Guild Wars 2

It was fine for halloween and christmas because there was high mats supply and low interest in those stats…. But now with sentinel stuff, celestial food and armor it’s getting stupid.

What is the point of trying to balance a game if you’re going to unbalance it with limited access to some stats. Dont get me wrong, limited the way Ascended items are limited is fine(time gate), I don’t like it personally but it’s fair to everyone.

Now the way sentinel and celestial items are brought in game is the worse design ever, because it’s not fair, no casual player not forking real cash in the game can have any hope in getting those except in a very long time. Sentinel has become crazy expensive and celestial food recipe isn’t available anymore… I’m not sure how they’re going to handle celestial items but it sure feels like it’s going the sentinel way all over again.

Don’t forget that people can fork cash in the game and not just in the shop, Anet decided that people should be able to change cash in gold which makes the line toward pay2win very fuzzy and easy to cross, lots of other shop decided it was better to have 2 prices, one for cash and one for gold with no direct conversion, but with the current system people can buy gold directly with cash and concerning the state of items like sentinels on Trading Post it makes the game “leaning” towards pay2win because only “dedicated player” and casual who invest money will get them while most casual who don’t put cash in the game can only dream about it ending up with a disadvantage.

To make it clear I don’t mind that people can turn cash into gold but for it not to become pay2win you need to watch the market very closely and any useful non cosmetic item(armors, weapons, foods…) getting to expensive on trading post should be dealt with by either puting back the item in game or introducing new equivalent.

So NO it’s not a pay2win game “yet” but it sure feels like update after update the game is slowly taking that direction. And yes stats sure don’t make everything but limiting their access slowly but surely with each update unbalanced the game more and more.

So what do people think? Am I completely wrong? Do you feel the same? Whatever?

PS: I’m more interested to know what people think about limited access to stats, don’t make this a pay2win thread only please. And thanks.

They said from the beginning that different stat combinations were going to be part of the content updates. I don’t think that gear with every stat on it is worth getting. You are better off specializing in a specific branch and maximizing a build. There is no Win in PVE. There is only win in PVP and you can’t pay for victories in that.

Making a Build I decide what weapon is more my style. Then I see if that weapon is more condition or power based. Then I find traits to suit that style. Then I pick from those traits the stats I will have on my gear.

And about the sentinel gear, I play necro so Vit is my primary stat with each giving me more death shroud. At some point you don’t need more health, and adding any more is detrimental to your performance. If you can’t get enough Vit with secondary vit stats then rethink your build. There are so many combinations with secondary vit you can get any traits you want.

This is one of my two complaints with temporary content, and it is the bigger of the two. If a player wants to have a particular stat distribution or, say, mix and match gear to even things out, then if they didn’t play at a particular point in time they are out of luck.

This is the first we have seen of the new stat gear. Has there been any official word that it will never show up anywhere else?

Stone.6751:

This is the first we have seen of the new stat gear. Has there been any official word that it will never show up anywhere else?

This is not a first we had sentinel, giver and others. None has come back yet as far as I know.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is one of my two complaints with temporary content, and it is the bigger of the two. If a player wants to have a particular stat distribution or, say, mix and match gear to even things out, then if they didn’t play at a particular point in time they are out of luck.

Visit the TP.

tolunart.2095:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is one of my two complaints with temporary content, and it is the bigger of the two. If a player wants to have a particular stat distribution or, say, mix and match gear to even things out, then if they didn’t play at a particular point in time they are out of luck.

Visit the TP.

You can’t – not with celestial gear, anyway, because anything you craft is account bound. And after a while, those recipes to make it for yourself will run out, and ANet haven’t said anything about making those available for karma like other recipes. So yes, new players will miss out. Which seems a shame. It’s not really about whether the stats provide anything game-changing or not (though some ele builds will do well with the celestial stats) – it’s just that it is new gear that goes BEYOND the cosmetic only approach other time limited content has shown, that people will miss out on. To me, that seems like an odd decision of ANet’s.

Does the stat gear in question provide a clear, objective, advantage over other gear options ?

If it is not clearly and objectively superior it cannot be pay to win.

Hmmm, a new phrase or two might be in order:

1) PtL (pay to lose)
2) PtBA (pay to be average)

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s pay to win are they? they’re just questioning whether or not it should be limited in terms of availability considering it is a stat, not a strictly cosmetic gear option.

CrossedHorse.4261:

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s pay to win are they? they’re just questioning whether or not it should be limited in terms of availability considering it is a stat, not a strictly cosmetic gear option.

Well the OP does state that he believes that this is, “leaning towards pay to win.”

I tend to agree that limited availability on specific stat combinations is a less than ideal situation, but, unless the limited stat combination provides a clear and objective advantage over all other options, its not really even close to any form of pay to win (IMO of course).

Limited, but not entirely blocked off.

You can go to the TP and pick up sentinel gear (and PVT is a perfectly fine alternative for WvW), and I’m pretty sure you can give the celestial recipes to people.

OP, stop crying.

Ashen.2907:

CrossedHorse.4261:

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s pay to win are they? they’re just questioning whether or not it should be limited in terms of availability considering it is a stat, not a strictly cosmetic gear option.

Well the OP does state that he believes that this is, “leaning towards pay to win.”

I tend to agree that limited availability on specific stat combinations is a less than ideal situation, but, unless the limited stat combination provides a clear and objective advantage over all other options, its not really even close to any form of pay to win (IMO of course).

Oh, fair enough. No disrespect to the OP, but I skimmed the last two paragraphs so I probably missed that part.

I agree, it’s not, imo, even leaning towards P2W, but I do still think that limiting the availability of this new gear is a bad move (not in terms of account binding – that’s totally fine by me), just the temporal quality of it.

colesy.8490:

Limited, but not entirely blocked off.

You can go to the TP and pick up sentinel gear (and PVT is a perfectly fine alternative for WvW), and I’m pretty sure you can give the celestial recipes to people.

OP, stop crying.

OP isn’t crying. He is bringing a good thought to the table for discussion.

But, to answer your post directly -

With celestial gear, you can’t pick it up off the TP as anything crafted is account bound.

The recipes are given as a reward for opening boxes specifically associated with a limited time event. As of next Tuesday, when these boxes disappear, that may very well be the end of their availability. Which obviously means that eventually the supply on the TP will run out UNLESS ANet add these into the game (as per my suggestion on several threads now that we can purchase them using karma from the crafting master vendors at each station, as we can with other higher tier recipes).

But, if they don’t, and the supply on the TP runs out (could happen, particularly since the recipes unlock on a per character, not a per account basis), then, yes, these items will become limited entirely.

Yes, because Celestial and Sentinel are great stat combinations so they sure are Pay2Win!

/endsarcasm

Ok sorry I shouldn’t have mentioned the word pay2win, it was just a way to express thing… I should have said it’s “Pay to have a different game experience” but it’s not limited to cosmetic and that’s what bothering me.
Sure as I said it’s only small stat difference, it’s not game breaking and not giving a huge advantage but diversity still gives you a very small advantage and having it’s access limited isn’t a good thing.
By the way I’m not crying, I’m just wondering what others think about that.

CrossedHorse.4261:

tolunart.2095:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is one of my two complaints with temporary content, and it is the bigger of the two. If a player wants to have a particular stat distribution or, say, mix and match gear to even things out, then if they didn’t play at a particular point in time they are out of luck.

Visit the TP.

You can’t – not with celestial gear, anyway, because anything you craft is account bound. And after a while, those recipes to make it for yourself will run out, and ANet haven’t said anything about making those available for karma like other recipes. So yes, new players will miss out. Which seems a shame. It’s not really about whether the stats provide anything game-changing or not (though some ele builds will do well with the celestial stats) – it’s just that it is new gear that goes BEYOND the cosmetic only approach other time limited content has shown, that people will miss out on. To me, that seems like an odd decision of ANet’s.

The message I was responding to was about time-specific content, not just celestial. Most items from previous content can be found on the TP right now – snowflakes and candy corn, Mad King’s and Giver’s gear, etc. even going on a year after the “temporary” event.

The recipes and basic quartz crystals are not account bound, you can get them from the TP now and if I were a gambling man I’d bet that a year from now there will still be a supply of them on the TP, just like the “temporary” content from Halloween and Wintersday.

No one is missing out on anything, and if Anet believed that their customers were missing something important, there’s nothing keeping them from reintroducing the items.

Personally, I think it’s a good idea to make crafting more important in the game. Almost everything you craft sells on the TP for less than the cost of materials, making it more profitable to harvest mats and sell them than using the mats to make something! Having items that can only be obtained through crafting is a good thing.

Don’t be sorry for stating the truth op, it is p2w, simple.

Celestial and sentinel are great stat combos to a few builds for a few professions. Well, for players who knows what they are doing anyways. For others they can just keep playing the game by pressing 1 over and over again,

Ashen.2907:

Does the stat gear in question provide a clear, objective, advantage over other gear options ?

Well, it is the best of the currently available MF sets.

Funny to see that there are so many game designers playing GW2.

tolunart.2095:

CrossedHorse.4261:

tolunart.2095:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is one of my two complaints with temporary content, and it is the bigger of the two. If a player wants to have a particular stat distribution or, say, mix and match gear to even things out, then if they didn’t play at a particular point in time they are out of luck.

Visit the TP.

You can’t – not with celestial gear, anyway, because anything you craft is account bound. And after a while, those recipes to make it for yourself will run out, and ANet haven’t said anything about making those available for karma like other recipes. So yes, new players will miss out. Which seems a shame. It’s not really about whether the stats provide anything game-changing or not (though some ele builds will do well with the celestial stats) – it’s just that it is new gear that goes BEYOND the cosmetic only approach other time limited content has shown, that people will miss out on. To me, that seems like an odd decision of ANet’s.

The message I was responding to was about time-specific content, not just celestial. Most items from previous content can be found on the TP right now – snowflakes and candy corn, Mad King’s and Giver’s gear, etc. even going on a year after the “temporary” event.

The recipes and basic quartz crystals are not account bound, you can get them from the TP now and if I were a gambling man I’d bet that a year from now there will still be a supply of them on the TP, just like the “temporary” content from Halloween and Wintersday.

No one is missing out on anything, and if Anet believed that their customers were missing something important, there’s nothing keeping them from reintroducing the items.

Personally, I think it’s a good idea to make crafting more important in the game. Almost everything you craft sells on the TP for less than the cost of materials, making it more profitable to harvest mats and sell them than using the mats to make something! Having items that can only be obtained through crafting is a good thing.

Oh I totally agree about making crafting more important in the game. I never had an issue with the crafted items being account bound. I was just concerned about the fact that at some point the recipes would dry up and thus it doesn’t matter what the end material would be since you couldn’t access it anyway. But note that I said “unless”. I would very much think ANet would choose to re-introduce the recipes in some way, perhaps the way I outlined previously.

If this is the only time this gear is available I’d be sad. We don’t have anything saying that this is the only time and only place this gear will ever be available in this game.

I’m not sure what you need to buy from the Gem Store to get Celestial gear though. I thought you could get the recipes in trade for common materials and then just mine the crystals and turn them into those special crystals to craft with?

Isn’t everything still available to people without buying anything in the Gem Store?

I doubt this is the only time the gear will be available. Celestial stats are too prevalent in the game. Sentinel stats could have been a one time thing as they mix with different combinations.

recipes shouldn’t be limited. But it’s not p2w.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Oh I totally agree about making crafting more important in the game. I never had an issue with the crafted items being account bound. I was just concerned about the fact that at some point the recipes would dry up and thus it doesn’t matter what the end material would be since you couldn’t access it anyway. But note that I said “unless”. I would very much think ANet would choose to re-introduce the recipes in some way, perhaps the way I outlined previously.

But why would you think the recipes will dry up? There are recipe sheets from last Halloween available on the TP when the event where they dropped ended nine months ago.

This isn’t subject to real-world concerns where a shortage of materials means it can take months to manufacture, package and ship more items. If celestial recipes are popular, the devs can add them to Black Lion chests, or put them into future events, or just add them to loot tables so they drop randomly in the game.

I think people get too upset over the “temporary events” thing – it’s all just code, and it’s not destroyed at the end of the event. A lot of it will be repeated every year or so, and even one-time events can be revisited, items can be re-released, etc. Nothing is gone forever as long as the servers are still running.

Stone.6751:

If this is the only time this gear is available I’d be sad. We don’t have anything saying that this is the only time and only place this gear will ever be available in this game.

I’m not sure what you need to buy from the Gem Store to get Celestial gear though. I thought you could get the recipes in trade for common materials and then just mine the crystals and turn them into those special crystals to craft with?

Isn’t everything still available to people without buying anything in the Gem Store?

I haven’t bought anything from the gem store. Fortune cookies (“kite fortunes”) drop from mobs in the game and recipes sometimes come in them. You also get fortune scraps and ten scraps buys a supply box with some quartz and a recipe from the Black Lion weapon ticket vendors. I’ve gotten a few dozen recipes, mostly for the insignias and such that are overstocked on the TP and sell for vendor +1c, so I just vendor those.

When people get the other stuff they want with the scraps, they’ll spend them on supply boxes and flood the market with recipes, and the prices will drop. Until then, I’m selling most of the recipes I get unless I need it immediately.

I guess you can buy supply boxes in the gem store, but why spend real money on them when you can buy several boxes a day just with scraps?

tolunart.2095:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Oh I totally agree about making crafting more important in the game. I never had an issue with the crafted items being account bound. I was just concerned about the fact that at some point the recipes would dry up and thus it doesn’t matter what the end material would be since you couldn’t access it anyway. But note that I said “unless”. I would very much think ANet would choose to re-introduce the recipes in some way, perhaps the way I outlined previously.

But why would you think the recipes will dry up? There are recipe sheets from last Halloween available on the TP when the event where they dropped ended nine months ago.

This isn’t subject to real-world concerns where a shortage of materials means it can take months to manufacture, package and ship more items. If celestial recipes are popular, the devs can add them to Black Lion chests, or put them into future events, or just add them to loot tables so they drop randomly in the game.

I think people get too upset over the “temporary events” thing – it’s all just code, and it’s not destroyed at the end of the event. A lot of it will be repeated every year or so, and even one-time events can be revisited, items can be re-released, etc. Nothing is gone forever as long as the servers are still running.

Well if they do that then I’m happy with it. And, like I said before, I’m not crying over it. I mentioned it simply because I thought it was an odd decision of ANet’s to make them limited time only. But, if, as you say, they won’t dry up, then I have no complaint. I’m pretty sure I was clear about that.

As for the reasoning, well, it’s obvious. Make something which is a consumable item only available through a certain chest, and make that chest only available for a certain period of time, then it’s not hard to work out that the item you want in that chest is also in limited supply.

Hence the use of the word “unless”, which I can’t stress enough to you. I think that you must have misunderstood the original direction I was coming from. Hopefully, this is clearer.

Temporary content is bad by itself. This is just one example but we did see this with multiple temporary content. Not only this one.

Anet had to stop they temporary content stuff, but it comes out of a gem-store focus. Make temporary content and get so pressure people to play and buy gems.

If you really want this to stop don’t buy gems (and buy the expansion if available), if you really like temporary content buy gems (and don;t buy an expansion).. And be aware, I am talking about temporary content, not regular patches.. people seem to mix those two up a lot on the forums.

CrossedHorse.4261:

As for the reasoning, well, it’s obvious. Make something which is a consumable item only available through a certain chest, and make that chest only available for a certain period of time, then it’s not hard to work out that the item you want in that chest is also in limited supply.

Hence the use of the word “unless”, which I can’t stress enough to you. I think that you must have misunderstood the original direction I was coming from. Hopefully, this is clearer.

No, I understand what you’re saying, the thing that confuses me is that you seem to be tying your statements to conditions that have already been shown to be false. This isn’t the first time that crafting recipes have been based on a limited time event. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would think they would suddenly disappear when an event that ended nine months ago still has dozens of recipes and items, and millions of crafting mats still on the TP.

It’s a bit like saying “if the sun rises tomorrow morning, I’ll go to work.” I don’t disagree with going to work, but I have to wonder why you think there is any chance that the sun won’t rise tomorrow, because it has on every other day before this. Likewise, there are no crafting materials or recipes that are “gone” from the game despite the temporary nature of the content in which they appeared. Candy corn, snowflakes, sigils of the night, giver’s armor… all of these things are still present in sufficient supply despite their events being long gone.

The only things I can think of that are no longer available in the game were specifically removed by Anet. Fused weapons were only available for a limited time through Black Lion chests and the chance to get one was removed from the chest at the end of the event. Infinite use harvesting tools were only available through the gemstore and two of them were removed after a short time. None of these items are sellable on the TP or can be given away to other players, so there can be no surplus.

But even then it’s implied that they will return someday, the tools are too popular and useful, and the Fused tickets can still be redeemed in game. There simply is no such thing as “gone forever” in this game.

Which is a long and boring way to tell you, don’t worry the process of putting celestial stats on items isn’t going away.

I can get the complaint about Sentinel / Azurite equipment, since azurite was restricted to start and then became impossible to generate shortly thereafter. But quartz is an entirely different ballgame. There’s going to be piles of people that continue to harvest quartz long after the event ends – it’ll probably be slightly expensive compared to other gemstones, but there will be a stable supply of it.

As for Giver’s… Well, I think the weapons might have been useful in niche circumstances, but were the armor / trinkets ever worth investing in?

Hmm, a bit mixed on this. I do agree having such rare stats is sorta bad, but on the other hand these stats sorta suck anyways and come across as a novelty to me.

Only time will tell how this will end but people should realize that comparing sentinel/celestial against giver is wrong because giver isn’t very sought after but you can see that sentinel which enough people seem to like is going up in price and you can wonder when will it stop? Or in other words when Anet will decide that sentinel is needed back in game? And how long until we see another recipe for celestial food?

Celestial armor/weapons won’t have exactly the same issue since quartz will have a steady supply(even if low) but recipe is another story and they may very well end up very expensive due to the interest people have in celestial stats.

And yes sure these stats aren’t gone, they’ll probably be back but until then it’s kinda frustrating for new players or even returning players who missed on those stat that they don’t have access to the same stuff as others.

tolunart.2095:

CrossedHorse.4261:

As for the reasoning, well, it’s obvious. Make something which is a consumable item only available through a certain chest, and make that chest only available for a certain period of time, then it’s not hard to work out that the item you want in that chest is also in limited supply.

Hence the use of the word “unless”, which I can’t stress enough to you. I think that you must have misunderstood the original direction I was coming from. Hopefully, this is clearer.

No, I understand what you’re saying, the thing that confuses me is that you seem to be tying your statements to conditions that have already been shown to be false. This isn’t the first time that crafting recipes have been based on a limited time event. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would think they would suddenly disappear when an event that ended nine months ago still has dozens of recipes and items, and millions of crafting mats still on the TP.

It’s a bit like saying “if the sun rises tomorrow morning, I’ll go to work.” I don’t disagree with going to work, but I have to wonder why you think there is any chance that the sun won’t rise tomorrow, because it has on every other day before this. Likewise, there are no crafting materials or recipes that are “gone” from the game despite the temporary nature of the content in which they appeared. Candy corn, snowflakes, sigils of the night, giver’s armor… all of these things are still present in sufficient supply despite their events being long gone.

The only things I can think of that are no longer available in the game were specifically removed by Anet. Fused weapons were only available for a limited time through Black Lion chests and the chance to get one was removed from the chest at the end of the event. Infinite use harvesting tools were only available through the gemstore and two of them were removed after a short time. None of these items are sellable on the TP or can be given away to other players, so there can be no surplus.

But even then it’s implied that they will return someday, the tools are too popular and useful, and the Fused tickets can still be redeemed in game. There simply is no such thing as “gone forever” in this game.

Which is a long and boring way to tell you, don’t worry the process of putting celestial stats on items isn’t going away.

Haha – thank you for the “long and boring” reassurance. I actually found it interesting (and find a lot of your posts are also interesting) and a good read. I haven’t played the game that long, so some things are on the TP that I’m not sure what LS their from, if you know what I mean? So now I know that the Giver’s stuff is from Wintersday etc …

So as far as I was aware, the conditions I was tying my statements to weren’t proved to be false, until I went away and checked out what you were saying. So sorry for arguing cross purposes there (and thanks for keeping patience!)

Devata.6589:

Temporary content is bad by itself. This is just one example but we did see this with multiple temporary content. Not only this one.

Anet had to stop they temporary content stuff, but it comes out of a gem-store focus. Make temporary content and get so pressure people to play and buy gems.

If you really want this to stop don’t buy gems (and buy the expansion if available), if you really like temporary content buy gems (and don;t buy an expansion).. And be aware, I am talking about temporary content, not regular patches.. people seem to mix those two up a lot on the forums.

You say this in every thread- we get it- you think temp content is the devil and it is forcing you to buy gems.

OT:
I think there is a very good likelihood that the celestial recipes might make a comeback since we have the quartz nodes in our instances.
As someone has said though, there are still Halloween recipes floating around on the TP so it is not impossible that the same will happen with the celestial ones

I do think that all stat combinations should be widely available, even if it is only through Story Events that reintroduce certain stat combinations.
Crafting does need a boost in this game and the more options people have the better for various builds.

My biggest problem with the celestial gear is eventually the recipes will be gone and new people who want it will not be able to get it due to the gear being account bound when crafted. They need to make another way to keep getting recipes for gear like celestial and sentinel which drop for a limited time or just release those recipes to an npc eventually.

And please make the celestial armor sellable instead of account bound after crafting, the account bound thing is stupid.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

Temporary content is bad by itself. This is just one example but we did see this with multiple temporary content. Not only this one.

Anet had to stop they temporary content stuff, but it comes out of a gem-store focus. Make temporary content and get so pressure people to play and buy gems.

If you really want this to stop don’t buy gems (and buy the expansion if available), if you really like temporary content buy gems (and don;t buy an expansion).. And be aware, I am talking about temporary content, not regular patches.. people seem to mix those two up a lot on the forums.

You say this in every thread- we get it-

Thats good.

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

Temporary content is bad by itself. This is just one example but we did see this with multiple temporary content. Not only this one.

Anet had to stop they temporary content stuff, but it comes out of a gem-store focus. Make temporary content and get so pressure people to play and buy gems.

If you really want this to stop don’t buy gems (and buy the expansion if available), if you really like temporary content buy gems (and don;t buy an expansion).. And be aware, I am talking about temporary content, not regular patches.. people seem to mix those two up a lot on the forums.

You say this in every thread- we get it-

Thats good.

I think you bought the tin foil hat in the gem store.

Temporary content is there because of the companies goals to tell a living story and keep people engaged and playing. Most people do not buy gems. If everyone stopped buying gems will not stop the temporary content it will kill the game.

lockheedlight.5910:

[…]And please make the celestial armor sellable instead of account bound after crafting, the account bound thing is stupid.

I have to admit I am perplexed by Arenanet’s reasoning to make the celestial crafted items account bound. Notwithstanding my own indecision on whether the time bound nature of these recipes is a positive step, I am still considering the potential positives it could create in adding a new dynamic to the long-term demand for crafted items.