lower increments with the 78.
that problem amounts to
10 gold for like 68 gems or something
1 gold for 5 gems
anddd you get to keep 3 gems till the exchange catches up, or something like that.
not user friendly? yeah, but thats not really the point, its all about the cash

every gem created is paid for, when you go gold->gems->gold, you essentially destroyed some gems. AKA anet gets money without providing a good or service, well you get the service of them making change for you.

lol imagine if a store charged you 30% of your change to make change for you.

As a concrete proposal, I recommend the following change: change the steps to 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000.

Advantages:

- same number of steps (5), so the UI doesn’t need to change, only numbers. This should be a minimal effort to develoopers
- lowest tier is 10, which is (in my opinion) reasonably precise
- reasonably few clicks to get the required amount

Disadvantages:

- 30 and 300 look ‘weird’. If an increased number of steps is an option, I’d recommend 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000.

Hi folks,

I’m a designer working for ANet and I’ve been reading up this post. I always read forums and believe this is the first time we have had negative feedback, so hurray for us for keeping it up so long. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback.

Anyway, I understand everybody being mad, so I’m glad to announce that starting next week, the option to convert Gold to Gems will be removed. This will make it all much easier to understand for both new and veteran players. The reason for this is that we have had a lot of tickets from player who complained to have actually used gold instead of real money to buy the gems.

On a side note, I’ve been reading up with Gaile’s posts since the early years of GW1. I was glad to see her returning to this position, hoping to have some influence on what’s happening to GW2. I always thought she was a fair person who stood up for the community, and would discuss points with people in projects and management teams, pitching the voice of the community.

It saddens me to see her lying.

This change is not only bad, but the excuses used for the change does in no way give a reason for not also adding field for arbitrary conversions at the bottom of the list.

I currently have 104 gems. I was toying with the idea of getting it up to 125 gems for a lion key or 150 for transmute charges. But with this change.. Why the hell would I even consider it?

Around here they don’t expect you to buy a full meal when you’re looking for a bottle of soda in the normal store, where is this “shopping experience” Anet are referring to?

Please reconsider this change, and PLEASE stop using reasoning that doesn’t even explain why. It makes you look dishonest and / or stupid.

When that’s said, I would also recommend that all Anet posts from now on consists of 4, 8 or 16 sentences, to make the responses more newbie friendly and to give a better newspaper experience. For us veterans that have been around the block a few times it’s no problem, but newer players will benefit from it.

Edit: I really want those devil horns… But with this new system, forget it.

Honestly I’d even buy the reason, iff the old screen is available behind another button or a separate tab.

It’s absolutely positive to offer a set of predefined “fast buy” options on the start page.

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.

I’ll explain where the discrepancy comes from clearly, so that everyone can see.

If someone wanted to buy 300 gems before, they would be converting gold into 300 gems only.

If someone wants to buy 300 gems now, they have to convert gold into 400 gems. That extra 100 gems gets factored into the supply vs demand in the currency exchange rates because the person bought 100 more gems that they do not need. And that is for EACH person. Let’s assume 500 people converted for the 100 extra gems that they do not need, that’s 50000 gems that was not supposed to be bought. That 50000 extra gems increases the gold>gem conversion rate by X amount of gold, hence artificial inflation.

There is a very good reason why Bank notes and coins exist in the following manner:
$1 coins, $2 coins, $5 notes, $10 notes, $20 notes, $50 notes, $100 notes.
1 $100 note = 2 $50 notes = 100 $1 coins

If i were to receive $100,
I dont mind receiving 2 $50 notes instead of 1 $100 note. I do mind receiving 100 $1 coins instead of 1 $100 note though, as it would be difficult to carry.

If I were to receive 200 gems,
I dont mind clicking a “100 gems button” twice to get 200 gems instead of clicking the “200 gems button” once. I dont mind clicking a “50 gems button” 4 times either. I do mind having to click a “1 gem button” 200 times though.

If i went to a store, and hand them a $100 note for a $20 purchase, and they tell me they are unable to return me $80 in bank notes but they will give me $80 store credit instead, i wouldnt purchase from them.

So please, reconsider your Gold > Gems system with just this tiny little change:
1000 gems
500 gems
100 gems
50 gems

I doubt anyone will complain about clicking the “100 gems button” 4 times instead of clicking a “400 gems button” once…

Needs to roll back. It was easy peasey before, and elegant. Anyone not able to work out how to use the previous system, would find it hard to use ANY system.

Tyger.1637:

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.

Let’s tackle each point in order:

* 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.
Okay, fine. New players have a hard time with it but it should not have removed the “veteran” option of being able to convert as-is. GW2 is only my second most played MMO and the first I’ve played with a cash conversion. I figured out pretty quick that converting x amount of gold yielded y gems at least once I’d got past the wildly different playstyle compared to City of Heroes.

* 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.
It feels more like a voucher/reward card system by only allowing certain amounts. Or like the old Microsoft points system for Xbox Live (which they’ve abandoned for precise money amounts).

I’d prefer something like the Steam wallet. That gives you options to put in prefixed amounts OR the exact amount of your purchase. But that’s obviously a basket system where purchases get lined up before exchange.

* 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.
Actually that was me. One of my first gem purchase were the khaki shorts. After gathering up about 15-20 gold I converted 12ish of it to gems just to buy them. I later went for the Layered Vest and Casual Hoodie in an as-and-when. When permanent tools came out I decided to buy a gemcard, bypassing the conversion altogether. But I appreciated having the option available to convert back and forth in particular amounts.

* 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.
Just add a custom amount option at the bottom and put ‘advanced’ or ‘veteran’ or some other suitable warning. Best of both worlds then. Vets still have a full custom option and newbies can pick bulk packs.

I’m also someone who bought gems in small chunks. I bought a small amount of gems every day, a variation on cost averaging encouraged with 401Ks. It allowed me to save up gems at a better price than the post patch spike when everyone run to the exchange to purchase gems for that new or returning item at the Gem Shop. With the current changes, if I buy it’s more likely that it will be at an unfavorable time and with a significant percentage of my current bank at the 400 gem level.

And if I don’t have the gems to buy something I like because I’m stuck at buying 400 gem chunks, it’s not like I’ll go pay cash for gems. I’ll simply go without. Of course not being able to get the item on my terms means my opinion of this game is going to drop some. Because I’m not going to alter my play style simply to earn enough gold to meet your minimum purchase size. Others may and if that means they are “forced” to play a style they don’t enjoy, well that’s where all the talk about “grind” comes from. Doing stuff you don’t enjoy simply to meet some forced requirement, in this case enough gold for 400 gems.

alright , since ANET wants suggestion because they said all they hear from us is rant, let me suggest the denomination :

2000 gems
1000 gems
400 gems
200 gems
100 gems
50 gems
25 gems
1 gem