Guild Wars 2

This needs to be changed swiftly to add in the 100 gems option a lot of people have mentioned. This should not be a “next feature pack” change, this is an emergency asap change. 16 pages in just this one thread in roughly 12 hours. Two reddit posts full of the same amount of rage. This is distracting everyone because it is easily interpreted as a cash grab, just show us some goodwill and demonstrate that it isn’t.

So like others have said this is a very poor change and is disgustingly obvious of your greed. You have one of the most loyal player bases in the business despite any real investment of new content on your end and it’s like you’re actively trying to push them away.

Since you like to make things clear for new players i’ll try to make things clear for new managers at ANET. I won’t be buying any more gems to support you until this changes and i’ll actively tell people this game isn’t worth playing. K? Thanks!

Turtle Dragon.9241:

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…

yeah man, the mistake you make, is you think this was actually about fast buy options, as you say, if the goal was to give people fast options to make change, they would not have gone in increments of 400.

The purpose of the change was to make the minimal amount of gems purchaseable to be 400 gems at a time (no matter gold or gem) this is shown to increase the chances for more spending, or waste. which leads to profits.
this is why the gem-gold side gives somewhat reasonable increments, like 100 10 1, and the gem side gives stupid increments that dont allow you to make change.

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 totally agree. Something had to have changed in the conversion formula. This price jump happened immediately when the patch went live. I’ve never seen anything like this.

Here is a chart from my personal exchange tracker.

Gaile Gray.6029:

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm.. lets play some role reversal here.. maybe before you push through a featyre update like this you really need to consider throwing your ideas out to the players first to avoid the pitchfork and torches effect that your obviously trying to play down.

But what’s done is done.. the only suggestion I can offer now is.. if your not happy with what has been pushed through then don’t use it, don’t purchase or exchange, just carry on as normal.
I have never been overly trusting of the gem/gold conversion rates anyway so have used it very sparingly since launch but to be now forced into this kind min exchange mullarkey.

The real question is:

Why spend time, efforts, and resources, on something that has been working perfectly for two years for millions of players, to make it a cash-grab less intuitive robbery for people that don’t even have funds to use it the way you put it?

For once, have some guts and agree this change was bad. But I’m sure our rants/rage/“feedback” will end up in a bin. Or you’ll find a pale solution (aka band-aid on a peg leg), or pretend to be working on it for months/years/until we forget.

Everyday I bought some gems to finally get an outfit, slow and steady. Everyday I played waiting for LS2 to resume. Today, I don’t feel like playing anymore, because my wallet seems more interesting to you than my interest and pleasure in the game.

You were supposed to be making a game for players (that’s what you say usually, don’t you? “We care for our playerbase”). But your updates, lack of communication, uninterest in players’ desires, content removal, and lack of interest in your own game except for profit are evidence enough to prove you actually don’t care about our passion for the game.

@Mike O’Brien
So… where exactly would this C R A P fit into your “communicating with your customers” statement ?
And once again, do you still bet your company on this game ?

@Gaile:
[…] 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 […]

Really now Gaile … can you swear on the Holy Bible that ArenaNet is listening to our feedback AND adjusting the game to meet our needs ?!?

@Customers (yes, us):
Obviosuly ArenaNet has a VERY different agenda, a VERY different point of view and a VERY strong pain the bottocks when it comes to us, the customers.
Well, since they so much need our attention I ADVISE ALL OF YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU POST YOUR REVIEWS ON AS MANY HIGH RATED GAME REVIEW FORUMS A POSSIBLE.

Why ? Simple:
1. I know for sure that “negative feedback” threads on this joke-forum will be deleted or pushed behind into oblivion by a ton of new threads with no true subject.

2. If they rip us off then by all means we MUST force them to pay even more for advertorials, hire even more Vaynes to kiss they behinds, etc. They so much deserve this particular kind of feedback…

Money makes the world go round / The world go round / The world go round … ;-)

Considering the only way the game gets new armor or weapon skins is the gem shop, I think I’ll extend my couple weeks off into however long it takes for this to go away.

GoddessHrist.8472:

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 totally agree. Something had to have changed in the conversion formula. This price jump happened immediately when the patch went live. I’ve never seen anything like this.

Here is a chart from my personal exchange tracker.

they basically forced a lot of people to buy a ton more gems than they usually would to get the same items, which skews the gem exchange.

the algorithm of the gem exchange has to react to large influx of gold, with predictive values, so they wont take losses on the gold/gem exchange most likely, therefore you will see a large spike in value.
the only thing that can balance this is a large spike on the other side,

but since selling gems gives you better options to sell as much as you want, whereas buying gems is in huge increments, its unlikely that the system will track the real demand that well anymore

Ok will repost this one here again well iam glad to see that iam not the only one who thinks this way …this seems really a not think through thing that they have done.

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

Closes purse, well thank you, but no more real life money from me. I only play casually and therefore only have limited gold, I was putting my surplus gold into a little bit of gems (twenty or so here and there) at a time and saving up for one of the pretty new outfits, now it’s out of my reach via ingame gold and I refuse to let go of anymore real life money to fund such an awful way to fleece your player base.

I did the same with another popular MMORPG, I closed my purse and refused to spend anymore real life money with them, it is now going on two years and they haven’t seen a dime from me. Revert or find something else or you will not see another dime from me either. Thank you.

Dawntree.7246:

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)

This.
It’s your new nice UI, nothing “confusing” and another feature for veterans ( choosing amount of gems to buy)? And everyone will be happy.

In my honest opinion I would think the following would be better.

1000 gems
500 gems
250 gems
100 gems
50 gems

The 50 gems idea is because certain things that I personally like to buy like for example the 5 Black Lion Keys are 450 gems.

Thus I would be forced with the current conversion rates to buy 800 gems at once and then have an excess of 350 gems forcing me to buy another 400 gems to be able to buy another 5 keys which leaves me at 300 gems forcing me to buy another 400 etcetc.

Booster packs of 5 boosters at a time cost now around 540 / 550 gems forcing you also to buy at least 800 leaving you with not enough to buy more thus being forced to buy yet more gems etcetc.

Hope this is reasoning you can work with.

Ok and for it seem likes it is a rant and offer suggestions….well i got a good one for u just get our old system back worked perfectly for me for 2 years now.

Ehm..why hasn’t this “change” been announced before? So we don’t get stuck with weird values like 688 gems (which I have right now TY ANET).
Are you even aware that by announcing the change it would limit the outrage caused by it?

As for lower increments. Lets be real. The best you will get is they go “ok 200gems minimum enjoy your 700gem outfits lol”. 100gems lowest would be too good to happen.

It’s obvious the system is meant to generate leftover currency so you overspend gold or waste the remaining gems on random stuff you don’t really want or need.

Utter and total bs.

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.

Sorry Gaile, but that doesn’t seem right, this game is 2 years old now, yet you’s seem to be catering hardcore for new players and yet the players who made you where you are today are getting trolled, there was nothing wrong with the gold-gem or gem-gold before, this “streamlining” is a way to force people to buy more than they need, which in turn will likely force them to buy more gems, etc,

I personally will just not buy anymore Gems, whereas me being 1 person wont make a difference it does seem the only way that Anet pays attention, it would be awesome if you could have the Dev/Devs who decided this streamlining was a good idea, to come here and explain it, rather than you taking the flack,

Be honest is this just another China client feature that we are getting pushed, if you keep these sort of unneeded updates going forward you wont have a veteran playerbase left to support the new players,

Whats next, New players contacted support saying they didn’t understand how to make Lengendary’s so we decided to remove legendary crafting and added them to the gem store for 100,000 gems each, come on already enough with the NPE.

If you want a suggestion that caters for the DUHHHHH we don’t understand anything in a game and don’t want to learn, keep the “streamlined” for them, and for everyone else, add the feature that allows you to enter the amount you want, why this wasn’t done in the first place.

This is a horrible mistake and Anet needs to undo this as soon as possible. There have been blunders in the past (recently we had the commander tag colour fiasco and the new player experience problems), but this one takes the proverbial cake. I find it amusing that the rush to eliminate the confusion over conversion is clearly an attempt to get people to buy more gems by bracketing them in increments of 400. Ugly situation that reminds me a little bit of the flamekissed disaster due to the utter shock many people felt that Anet was trying to get away with this. GW2 is not in a great place right and people are getting fed up with your shenanigans. Do not do this for the love of Dwayna!

I’m close to tears. What is going on in Seattle.

After new year, GW2 freepremium for only 10k gems.

I’m just here to increase the volume to this issue, because I go to 11!

Anyway, ArenaNet, as I’m sure I’m about to echo what many others have already said, maybe if enough people speak up about it maybe you’ll actually listen.

I like to play your game (despite the bugs that have been around since alpha testing), I like to support your game (despite my hatred for NEXON and it’s stake in NCSoft), but this change to the gem/gold conversion system is not for the best for your players. This feature would be fine if you still allow us to spend the exact amount of gold/gems we want to get exactly what we need. Give us both features.

I think it’s good to be able to buy a predetermined amount of gems and know exactly how much it will cost you so you don’t have to keep adjusting the amount to get the amount of gems you need. But to not let us spend our gold to buy, say, 123 gems to make an even 800 to buy something we want is a travesty.

I can see how this new change can make it a convenience for some, but give us both features. Don’t lock us to only specific amounts of gems at one time. We’ll have too many left over and we’ll NEVER be able to make an amount to break even to 0. What the hell am I going to do with 297 gems left over? Buy another 400 and have 697 and be 103 gems short of 800 to buy something I want? I’d have to buy ANOTHER 400, have 1097, spend my 800, and have (this is important here) 29kittening7 gems left over AGAIN.

ArenaNet, I get it, you’re a business, and you are in the business of making money. Your employees have lives to live, bills to pay, debt to destroy, BUT SO DO kittenING WE!

These new features should have been AN ADDITION to what was already in place, not a complete replacement of the old system that worked fine.

Give us both features.

I agree with this set up if the manual conversion is NEVER coming back:
1000 gems
500 gems
250 gems
100 gems
50 gems

Having some 50s in there would be awesome since, if you’re a player like myself you blow a lot of gold on transmutation charges and makeover kits, and it would be a lot easier to simply get 50 gems then 100 gems if I wanted to buy some transmutation charges or something.

If the old currency exchange was REALLY that confusing, you could have maybe a button at the bottom to send you to the manual converter so you could have both the set amounts and veterans could get their manual converter. I love being able to get any amount I wanted, because sometimes you have an odd number of gems and without it you’d have, say 17 gems sitting around you’ll never be able to spend.

But yeah a lot of players can’t afford to drop bomb 75g for just a 150 gem item or a 200 gem one.

Blasphyyy.7142:

I’m close to tears. What is going on in Seattle.

Well it has been raining a lot…but for us Seattleites that’s really no excuse.

Whoever had that idea… kick him out of the team.. something is definitely going wrong here with a 100gem/g increase by nearly 6g out of the blue… this is way more than tricking the community you ungrateful people

continue like this and the game will die more than it already does

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.

Since so much has been said already, I just want to reply on two of those statements:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
  I don’t get it, all this “confusing to new players” talk and changes lately makes me feel like new GW2 players are a horde of Robinson like ppl having grown up on an isolated island, never been in touch with civilization before :/
  Don’t get me wrong- there’s almost always space for improvement, but I just don’t get the necessity to change everything that just worked fine for now. I mean, you never needed some kind of university diploma or something before to get along with GW2, why all this changes now?
  I mean, the hint at the end of the new window pointing out how gem-gold exchange (and vice versa) works is good and surely an improvement, but the rest is just… meeeeh….
• 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.
  I do not doubt the correctness of this piece of information, but I think the Dev’s came to the wrong conclusion. Just think about the “why”?
  I’m pretty sure the majority of gems (those which were bought with gold) gets spent on cosmetic and collection stuff such as armor skins, costumes, mini pets, followed by convenience items like gathering tools. Those items usually cost quite a lot of gems, so ppl tend to buy the amount of gems needed for a specific item IF -and this if is a big one- they can afford it.
  Since gem prices constantly raised over the past two years, I’m pretty sure the players that change a significant amount of gold to gems is a small minority, mostly TP-brokers and hardcore farmers. Those kind of players already sitting on thousands of gold that simply dont need to care about spending hundreds of geld to get gems for their shinies, since they’ll always have enough gold for everything.
  And I think that’s the reason why so many ppl in here are mad about the change- you simply took away the possibility for the average player to get some gems for gold, those that tended to trade in ~15 gold every now and then to get 100 gems so they can get something nice of the gemshop once or twice a year while still having some gold to buy equipment/materials for their toons.

tl;dr: plz re-add the old possibility to freely chose the amount of gold to gems conversion and keep the new set options as an addition for the richie-riches.

Why not do what you did for the World Vs World in-game score boards a while back; created a new main page while also keeping the older original page for those that liked to use it.

If not, then I would suggest to add a box to the bottom of each price list for gold:gems, and gem:gold where a player could input a custom amount they want converted, much like the older system. I just don’t think it is reasonable to have the lowest convertible amount be 400 gems when there are items available on the trading company that cost 25 gems.

Zalladi.4652:

Why not do what you did for the World Vs World in-game score boards a while back; created a new main page while also keeping the older original page for those that liked to use it.

If not, then I would suggest to add a box to the bottom of each price list for gold:gems, and gem:gold where a player could input a custom amount they want converted, much like the older system. I just don’t think it is reasonable to have the lowest convertible amount be 400 gems when there are items available on the trading company that cost 25 gems.

Because having 2 different pages that tells you that you can buy gems would be confusing to new players. Obviously.

I could see this update as being beneficial to new users if the lowest value was around the 100-200 gem ballpark. 400 is a bit too steep in my opinion, especially when new players normally don’t have that large of a gold stockpile to convert with.(I know I didn’t) Oh well, feedback is feedback I assume.

Ok… aside from that I’d like to be able to buy gems in increments of 50 or 100, there’s one huge problem with this system.

I don’t want to spend X gems to get 100 gold. I’d rather spend 100 gems to get X gold. Suppose I bought 800 gems to convert to gold – what am I going to do with the 67 gems left over? You can’t buy anything on the TP with an odd gem count.

First of all – this change wasn’t revealed before the patch hit. If you really wanted feedback, you would’ve suggested this at least a month before releasing it.
Changing something that has worked perfectly fine for 2 years with the excuse of the new system “being more convenient” is not something many people will take lightly and without any doubts. Let me give a fast example: I go to the gem store and want to buy a single Bank Access Express which costs 35 gems. The lowest amount of gems I can buy is 400. I’m paying 11 times more than what I should have payed. Can you explain in what way this is convenient? The only fixed model pricing that will be acceptable is the one that has the same prices as every individual product in the store to buy directly. Like – 35 for Bank Access Express, 125 for Black Lion Chest Key etc.

phys.7689:

they basically forced a lot of people to buy a ton more gems than they usually would to get the same items, which skews the gem exchange.

the algorithm of the gem exchange has to react to large influx of gold, with predictive values, so they wont take losses on the gold/gem exchange most likely, therefore you will see a large spike in value.
the only thing that can balance this is a large spike on the other side,

but since selling gems gives you better options to sell as much as you want, whereas buying gems is in huge increments, its unlikely that the system will track the real demand that well anymore

That alone can’t explain this spike. The immediate spike caused by the insanely popular Belinda’s Greatsword was about 12.6%. This spike was around 32.2%. Plus you need to factor in the loss of gem conversions from players who don’t have 75 or 150 gold to spend on gems. I can certainly understand some effect from the larger conversion quantities but this is simply unbelievable.

<irony>Hey ArenaNet! I have a great idea to share with you! Stop selling gems for real money because it’s too confusing for new players!</irony>

Let me copy-paste my post from Reddit:
You know what? I had a break in Guild Wars since the last update and I thought that they will do something cool next time… but this is ridiculous. That’s it. They’ve crossed the line and I’m uninstalling and no – you can’t have my things.

This is absolutely disgusting, I can’t even express how disappointed I am…

The excuse that it was too confusing for new players makes no sense. If it was, you would have added this as an extra and keep the old exchange an “advanced” tab or something, not force this shameless moneygrabbing onto everyone.

It’s really a poorly disguised way of forcing people to buy more gems…

GoddessHrist.8472:

phys.7689:

they basically forced a lot of people to buy a ton more gems than they usually would to get the same items, which skews the gem exchange.

the algorithm of the gem exchange has to react to large influx of gold, with predictive values, so they wont take losses on the gold/gem exchange most likely, therefore you will see a large spike in value.
the only thing that can balance this is a large spike on the other side,

but since selling gems gives you better options to sell as much as you want, whereas buying gems is in huge increments, its unlikely that the system will track the real demand that well anymore

That alone can’t explain this spike. The immediate spike caused by the insanely popular Belinda’s Greatsword was about 12.6%. This spike was around 32.2%. Plus you need to factor in the loss of gem conversions from players who don’t have 75 or 150 gold to spend on gems. I can certainly understand some effect from the larger conversion quantities but this is simply unbelievable.

perhaps your right, but i think people who want to buy items for gold are essentially buying 20-30% more gems than they normally would due to having no other choice, so i could see some fairly large spikes, but ehh like i said you may be right

74 Days – 860 hours logged

Was not confused by any of the interface options when I brought the game, but I sure as eggs am baffled at the radical changes that have been made since, I used to rely on the gem store to get upgrades and costumes and anything else I desired, also converting gems → gold to help speed some in game things up crafting mainly.

After this even I will not touch it period, play yes because like EVERY poster in this thread loves the game.

I would like to ask a question; Why does Arenanet need NCSoft, what is it they do exactly?

aerial.7021:

74 Days – 860 hours logged

Was not confused by any of the interface options when I brought the game, but I sure as eggs am baffled at the radical changes that have been made since, I used to rely on the gem store to get upgrades and costumes and anything else I desired, also converting gems -> gold to help speed some in game things up crafting mainly.

After this even I will not touch it period, play yes because like EVERY poster in this thread loves the game.

I would like to ask a question; Why does Arenanet need NCSoft, what is it they do exactly?

They are a subsidiary of NCsoft and they act as publisher for Anet as well, if I’m not mistaken.

Where as a games like Aion or Lineage NCsoft is the developer and publisher.

The new interface may be more clean to look at, but it terribly lacks of functionalities.
1/ The lowest amounts are still way too high
2/ When you are looking forward to selling gems for gold, you don’t want to state how much gold you want to get but how much gems you want to sell. Example: yesterday evening, getting 100 golds required 827 gems. But I can only buy 800, 800+400 or 1600 gems, which is utterly annoying. If I were to buy gems to get gold, this would immediately stop me.

Here are some suggestions below in the CDI style:
Proposal: selling gems for gold, not buying gold from gems
Overview
Players can only buy set gem amounts from the cashshop. Selling gems should use thses numbers instead of some stupid numbers like 827 gems which require to buy twice the amount and will stop many players from selling gems

Functionality
The gem to gold side should allow to sell gem amounts (400, 800, 1600 ….) and calcultate/show how much gold is earned in exchange, instead of allowing to select how much gold is wanted and calculating/showing how much gems are required, which results in impractical (to the least) gem amounts.

Proposal: let the players decide what they actually need
Overview
All UI should be designed so that both beginners and advanced users can leverage them for the best.
Moreover, many BLTC items are sold of gem amounts of 250, 500, 700, 670 which do not match at all the currently available conversion options. While buying these, players have gem leftovers that they may never be able to use. These tiny gem amounts will remain on the account with little possibility to use them if buying gems is limited to buying gems by 400. That will cause frustration.

Functionality
The new UI should add, below the static conversion amounts, a box to allow player to set a custom gem amount they want to buy/sell.
That “feature” is EXTREMELY important.

The worst case scenario, if you REALLY do not want to allow us to decide on our own exact amounts, would be at least to enable us to buy/sell gems by 10, 100, 400, 800 and 1600 (greater conversion values are pretty useless since they can be achieved using other options, and there at the moment no item priced that much).

Proposal: informed decisions are always the best
Overview
Many players will feel ripped off when they discover that the exchange rate changes over time without them knowing when and how. There exist websites such as gw2spidy that can display the information, however data should be readily available within game.

Functionality
Add one currency exchange rate graph like the previous ones that were fine. You may omit the left axis values so that it displays the market state or both gem -> gold and gold -> gem conversions at once, instead of an exact conversion rate. I think people are interested in reading the graph to determine if the market is in a local maximum/minimum, and not to get exact numbers.

And we are heading straight for the 80g for 400gems mark…
One year ago i was like “nah, iam not paying more than 10g for 100 gems”

I don’t want this new fixed conversion. If I want gems I throw in whatever gold I have ‘extra’. It may be fifty gold or thirty or whatever not 400 or 800 or whatever gems amount.

I keep seeing people shout about how this is milking people out of money and I really don’t see how that really makes any kind of sense.
The prices for gems are still exactly the same as they were back at release.

The fact remains that they don’t even have to have the gold to gem transfer in the first place. If they really wanted to milk the players they would remove it completely, which they quite clearly haven’t done.

Also, why did you intentionally increase gem->gold price by ~25%? That’s a pretty hefty spike for just a new outfit and finisher and it happened immediately after the patch so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t player driven.

lordkrall.7241:

I keep seeing people shout about how this is milking people out of money and I really don’t see how that really makes any kind of sense.
The prices for gems are still exactly the same as they were back at release.

The fact remains that they don’t even have to have the gold to gem transfer in the first place. If they really wanted to milk the players they would remove it completely, which they quite clearly haven’t done.

There have been a lot of very good explanations in this thread. If you don’t get it or don’t understand then the new UI is perfect for you.

lordkrall.7241:

I keep seeing people shout about how this is milking people out of money and I really don’t see how that really makes any kind of sense.
The prices for gems are still exactly the same as they were back at release.

The fact remains that they don’t even have to have the gold to gem transfer in the first place. If they really wanted to milk the players they would remove it completely, which they quite clearly haven’t done.

the gem/gold exchange is a profitable system, it allows them to profit off players desire for gem items, with other peoples desire for gold.

at the end of the day all that matters is that people buy more gems, every gem is paid for (aside for promos)
buy having increments of 400 everywhere, people will buy more gems, and probably buy more items.

Working full time, I am buying a lot of things in the gem store, and quite often I turn the leftovers into gold, having no time to grind.

This…

I have not complained on the forum before, I have defended most of the decisions made in the UI and the game because even if I don’t like them, I can understand why.

But this kills the gem exchange for me. And not only that, it kills a lot of my gem store purchases. Yes, I was one of the people who now and then liked to gamble on a few black lion chests (yes, I like to gamble), but with the key pricing the way they are, I would now be left over with odd amounts of gems that just can’t be used for anything.

So yeah, not only have you ruined things for the people who exchange gold for gems, but you have also ruined it for the people who exchange gems for gold and actually gives you physical money and brings some semblance of balance to this market!

I have never said this before but… REVERT THIS THING NOW!

lordkrall.7241:

I keep seeing people shout about how this is milking people out of money and I really don’t see how that really makes any kind of sense.
The prices for gems are still exactly the same as they were back at release.

The fact remains that they don’t even have to have the gold to gem transfer in the first place. If they really wanted to milk the players they would remove it completely, which they quite clearly haven’t done.

I don’t think you understand what’s going on.

And why wanted u too change the gem exchange anyway …so many things could be improved..like for example guildhalls or housing what has been talked about from the start…but too ruin a perfect working system seem just like a bit waste of time. And will not make ppl buy gems for real money more u must be lucky if ppl buy them at all. Just turn it back and give us just the freedom in buying the amount of gems we want.

I love playing the game and i love shopping on the gemstore but with this not needed change. U know that new players dont have this amount of money.. well i dont even have this amount of money because iam a casual player who does play everyday but saving up a little bit at the time. This really was a cold shower after seeing that lovely outfit u introduced and to see i only have a several option to get my gems and i cant even save up in flexible way thank u for giving me no option at all.

Obvious solution here:

Keep things how they are now, but add an option to still enter manual amounts.

Win/Win for everyone.

Bellando Mara.1285:

And why wanted u too change the gem exchange anyway …so many things could be improved..like for example guildhalls or housing what has been talked about from the start…but too ruin a perfect working system seem just like a bit waste of time. And will not make ppl buy gems for real money more u must be lucky if ppl buy them at all. Just turn it back and give us just the freedom in buying the amount of gems we want.

I love playing the game and i love shopping on the gemstore but with this not needed change. U know that new players dont have this amount of money.. well i dont even have this amount of money because iam a casual player who does play everyday but saving up a little bit at the time. This really was a cold shower after seeing that lovely outfit u introduced and to see i only have a several option to get my gems and i cant even save up in flexible way thank u for giving me no option at all.

Anet’s M.O. is to devote developer resources into fixing things that aren’t broken instead of fixing things that are broken.

People have been asking for raiding UI for WvW since release but the UI developers are doing this…

well, money hustle aside, i dunno if they will keep these systems in play with such an overwelmingly negative response. Way i see it, either they fix this, or GW2 brand will suffer dramatically until something big changes

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.

Ok so Arenanet pulls out another “new players complaining” out of the hat.
I say lets all start urging these so called new players to put in tickets that they all like legendary weapons and precursors not dropping, maybe Arenanet will listen to them and implement this in next patch to have 100% drop rate with less mat requirements to make them

On another note, i turned on pc this morning played for a bit then pops a message:

Arenanet: A new build will be available in 10 mins.
Player Chat goes: What have they broken now???

Then “sweet a nice dress”…..then wait few minutes and its like “wtf happened to this exchange window”…then it went all sour and i just logged off.

Simply put it, the reason why Arenanet never checks with players before implementing something is that they know these things will not be accepted by players, so they simply force it on us. They are not worried, cos you bought the game they got paid, anything after they get out of your wallet is bonus.

By simply ranting here does nothing, they just don’t give a kitten. Its just too much of a big ask for a dev to pull the finger out and go fix something thats broken….let me hint you something “Traits”, over 6months now. But they too busy fixing things for new players that aren’t broken but are just “too hard” for them.