Guild Wars 2

Sigh..I want to upvote a lot of the posts here, but then I’ll be stuck doing that for the next hour. Anyways, copy/paste time from another thread:

Whoever suggested and enacted this change should’ve been fired or kicked to another department out of sheer principle. And I am being serious here. If I had a say, whatever moron(s) behind this would be gone or put somewhere where they can’t frak things up anymore.

Really, ArenaNet…what part of you thought it was a good idea to break yet another good feature of the game?

If this is an attempt to get us to use money more often, then its backfired horribly.

And here I was thinking of breaking my “no more gem cards for now” vow just for that Count outfit…nope, not if you can’t get a working brain behind your patch changes.

I miss the days when the patches actually improved the game instead of degrading it. The account wallet, the wardrobe, neat little things here and there like improved icons and countless other thing I can’t remember right now, but am sure are there…but now it’s like every patch does only one or two things right, then doubles/triples on the bad changes.

I still like this game, but now it’s getting harder for me to even want to play it. Just why does ArenaNet keep shooting themselves in the foot? I mean, pleasing everyone playing is impossible, but you could at least try not to make stupid decisions/changes.

I was willing to buy mini spooky trio set for 500gems but now I won’t do this. I am not willing buy 800gems to get item worth 500gems. I decided to not buy anymore gems til they roll back to the old system. Sorry Anet You are doing it wrong.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

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 often, exactly have others have said, to top up gold or gems, with odd small numbers. Now I will NEVER use it. Ever. But that is exactly what ANet want (well, the gold to gems part, anyway). Let’s face it, if the minimum gold you can use to convert to gems is like 76g, no one is going to do that. It would SEEM much better to just pay $10 and buy them…. VOILA!!! ANet makes more money. Sad. Very freaking fracking sad they feel the need to go to these lengths to milk the players.

Have no issue with a company making money, but call a spade a spade, trying to make an easier interface was a tertiary goal of this change.

Do both, have exchanged gold back and fourth and picked up gems direct when buying the game for a number of others as well for sending a large number of e-gifts to people. That said this is the Microsoft model where you are leading people toward acquiring more virtual currency then they need.

Now the next question might be why does it matter if people over convert. The simplest answer is that the more that the currency is converted the more its devalues since you lose out on the conversions each time. This further reduces the in-game assets of the player trying to encourage people to buy gems directly. I like the feature, have used it, and if people have disposable income all the better. But this comes across in a negative light which will make me question purchasing gifts for people in the future. Just 2 cents from a gamer with some disposable income. Good hunting!

It seems the bottom line is this: we want to support ANet, but there doesn’t seem to be any drive in the company to actually serve long-time customers by giving us content that we can purchase and enjoy.

Skins are only so large of a market, and ANet is milking the crap out of it for lack of actual content to serve veteran players. Listen, at the end of the day everyone in this thread would probably buy an expansion. I just don’t understand why ANet is so intent on keeping the game in homeostasis and trying to grow the game on the Gem Store. Was is bad project management vis-a-vis the budget? So now ANet is in the position of having to finance any substantial development work through, essentially, quarter-on-quarter gem store revenue? Because that seems outlandish to me as someone with fairly little business experience. Why would a company of ANet’s calibre not save or re-invest a portion of box-sales (especially when the game was fresh) for potential franchise or content expansions? I mean, it seems in the first year of the living story that ANet did manage this, but they didn’t manage to save up much money from that whole ordeal, so Living Story season 2 is much more spaced out and reliance on the gem store has increased.

It seems as though ANet’s business model has failed to cultivate long-term success and thus there is a huge focus on the near-term.

CMM.6712:

lordkrall.7241:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m with you with the love for Anet and “our” game. Do you really think this was a good move for their business? Just look at all the rage, not only here but in countless other fan-forums too. They won’t make money that way, they will lose customers.

I think the change itself is rather good, but they need to fix the amounts and potentially also add the ability to add custom numbers. But the thinking behind the change as such is good in my eyes.

The thing about this situation is that it will rage like mad for a couple of days and then it will blow over, just like all the other times.

Your shilling is noted.

Yes, like going back to the old system isn’t, in essence, almost exactly what he suggested.

Another free suggestion for a revision? You want to buy something but are X Gems short? Have it calculated to give you exactly the amount of Gems you need so you don’t wind up with leftovers.

Yes, even for real money.

Yes this means probably charges for odd amounts like $11.76 US.

Well I give ANet kudos for one thing… I bet the 58/59 page thread about the AWFUL trait changes, which they are ignoring (seemingly until the end of time) will likely fall down the list on page 1.

I’m shocked at how shocked some people are here. This is really “par usual” for ANet at this point.

At ANet… how can you even be suggesting we should stop “ranting” about such an obvious decision that is only good for money making, and does NOTHING to enhance player experience??? You are all either blind or think we are complete idiots.

This is not directed at the one poor ANet liason who’s posted in here, but at the company in general.

Although I disagree with the implementation of the new system, this can easily be remedied by simply adding an “Advanced” option and having the “Basic” option as the default.

So for those who like the more advanced UI for exchange, they can enable it from the game option.

Problem solved.

lordkrall.7241:

But it IS a usability improvement. Sure it needs some polishing and more options but claiming that it does not make it easier to use would be rather silly.

How is it an improvement when they have removed the option that made it flexible (and the conversion data chart)? That’s going backwards in usability in my books.

I personally will not be satisfied with adding 100 gem increments. That still won’t solve the problem of buying things that are not priced such, or the fact that people have surplus gem amounts of varied odd numbers on their accounts.

I actually got a laugh about Anet asking for suggestions to a change on something that was better before they did it.

Here’s a suggestion, change it back. Add a new section for great new ideas you have and label it “New people who apparently can’t figure out what millions of others were able to – come here”

Gaile Gray.6029:

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

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

The gemstore was too confusing? Oh well then just level gate it with all the other confusing content that new players are overwhelmed with. Put it at level 80. Hopefully by then the new players will understand things like mining, vistas, skill points, etc, so they won’t have to deal with more than one confusing topic at a time.

lordkrall.7241:

Ankushp.7245:

These attempts to increase your revenues from the game are soo irritating……..first you (Anet) ended the key runs in the previous update……..and now this…….and all in the name of “simplifying”

Yes how dare a company (whose first and foremost purpose is to make money) dare try to make money?

What you don’t understand is thhat this is a terrible way to make money. It’s akin to short selling, slash and burn, short term profit as opposed to long term investment. It’s not healthy for Anet to do this, because more people will leave, and that equals even less profit.

I very strongly believe in the, ‘Build it and they will come’ business principle. In this case, that means creating new content and providing an unobtrusive, fair means for the customers to fund it.

Where’s the new content? Where’s the product?

This game should have an expansion by now.

Anet sold out, and that’s all there is to it.

Better luck next time.

I don’t think anyone appreciates these changes, and as a veteran who has been playing GW since 2005 I believe ANET is losing touch. We like GW and GW2 because there was no subscription cost. We even like the gem store for what it’s worth.

However, forcing users to purchase a set amount (that is well over the lowest cost gem store item) with their hard earned gold is less than fair, and is borderline abusive. Even less so that you blame it on “ease of use” and “new players”.

TL;DR – You’re out of touch ANET. We loved you because you weren’t trying to milk us for cash, which you are actively doing with this change.

Heyo NCSoft making money in the bank. This some korean-level marketing strategy. Surprised China hasn’t thought of this, or wait do they already has it?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Although I disagree with the implementation of the new system, this can easily be remedied by simply adding an “Advanced” option and having the “Basic” option as the default.

So for those who like the more advanced UI for exchange, they can enable it from the game option.

Problem solved.

If by basic you mean the new interface and advanced you mean the old, that would work. As has been suggested before having the old options with quick buy block options that the new system uses would have also worked.

Jacobbs.9468:

Skins are only so large of a market, and ANet is milking the crap out of it for lack of actual content to serve veteran players. Listen, at the end of the day everyone in this thread would probably buy an expansion. I just don’t understand why ANet is so intent on keeping the game in homeostasis and trying to grow the game on the Gem Store.

Yes, I am quoting myself. I wanted to be clear: I’m not claiming this is what ANet has set out to do, this is how it feels to me as a player.

I’ve got a suggestion for them. How about fixing things that are REALLY broken in the game and have been for years now. Seriously, condition damage stacking, hobosacks, rewards revamp, precursor scavenger hunt, the tendency for the game to be absolutely and inexplicably unplayable behind a windows 8 firewall all these things should have been on the list for changes. This however should not. So my second suggestion would be, revert it back and then actually spend some time on the real problems this game has had for years now. Thanks.

One of the most baffling things about this system, besides the fact that gemstore item prices don’t match up to the increments you can buy, is why the “buy” button is next to the currency you are selling. A guildie last night acted quickly and clicked the right column buy because she thought she was buying that much gold with the gems she had.

Should she have read the big “buy gems” at the top? Sure. The same how new players using the old system should have read what they were doing.

I’m going to add my voice to this thread in the hope that every little helps. I will try to keep calm and not flame about the change although like many others I feel strongly that it was a wrong move, and I will try and keep deleting the snide comments that keep slipping into this post.
My Suggestions.
Like many before me I believe there is a simple answer, a ‘custom amount’ button added to the new interface.
Alternatively, again as previously mentioned, more lower options for gem purchase, at the very least a 10 and 100 gem option. The gold side starts at 1G so it seems rather unbalanced to me.

You say that the intention was to make it more like a real life shopping experience, I would therefore suggest that you take inspiration from the various online currency conversion sites. A common lay out on these sites is to have two boxes, one for Pounds (I’m in the UK) and one for an alternative currency, say Dollars. You can either enter the amount of Pounds you want to spend and it will tell you the amount of Dollars you get for that, or you can enter the amount of Dollars you want to buy and it will tell you how many Pounds it will cost you. Something similar at the bottom of the tables on the new interface would solve most complaints, people could decide how many gems to buy or how much gold to sell and vice versa.

I am one of those people who change small amounts of gold into gems at regular intervals, I have been playing since launch and I do not think I have ever had 75 gold during that time.

On a good note, if the people here are representative of the player base and do refuse to exchange gold for gems, then hopefully the price will come down to where my current 7 gold can be used to buy the minimum 400 gems on the chart.

tigirius.9014:

I’ve got a suggestion for them. How about fixing things that are REALLY broken in the game and have been for years now. Seriously, condition damage stacking, hobosacks, rewards revamp, precursor scavenger hunt, the tendency for the game to be absolutely and inexplicably unplayable behind a windows 8 firewall all these things should have been on the list for changes. This however should not. So my second suggestion would be, revert it back and then actually spend some time on the real problems this game has had for years now. Thanks.

Come on dude, that kitten don’t make money at all. GW2 is a business, and profit is top priority.

tigirius.9014:

I’ve got a suggestion for them. How about fixing things that are REALLY broken in the game and have been for years now.

Do you really think that they took people away from trying to fix those things for this change?
Do you even think they would need more than a days work (at most) to make these changes?

I would have scrapped gem purchase altogether.

In the exchange panel, players would be able to get gold with gems. And a button for “all remaining gems” would be added, so people can get rid of spare small amounts of gems.

And what about gems with gold? That would be no more. Instead, items in the gem store would have two rows of buttons: Purchase with gems, and purchase with gold.

By purchasing with gold, gems would be exchanged on the fly, in the exact amount. If you want to spend just gold equivalent of 25 gems, you spend just that. No more buying 400 to spend 25.

This way nobody would have spare gems lying around. Which is what annoys me the most of the change.

Not only is this new system odd and punitive, but what the heck happened to the conversion rate? Just the night before I could exchange 100 gold for 643 gems. Immediately after this “UI” revamp 100 gold (If I could buy this increment) wouldn’t even get me 500 gems.

This is over a 20% reduction in the gold to gem conversion ratio that happened over night. I don’t think I have ever seen a 12 hour change this drastic in the gold-for-gems market.

Rauderi.8706:

On a very basic level, the format is good. The options are not.

If it was a move to combat the steady rise in gem prices, then it should have been harder to buy them, but easy to sell them. Especially since the Buy Gold section looks ripe for rounding error and cheating people out of silver they should be getting for odd values in gems.

If they want to have pre-defined rates, it should be more akin to

Buy Gold section
Shows what each rate of gems is worth, specifically. Denominations to avoid offset numbers, like having only 30 gems left. People will ditch leftover gems for gold, helping to maintain the value of gems.
Example:
[Sell 800 gems] = 75g 6s
[Sell 100 gems] = 9g kitten
[Sell 10 gems] = kitten 50c
[Sell 1 gem] = 4s 55c
[Custom Offer] = Trade Value

Buy Gems section
[Buy 800 gems] = 98g 28s
[Buy 400 gems] = 49g 14s
[Buy 200 gems] = 24g 57s
[Buy 100 gems] = 12g 28s 50c

While I personally liked the ability to buy gems in small packages (as I did when I first started out, trying to earn extra character slots that way), I can see the value in having a gate point on buying gems with gold. I don’t particularly like it, but I can consider compromises, like a minimum gem order of 200 or 100.

Can’t agree- No Minimum and ability to combine to any combo. E.G. I have 4 gems and need 146 to buy the inventor glasses. I should be able to convert gold to 146.
Minimums to BUY gems with real $? 100 would be acceptable.

Proposal

Several suggestions have been made, the two best options, IMO being:
- an additional “advanced” option for direct input of gold/gems
- a slider option (which is stupid easy and convenient, and thus meets the given reasoning behind the change) wherein one simply manipulates a slider to their desired gem or gold amount. Both amounts are transparent, and the ratio / relationship is made obvious.
- an addition button at the bottom of the conversion chart that simply says “other amount” which allows the user to input their desired quantity.

Background

I previously spent way too much money on the gemstore, I think the last quarter of 2013 I wound up a bit shocked at how much I’d spent (something around $500-600 – often in small transactions). I tried to curtail it to a set a limit every month, which was easy in 2014 as the updates were fewer and far between, with less desirable options being offered in the store (in terms of my tastes – subjective, and certainly not a critique). Even so, I was still spending about $50 or so every month. I then started to use gold to gem conversions, especially for convenience things like boosts (farming), or makeover contracts (altoholic) and the gem conversion was always a convenient, easy to understand feature that facilitated my frequent transactions. It was also often in small quantities, the largest gem to gold conversion I ever recall doing was about 350 gems for a contract. The rest were small amounts to add to my existing balance, or to make up the difference between what I was willing to purchase (with cash) and what I wanted. Often about 50-100 gems.

The old ui allowed me to get exactly the amount I needed, and to quickly and easily cash in my remaining gems for gold. Now, I have to go through 7-10 transactions to exchange my gems, even if I spend $10 for the lone purpose of getting gold, I have to go through eight transactions to convert it all. (400-340 = 60) and the next highest option is 69, so I have to do numerous transactions of 8 gems, which leave me a remainder of 4 gems. I don’t even get to exchange the entirety of the 400 gems I purchased.

If I want to buy something small or simple with gold, I have to spend way more than I’d like or feel comfortable with to get it. That’s ludicrous. It is not convenient, and it is the change itself that confuses me. Worth noting: I started playing with the gem system within my first month of gameplay. It was not, in the slightest, confusing.

A final note

As a fan and devotee of the game, I say the following with the utmost sincerity; At some point, these occasional misguided decisions need to be taken into account, and perhaps there needs to be some discussion on who is responsible for them, or maybe you need a retreat in order to better understand your gaming community/customer. Or, maybe you just need someone who intimately understands the MMO player experience, and thus has an intuitive sense of changes that won’t go well.

I know that those in leadership may not be able to afford to second guess themselves, but seems as though these changes are made without any insight into the community, and by someone who is pretty much in the dark. It’s hard, as a member of the GW2 community, to try to comprehend how someone who depends on this community would fail to pick up these various themes. It’s important that your “decision makers” get some insight, and soon – because these fumbled “improvements” are getting to be very frustrating – I’m sure for you, as well as for us.

lordkrall.7241:

tigirius.9014:

I’ve got a suggestion for them. How about fixing things that are REALLY broken in the game and have been for years now.

Do you really think that they took people away from trying to fix those things for this change?
Do you even think they would need more than a days work (at most) to make these changes?

It humors me on a spiritual level that you think they actually have someone working on hobo sacs.

Yeah this is disappointing, losing a playerbase here.
-1 Anet

I am really shocked at the amount of money that players are spending and have spent on this game. I had no idea people spent that much. It is my hope that finally they will hear when it dries up because of poor decision making and lack of communication.

I was buying gems little by little when i have money to safe an amount of them when something i want shows up…

Now i have 1147 gems… that 47 gems are lost, i can’t buy 53 to have a hundred and spent it into something, this system is unnecesary, gives aNet free way to change the price without we knowing and tie our hands for the freedom to buy gems. This system don’t offers the player any advantage, if you watch it carefully is full of disavantages, but who knows? maybe that is what aNet intended…

This is quite a low blow to the community. I’m sure most of us understand the reasoning behind this, the employees at ArenaNet need money to stay alive, but the way this was handled is very dissapointing. Not sure if this was an initiative from anet’s part of NCSoft (I want to believe it was from NC). It’s a sneaky method of charging more for a service that surely wasn’t doing that bad (as in, the previous gem system was profitable). It’s a huge change to an established system, that came completely out of nowhere and diminishes versatility and accessibility to the players, and even removes some sense that the company cares for its player base. It’s going from a democratic system to a dictatorship, where we are ruled by a blind, idiotic capitalist.

I had made the decision to start buying 2000 gems every month, or at least every 2 months, as a way to contribute to the game, the company and especially its employees, but this change is making have serious doubts about that. Being forced into something is not pleasing to your costumer’s anet.

Also, at least be frontal about stuff like this… Enough with “dumbing things down for your own sake”.

As for suggestions: At least give us more options on the amount of gems we can buy with gold. Make increments of 25 gems up until 100 gems (25, 50, 75, 100, 400…). Also, the money (real money) to gem ratio in the store does not add up to the options available in gem cards, why not revise that and have more people buy from the ingame gem store, instead of having to resort to a 3rd party?

I’d like to add my 2 cents to the idea that, in addition to the “simple” interface, there should be an “advanced” interface which would show what we had before. Previously, there was no minimum limit to the amount of gold-to-gems or gems-to-gold we could get. This worked beautifully.

I can fully understand minimum-gem limits on real-money-to-gems as those often have Credit Card fees associated with them, but I shouldn’t be forced into specific pricing buckets when trading between 2 in-game currencies.

I actually LIKE the new simple interface, especially the “preview” of how much money I’ll have once I make the conversion, I just don’t want that to be my only option.

Wanting to make money is fine. Scapegoating it under the pretense of helping new players (keyfarming and gem conversion being too complicated for new players?) and lying in general (I am sorry, but Arenanet lies about pretty much everything) is not.

Bad move. In the end, all the people who for some reason still have faith and trust in you, Arenanet, will stop having exactly that. What then?

lordkrall.7241:

Oh? I keep seeing people in this thread that have claimed multiple times that they would never spend any money on the game outside of the original purchase. The thing is that those people that mainly spent actual money on gems are not really that effected by this change.

While I’ll agree this change hurts players who only buy gems with gold, it also leaves anyone who bought gems with money screwed out of changing over any left over gems to gold. I had leftover gems from my last purchase that I was planning to turn to gold once the Halloween patch hit. (Because I knew the gold: gems ratio was about to be in my favor to get as much gold as possible for my gems. ) Perhaps if a ‘Covert all gems to gold’ button was added, that would fix my current problem I’m having with it, but honestly I’d rather have it back the way it was.

Now however, I will always have some weird number of gems left over if I decide to covert it to gold. Currently I’d have 5 leftover gems and have to click 2 buttons 5 times. With the old system I’d have no excess gems and only had to type in the number. Which was 3 keys. So if we’re judging this based on how complicated it is, I’d still say the old system was better.

Summing it up: The new system screws me out of gems that I paid for in USD. You might say it’s only 5 gems, but the old system let me use those 5 gems to buy something I wanted.

I suppose I could wait until the gem price changes to be a multiple of 3 or 5, but again, the new system adds complications where there were none before.

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.

if you pay me i give you a lot of suggestions…. there is a reason for this huge ranting…..

Gaile arenanet have to find the right way for this , not the player , but seems you don’t want to do the right things for the player (veterans or news) but only for your profit…..

Their entire reasoning for new gem system is flawed. How can new players possibly afford to buy 400 gems to get anything. All it will do is make the gem store more inaccessible to new players. Say they want that 500gem finisher they now have to pay over 150g to get it cause they have to buy 800gems. What new player has that much money.

Say they want to buy gems with money instead and want to get two 500gem items. They buy 800 gems and now cannot buy 200 more gems in gold to get the second item but instead most save up 70-80g for it. All this system has done is made it so new player wont use your system unless they play long enough to grind the gold out or quit.

Why not have a 25 gem, and 100gem option to buy with gold? Or just 100gem. You may not have intended for it too look like a cash grab, but that’s what players will likely see.

ipan.4356:

lordkrall.7241:

Ankushp.7245:

These attempts to increase your revenues from the game are soo irritating……..first you (Anet) ended the key runs in the previous update……..and now this…….and all in the name of “simplifying”

Yes how dare a company (whose first and foremost purpose is to make money) dare try to make money?

What you don’t understand is thhat this is a terrible way to make money. It’s akin to short selling, slash and burn, short term profit as opposed to long term investment. It’s not healthy for Anet to do this, because more people will leave, and that equals even less profit.

I very strongly believe in the, ‘Build it and they will come’ business principle. In this case, that means creating new content and providing an unobtrusive, fair means for the customers to fund it.

Where’s the new content? Where’s the product?

This game should have an expansion by now.

Anet sold out, and that’s all there is to it.

Better luck next time.

Hey I thought you left!

Please dont take from us the ability to buy what we want.
Ive spent more than 2k dolars buying gems since ive bought the game, 3 months ago. I do beacuse i have a confortable money condition and i like to support the game i love.
But this was a very cheap move from the developers to maximize the profits.
The best way to actualy impact the devs opnions its not buying nothing on Store, but in a game with milions of players, an unnorganized community and temporary salles on the store, its impractical. Then the other solution its contact by forum the devs to change it back.
Not sure if this will ever have an impact, since we represent a very small percentage of customers.
Maybe when the notice of the changes reach PC reviwers companies they will change. Just the time will tell.
Again, this was a very cheap move, remember my SWTOR and the Bioware….

Why do people continually ignore the cash to gems option in their requests to fix the currency conversion system? I strongly urge people to also consider that any changes made to gold-gem conversion have a real impact on the consumer perception of the cash to gems option on a basic level. Does it really not feel like some sort of odd cognitive dissonance to ignore this? Why should anet continue to have a minimum purchase system with cash to gems when the gold to gems system subverts that transaction design as it has for years? It doesn’t make sense. The entire design ethic should change, and this change to the currency conversion system unifies it towards the cash to gem model which people don’t like. If people want currency conversion fixed….please…..please…..think of the children.

This is the worst update i’ve seen in a long time in any mmo game!

It does give Anet more money apparently but it’s just a kick in the face for all the faithfull customers that did not flock to WoW, ArchAge, Tera, Wildstar or any other mmo that GW2 is in a competition these days.

To see such unthought and blatant changes make me very mad! kitten you Anet! What do you think you are?

Can you please take serious measure for the person that invented this new system!

I would be happy if they just added smaller increments, by about, say, 50, starting at 100 or 200, or even 250.
Example,
200
250
300
350
400
450…
etc.

All I want is to be able to convert gold to buy hair kits when new hair styles get released, and makeover kits when new faces come out, and stuff like that. I don’t want to have to either farm for 70+ gold for 400 gems or buy 800 gems when I only need 250.

This is so stupid why did they do this????

Here’s a quick suggestion, since they asked, put a box for “custom amount”. Just one box so we can type in exactly how much we want to buy. If I needed say, only 30 gems, I’d buy that with in game gold. That is after my initial bulk purchase of gems with cash.

Cash shop focused content driven game with elements of an mmo. I’m more surprised at players being surprised by this.

& do you guys really think NCsoft/Anet didn’t go through every suggestion on this forum before implementing this feature, they chose this direction and implementation for a reason, I can tell you it wasn’t to help new players (…ya 80g…right..).

Guild Wars to Guild Wars we know of today, stop feeding it!

I definitely think a custom amount of Gems should be available again. To avoid the previous issue of rounding (for example, both 10g and 10g 5s giving the same # of gems) change the player input to Gems and output the gold cost or gain. It’s kind of silly to say “I want to convert 52 gold, 50 silver” instead of “I want 500 gems” anyway.

I apologize if it has been posted already (only read 3-4 of 27 pages).

“Customize” button below each preset groupings that allows the inputs:
Gold to Gems:
– Gems: ____ / Cost: x
→ Gems: 100 / Cost: 15g 54s

Gems to Gold:
– Gems: ____ / Gain: x
→ Gems: 100 / Gain: 10g 26s

The system will automatically adjust the gold cost/gain to the nearest silver based on the current conversion rate.

Ok, here’s a suggestion, without ranting or complaining:

Allow us to purchase gems in different bulk amounts, not just 400 gems at a time. There should be buttons for 25 gem, 50 gem, and 100 gem conversion options, along with the 400. (And maybe add 800 and 1000) as well.

By doing so, restore some of the functionality to the new system that was lost, without losing any of the pros of the new system.

pelle ossa.9705:

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.

if you pay me i give you a lot of suggestions…. there is a reason for this huge ranting…..

Gaile arenanet have to find the right way for this , not the player , but seems you don’t want to do the right things for the player (veterans or news) but only for your profit…..

That reply is the last thing we need right now.

“We kind of need suggestions on what you want”

“Lol pay me, otherwise figure it out”.

This isnt digital minesweeper. Do something.

Suggestion: Add a 100 Gem option for people who like trading in small increments. Optionally, add a 25 and 50 gem option to allow people who need that extra 25 for the Black lion key or are 50 gems away from a hood mask or whatever to get what they need without an extra 450-475 gems of work.

Ideal suggestion: Put it back to how it was. Doubt the metrics will allow this so let’s propose the former.

Gaile,

On the chance that you or other members are still perusing this thread, here is something that I think would be a strong compromise on the system. I’ll keep it short up here, and then go into detail further below:

-Let players choose the number of gems they want to purchase with a slider or number entry. Instead of having players input the amount of gold they want to spend, have them tell the system how many gems they want to buy, and have the calculator determine the [lowest] price for that many gems.

Additional details:

According to what I’ve been reading from your posts, the primary concern is that “A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface.” and that the rounding concerns were aggravating, which I will definitely agree on. Generally, you have something in mind when you’re converting gold to gems, and you know exactly how many you need. It makes sense that you select how many gems you want and are told how much that will cost, instead of the counter-intuitive other way around.

That being said, barring technical difficulties with the implementation, I cannot understand why we need to have these four (or more, after feedback is implemented) set price points. Why can’t we just say “I want to purchase 100 gems” and the system will calculate that out, and tell us something like “100 gems will cost 13g. Are you sure you want to convert?” “Yes” “Success!”

A system set up in this way would give players back the freedom to buy gems in the amount they want (which is important those of us in the supposed minority who want to buy low amounts for, say, transmutation stones/charges, something I have done frequently). It would also make the system more intuitive for new players while eliminating the problem of rounding off the purchase price. Everybody wins.

Edit: And if that still seems confusing for new players, keep the established price points. When you go the gem conversion screen, have it offer you the 400, 800, etc, you have now, but also include a -OR- “input other amount” option.

I suggest having the gem to gold conversion rate be consistent across all multiples.

From the screenshot in the first post, 9 gems = 1 gold, however, 1831 gems = 250 gold.

1831 / 250 ~ 7.32 gems per gold, or about 25% lower cost in gems for converting in bulk.

This is very confusing, as without any indications, one would expect the conversion rate to be consistent despite how many gems you convert at a time.

Moreover, this discrepancy in gem::gold ratio does not exist on the gem side (400/75 ~ 5.3 vs 2000/378 ~ 5.3), further confusing things.

NO.

BAD ANET.

Making people pay for more gems than they need, and artificially driving gem price up, is just greedy.

Gaile Gray.6029:

fellyn.5083:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

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

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

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

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

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

So the best way to complain is not to write here but to write a ticket?

Ok! You can have this!

Please check back with your “LEGAL Department” if it is allowed to sell currency for real money and have a tiny bit of it beeing unusable. If the lowest conversion rate is 1g=8Gems and i have 7 Gems left over this would be a fault in the sold currency.

This might be not allowed by the country specific laws, for example in Germany i am quite sure i could demand a refund for the 7 gems in real money or revoke the full transaction as your product comes with a unfixable fault.

Try to considere this. Thank you!

Azure The Heartless.3261:

pelle ossa.9705:

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.

if you pay me i give you a lot of suggestions…. there is a reason for this huge ranting…..

Gaile arenanet have to find the right way for this , not the player , but seems you don’t want to do the right things for the player (veterans or news) but only for your profit…..

That reply is the last thing we need right now.

“We kind of need suggestions on what you want”

“Lol pay me, otherwise figure it out”.

This isnt digital minesweeper. Do something.

Suggestion: Add a 100 Gem option for people who like trading in small increments

Ideal suggestion: Put it back to how it was.

sarcasm detector off
I think arenanet is enough intelligent to know that the player want back the old system.