Guild Wars 2

Caledfwlch.3751:

This change is so bad it actually hurts my eyes when I look at it.
But the funny thing is, they (ANET) act like children now: “Dont hit us we did it for the new players”. LOL
SHAMEFUL DISPLAY.

Indeed! That’s what I’m hearing in TS every now and then.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Gaile Gray.6029:

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 what you’re trying to accomplish with this change, but as you can see in this thread, people get very upset when something they were able to do in the past is taken away from them.

My suggestion would be to keep the front page of the Currency Exchange as it is now, the new system to be less confusing to new players, but include a link to a version of the old page that would allow the slider for people who just want to buy 100 gems (or 5 or 28 or whatever other odd number). That way you have the best of both worlds.

+999999999999

If Anet can’t do this they are not smart. You did something for new players. All vets (a lot, you can see on this thread, i think your metrics failed you a bit anet if you see how many people actually like old system), got screwed. Add a small arrow to the right side, that if you click it, it opens completely the old system. a Graph page + insert gold amount to get gems.

Better yet would be to add the old page, and add one ‘a lot asked for feature’, wich is insert gems you want (like 700 for outfit), and it calculates the gold you need to pay. (basically both boxes that where on top of the old tp, you can insert values now, and when you type something, it calculates the other box.

Do that and you might completely salvage this situation. Do NOT DO this, and you will really really hurt your future.

If new players are holy grail, if super confused players are holy grail, you really think those players will still play, once they are even more confused about other stuff in game? Like RPG elements, WHAT is vitality and what does it do? As you imply Anet, these players are to stupid to understand it. You really think players who don’t understand stuff like that, will spam the gem shop, to get your goodies? This is so wrong in every possible way. And if you go 100% on this path, and not 100% go back release day gw2 way of thinking, then the future of gw1 will be bad.

Metrics is the new curse! They promise honest info, but they turn it around in a political twist to Poison the view of the owner. They have an addictive component wich makes it hard for number crunchers to stop involving themself in metrics. The gouvernement has acknowledged this new dangerous drugs and is looking into a solution. The bad thing is, if people are not willing to get out of the drugs, then the gouvernement can’t do anything since that would be taking free will. Metrics continue to be used by more people, and it’s reaching pandemic levels. Last people standing, not taken over by metrics, are doing a call to arms to find a solution to this ‘end of the world’ situation. A mother is begging Anet to stop using metrics on her child. She’s almost overwhelmed. She just has enough to say the words: ‘safe my child Guild Wars 2’, and falls unconsious.

Remember guild wars 2 before launch? You only had vets playing the beta, because that’s the way it goes. Only experienced and super motivated people. You basically had no metrics back then. Yet you STILL succeeded in making ultra amazing game. Why dumb down from then? Why rely on info that’s not reliable? Why if you change something, don’t bet on two horses? Why always just new players, and destroy vet players ‘most liked feature’. Just stop it already.

Rappelz is the definition of everything that can go wrong with an mmorpg. You again are getting closer to them in an alarming rate. Closer to rappelz = closer to extinction. You are still far enough from them to safe yourself, but kitten it just stop evolving towards them. Just stop it already. Send your metrics guy (i know you have one), instead to do research on rappelz. Write down everything. List what went wrong. Then learn from it. Cause if you don’t, you are making same unexperienced mistake as them, dooming your game.

Please, back the old system.

The new one is really a swindle… Stop try to steal our money and give us content !

I can’t help but wonder if there are all these people who are supposedly being confused by basic stuff like levelling and converting gems to gold and back how long it’ll be before dungeons are redesigned as straight corridors with parts you run through while holding 1 or V with a helpful prompt on-screen to remind you which one you need.

SpeedFiend.4521:

I can’t help but wonder if there are all these people who are supposedly being confused by basic stuff like levelling and converting gems to gold and back how long it’ll be before dungeons are redesigned as straight corridors with parts you run through while holding 1 or V with a helpful prompt on-screen to remind you which one you need.

Lol they won’t redesign them, they’ll just remove them.

SpeedFiend.4521:

I can’t help but wonder if there are all these people who are supposedly being confused by basic stuff like levelling and converting gems to gold and back how long it’ll be before dungeons are redesigned as straight corridors with parts you run through while holding 1 or V with a helpful prompt on-screen to remind you which one you need.

yup. +1
This also goes hand in hand with boss fights and open world boss fights.

Baddies with tons of HP and near one-shot abilities. Nothing interesting, just HP meatsacks with oneshot abilities. Nothing to learn.

And in open world PVE, no reason to use your abilities. Just spam #1, hit as many targets as you can.

Now I know why the patch took so long…you all wanted to get out of the office as quickly as possible after this travesty went live. You hoped that we’d cool off by the morning, but guess what. I slept on it before commenting and nope. This SUCKS.

I like the one page rather than the sliding page and I like the instant see the changes at the top. That’s where the like stops.

You’ve hidden the market data so you can do whatever you please to the gem conversion rate. Yes, when a new patch hits the cost spikes but it has NEVER spiked this much this quickly. This is absurd.

You want something constructive? See the attached image, print it out, hand it to the design folks and FIX IT.

You took away choice and freedom to give us a blantant cash grab in the guise of “simplicity for new players”

We are not stupid and you (the company as a whole) are treating us like children who don’t know any better.

It’s bad enough that buying gems with real world money comes in increments that rarely match up with prices in the gem store in order to get us to buy more than we need. Now you’re doing it with the gem to gold conversion too.

Rant time:
I am so bloody sick of hearing

• It was confusing to new players. – we’ve heard this enough lately it’s now a running joke. “Loot was confusing to new players so it has been removed from the game.”
• We’re listening to your feedback. – Okay this might be true…you’re listening, but are you actually HEARING what we’re saying as we voice our concerns? Just because you’re listening doesn’t mean jack. Actions speak louder than words.
• It is a bug but we’re “working” on fixing it. – See: Defeated Camera (That wasn’t broken in the first place but you “fixed” it), Missing Human idle animations, Personal story out of order, and so many others….
• I wouldn’t rule anything out – lies and slander. You rule things out every day. You change things without telling us (stealth changes to dungeons), completely dismiss good ideas presented in CDIs and know there are things you’re never going to do.
• It’s something we’re aware of and are thinking about
• and all of the other BS responses we get in interviews

For whatever reason you hide big changes like this conversion until it’s live. What harm would it be to show us a preview a week out from launch to get feedback? We could have given other options on how to simplify it and make it easier to use, instead you saddle us with a cash grab, remove choice and freedom and hide the market data so you can more easily tinker with the gold-gem conversion rate.

See the attached for my suggestion to keep the good with the old and fix it. The way it is now is completely unacceptable. I liked being able to get the just a few more gems to get another something because the real-money buying gems doesn’t match the gemstore prices. The new interface is terrible and is NOT for new players. New players can’t afford any gems at these prices, so whatever “metrics” you’re using are wrong.

Anet has lost my respect for them. Once upon a time I loved you guys, I loved you so much I sent a personal email to Chris Whiteside to voice my gripes…he said he’d “call” me to talk about things. I was overjoyed to think they cared that much to chat with an individual player, but the call got moved back and moved back and then never happened. I’m jaded and you continue to do things to further remove any respect I have for the company that puts out what in most aspects is an amazing game. Dangit, I love this game and the game play but you have to quit crapping on your veteran players. Why do you hate the ones of us who have been here since the beginning? I get it, I’m not a shiny new toy to play with, I’m the old worn and formerly really loved toy sitting in the corner….do I not matter anymore? /cry

Boinky.4092:

GW1 was generous and wanted the players to have a good time.

Lex Luthor (plays a Paragon): WROOONG!!

I haven’t read everything here, but I came to the forums today looking for exactly this subject. Since there are 22 pages of comments in less than a day, I skipped to commenting. It’s a horrible change to force your players to buy in increments, period. If I want to buy ONE gem at a time, I should be able to. If you guys wanted to redesign the UI, that’s one thing, but this change forcing a minimum amount just smells like a dead fish. If suggestions are what you want, I suggest you at least implement the old functionality in a newer UI. Having an actual estimated exchange rate per gem would be helpful too. To paraphrase an earlier commenter, these blatant changes to force your players to do what they don’t want to do will bring out the worst in your players. I always hate to see people ranting and going overboard on the forums, but kittening kitten, Anet… What do you take us for?

jblade.6470:

For me, I always would buy the new items each week with real money then convert whatever was left over into gold to use since I work a lot and can’t farm for gold. Supported the game I loved with thousands of dollars spent and helped me keep up with gear/items I wanted. Now I’m stuck with having left over gems that can’t convert to gold directly since there isn’t an option that matches it. Only options are waste money and have random gems left I can’t use or stop spending my money. It’s an easy choice for me and means I can use the money elsewhere at the cost of a few less skins.

Lisa gives jblade a hug. Me too. I work a lot and have a real life which leaves me with buying gems. I hate the tiers for converting gems to gold for the very reason you said.

As far as random gems go, saving them till the next purchase is an option, but not a good option. If I am in a converting mood, I want the ability to convert ALL, or a certain amount my gems, to gold which can’t be done with the tiers.

Sigh.

Lisa.

Well, I already quit the game during the last “update” because I could see where this game was going. Sad to see my predictions were more or less right.

The saddest part about this though is that people will be angry and kittened off at Anet for a while, they will then pretend to be listening to your complaints and afterwards ignore them completely, and after a while the remaining playerbase will have gotten used to the crappyness only to get kittened off again in the next patch/update.

Destroying things that aren’t broken and implementing systems that hurts their playerbase seems to be the new big thing in GW2.

One day I’m expecting to read a detailed postmortem in Ars Technica or WIRED about how ArenaNet were misled by their own metrics. It’ll be a nice cautionary tale.

Julischka Bean.7491:

jblade.6470:

For me, I always would buy the new items each week with real money then convert whatever was left over into gold to use since I work a lot and can’t farm for gold. Supported the game I loved with thousands of dollars spent and helped me keep up with gear/items I wanted. Now I’m stuck with having left over gems that can’t convert to gold directly since there isn’t an option that matches it. Only options are waste money and have random gems left I can’t use or stop spending my money. It’s an easy choice for me and means I can use the money elsewhere at the cost of a few less skins.

Lisa gives jblade a hug. Me too. I work a lot and have a real life which leaves me with buying gems. I hate the tiers for converting gems to gold for the very reason you said.

As far as random gems go, saving them till the next purchase is an option, but not a good option. If I am in a converting mood, I want the ability to convert ALL, or a certain amount my gems, to gold which can’t be done with the tiers.

Sigh.

Lisa.

I’m in the same boat. I can live with the change (and most likely still buy gems) but its not particularly appealing for odd amounts.

I don’t post often on these forums, despite being a “veteran” since the original beta weekends, but I feel like it’s important to put my opinion on the pile here and be counted as not thrilled with this change.

I understand wanting to streamline interfaces, but in this case, the change, while offering a more clean window, largely just makes players feel like they are being hit up for more money. I have spent money in the gem store many times over the last two years and change. The irregular pricing on items in the store (150 gems, 1000 gems) when compared with the amounts available for me to purchase, (800, 1600) has always been somewhat irritating, but that irritation was mitigated by the ability to “round up” using the gold to gem conversion window. Limiting my ability to do that limits my desire to purchase gems, because while “oh, I like this gathering tool. I will spend $10 and then convert a little money to get it” has been something I have done on many occasions, conversely, if I have to look at it from a “I either lose most of my gold or I pay $20 for this same gathering tool,” I’m going to come to a different conclusion.

If the goal was to get me to purchase more gems from the store, that is not what this will achieve. It will simply make me weigh my options and come down on the side of “I guess I don’t need that gathering tool that much.”

More and more, ArenaNet is implementing / changing things with it’s motivation ‘’ For the new players ’’. Yet, those who spend tons of Gems and an insane amount of time in the game since the start and before that, basically get shown the door.

It really is a shame ArenaNet is burning their own bridges for focussing on the new players rather than those who have been here up untill now. Once again with this Gemstore thing, which is only a tool for making even more money.

yes, lordkrall…. apart from the part that makes “free to play” possible. We never should have believed that buying a fifty dollar game would support it forever. Now…. now…. they tell us they are doing the changes for the new players. In other words, the ones who support the existence, through real money, are crap (never mind it does absolutely nothing for the new players either). They saw dollars and pounds and they were possessed by Mammon. I feel sorry for the player who actually farms for the gold that he trades for gems. As usual, the little man pays.

This is capitalism in its purist, most honest form. The man behind the curtain. Perhaps paying a monthly fee and everyone having an equal chance wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It would maybe even exorcise this evil that has possessed ANet.

(edited to correct previous bad editing LOL)

Here’s wondering when they are going to add BUY GEMS button to both log in screen and character selection screen.

Without having the time to read this thread, I have a personal issue with the new system. Before the patch, I was buying gems gradually until I could obtain 800. I’m at 700+ so far. What makes me frustated, is that I’ll never be able to hit the very precise 800 spot without probably wasting money. What should I do? I don’t want to end with 801, 803 or 799 gems.

khani.4786:

Now I know why the patch took so long…you all wanted to get out of the office as quickly as possible after this travesty went live. You hoped that we’d cool off by the morning, but guess what. I slept on it before commenting and nope. This SUCKS.

I like the one page rather than the sliding page and I like the instant see the changes at the top. That’s where the like stops.

You’ve hidden the market data so you can do whatever you please to the gem conversion rate. Yes, when a new patch hits the cost spikes but it has NEVER spiked this much this quickly. This is absurd.

You want something constructive? See the attached image, print it out, hand it to the design folks and FIX IT.

You took away choice and freedom to give us a blantant cash grab in the guise of “simplicity for new players”

We are not stupid and you (the company as a whole) are treating us like children who don’t know any better.

It’s bad enough that buying gems with real world money comes in increments that rarely match up with prices in the gem store in order to get us to buy more than we need. Now you’re doing it with the gem to gold conversion too.

Rant time:
I am so bloody sick of hearing

• It was confusing to new players. – we’ve heard this enough lately it’s now a running joke. “Loot was confusing to new players so it has been removed from the game.”
• We’re listening to your feedback. – Okay this might be true…you’re listening, but are you actually HEARING what we’re saying as we voice our concerns? Just because you’re listening doesn’t mean jack. Actions speak louder than words.
• It is a bug but we’re “working” on fixing it. – See: Defeated Camera (That wasn’t broken in the first place but you “fixed” it), Missing Human idle animations, Personal story out of order, and so many others….
• I wouldn’t rule anything out – lies and slander. You rule things out every day. You change things without telling us (stealth changes to dungeons), completely dismiss good ideas presented in CDIs and know there are things you’re never going to do.
• It’s something we’re aware of and are thinking about
• and all of the other BS responses we get in interviews

For whatever reason you hide big changes like this conversion until it’s live. What harm would it be to show us a preview a week out from launch to get feedback? We could have given other options on how to simplify it and make it easier to use, instead you saddle us with a cash grab, remove choice and freedom and hide the market data so you can more easily tinker with the gold-gem conversion rate.

See the attached for my suggestion to keep the good with the old and fix it. The way it is now is completely unacceptable. I liked being able to get the just a few more gems to get another something because the real-money buying gems doesn’t match the gemstore prices. The new interface is terrible and is NOT for new players. New players can’t afford any gems at these prices, so whatever “metrics” you’re using are wrong.

Anet has lost my respect for them. Once upon a time I loved you guys, I loved you so much I sent a personal email to Chris Whiteside to voice my gripes…he said he’d “call” me to talk about things. I was overjoyed to think they cared that much to chat with an individual player, but the call got moved back and moved back and then never happened. I’m jaded and you continue to do things to further remove any respect I have for the company that puts out what in most aspects is an amazing game. Dangit, I love this game and the game play but you have to quit crapping on your veteran players. Why do you hate the ones of us who have been here since the beginning? I get it, I’m not a shiny new toy to play with, I’m the old worn and formerly really loved toy sitting in the corner….do I not matter anymore? /cry

Khani, I like the attached image, and I liked your post.

ANET, Lord Love A Cross-Eyed Duck….there is no shame in saying an experiment did not work out and reversing it back to what it was. The shame is in knowing you made a huge huge mistake and do nothing but sit there with your fingers in your ears.

In order to have a game running, you need a playerbase. This player base, both the gold to gem crowd and the gem to gold people are not happy.

If both sides of the conversion are upset that is not good. Not good at all.

Listen to us Anet. Without us, you have no game. The word of mouth on the social media is mighty.

lisa.

I’m too also not fond of the new ‘fixed’ gem : gold conversion. Not everyone has exact amounts, and others might not be willing or are simply unable to fork out X amount of gems for X amount of gold.

There needs to be a space for custom amounts. It’s all like the real world. You want some new candy on sale, and its $15.00 for a bulk, but you only have $10.75 on hand – people want the option to be able to trade in what they can get at that time. Many other stores have that option, why not here?

It either should be reverted back or add more options.
The way it is now is way (emphasized) too limiting.

bigblah.3285:

One day I’m expecting to read a detailed postmortem in Ars Technica or WIRED about how ArenaNet were misled by their own metrics. It’ll be a nice cautionary tale.

Nah, this has nothing to do with “metrics” (despite any claims).

This has everything to do with some executive at Arena.net or NCSoft seeing the number of people who trade gold for gems and not IRL cash for gems and saying, “How do we encourage these new players we’ve brought in to be the latter rather than the former?”

This sort of storefront is not new… hell, pretty much EVERY other company does it this way, in fact. And make no mistake, those companies do it because it works, and it works very, very well. People WILL get more gems rather than feel they “wasted” [x] number of gems, and they will very likely pay cash to get them.

Just wait… with the November patch we’ll get some form of China’s VIP system.

And the justification will be “our metrics showed that playing games without some form of sub fee was confusing to new players.”

Anet – PLEASE start listening to your veteran players.

Otherwise, you might not have any players at all.

The new gems for gold conversion is horrible.

Other than reverting it back to its original form, I really don’t have any suggestions.

I just know it is way too expensive for the casual/new player to afford gold/gems the way it is now. I have never had enough gold to use on buying gems, even with the old method. I can’t imagine being a new player today and look at that conversion page and feel anything but defeat at being able to afford even the lowest amount of gems available to them.

So they couldn’t add quantities lower than 400 gems in order to make the
transaction “easier” for new players and also allow their other players to
buy amounts closer to their preference.
Ofc,I am sure that there are technical and gameplay reasons for this since if they added more than 4 options the servers would explode and new players would be utterly confused,and that would require 10 more coloured indicating arrows to guide them through the exchange process.

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.

Oh I can easily answer that question why people are mad: Many, but really a huge majority, is being treated like dumb cows. Just simplify everything and give us a lvl 1-80 scroll, and maybe simplify pvp too because so many people get confused by all these skills. It’s amazing you were part of the ones that came up with this.

Anyway, I’m gonna give arguments on your arguments because I’m totally amazed by how this system was brought up via your arguments:

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.

• Newer players will not benifit from this at all. Why? Because gem prices are already way too high. It’s not like a ‘’new player’’ can easily go on and buy a constume for 700 gems, aka 150 gold. The moment this new player got that 150g, I’m pretty sure he’s smart enough to figure out how a system works that even my dog could understand.

• Expience like other.. what…. If I go to a merchant and I want to buy apples, I can tell him the exact of amount of apples I want. If I go to the gem store and I want to buy the exact amount of gems, It will show me the list and fill in what I’m forced to take. Not only that, but also a forced minimum amount of 400 gems. If I want 1 apple, then I buy 1 apple, not 4 because im forced to buy a minimum amount.

• Of course the majority buys more than 400 gems at once, because costumes and fashion is the biggest market on the gem store, which is mostly around 700 gems. This, however, doesn’t mean there are a lot people still buying gems lower than the majority. It’s a big middlefinger to those who do buy gems in more parts or those who have still gems lieing around, but just not enough to buy the item they want. Nice way to treat your players.

• I hope you listen very carefully to the feedback in this thread, because this system is just amazingly bad. Patches are supposed to make your game better, not worse. Do something useful with your time instead of throwing everything around to make it ‘’less confusing for newer players’’.

Hi there,

I’m going to try and be calm about this and actually use my intellect instead of flying off the deep end like I really want to.

I understand how some players would be confused with the old layout. But forcing it on everyone without so much of a notice about it before hand… That’s something we should have seen as a press release. Something we, as the players, should have had a say one before it even hit us yesterday.

Using personal experience from last night: I wanted 900 gems and I knew I had that in gold. I wanted to trade EXACTLY for 900 but the new system didn’t allow that. I worked hard for the gold I was about to trade, even harder for the cash I was willing to spend on those items but the interface made you lose a sale. It’s an unfair system that is, to be frank, insulting to player intelligence.

You want feedback? Revert it back but upgrade it. Those who cant understand basic math and simple market fluctuations need to learn how to trade. If people wanted lower denominations, then they needed to learn that, hey, they can input silver and copper into the values as well to get the exact amount of gems they want. If they want to trade gems to gold for a specific amount? Fine, input in the exact amount you want. That’s how I saw the TP when I first learned how to play it, and it worked fine. Markets fluctuate regularly and the old system showed that. Want to trade when it’s on the up swing? Then make the graph more interactive. Show us the highs and lows and make it more clear what the current price is on the graph before we begin to trade. Have a simple drop down below, above, wherever that shows the amount of gems and how much they are trading for but also allow us to have CUSTOM amounts in there. You have 50 gems left over? Then make it so that the prices ACTUALLY even out to the increments you sell gems for.

Please stop coddling new players. You’re seriously losing older players with all the changes and it’s making us want to stop playing. I know Gaile’s only the messenger here but I hope feedback is taken in on this. Since we didn’t get a say in it before it hit us.

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.

Hi Gaile!

Thank you for the information. I don’t mind the change but I do not like a base of 400 gems with so many items in the gem store under 400! If I want to pick-up a primer, key, whatever, I shouldn’t be forced to convert 75 gold (at time of posting) to 400 gems.

Very few people bought gems at smaller denominations but now you’ve (‘you’ being the company) taken that away from them. I don’t understand why they couldn’t start the conversion at the lowest possible integer. Let’s have the best of both worlds!

Nice change but not a lot of forethought went into it methinks .

Nick.6972:

Here’s wondering when they are going to add BUY GEMS button to both log in screen and character selection screen.

Shh, no giving ideas. LotRO had both. From the launcher it took you to the web gem store. :p

I use the the exchanger weekly to convert my extra gold and this change doesn’t bother me at all. If fact I like the change. It was annoying going down one silver at a time till you found the threshold where it would change by one gem and then go back up. Could they add a lower increment like 100 gems, but it’s not game breaking.

Just give us the custom option in the new UI and it’s perfect. Keep it this way and I will get my pitchfork.

And please, stop using the words “confusion” and “new players” for each change we’re not going to like. It makes it even worse.

I honestly hate this it was confusing at first and accidently spent my 400 hundred gem for gold when i wanted gems to buy a costume but once that happened it ask for 2x the gold it gave me to just get 400 plus selling all of my crafting material just to get gold for the 800 basically i felt like i get screwed royally Thanks Anet! Change back to the way it was and refund the 400 gems

I can understands people’s confusion on trading gems for gold. I had to spend a lot of time messing with the numbers to get just the right price for the gems I want. The problem here is that if I am buying gems with gold the minimum denomination is too high. I frequently bought gems with gold when I had a little extra gold around. However I rarely bought them in greater denominations then 100. A lot of people liked the gold to gems conversion because then they could buy the majority of their gems with cash. Then use the conversion system to buy the rest of the amount. This system of buying the rest of the gems that you need with gold negated the “Microsoft Points” feeling of the system.

The system now is now more like the way the Microsoft Points system was in the past. The following is a critical review of the Psychology of the points system.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34589/Analysis_The_Psychology_Of_Microsoft_Points.php

I think that a lot of people would be fine with a middle ground of having the minimum number of gems that you can buy with gold be 100. A much better option is add a additional button next to the buy more with cash to allow us to trade a custom amount bringing the page to the old system.

Whoa, this is bad. But, I think I’ve figured some of it out. In a word: China. In another word: NCSoft. At least it fits all the clues.

Think about how as one player put it “… Game has changed direction in the last 6 months…” Specifically:

o NPE – Who are these “New Players?” NA/EU is pretty well tapped. China is new.
o Common Code Tree – Why? To piggyback on the China devs work. Confirmed.
o Feature Patch – Leftovers from China rollout. Confirmed.
o Gem Store UI – " Make it easier to understand." For China.
o The Delay – Anet was freaked out by the China drop as well.
o Cmrd Tags – “Horrible version of the CDI!” China devs didn’t read it.
o Projected Profit – An after thought poorly integrated. China does not want it.
o Female Idle Animations – Breaks a Rule under China game codes.
o Repeated Content – Not to China.
o No Communication – Anet is in the dark too.

At least it makes a lot more sense. Anet isn’t that stoopid to make so many errors in design as have been rolled out the discussed timeframe. And if you think about it, it’s a pretty savvy business plan: NCSoft eats X% of NA/EU rage quitters but we were pretty tapped out anyway. They gain Y% of new China players they can re-sell old content to and get access to cheap China Devs who never see our forums. Result: Z% Won increased profit. The main purpose of a business is to return value to it’s shareholders. Bingo!

Then after NCSoft realizes they will lose more than X% of the NA/EU players they green light a fix by Anet. Once again there is Joy in Whoville.

I’m not sure of how I feel about it all. When the China roll out was announced I was kinda excited to think we’d all be in the same World game. Looks like we are and that comes with a cost.

I know everybody is pretty upset right now but again we’ll get a little tweak to make things right. I’d expect more of this in the future. Looking forward this means more resources resulting in a healthier game. Meanwhile, Anet mostly in the form of Gaile are left to scramble dealing with a fire that could have been avoided.

The deal is if we knew about it we might say “Yea.” We have had a lot of good things happen lately. Welcome to 21st century gaming… Smile and be as Happy as You Can.

simplesimon.2084:

I use the the exchanger weekly to convert my extra gold and this change doesn’t bother me at all. If fact I like the change. It was annoying going down one silver at a time till you found the threshold where it would change by one gem and then go back up. Could they add a lower increment like 100 gems, but it’s not game breaking.

Yeeeah. The new system is much easier than coding entering in either field to either exchange 100 gold for some gems

I’ll trade [ 100 ] gold for [ auto ] gems

or exchange some gold for 100 gems

I’ll trade [ auto ] gold for [ 100 ] gems

And don’t say it can’t be done. It can, with simple javascript – the field which gets focus gets priority and overwrites the other field. My guess that it wasn’t done previously for the same reason, for players not to be able to easily see the rate in game.

This new change is awful. There are things on the gem store that are sold for less than 400 gems and if I want to convert gold to get a few gems, I should be able to do that.

Can Arenanet stop blaming new players for all these bad changes lately? I’d much rather the transparent reason “We want you to buy more gems!” rather than “New Players just don’t get it!” I have never heard of new players being confused about conversion rates anyway. Like, really? That just sounds like the worst excuse in the world to fix something that wasn’t broken to begin with. If there really were problems with the old way this new way is such a bad implementation of a possibly good idea.

MFoy.3284:

Whoa, this is bad. But, I think I’ve figured some of it out. In a word: China. In another word: NCSoft. At least it fits all the clues.

Think about how as one player put it “… Game has changed direction in the last 6 months…” Specifically:

o NPE – Who are these “New Players?” NA/EU is pretty well tapped. China is new.
o Common Code Tree – Why? To piggyback on the China devs work. Confirmed.
o Feature Patch – Leftovers from China rollout. Confirmed.
o Gem Store UI – " Make it easier to understand." For China.
o The Delay – Anet was freaked out by the China drop as well.
o Cmrd Tags – “Horrible version of the CDI!” China devs didn’t read it.
o Projected Profit – An after thought poorly integrated. China does not want it.
o Female Idle Animations – Breaks a Rule under China game codes.
o Repeated Content – Not to China.
o No Communication – Anet is in the dark too.

At least it makes a lot more sense. Anet isn’t that stoopid to make so many errors in design as have been rolled out the discussed timeframe. And if you think about it, it’s a pretty savvy business plan: NCSoft eats X% of NA/EU rage quitters but we were pretty tapped out anyway. They gain Y% of new China players they can re-sell old content to and get access to cheap China Devs who never see our forums. Result: Z% Won increased profit. The main purpose of a business is to return value to it’s shareholders. Bingo!

Then after NCSoft realizes they will lose more than X% of the NA/EU players they green light a fix by Anet. Once again there is Joy in Whoville.

I’m not sure of how I feel about it all. When the China roll out was announced I was kinda excited to think we’d all be in the same World game. Looks like we are and that comes with a cost.

I know everybody is pretty upset right now but again we’ll get a little tweak to make things right. I’d expect more of this in the future. Looking forward this means more resources resulting in a healthier game. Meanwhile, Anet mostly in the form of Gaile are left to scramble dealing with a fire that could have been avoided.

The deal is if we knew about it we might say “Yea.” We have had a lot of good things happen lately. Welcome to 21st century gaming… Smile and be as Happy as You Can.

Of course their metrics are based on the Chinese market, and guess what: they played the game because they had no other option, and if there happen to be more players in China than in NA/EU, it’s normal we get screwed.

Everything buggy we’ve had so far is a copy of the Chinese game, the “metrics”… That’s how I understand it, due to the lack of transparency.

So, as many said, subscription fee coming in Nov., and by 2015 you’ll only have access to the warrior class, and each class should be unlocked for 401 gems each.

A rather interesting thing I have wondered about since the start of this thread is how many of the people in this thread actually used the Gold to Gem system.
I have seen rather many posts that starts with something along the lines of: “I don’t use this thing…”

lordkrall.7241:

Boinky.4092:

fits perfectly with gamergate. It’s time for people to see the man behind the curtain. GW2 is not GW1. GW1 was generous and wanted the players to have a good time. GW2 is Donald Trump.

Yeah.. except for the blatant buying actual real unobtainable in-game advantages for real money part I suppose?

You still mean the mercenary thing? You know you couldn’t add more than 3 hero until 2011, 1 year before the release of GW2 right? What we are talking about is when anet’s primary focus was GW1.

lordkrall.7241:

A rather interesting thing I have wondered about since the start of this thread is how many of the people in this thread actually used the Gold to Gem system.
I have seen rather many posts that starts with something along the lines of: “I don’t use this thing…”

I used it quite often.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

• 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 just have to add to this comment.
If you wanted to make this more like a “shopping experience,” you should have imagined it as a candy store.

When you enter a candy store, you are not forced to buy pieces of candy by the carton. On the contrary you are given a box and you go around picking the individual pieces you would like. Then, when you are ready to checkout, you are charged based on the weight of your selection. This is EXACTLY how it should have been handled. Instead you are treating it like a bulk buy location, where in the end we’re left with a garage full of laundry detergent that will never be used.

Start listening to your consumers or suffer the consequences. That’s all I’m going to say on this topic because I feel like anything else would be a waste of time. You guys are really not doing a good job at taking care of your playerbase.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Better yet would be to add the old page, and add one ‘a lot asked for feature’, wich is insert gems you want (like 700 for outfit), and it calculates the gold you need to pay. (basically both boxes that where on top of the old tp, you can insert values now, and when you type something, it calculates the other box.

Bingo. +1 million.

goodness, want to see a new post just press F5.

Just remember Gaile is a person.

I don’t ever really post in the forums, but this to me, was so outrageously disappointing.

I have played this game consistently from the beginning, and in the past year and a half, have gotten in the habit of spending upwards of forty dollars a month on gems. I do this because I supported Anet.

However the past few months have started to wear away on that support. This is the final straw. I cannot support a company that sells a game with a feature to make the cash shop accessible for all players, and then takes it away to make it difficult for the players to do anything but buy gems with real money.

For this reason, I’ve decided to stop buying gems. Anet, I really, really hope that this is something you will reexamine. If it’s “too hard for new players” (this sounds ridiculous, there is nothing about your game save maybe dungeons/fracs/wvw that is hard for new players.) perhaps having an explanation on how it worked would have sufficed.

To reiterate, I’m incredibly disappointed with the direction that I’ve seen the game going the past few months. I hope you listen to your player base.

NO! I hate it. It was so much simpler and straightforward before, why did you have to muddy it up like that? PLEASE change it back to the way it was before!

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

So, as many said, subscription fee coming in Nov., and by 2015 you’ll only have access to the warrior class, and each class should be unlocked for 401 gems each.

LOL

I fear she will communicate this to management – A.K.A. – management is listening! :-S

#GemGate2k14 #OccupyLA

lol but in all seriousness, now stop it, rollback or update, i dont think this is something that people are gonna put up with for a long period of time

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.

ArenaNet will also benefit from the new system, as many veteran players are accidentally buying gems or converting them. This was really an unnecessary change and I would recommend adding aspects of the old system back in, particularly the data of exchange rates. The increments should also be removed as they are ridiculous and don’t make sense. I’m of the opinion that this is only a tactic to get people to buy gems with real currency. Speaking of which, it would be fantastic to offer kitten gem purchase selection. There’s plenty of items that have smaller pricing and sometimes people can’t afford to buy 10/20 dollars of gems at once, but can spare 5 dollars. im poor gaile plz help me

I’m going to try to be civil and constructive but it’s not going to be easy. My instinct is to yell and swear, but since Anet probably just skips reading posts like that, I hope I can contain it.

This change is completely ridiculous. Forcing players to buy X amount of a currency is a good way to discourage them completely from buying anything at all. You said that only a small percentage of the player base buys odd amounts of gems or converts odd amounts of gold to gems, but I honestly don’t understand why that is a reason to completely eliminate the option to do so. Every player in this game should have the option to buy as many or as little gems as they want at any given time.

I’m all for having “buy X gems for X gold” buttons. They’re very convenient. But it also makes perfect sense to have either a slider or a spot for us to input a custom amount. If I want to buy 37 gems I should be able to. I’ve done this plenty of times in the past and the fact that I can’t now is very discouraging. I was going to buy the Phantom Hood. It’s 200 gems. I would now have to buy 400, which makes no sense, so I guess I won’t be buying it.

But these aren’t the only things bothering me.

- Gaile’s “reasons” for the changes are completely absurd. They make no sense and we’re not buying any of them. I don’t blame Gaile, she’s just the one designated to communicate with us, but Anet couldn’t possibly have thought that we’d accept those reasons and move on.
– The huge price fluctuation in the gems→gold or gold→gems that others have brought up in this thread, combined with the removal of the tracker from the API, is a massive red flag that Anet is covering up their deliberate manipulation of the in-game economy. I will never believe that it’s simply because the prices always change when there’s a new update. They don’t change like this. We’re not stupid.
– Why does the community always have to “suggest” fixes? Why can’t Anet just make logical decisions when creating this game? I feel like EVERY SINGLE DECISION made by Anet in the last year at least has been wildly off-base from what would make logical sense to the average person. What kind of personnel are making these decisions? I’ve never heard of a game coming out that is widely reviewed as being very good, and then the game gets completely destroyed one decision at a time over the course of the next couple years. It’s mind-boggling.

Until this gets fixed I’m no longer a paying customer. And when it gets fixed I expect an apology from Anet.

This is blatant, deliberate change to make people buy more gems than they want. No provisional explanations about new players getting confused is even close to believable. The game is rated 12, so at this age kids have few classes of math. Please stop offend players with lies. Just bring back possibility to buy with gold whatever number of gems we want. And perhaps, after few years, good expansion etc. we will slowly forget how you tried to screw us. I don’t event feel like playing Halloween content right now. Especially as it is repeated from last year. Hey, nice new outfit by the way. Guess what. I WON’T BUY. I have 650 gems. Thank you so much.