Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

Er, how does TP flipping REMOVE gold from the economy .. TP flipping is a gold TRANSFER mechanism from a player to a greedy player leeching off the hard work of others.

Kraggy.4169:

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

Er, how does TP flipping REMOVE gold from the economy .. TP flipping is a gold TRANSFER mechanism from a player to a greedy player leeching off the hard work of others.

“greedy player leeching off the hard work”

Hard work ? Wait what ?

I’m special. I don’t want to work towards anything and everything I want should be easy for me to obtain.

…if you really want something that’s expensive, or is difficult to put in the effort for, get off your duff and go earn it.

Earn it? Yes…. EARN IT.

Go farm ToTs. Go earn gold. Go to work, and buy it with gems to gold. Do something other than whine about it on the forums.

Firebaall.5127:

I’m special. I don’t want to work towards anything and everything I want should be easy for me to obtain.

…if you really want something that’s expensive, or is difficult to put in the effort for, get off your duff and go earn it.

Earn it? Yes…. EARN IT.

Go farm ToTs. Go earn gold. Go to work, and buy it with gems to gold. Do something other than whine about it on the forums.

Once again, I never said it needed to be easy… but it also did NOT need to be behind RNG and/or a 3k gold pay wall.

xBrutalityx.3507:

Should know by now that anet’s main concern in this game is money. Why do you think they reduced dungeon rewards and sw to hell? They made obtaining gold helpless without purchasing HoT. I lost respect for Anet and refuse to buy HoT because of this reason. They couldn’t even throw in a special gift for the veterans who has been playing since launch when purchasing the expansion, instead they throw the deal in for newcomers getting the core game for free at the price of expansion..

^This. Don’t forget their reworking/shafting of the guild system and all the small guilds, then gating the new “must have” scribe skill behind HOT also.

NightShadow.1429:

Once again, I never said it needed to be easy… but it also did NOT need to be behind RNG and/or a 3k gold pay wall.

RNG can be defeated with effort. Go put in the effort. Don’t want to put in the effort? Live without it.

Kraggy.4169:

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

Er, how does TP flipping REMOVE gold from the economy .. TP flipping is a gold TRANSFER mechanism from a player to a greedy player leeching off the hard work of others.

Listing fee, additional fees when items get sold.

Distaste.4801:

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

The gold is not removed from the economy, it is then being used to flip more stuff on the TP. ArenaNet allowed people to gain control of the market that now have so much gold that they can buy up pretty much anything in the game and resell at whatever price they see fit. It simply isn’t healthy for the economy and they should have stepped in to correct it, but to this very day haven’t. ArenaNet makes things every worse by sticking to anti-farming, which means a normal person can’t expect to even farm for their item in a timely manner. The salt on the wound is that ArenaNet then makes 250 of certain items required in the recipe.

What ArenaNet need to do is implement code that “sets” a certain price on an item and when the price on the TP is above that the drop rates increase by the same amount. So if something skyrockets 100x then the droprate will also increase by 100×. It might be able to be manipulated, but I’d assume that at that level it would be fairly detectable by ArenaNet and they could dole out some punishments. At least with this system the normal players could compete with the trading post bots.

Good assessment; and unhappily their answer to this is to make it impossible for regular folks to farm gold on their own even so much as they could before. Honestly, I dont understand why Anet think their game is fun in regards to PvE at all.

SeriousSituation.3462:

Honestly? People have posted about how easy this game is for years. Heart of Thorns has given opportunity for increased difficulty in nearly every respect. You don’t have to spend the time and effort to make these skins. No one is forcing you.

[Sarcasm]Hey, I want a Ferrari, it should be cheaper so I can buy it. No? Well that’s just unfair! [/Sarcarm]

There is no comparison between an artisan mechanical device like a car produced by literally thousands of people, and a pixel image on a screen in a “game” that’s supposed to be about “fun” for the players. Instead, we are being treated, thanks to marketing and cynical use of social psychology, to endless manipulation in the name of profiteering. Also, Anet – unlike Ferrari – cares not a whit what we think, and has this clear contempt for customers because they plan on folding up this game and simply cash-cowing it forever; just like WoW is (but not as successfully).

I am actually mostly ok with these shoulders. Everything (except one item which I’ll touch on in a bit) can be slowly but surely acquired by the player at his own pace (you can farm the tattered wings even with horrid luck. Took me ~60 runs of Ascent to get 4, most people seemed to get them a lot faster. I had only 1 at 37 runs.).

However. Unopened batwing brew is not reasonable. Considering it’s a RNG item with extremely low drop rate it effectively gates the shoulders behind either extreme luck or deep pockets. Please consider introducing a recipe to make the said item using regular batwing brews and other materials. I am ok with trying to farm up a stack of regular batwing brews if needed – at least the drop rate is sufficiently reasonable that bad streaks are not as noticeable.

Firebaall.5127:

NightShadow.1429:

Once again, I never said it needed to be easy… but it also did NOT need to be behind RNG and/or a 3k gold pay wall.

RNG can be defeated with effort. Go put in the effort. Don’t want to put in the effort? Live without it.

Implying that I haven’t put in any effort is pretty presumptuous of you. You have no idea what I have or have not done in an effort to get it, I’m not the only one who thinks the price is outrageous. I’ve been polite and critiqued both the price point AND the fact that they advertised it as a pretty big part of Halloween when it really has nothing to do with it aside from farming Ascent to Madness for the wings.

Using the term “be prepared to work for it” had people thinking it would be like Mad King Memoires where we actually had to work for it and it was fun, instead of dumping our entire savings into it or just forsaking it completely as out of reach. For those saying “but it wouldn’t be special if EVERYONE could get it” (which I was saying it should be hard enough that not everyone will get it but apparently that fact is going over peoples head), how often do you see the Memoires? It’s a desirable skin, a lot of people want it and a lot of people do have it…. but it’s not worn everywhere. Once the “oo shiny” of it wears off, it becomes less common.

Also, one thing that I think would help this whole thing is if they introduced the recipe for Endless Bat tonic that they were supposed to introduce last year. At least then people could craft the tonic and not pay 500g or pray to RNGesus for a drop. The tonic as it stands will only continue to rise in price, especially once Halloween is over…

Next time they say be prepared to work for it, I guess we all now know that means “be prepared for this to be basically a legendary, minus the stat swapping and to spend the next year or two farming”.

Blaine Tog.8304:

That said, it would’ve been nice if Anet had also released a couple more mid-tier and low-end shoulder as well, maybe one that costs 100-200 gold and another that costs around 10 to make. Or maybe they did and I’m just forgetting about them!

They didn’t

Those people deserve to be catered to from time to time, just as the rest of us do. Just because they released one skin that’s ludicrously expensive doesn’t mean they’re trying to lock the rest of us out of content. Just because the Bugatti Veyron exists doesn’t mean I can’t buy a Honda Civic or a bus pass to get myself to work.

They ARE catered too, A LOT… every legendary is catering to them as are almost all the BL skins, you either have the money for gems to get tickets, or you have the incredible amounts of gold to get them off the TP.

Kraggy.4169:

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

Er, how does TP flipping REMOVE gold from the economy .. TP flipping is a gold TRANSFER mechanism from a player to a greedy player leeching off the hard work of others.

It transfers gold from one person to the next true but it also removes gold from the game while doing it.

lets assume there are just 2 players that have 100 gold each… so total gold in the game is 200 gold.

one of the two players puts an item for sale for 10g. to do that he need to pay 5% listing fee so he pays 50s Now there is 199.50g in the game world.

The other player buys the item. The seller gets his 10g from the actionhouse but that carries a 10% fee so he gets 9g back.

so now buyer has 90g, seller has the previous 99.5 + 9 = 108.5
total gold in the game is now 198.5
TP ate 1g 50s out of the game

I agree with OP that requirements for the holiday items are generally too extreme but like always no need to rush it. I’d say the only thing you must get during halloween is the 4x tattered bat wings .. ideally also the tonic… the rest you can farm little by little.

Took me 3 years to build the crossing (will finish it this weekend actually) but spread over 3 years it didnt feel painful.

Then again if the crossing took 3 years, this shoulder piece is going to take a decade… so yeah, dont mind long term goals but I do think Anet is making these holiday rewards a bit too painful.

For me holiday rewards should be a fun thing you earn for playing halloween content… should be something that is easily earn-able during the festival with a little dedication not something who’s effort potentially dwarves a legendary!

Really hope Anet reviews their strategy for holiday rewards in the future.. as it is it does leave a bit of a sour taste in my opinion rather then a sense of happiness.

NightShadow.1429:

Implying that I haven’t put in any effort is pretty presumptuous of you. You have no idea what I have or have not done in an effort to get it, I’m not the only one who thinks the price is outrageous. I’ve been polite and critiqued both the price point AND the fact that they advertised it as a pretty big part of Halloween when it really has nothing to do with it aside from farming Ascent to Madness for the wings.

I’m not implying anything. This thread is proof that you’re not willing to put the effort in. Period.

Galen Grey.4709:

I agree with OP that requirements for the holiday items are generally too extreme but like always no need to rush it. I’d say the only thing you must get during halloween is the 4x tattered bat wings .. ideally also the tonic… the rest you can farm little by little.

Took me 3 years to build the crossing (will finish it this weekend actually) but spread over 3 years it didnt feel painful.

Then again if the crossing took 3 years, this shoulder piece is going to take a decade… so yeah, dont mind long term goals but I do think Anet is making these holiday rewards a bit too painful.

For me holiday rewards should be a fun thing you earn for playing halloween content… should be something that is easily earn-able during the festival with a little dedication not something who’s effort potentially dwarves a legendary!

Really hope Anet reviews their strategy for holiday rewards in the future.. as it is it does leave a bit of a sour taste in my opinion rather then a sense of happiness.

Thank you… this is what I’m saying… I’m fine with stretch goals and and items that take “effort” and time… Don’t tie them into a festival that’s supposed to be fun, why is a problem to make a cool looking skin also be obtainable for more then the elite few…

The other Halloween skins are reasonable to craft… 400-500g, these shoulder skins could of also been in that reasonable price range, instead ONE component costs that much, unless you get insanely lucky on a drop.

NightShadow.1429:

They ARE catered too, A LOT… every legendary is catering to them as are almost all the BL skins, you either have the money for gems to get tickets, or you have the incredible amounts of gold to get them off the TP.

Yep, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Fashion Wars are best when there’s a wide spectrum of attainability. It’s pretty easy to get a good-looking set of armor and weapons together for not too much money; a lot of named exotics go for just a couple of gold on the TP and many of them even have neat-o particle effects (I’m currently using the Cobalt skin for my Reaper’s greatsword even though I have a few other skins that are much more exclusive just because it looks so good on her).

There are even things like Dungeon armor sets (fairly exclusive and time-consuming to get, yet they won’t cost you a single copper) and the Ambrite weapons (tricky to get but ultimately not too expensive). The BL skins can be very expensive indeed, but many of those, too, are pretty attainable if you play regularly and don’t mind dropping 100-200 gold on them. These can all be very good long-term goals for many people with a moderate amount of time/gold, and there are other options as well.

Other than Legendary weapons, though, there aren’t a lot of options for people with Scrooge McDuck levels of money. There are certainly some, but they’re still on the tapering end of the bell curve when it comes to skin content. It’s good for that type of skin to exist in the game and even to be that expensive — even for players who will never be able to afford them — because it helps break up the hypothetical monotony of everyone having bats flying around them while wielding Bolt in one hand and Infinite Light in the other with a Thoughtless Potion effect showing up on their head.

As someone with none of those things (though I am I’m just a precursor away from my Bifrost after 3 years of picking away at it), I think that’s a good thing.

So I don’t think the people blaming Flippers have ever sold anything on the TP. EVERY TIME something is sold on the TP, A-Net takes 15% of what it sells for. If someone sells for 100 gold, 15 gold is removed from the game. Gone to the mists. Vanished, forever.

Carighan.6758:

Thagyr.4136:

Blame the TP flippers for the price. They have been pouncing on everything desirable in the past 2 weeks and jacking the price up. Endless bat tonic went from 80 to 278 gold.

You mean the people removing gold from the economy are responsible? For inflation? Really? o.o

It’s time to stop defending them with that bullkitten, as it has exactly nothing to do with the problem. They literally set the price for this and most other items on the trade post. Supply is too limited to rein prices back down to affordable levels.

Galen Grey.4709:

For me holiday rewards should be a fun thing you earn for playing halloween content… should be something that is easily earn-able during the festival with a little dedication not something who’s effort potentially dwarves a legendary!

I like the idea of each holiday giving a range of new skins: some of which are dirt cheap (see: the Wintersday weapon skins), some of which cost a few gold and/or some dedicated playthrough of the content, some of which cost 100-200 gold and/or significant dedicated playthrough, and some of which are just obscenely difficult and expensive to acquire. That way, everyone gets to participate at their level of play.

Not a problem. I dont need the skin right now. Ill get the gated materials and keep tabs on what I need for later.

Incentive to actually play.

Distaste.4801:

The gold is not removed from the economy, it is then being used to flip more stuff on the TP.

Whenever you do an AH transaction, a percentage of the gold is lost. Entirely. As in, players cannot recover it because the server eats it.

This is why frequent high speed flipping of items is good for the economy, it destroys money which in turn increases the value of each single gold of remaining money.

NightShadow.1429:

I’m not one to complain often, but this is just ridiculous…. Next time you guys decide to mysteriously drop a pretty awesome skin into the game with the cryptic quote “be prepared to work for it” be honest from the get go and label it “be prepared to PAY for it”. These shoulder skins are the price of a legendary to craft, with the price only going to go UP because of the festival gated content required to craft them.

I was honestly prepared to grind for them during the two weeks of Halloween, I don’t mind putting time and effort via scavenger hunt into a really cool weapon. However, given all the gold sinks that are already in the game, and the fact that I would like, at some point to craft a legendary, these Halloween shoulders are something that, while once I was looking forward too, I have now completely given up on… They were also heavily advertised as part of the Halloween celebration, and it honestly has almost nothing to do with it apart from an extremely rare drop.

The only people that are going to craft this are the ones that have money laying around or the ones that are going to decide to go for this shoulder piece instead of a legendary.

You don’t have to be prepared to pay for it — wait out the extreme demand and prices will drop for the components (they always do).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NightShadow.1429:

I’m not one to complain often, but this is just ridiculous…. Next time you guys decide to mysteriously drop a pretty awesome skin into the game with the cryptic quote “be prepared to work for it” be honest from the get go and label it “be prepared to PAY for it”. These shoulder skins are the price of a legendary to craft, with the price only going to go UP because of the festival gated content required to craft them.

I was honestly prepared to grind for them during the two weeks of Halloween, I don’t mind putting time and effort via scavenger hunt into a really cool weapon. However, given all the gold sinks that are already in the game, and the fact that I would like, at some point to craft a legendary, these Halloween shoulders are something that, while once I was looking forward too, I have now completely given up on… They were also heavily advertised as part of the Halloween celebration, and it honestly has almost nothing to do with it apart from an extremely rare drop.

The only people that are going to craft this are the ones that have money laying around or the ones that are going to decide to go for this shoulder piece instead of a legendary.

You don’t have to be prepared to pay for it — wait out the extreme demand and prices will drop for the components (they always do).

This is true, but the tonic will only continue to rise in price unless you get lucky and have one drop for you, and that rising price will offset some of the lowering of the other “hot” items right now. I’m not looking to craft this today, I know the other items will even out, but using a extreme rare rng drop was silly of them. They really should implement the recipe for the endless tonic that they were supposed to have put in last year.

NightShadow.1429:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NightShadow.1429:

I’m not one to complain often, but this is just ridiculous…. Next time you guys decide to mysteriously drop a pretty awesome skin into the game with the cryptic quote “be prepared to work for it” be honest from the get go and label it “be prepared to PAY for it”. These shoulder skins are the price of a legendary to craft, with the price only going to go UP because of the festival gated content required to craft them.

I was honestly prepared to grind for them during the two weeks of Halloween, I don’t mind putting time and effort via scavenger hunt into a really cool weapon. However, given all the gold sinks that are already in the game, and the fact that I would like, at some point to craft a legendary, these Halloween shoulders are something that, while once I was looking forward too, I have now completely given up on… They were also heavily advertised as part of the Halloween celebration, and it honestly has almost nothing to do with it apart from an extremely rare drop.

The only people that are going to craft this are the ones that have money laying around or the ones that are going to decide to go for this shoulder piece instead of a legendary.

You don’t have to be prepared to pay for it — wait out the extreme demand and prices will drop for the components (they always do).

This is true, but the tonic will only continue to rise in price unless you get lucky and have one drop for you, and that rising price will offset some of the lowering of the other “hot” items right now. I’m not looking to craft this today, I know the other items will even out, but using a extreme rare rng drop was silly of them. They really should implement the recipe for the endless tonic that they were supposed to have put in last year.

The tonic will not continue to rise in price — it will reach a saturation point and eventually drop, as has happened with every other coveted item in the game that still drops (with only a tiny number of exceptions, which are often addressed by anet). Look at poly-lumi jewels: their price dropped by 50% (or more) in the last week or so. Yeah, that’s a year after their introduction, which is my point: you only have to pay a ton if you aren’t willing to wait.

veslarius.8425:

i haven’t even looked into the Vial of Green Goo but i bet i don’t even wanna know lol I was lucky and got the endless bat tonic for 145g as its 500-600 atm. Come on Anet, this is deserving of legendary armor status and even legendarys are not this hard to make.

The vial isn’t actually all that bad. 20 ectos, 50 pristine toxic spores, 50 vials linseed, 50 lumps glass. I’ll make it once I’ve got my guild hall’s first tavern.

The tonic is the main thing. I’m tempted to post it in the wish-list thread in Players Helping Players except I don’t know that I could ever pay it forward. Yeah, I should have gone for it when it was in the 60 gold range, I just didn’t foresee this enormous spike.

Time to look into the gems to gold conversions … if I’m willing to spend x dollars on an outfit in the gem store, I should be willing to spend that on a crucial piece of these lovely shoulders.

Izaya.2906:

[…]
Do you even TP?

5% listing fee and additional 10% fee after it gets sold says otherwise.

Some gold is removed, but most of it shifts from many players to a few.

Unlike actual taxes, in-game taxes do not take into account how much gold an account has ever earned, spent or how much they currently hold. At a certain point , any gold lost with fees is inconsequential compared with the gold earned.

A gold sink isn’t meant just to remove coin from the economy as a whole, but from each player too.

A few players with inordinate wealth can use that wealth to hijack the market of specific items. Well sought items with unclear, limited or bugged sources they are sure will be bought but rarely, if ever, resupplied . All they need is their trading post API bot warning them of any new entries, buy it ASAP, put it back much higher and sit back while someone else grinds gold to get it. Keeping their own wealth higher and higher. Anyone else who wants to obtain those items are basically force to pay their ransom. Why keep grinding for gold when you can have all other players slaving away for you, uh?

The greatsword Chiroptophobia gives the same animation for around 100g, and it doesn’t have the animation 100% of the time (about as annoying as Preserved Queen Bee) while hiding one of my armor pieces.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NightShadow.1429:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

NightShadow.1429:

I’m not one to complain often, but this is just ridiculous…. Next time you guys decide to mysteriously drop a pretty awesome skin into the game with the cryptic quote “be prepared to work for it” be honest from the get go and label it “be prepared to PAY for it”. These shoulder skins are the price of a legendary to craft, with the price only going to go UP because of the festival gated content required to craft them.

I was honestly prepared to grind for them during the two weeks of Halloween, I don’t mind putting time and effort via scavenger hunt into a really cool weapon. However, given all the gold sinks that are already in the game, and the fact that I would like, at some point to craft a legendary, these Halloween shoulders are something that, while once I was looking forward too, I have now completely given up on… They were also heavily advertised as part of the Halloween celebration, and it honestly has almost nothing to do with it apart from an extremely rare drop.

The only people that are going to craft this are the ones that have money laying around or the ones that are going to decide to go for this shoulder piece instead of a legendary.

You don’t have to be prepared to pay for it — wait out the extreme demand and prices will drop for the components (they always do).

This is true, but the tonic will only continue to rise in price unless you get lucky and have one drop for you, and that rising price will offset some of the lowering of the other “hot” items right now. I’m not looking to craft this today, I know the other items will even out, but using a extreme rare rng drop was silly of them. They really should implement the recipe for the endless tonic that they were supposed to have put in last year.

The tonic will not continue to rise in price — it will reach a saturation point and eventually drop, as has happened with every other coveted item in the game that still drops (with only a tiny number of exceptions, which are often addressed by anet). Look at poly-lumi jewels: their price dropped by 50% (or more) in the last week or so. Yeah, that’s a year after their introduction, which is my point: you only have to pay a ton if you aren’t willing to wait.

The only reason they dropped in price was because they began dropping again with Halloween (imagine that?!). So what you’re saying is, wait a YEAR and next Halloween, buy it when the price drops because they start dropping again? The goes well beyond “earn it”. The price on the tonic will go up all year until next Halloween, the same as almost every other Halloween exclusive rare items.

Donari.5237:

veslarius.8425:

i haven’t even looked into the Vial of Green Goo but i bet i don’t even wanna know lol I was lucky and got the endless bat tonic for 145g as its 500-600 atm. Come on Anet, this is deserving of legendary armor status and even legendarys are not this hard to make.

The vial isn’t actually all that bad. 20 ectos, 50 pristine toxic spores, 50 vials linseed, 50 lumps glass. I’ll make it once I’ve got my guild hall’s first tavern.

The tonic is the main thing. I’m tempted to post it in the wish-list thread in Players Helping Players except I don’t know that I could ever pay it forward. Yeah, I should have gone for it when it was in the 60 gold range, I just didn’t foresee this enormous spike.

Time to look into the gems to gold conversions … if I’m willing to spend x dollars on an outfit in the gem store, I should be willing to spend that on a crucial piece of these lovely shoulders.

So far I have everything except 150 of the Glacial Lodestones as I’m waiting on prices to drop a bit on that 1st, and the 300 viles of linseed oil which is the main thing for me. Prices on this at the lowest point have been well over 1k gold to buy them on the TP and if you decide to craft it yourself instead of buying it, you will need to harvest 6000 Flax Seeds and 1500 milling stones.
So far I have crafted Sunrise, Twilight, Eternity, Meteorlogicus, and Rodgort. None of these were as difficult or expensive as these shoulders are going to be. That’s fine though, let it be hard. Just make it so you get what you are earning though, and let it be a legendary piece =)

I’d get busy farming if I were you.

price is dictated by what it will be bought for. if all of you simply put a bid in for what you are willing to pay, then wait. if enough players do this the price will drop fast.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Galen Grey.4709:

For me holiday rewards should be a fun thing you earn for playing halloween content… should be something that is easily earn-able during the festival with a little dedication not something who’s effort potentially dwarves a legendary!

I like the idea of each holiday giving a range of new skins: some of which are dirt cheap (see: the Wintersday weapon skins), some of which cost a few gold and/or some dedicated playthrough of the content, some of which cost 100-200 gold and/or significant dedicated playthrough, and some of which are just obscenely difficult and expensive to acquire. That way, everyone gets to participate at their level of play.

I hate it when forum login results in you loosing a long reply… grrrr so in a nutshell…

Problem here is Anet keep scaling reward requirements up… have we ever seen anything as easy as wintersday weapon skins? no. New rewards have much higher requirments.. you have stuff like Biolumen armor or Fossil weapon set that takes a good level of effort, thats the sweet spot I like that. But then you have the nice rewards… what the crossing was in the first halloween and what nightfury is this year. nightfury is like 10x bigger then what the crossing was, why is that? In essence in my opinion the issue is farming.

Back in the crossing days most people didnt earn like 15g an hour so getting the crossing was for most people an effort for a few months. Now a days people can run one of the 15g/h farms and get the crossing in a couple of days so Anet have no choice if they want to keep rewards like that in play for months but to increase the requirements. Problem is not everyone enjoys farming the most profitable content. Not everyone enjoys just buying the stuff of TP and get it over with. Some of us like to earn our rewards the old fashion way bit by bit. it may take years. (finished the crossing yesterday, map bonus rewards sped that up a bit) finishing nightfury on the other hand will literally take decades using the same method.

And here lies my concern. Even if Anet will release some medium effort items and some big effort items the nice things will by nature fall into the hard to get basket which essentially puts them out of reach of players who dont go the 15g/h route.

Now there is no easy solution to the problem, at least none that will not damage the game and thats something none of us want. I personally see only 2 ways this can be solved. either all farms are nerfed so that the profit people make is more inline with playing regular content (will make farmers very angry) or these rewards could include some form of time gating that will make sure that keeping a reward in play for x months is not the result of gargantuan effort and thus Anet can once again scale requirements down so earning these rewards will be enjoyable for everyone.

Of course timegating makes a lot of people angry too so like I said cant see an easy solution to the problem.

My my, people are really getting batty over this Nightfury business.

Evans.6347:

My my, people are really getting batty over this Nightfury business.

well nightfury surrounds you with bats so…. ohh and its made from a potion that actually turns you into a bat lets not forget that!

Just looked up the recipe for Nightfury. It is a bit of grind, and that’s OK. Whats NOT OK is it requiring endless batwing brew. Yes that is RNG. Yes that is easily manipulated by Trading Post flippers. And yes somebody’s going to make a stupid amount of money off you wanting that skin.

Skins should be gotten by players who play the content for it. Not guys like me who have a lot of gold. And not the even worse guys who have a lot of gold and decide to manipulate the prices of things on the TP to make more.

There needs to be a recipe for the endless batwing brew plain and simple. The skin would still be pricy but atleast the “economy” wouldn’t be whats stopping you.

Silhouette.5631:

Just looked up the recipe for Nightfury. It is a bit of grind, and that’s OK. Whats NOT OK is it requiring endless batwing brew. Yes that is RNG. Yes that is easily manipulated by Trading Post flippers. And yes somebody’s going to make a stupid amount of money off you wanting that skin.

Skins should be gotten by players who play the content for it. Not guys like me who have a lot of gold. And not the even worse guys who have a lot of gold and decide to manipulate the prices of things on the TP to make more.

There needs to be a recipe for the endless batwing brew plain and simple. The skin would still be pricy but atleast the “economy” wouldn’t be whats stopping you.

TP flippers are not even playing this game…

Hello, big time flipper and evil rich guy here.

When the first ingredients for nightfury were discovered, I started getting them.
I already had some tattered wings i bought for like 10g as an investment and got the tonic for 100g.

At that time I mostly went in for the hunt to discover the full recipe, as service to the community that most people dont seem to appreciate. Those that were looking to discover the recipe, spent alot of time, effort, gold and account bound mats to try out item combinations at the mystic forge.

I am not a dungeon runner but i was surprised that I had 500AC tokens to craft the gift of darkness. If that wasnt the case, I wouldnt have gone for it. I already had plenty of the needed other mats, like 250 glacial lodes, which i bought when they were like 40s earlier this year but to get all the linseed oil, i had to buy flax seeds/oil from the tp.

NIghtfury actually fits my appearance theme pretty well, as I went for a DRagon/Bat look (way before Halloween) with the Horned Helmet, dragonwing backpiece, Chiroptophobia, Dragon Jade Warhorn, Jormags Breath, and Deathly Pulls Pauldrons.

Yesterday Morning, i had all the mats together ot forge nightfury.

When you are already wielding Chiroptophobia, the effect of nightfury doesnt really add much effect but hides my other shoulder skin.

So i decided to list it for 4.2k gold and it sold over night.

I can understand the frustration of people that want this skin about the material requirements but without those, it would lose alot of appeal to most people anyways. IF it had the same droprate as a complete skin as the new weapons from t&t bags, i doubt that many players, who are complaining now about the price would even bother to equip it.

And lets look at the bright side: The value gain of the tonic also made t&t bags more valuable. Those bags dont get farmed buy evil rich players, they get farmed by average joe, who now gets gold for playing halloween and selling his loot.

The same goes for flaxseed and linseed oil. Of course, 6k seeds is a mighty target for a single player but if it has a high value, people who actually play the HoT content get more value for their loot.

I dont see how this is a bad thing overall to the average player base.

@Wanze

Its bad for the average player in several ways actually.

1. T&T Bags… yes this type of thing makes them more valueable and thus people farm them and sell them for a profit. That action though excludes them from all Halloween activities. They’re never going to make 4.2k gold to earn the halloween reward and they’re not going to get any of the lesser rewards either.

2. Seems like a lot of people arent able to split the grind into biteable chunks which is the biggest problem. If you need 5k seeds people arent going to be happy playing the game and just collecting the seeds as they play. They’ll go around targeting seeds and focusing on that. If you get an average of 2 seeds per harvest thats 2500 harvests if we say we find a flax plant every say 1min thats 40hrs of non stop harvesting.. thats going to turn people off

3. most people will not even go after the ingredients they’ll go for the TP instead and grind the gold instead. 4200 is a lot. most people are going to give up entirely on the event because they know they’ll never afford that. Those who think they can do it will spend days repeating the same content trying to earn the gold necessary while the price of this thing will likely keep going up and up as halloween draws to a close.

I honestly dont see how any of this is a good thing for the average player while it seems to me all of it is bad. It will either induce people to grind like there is no tomorrow or give up. Both are bad imho.

Also I never said rich players are bad, just problematic for the game balance when it comes to rewards, not the same thing.

Substatic.6958:

This is the kind of thing you see in a full F2P game to promote $$$->gold.

…and there it is folks!

If the materials required for this thing were even half of what is required, I’d have some hope of getting it.

Farm your game tickets now kids, and maybe by next year you will have enough to prove your worth for the thing you want in this game you spend your time trying to enjoy.

I don’t want to work for this theme park, I want to enjoy it. The cost for this item is outrageous.

I bought 4 tattered wings because that’s the part that’s truly time gated. the tonics drop from trick or treat bags that trickle in year round.

I’ve personally farmed and opened more than 1,000 bags during this event. No tonic. I largely accept the price is a good reflection of the rarity.

Interestingly the description of the event expressly states there would be a recipe to craft the endless bat tonic. Whoever finds that first is going to make a fortune…

Nike.2631:

I bought 4 tattered wings because that’s the part that’s truly time gated. the tonics drop from trick or treat bags that trickle in year round.

I’ve personally farmed and opened more than 1,000 bags during this event. No tonic. I largely accept the price is a good reflection of the rarity.

Interestingly the description of the event expressly states there would be a recipe to craft the endless bat tonic. Whoever finds that first is going to make a fortune…

Hahahahaha… 1k bags…. Over the last two Halloweens of easily opened 40k+ and no tonic. I’m now just selling them for the profit since there’s nothing I really want from them anyway aside from the tonic.

And no, the description for the event does not state that there is/will be a recipe to craft the tonic. That was from LAST year and it is assumed it was never added to the game or activated.

NightShadow.1429:

Hahahahaha… 1k bags…. Over the last two Halloweens of easily opened 40k+ and no tonic. I’m now just selling them for the profit since there’s nothing I really want from them anyway aside from the tonic.

Wow. I don’t even want to think about farming 10k bags, much less 40. I have actual Halloween events to attend this week .

I don’t think I’m an average player, but for the player that I am, I’ve focused a little game time on leading zergs in the labyrinth and opening all my own bags rather than buying or selling them. I don’t expect my odds to be good with such a small sample, but they are what they are. No luck yet, but no deep angst over it all either.

Well now that the hype has died down a bit and prices have fallen you can make it for ~2k gold now. It is pretty reasonable.

The main expense is still the linseed oil, but that will decrease in price. I can easily farm 100+ flax seeds in 10 minutes using the farm spots. Right now i’m just selling them, but once the price drops i’ll buy them back.

There should be a mystic forge recipe to make the endless batwing tonic.

This is all.

Galen Grey.4709:

@Wanze

Its bad for the average player in several ways actually.

1. T&T Bags… yes this type of thing makes them more valueable and thus people farm them and sell them for a profit. That action though excludes them from all Halloween activities. They’re never going to make 4.2k gold to earn the halloween reward and they’re not going to get any of the lesser rewards either.

2. Seems like a lot of people arent able to split the grind into biteable chunks which is the biggest problem. If you need 5k seeds people arent going to be happy playing the game and just collecting the seeds as they play. They’ll go around targeting seeds and focusing on that. If you get an average of 2 seeds per harvest thats 2500 harvests if we say we find a flax plant every say 1min thats 40hrs of non stop harvesting.. thats going to turn people off

3. most people will not even go after the ingredients they’ll go for the TP instead and grind the gold instead. 4200 is a lot. most people are going to give up entirely on the event because they know they’ll never afford that. Those who think they can do it will spend days repeating the same content trying to earn the gold necessary while the price of this thing will likely keep going up and up as halloween draws to a close.

I honestly dont see how any of this is a good thing for the average player while it seems to me all of it is bad. It will either induce people to grind like there is no tomorrow or give up. Both are bad imho.

Also I never said rich players are bad, just problematic for the game balance when it comes to rewards, not the same thing.

1. I dont see how this excludes them from all Halloween activities if the average loot they got gets gains more value. The higher the value of t&t bags goes, the more the average player will farm it, the more will be opened, resulting in the “average” reward items, like the exotic weapon skins to get more supply and lowering in price, making them more accessable for average players

2. You are too focussed on people that want nightfury and want it right now. If they want it as fast as possible, they have ot pay a premium. But the mayority of the playerbase wont go for it and therefore can profit from the inflated prices of the farmable mats. Most win, some loose, good mechanic for the player base.

3. Again, this reward is not designed for the average player but he can profit from the desire of rich players to get it.

I also never claimed that you said rich players are bad, its a tag i put upon myself with a bit of sarcasm.

I miss getting cool stuff as a reward for being players and having fun at seasonal events like the old days. This is just one more piece of content that most players will never experience. Honestly, if they’re going to gate it behind this kind of RNG and price wall, they shouldn’t have wasted their time making it. File me as another player that was excited about the item when announced, and then promptly filed it under “never going to happen” when I saw the recipe.

Nothing time limited like these should ever be this ludicrously expensive to acquire. If you want mega grind prestige items in the game, fine, but event items should be cool, fun rewards that say “I was there”. Stick the fat wallet status symbols somewhere else.

imsoenthused.1634:

I miss getting cool stuff as a reward for being players and having fun at seasonal events like the old days. This is just one more piece of content that most players will never experience. Honestly, if they’re going to gate it behind this kind of RNG and price wall, they shouldn’t have wasted their time making it. File me as another player that was excited about the item when announced, and then promptly filed it under “never going to happen” when I saw the recipe.

Nothing time limited like these should ever be this ludicrously expensive to acquire. If you want mega grind prestige items in the game, fine, but event items should be cool, fun rewards that say “I was there”. Stick the fat wallet status symbols somewhere else.

Lets see. This Halloween brought you 3 new armor skins, the shackles which are available for a handful of cobs from the vendor, the karka helm, where i dont know where it drops from but is traded for 50g on the tp, which is a reasonable price for a decnt skin and you got nightfury, which you wont be able to afford right now.

Then you got 4 new weapon skins, which go for a couple of cold on the tp, also reasonable.

The 3 craftable weapon skins from 2012, Arachnophobia, the crossing and mad moon, got 50% cheaper because of the gifts of soul, spider and moon dropping from T&T bags, same goes for poly luminescent upgrades, which lost even more value and are therefore more accessible to average players.

Then you got 3 new minis, all easily accessible and available between 0.5 and 38g right now. Nevermind the Ghost Dog from last year.
So much new rewards in one festival, you should be happy.
But you still find time to complain about the one thing you cant get.

Wanze.8410:

So much new rewards in one festival, you should be happy.
But you still find time to complain about the one thing you cant get.

That seems a little harsh, but yes. Of all the things you listed, the only ones that don’t look like sad jokes are The Crossing, poly-luminescent upgrades, and Nightfury. I guess you’re right, there are other, easy to obtain rewards. I suppose just because I think they look tacky and awful doesn’t mean everyone feels that way.

I will mention, as a long term, but perpetually poor player who rarely ever breaks over 20 gold on my account, your idea of what is reasonably priced might be a little out of touch with a portion of the player base. If you don’t really enjoy/force yourself to take part in the few lucrative activities in this game, ie dungeons, fractals, Silverwaste chests, or TP flipping, gold is a lot more scarce. What to you seems like really reasonable prices is to me all the gold on my account.

These are things that are a result of playing how I want and I’ll freely admit that, but for a game that is supposedly based around that philosophy it can feel a little frustrating to see “cool stuff” that’s out of my reach without ignoring that philosophy and playing somebody else’s way.

First things first, Anet should just drop the bomb and bind it to the account. There are 5 on the TP at the moment @ 2900g, and I suspect it’s all from the same person. Bind it to the account so they are no longer tradeable, and just let the person(people) who did that eat the cost.

Second, make the skin available via multiple avenues, like:

1) WvW, obtained via means through WvW activities only
2) Those who do not do dungeons
3) Make it available for those who did not purchase HoT.. IE no flax needed