Guild Wars 2

Wait, what’s the point of this thread? are you trying to get legendary for free?
well, not happening.

Bruno.3812:

Essence Snow.3194:

Yep totally. Let us buy ESL cup 400k tournament champion achievement too! There’s nothing wrong with that…right…right?

Why not? If the way you like to play doesn’t reward you like other ways do, why not make the rewards easier to get no matter how you play? Therefore, people who only like to play the trading post and not play to get achievements should be able to buy them.

It’s only fair.

That’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Sign me up!

Ohoni.6057:

If a player in PvP wins more matches because he’s a more skilled player, then fair enough.

How is this any different from TP players? Is it because you’re only envious of the amount of Gold one can make, and not how many games one wins in PvP?

Ohoni.6057:

I just want to have fun AND be able to afford nice things.

Then I think it’s time you start learning how to make money in this game, using existing mechanics.

Ohoni.6057:

But they MUST be considered as such in terms of reward fairness.

Fallacy. When you discuss fairness, you need to use examples from the same subject matter. Your arguments are like saying “It’s not fair that Pele is such a good football player, because then the New York Yankees don’t have a chance to win.”

Ohoni.6057:

but I simply do not believe, on a fundamental level, that adventure game players should need to understand market economics in order to do well at the adventure game.

Skill at playing the markets should not determine your overall success at GW2.

From my personal experience, I don’t see how playing the TP allows you to beat Mordremoth. Unless you’re not judging success on who can complete the Living World storyline, but rather who has the fanciest outfit.

Ohoni.6057:

It just sounds like you want the prestigious PvP wings without putting any effort into the PvP part of it then.

Yes, ideally.

Entitlement is not a valid reason for Anet to make changes. If you want something that’s easy, the Shadow Behemoth still spawns on a regular cycle. And the easier something is, the less rewards you get.

Ohoni.6057:

And yet Legendary weapons, acknowledged by most as being one of the highest long term goals in the game, are determined almost entirely by gold.

It’s impossible to get new Legendary with Gold. You actually have to play the game! Getting the Gift of Maguuma Mastery is both time consuming and challenging.

Ohoni.6057:

Just because a homeless person is not entitled to food or housing, it’s still nice to give it to him anyway.

You realize that we’re talking about a game, and not real life implications of a human being’s health and safety, right? So why should it matter to you if Wanze has more Gold than you?

Ohoni.6057:

“there are no losers in voluntary trade, only winners?”

Capitalism is a beautiful thing. Unless you live in a country that doesn’t have freedoms such as running your own business.

Essence Snow.3194:

Bruno.3812:

Essence Snow.3194:

Yep totally. Let us buy ESL cup 400k tournament champion achievement too! There’s nothing wrong with that…right…right?

Why not? If the way you like to play doesn’t reward you like other ways do, why not make the rewards easier to get no matter how you play? Therefore, people who only like to play the trading post and not play to get achievements should be able to buy them.

It’s only fair.

That’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Sign me up!

Exactly.

All rewards should be available through how you like to play. If traders only like to trade but want mastery points from achievements, then their gameplay, which is earning gold, should allow them to buy the achievements (and mastery points) they want.

Ohoni’s ideas solve a lot of gameplay problems when properly implemented.

That’s nice.

Playing what you like should reward you something for sure. Just not the same exact thing that raiding rewards.

Bruno.3812:

Exactly.

All rewards should be available through how you like to play. If traders only like to trade but want mastery points from achievements, then their gameplay, which is earning gold, should allow them to buy the achievements (and mastery points) they want.

Ohoni’s ideas solve a lot of gameplay problems when properly implemented.

I never thought I see the day when Ohoni’s suggestions would benefit the wealthy. It should be put in the game as soon as possible.

Guys you realize he’s just going to run in here accusing you all of strawmans.

xarallei.4279:

Guys you realize he’s just going to run in here accusing you all of strawmans.

Naw. It’s very reasonable.

In fact, I’m thinking of a way to suggest turning all my karma into PvP pips in the Leagues next. I would like the rewards and having the PvP league tag by my name, but don’t much like playing PvP. Since I only really like PvE, there should be some way for me to get PvP rewards through PvE and turning karma into pips is fair. After all, I get karma by winning events.

xarallei.4279:

Guys you realize he’s just going to run in here accusing you all of strawmans.

No. He ran off so he could make a new thread, with the same arguments in different context. I doubt he’ll come back here.

Oh you’re right. He’s now complaining about the pvp leagues because he can’t get the back piece. And yup, using the same arguments.

xarallei.4279:

Guys you realize he’s just going to run in here accusing you all of strawmans.

As as he acknowledges me as a deservedly wealthy strawman, I have no problem with that.

Nike.2631:

Sarrs.4831:

wat

Tradepost players make zero progress on achievements after that “I have 200 gold” one. This thread is all about how unreasonable and unfair it is that all play styles aren’t rewarded equally. If that’s true, then the only reasonable course to achieve greater parity is allow players to buy achievements.

…Or it could be the initial premise is preposterous.

I am not so much concerned about AP but other account bound mats and currencies.
But i got that covered with my Gold Eater idea.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Luck-Eater/first#post5832010

Wanze.8410:

I am not so much concerned about AP but other account bound mats and currencies.

Sorry. Your equanimity doesn’t take away from the gross injustice that one of our top competitors in a heavily contested mode of play hasn’t been given a straight path to every reward in the game. Even if achievement points and the highly exclusive skins they award don’t directly appeal to you, we have to look out for our other most skillful players who might want those shiny purple crystal thingamajigs and the cool hellfire armor. You’ve outplayed tens of thousands of other dedicated combatants in economic PvP, you deserve it all .

But i got that covered with my Gold Eater idea.

I’ll look into it, but just from the name I’m already fairly amused.

This thread’s been good for that lately.

Nike.2631:

I’ll look into it, but just from the name I’m already fairly amused.

This thread’s been good for that lately.

OPs new thread over in the pvp forums is amusing, too.

Wanze.8410:

OPs new thread over in the pvp forums is amusing, too.

To be brutally honest I don’t even look at them anymore until they’re 8-9 pages long and the circular arguments are really entrenched.

Well, I made my suggestion for converting karma to PvP pips in his new thread but he didn’t support me in my bid to play how I want and still get the rewards that I want. I’m bitter now and may never play again.

I’m reading back your own logic to you, just changing the labels a little. Basic algebra.

Ok, I get that this is what you think you’re doing. . . but clearly it isn’t working out that way. . .

Again, you don’t understand free markets. Free markets create this cancelling effect; people move to provide supply to the increased demand and they make more money with their time than they otherwise would.

Yeah, but their way generates profits for the fatcats, as they sell of things they bought at low prices for much higher prices. My suggestion would have the same effect, just without the profits for fatcats.

How lazy/incapable do one have to be to be unable to make at least 40 gold per month provided it’s being handed out to you for basically logging in?

Not terribly, considered that even the method you suggest involves knowing and working the TP. You get barely any “gold” via the log-in rewards, what you get is various tokens and materials that, if you unsderstand their market value, you can parlay into gold, but if you don’t understand the best way to capitalize on them, your “40 gold per month” can rapidly drop to nothing. I imagine that if most players were earning 40 gold per month via that strategy, it would actually drop to 30 or even 20, due to overcrowding those markets.

When ascended armor first came out I had enough money to straight up buy one or two sets flat. Did I do that? No. Why? Because I thought things through.

Sure, but if you had enough gold to buy ten Ascended armors flat, would it really hurt you that much if you just bought one? Would it really so deplete your finances that you could not quickly recover it? At a certain point, even if something is very expensive, if you still have enough to buy it several times over, it starts to just become miserly to penny-pinch it rather than just picking it up in a reasonable period of time.

Honestly – in my personal opinion no. The newer the content the harder it is. The harder it is the better you want your teammates to be.

People that usually have a lot of gold in game ( not 10s of thousands but over 2-3-4-5k) are usually heavily invested players that are also decent at the game, at their class and pretty knowledgeable.
So when new content comes out I’m actually glad there are some walls keeping every newbie and hyper-casual player from coming in because they would flood the potential teammate pool with less useful candidates I don’t want to play with.

:(

So what you’re asking is for a noob-proof mechanic before huge market shifts to protect people from “the economy”. Great but I disagree.
Lack of knowledge, ability and dedication should be punished in some way – directly or indirectly – this is the basis of any game.

But again, the market in this game is too powerful for that sort fo thing to apply. The amount you can stand to win or lose through poor play is out of proportion to other areas of the game. If this game were advertised primarily as a market simulator, like that one game where you play the shop owner that sells things to the adventurers, then sure, base the results on people’s economic savvy, but for a game billed first, foremost, and last of all as an action/adventure RPG, knowledge of how economics work should not be at all necessary to maximizing your gameplay experience (including having the money to buy the things you want). What economic understanding you need should be baked into the systems so that even an idiot can’t mess it up.

You fell off a ledge? No problem the new “safe fall” mechanic will keep you alive.

Yes, TP gliders, that’s what we need.

I am not leaving out 3 – 3 is not a solution. I said “The solutions” – giving up is not a solution – it is failing.

And yet it’s still a choice that actual humans will make, given only options 1 and 2.

Well here’s another issue then – apart from the fact that I fundamentally disagree with your “yes” answer – when my answer would be “definitely no” – why just in this area of the game? Why just this aspect?
Why not give them the Liadri mini too? I mean if they want it let’s hand it over to them – doesn’t matter if they don’t even know what Liardri is.

Because that is an action-adventure aspect of the game. That’s what people come for (even though that particular element is not my cup of tea). And at the end of the day, what do you get for it, a single mini? Not a big deal. If you got a Precursor I might take more issue with it.

Also this is not an “Adventure game” – I have never seen it marketed as such. This is an MMORPG. MMORPG have economies built into them.

Look at any official marketing material for this game, what do you see? You see people swinging swords and shooting spells, fighting monsters. That is the primary selling point of this game. Do they show people standing around in LA with their TP UI’s open? No they do not. It is something you can do, but it should be incidental to the game experience. Even if you want to insist, against all reason, that it should be considered a co-equal element of the game to, say, dungeon running, then it would STILL be beholden to being balanced against those activities, with equivalent levels of of reward, no higher.

You know what an adventure game is? The new Tomb Raider – that’s an adventure game. You seem to be confused as to what you’re playing.

No, Tomb Raider is very clearly a game about physics-based hair simulation, the adventure stuff is just filler. And the funny thing is, the hair simulation in TR has received more marketing attention than GW’s trading post.

And the TP isnt the best way to make money.
The median player makes 15% loss.

First, where would you get that statistic, and two, it’s not about the median player, it’s about the best players. If the best players of the TP do way better than the best players at any other activity, then it’s still a balance issue, as back to the example of the “god class” that requires a base level of skill to do well with, but if you have that skill then it obliterates any other class, even if they are played with equivalent levels of skill.

We should remove all traders then because it’s Guild Wars 2, not Market Wars 2, and traders clearly aren’t running around killing mobs.

Are you beginning to see why it doesn’t make sense?

I don’t think we have to actually remove them, it just should be balanced against the other activities, no more profitable than the other things you could be doing.

Even if Anet would buff gold rewards for every content, it wont make you acquire your wanted items faster compared to the other players now. Because they will put in more hours, earn more gold and therefore are willing to pay more gold for the mats you compete with.

You keep pulling out “even if ANet buffs gold rewards,” even though nobody really floats this as their preferred alternative. You keep putting it out there because you know it’s easy to shoot down, I think there’s a term for that. The alternative that is actually on the table is NOT to “just throw more gold at the events,” it is “reduce the amount of profit potential available on the TP, so that the existing event gold gains more practical value.” Address that point, or none at all, quit with the off topic “even if ANet buffs gold rewards” nonsense.

They say a rising tide (more gold coming in to all players) lifts all boats (the players).

Yes, “they” do say that, because “they” are in the biggest boats, not the dinghies that get swamped in their wake. Historically, every plan put into action on that premise has led to increasing income inequality, and is one of the main reasons why in the US, income hasn’t kept up with inflation since the 80s. The real solution is to poke some holes in the bigger ships so that they sink back down to the same level as everyone else.

I don’t think we should get everything for free (why is that always the go-to counter argument?)

Because for some reason, they seem to think that directly addressing the problems raised would put them at too much of a disadvantage, so they prefer to instead attack irrelevant points that nobody is making.

The activity that requires the most effort out of me . . .pays me, arguably, the most. What’s wrong with that?

That alone? Nothing. That’s fine. It’s that it pays you, potentially, WAY more than other players can get for doing any other sort of activity in the game. That is the problem. If it paid you more than anything else you could be doing, but still less than most other players could make for PvPing, or dungeon running, or event farming, then that would be fine, the problem comes in when people end up making several times the rates for those activities.

If your only enjoyment is to customize your character with armor, weapons and minis (pets dont cost anything to acquire), you can do so for free from the wardrobe and in the preview window.

False argument. The preview window is not actually changing your character. Now, if you made the case that they should change the way gear is displayed, so that you can make your character look like the preview window on your own client, but not display that appearance to others, then that would be an entirely different situation, and if that were the case, then you might have a point. But we don’t have that.

But most players just admire rare and expensive skins and minis because they are rare and expensive, not because they are particularly cool looking.

Lol, no. Some do that, and they are laughable, but most players wear the gear that they think looks cool on them, even though a great deal of it is common as dirt. I mean, plenty of people run around with elements of dungeon armor, or even starter armor if it suits them.

There are plenty of skins that need account bound mats to acquire. Those skins will be unobtainable by players who only play the tp. So they are more excluded than players who play other content.

Yes, but you’re building a relatively false situation here (again, because it’s easy to shoot down). Yes, a player who NEVER leaves the TP UI will be unable to create certain items. However, the amount of actual adventuring he would need to do would be insignificant compared to the gold that typically goes into creating those items. Earning the gold would take a typical player dozens if not hundreds more hours than earning the account bound elements for most items. Take a new player, start him at zero resources and he can do nothing on the TP except sell items he finds matching lowest sell price, and see how long it would take him to be able to earn all the purely account bound things needed to make all the rarest skins in the game, verses the time it would take him to earn the gold needed to buy anything purchasable involved in making all the rarest items in the game (including Legendary Weapons directly). I think you could perform the former much faster.

Tradepost players make zero progress on achievements after that “I have 200 gold” one. This thread is all about how unreasonable and unfair it is that all play styles aren’t rewarded equally. If that’s true, then the only reasonable course to achieve greater parity is allow players to buy achievements.

Hey, I’d be willing to let them buy achievements with gold in a heartbeat, if it meant implementing the sort of profit-controls I’ve been suggesting. They can have all the achievements they want.

How is this any different from TP players? Is it because you’re only envious of the amount of Gold one can make, and not how many games one wins in PvP?

Yes, because “number of games won in PvP” doesn’t really impact much, while “amount of gold earned” impacts quite a bit.

Fallacy. When you discuss fairness, you need to use examples from the same subject matter. Your arguments are like saying “It’s not fair that Pele is such a good football player, because then the New York Yankees don’t have a chance to win.”

To be fair, I don’t think the Yankees could beat him at football. In his prime, at least. They could probably beat him today.

From my personal experience, I don’t see how playing the TP allows you to beat Mordremoth. Unless you’re not judging success on who can complete the Living World storyline, but rather who has the fanciest outfit.

Yes, the latter. Beating Mordremoth rewards you with one piece of armor, and some various other junk.

It’s impossible to get new Legendary with Gold. You actually have to play the game! Getting the Gift of Maguuma Mastery is both time consuming and challenging.

You can buy the old ones with gold, which account for 88% of the total number. Even of the three that can’t be bought outright, they include significant gold prices, so while again, the player camped out in LA can never have them, the player who is only 99% camped out in LA, but willing to spend even a little of his time outside, can get it much easier than a player who does not have all that gold lying around.

Just because a homeless person is not entitled to food or housing, it’s still nice to give it to him anyway.

You realize that we’re talking about a game, and not real life implications of a human being’s health and safety, right?

I do. Do you? I’m not sure why you wouldn’t understand how an analogy works.

Ohoni’s ideas solve a lot of gameplay problems when properly implemented.

That’s what I’ve been saying. All that matters though is that the system is balanced out first. It wouldn’t make sense to implement such a system when it’s still so woefully out of balance.

Well, I made my suggestion for converting karma to PvP pips in his new thread but he didn’t support me in my bid to play how I want and still get the rewards that I want. I’m bitter now and may never play again.

No, I actually said I’d be fine with that, just that I don’t think that’s necessarily the best option to resolve the problem. Please actually read.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, I get that this is what you think you’re doing. . . but clearly it isn’t working out that way. . .

Everyone else seems to get it. PEBKAC

Ohoni.6057:

Also this is not an “Adventure game” – I have never seen it marketed as such. This is an MMORPG. MMORPG have economies built into them.

Look at any official marketing material for this game, what do you see? You see people swinging swords and shooting spells, fighting monsters. That is the primary selling point of this game. Do they show people standing around in LA with their TP UI’s open? No they do not. It is something you can do, but it should be incidental to the game experience. Even if you want to insist, against all reason, that it should be considered a co-equal element of the game to, say, dungeon running, then it would STILL be beholden to being balanced against those activities, with equivalent levels of of reward, no higher.

Here is a quote from a blog post released on August 23rd 2012, so before launch:

“Guild Wars 2 has an incredible virtual economy—one of the largest ever created.”

Doesnt sound to me like an advertisement for an adventure game.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-guild-wars-2-virtual-economy/

Ohoni.6057:

Hey, I’d be willing to let them buy achievements with gold in a heartbeat, if it meant implementing the sort of profit-controls I’ve been suggesting. They can have all the achievements they want.

Can you maybe write down those profit control suggestions you are talking about in a standalone post without replies to other posts? Because the only suggestion i can think of that you made here is taxing players that pick up more gold than a certain daily threshold from the tp. And that wouldnt be profit control, that would just be limiting trading volume in general, nothing more.
It would also have a kinds of side effects for the general price equilibrium and volatility.
Maybe i missed some other suggestions that you made because i only skim your posts for replies you made to my personal points.

Cyninja.2954:

Tigaseye.2047:

No, Wanze, that is not the problem here and you know it.

You’re just feigning admiration for that post, because it happens to suit your cause to do so.

Obviously, if no one wants any of the rewards (or to accumulate gold) in a game, none of this matters; but the truth is that most people do want some, or all, of them.

Assuming that is, inevitably, going to be the case (and just as well, for Anet’s bank balance, that it is), the problem is that one, niche, way of playing the game is FAR better than others at achieving them.

The “choice” in a game should, pretty obviously, not be “Play the TP, be rich IRL, or become a Buddhist.”.

Much as I admire Buddhists…

I think you missed the point MadRabbit was making.

His point was:

- he plays the parts of GW2 he enjoys
- he doesn’t care about others getting shinies before him
- playing the content he enjoys provides him with enough gold to aquire the amount of ascended/legendarys to his liking

And that’s just the case. You could even only pvp all day, and eventually you’d get enough gold to deckout in ascendedIf you stoped worrying about how much others are making but instead focused on ejoying the game, you’d greatly improve your gaming experience in GW2.

This has nothing to do with “not wanting rewards”. It has to do with “you’ll get them eventually while having fun”. Maybe stop trying to race down everything but instead enjoy the game.

It would also free you of the envy against others who can spend more time, spend more money, are better organised, are better skilled, etc.

Oh and you’d have a lot more longterm goals and enjoyment too.

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention that it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

Tigaseye.2047:

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention, it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially, considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is, probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

This made me really laugh out loud – what problem is there?
I can tell you what a problem was for me: Not being able to get a bow for my level in wow as the TP was controlled by 2 persons max. I had enough gold but no bow had been offered. You can get anything in this game without the TP, so I don’t really understand what “the problem” is.

Tigaseye.2047:

Cyninja.2954:

Tigaseye.2047:

No, Wanze, that is not the problem here and you know it.

You’re just feigning admiration for that post, because it happens to suit your cause to do so.

Obviously, if no one wants any of the rewards (or to accumulate gold) in a game, none of this matters; but the truth is that most people do want some, or all, of them.

Assuming that is, inevitably, going to be the case (and just as well, for Anet’s bank balance, that it is), the problem is that one, niche, way of playing the game is FAR better than others at achieving them.

The “choice” in a game should, pretty obviously, not be “Play the TP, be rich IRL, or become a Buddhist.”.

Much as I admire Buddhists…

I think you missed the point MadRabbit was making.

His point was:

- he plays the parts of GW2 he enjoys
- he doesn’t care about others getting shinies before him
- playing the content he enjoys provides him with enough gold to aquire the amount of ascended/legendarys to his liking

And that’s just the case. You could even only pvp all day, and eventually you’d get enough gold to deckout in ascendedIf you stoped worrying about how much others are making but instead focused on ejoying the game, you’d greatly improve your gaming experience in GW2.

This has nothing to do with “not wanting rewards”. It has to do with “you’ll get them eventually while having fun”. Maybe stop trying to race down everything but instead enjoy the game.

It would also free you of the envy against others who can spend more time, spend more money, are better organised, are better skilled, etc.

Oh and you’d have a lot more longterm goals and enjoyment too.

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention that it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is, probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

You gotta live with it.
I get constantly accused of opposing suggestions because i want to protect my wealth, current investments and future profit margins, even though i have a proven track record of giving quality trading advice and sharing my knowledge.

If i oppose suggestions from other players concerning trading or the economy, i do so because I honestly think they are a bad idea and wont benefit the game or the general player base.

In three years of discussing about this stuff, i havent seen any suggestion that would bring my potential profits more in line with average rewards for average players, except banning me from trading. And even that wouldnt be beneficial for the player base because I am basically only paid for providing a service to other players, which they are willing to pay and i bring prices more in equilibrium.
That goes for flipping and investing.

Jana.6831:

Tigaseye.2047:

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention, it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially, considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is, probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

This made me really laugh out loud – what problem is there?
I can tell you what a problem was for me: Not being able to get a bow for my level in wow as the TP was controlled by 2 persons max. I had enough gold but no bow had been offered. You can get anything in this game without the TP, so I don’t really understand what “the problem” is.

The problem, lest we all forget at this advanced point in the proceedings, is the one described by Ohoni, in his OP.

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

The “community”, in this case, being the players of the game.

As opposed to the, largely mistaken, common belief (especially in very capitalistic countries, like the US) that witnessing other people’s success/wealth/fortune motivates people to work harder.

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

…and yes, we could all choose to say that what other people make shouldn’t affect people negatively.

However, the findings of the study, mentioned in the OP, would suggest otherwise.

That should be of interest to Anet, if they want to retain players.

Tigaseye.2047:

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

I doubt that actually as you don’t really know how much gold players have. And since you don’t need tons of gold to get anything in this game, you just need to play it.
Also, that doesn’t sound as if you weren’t envious.

Tigaseye.2047:

As opposed to the, largely mistaken, common belief (especially in very capitalistic countries, like the US) that witnessing other people’s success/wealth/fortune motivates people to work harder.

~3 of the 5 people who knew how much gold I had started to make gold on their own – in different ways. 5 others who saw my legendary started to work on their own. So I might have encouraged people although I don’t care – you don’t need gold, you don’t need skins.

Tigaseye.2047:

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

No (see above)

Tigaseye.2047:

Jana.6831:

Tigaseye.2047:

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention, it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially, considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is, probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

This made me really laugh out loud – what problem is there?
I can tell you what a problem was for me: Not being able to get a bow for my level in wow as the TP was controlled by 2 persons max. I had enough gold but no bow had been offered. You can get anything in this game without the TP, so I don’t really understand what “the problem” is.

The problem, lest we all forget at this advanced point in the proceedings, is the one described by Ohoni, in his OP.

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

The “community”, in this case, being the players of the game.

As opposed to the, largely mistaken, common belief (especially in very capitalistic countries, like the US) that witnessing other people’s success/wealth/fortune motivates people to work harder.

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

…and yes, we could all choose to say that what other people make shouldn’t affect people negatively.

However, the findings of the study, mentioned in the OP, would suggest otherwise.

That should be of interest to Anet, if they want to retain players.

Basically, i own as much as everybody else in game: Absolutely nothing.
Because everything we accumulated in game (bar gems paid for with real money that havent been spent on gold or gem store items yet) is legally owned by Anet. They just allow us to use it.

And if Anet wouldnt create a desperation for more wealth in game for the player base, there would be no incentive to do micro transactions. You might get happy customers but hungry employees.

Tigaseye.2047:

Jana.6831:

Tigaseye.2047:

No, I didn’t miss his point and I am certainly not envious.

That was the point I was making and keep trying to make.

This isn’t about envy.

As a non-envious/jealous type of person (I’m probably the least envious/jealous person you could ever meet, in fact), I find it offensive that people keep accusing anyone, who can see there is a problem here, of being envious.

Not only that, but in terms of rewards, in this game, I have very little to be envious about anyway.

As I have almost everything I need and/or want.

I don’t have legendaries, as I feel they are overly expensive and so, made a conscious decision to not buy them with real money, as I feel it would be unfair on others to do so.

Not to mention, it would amount to overpaying for the game; especially, considering it’s not the best game it could be, frankly.

I have bought lots of skins, however, as they are “just” skins and I do have a couple of ascended weaps and some armour, from drops.

I can’t guarantee no one else is envious, obviously, but the point is that not everyone is and there is far more to this situation than just (potential) envy.

All I can assume is that all of you saying this are very envious personality types yourselves – which is, probably what motivates you to play the TP so much, to get stuff – and you are just projecting that onto others.

Really, there is no other explanation, other than possible trolling, or repeating what you hear from other (envious personablity type) people, parrot fashion.

This made me really laugh out loud – what problem is there?
I can tell you what a problem was for me: Not being able to get a bow for my level in wow as the TP was controlled by 2 persons max. I had enough gold but no bow had been offered. You can get anything in this game without the TP, so I don’t really understand what “the problem” is.

The problem, lest we all forget at this advanced point in the proceedings, is the one described by Ohoni, in his OP.

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

The “community”, in this case, being the players of the game.

As opposed to the, largely mistaken, common belief (especially in very capitalistic countries, like the US) that witnessing other people’s success/wealth/fortune motivates people to work harder.

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

…and yes, we could all choose to say that what other people make shouldn’t affect people negatively.

However, the findings of the study, mentioned in the OP, would suggest otherwise.

That should be of interest to Anet, if they want to retain players.

Yet how can the game give all people more gold without also raising the prices on the trading post, unless it simultaneously increases the drops of everything by a large amount.

What happens in that situation? Everyone has a lot of gold. All items drop so frequently that they flood the trading post and prices crash. You can buy everything you want for a few silver or at most a gold or two.

And then what? Maybe you’ll be happy with that but will the majority of players be happy when everything that they get as a drop is essentially worthless and there is nothing to strive for? The trading post is flooded with more items than people want to buy? I can’t see that’s that’s a healthy MMO at all.

If that’s not what you want, then maybe you should detail how the game can decreases the disparity between high gold and low gold possessors, and not just say that it should.

Tigaseye.2047:

The problem, lest we all forget at this advanced point in the proceedings, is the one described by Ohoni, in his OP.

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

Ignoring the lack of evidence for anything here, a person’s motivation/interest is their own issue. Ohoni is turning that into a systemic problem, which it isn’t.

Tigaseye.2047:

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

They might. You haven’t given any evidence that this is happening in any relevant numbers, or why this particular thing will fix that player leak. In short, yes, that’s perfectly true and perfectly irrelevant until you can link it to reality. Which you haven’t.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m reading back your own logic to you, just changing the labels a little. Basic algebra.

Ok, I get that this is what you think you’re doing. . . but clearly it isn’t working out that way. . .

Then explain how. Until you do, it stands.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, you don’t understand free markets. Free markets create this cancelling effect; people move to provide supply to the increased demand and they make more money with their time than they otherwise would.

Yeah, but their way generates profits for the fatcats, as they sell of things they bought at low prices for much higher prices. My suggestion would have the same effect, just without the profits for fatcats.

Your way doesn’t accomplish what Anet wants to do, which is shake up markets. But you conveniently forget the fact the traders also make bad investments as well, and you fail to address why this is even an issue outside your own ideology.

Ohoni.6057:

How lazy/incapable do one have to be to be unable to make at least 40 gold per month provided it’s being handed out to you for basically logging in?

Not terribly, considered that even the method you suggest involves knowing and working the TP.

If your definition is that broad, selling loot is working the TP.

Ohoni.6057:

You get barely any “gold” via the log-in rewards, what you get is various tokens and materials that, if you unsderstand their market value, you can parlay into gold, but if you don’t understand the best way to capitalize on them, your “40 gold per month” can rapidly drop to nothing.

Or you can look up prices on the TP with a couple clicks, and ask in map chat the best way to convert, say, laurels, into gold. It’s common knowledge. Not that hard now, is it?

Ohoni.6057:

I imagine that if most players were earning 40 gold per month via that strategy, it would actually drop to 30 or even 20, due to overcrowding those markets.

Even if that does happen (and you have no evidence it will), that also means that those things are less expensive for the average player.

Ohoni.6057:

When ascended armor first came out I had enough money to straight up buy one or two sets flat. Did I do that? No. Why? Because I thought things through.

Sure, but if you had enough gold to buy ten Ascended armors flat, would it really hurt you that much if you just bought one? Would it really so deplete your finances that you could not quickly recover it? At a certain point, even if something is very expensive, if you still have enough to buy it several times over, it starts to just become miserly to penny-pinch it rather than just picking it up in a reasonable period of time.

And that kind of reasoning is part of the reason they have a lot of gold and you don’t.

Ohoni.6057:

So what you’re asking is for a noob-proof mechanic before huge market shifts to protect people from “the economy”. Great but I disagree.
Lack of knowledge, ability and dedication should be punished in some way – directly or indirectly – this is the basis of any game.

But again, the market in this game is too powerful for that sort fo thing to apply. The amount you can stand to win or lose through poor play is out of proportion to other areas of the game.

And you don’t understand risk v reward, and, by your own admission that the amount of gold that can be lost by it is also out of proportion; that’s why the amount of gold that can be got from it is.

Ohoni.6057:

If this game were advertised primarily as a market simulator, like that one game where you play the shop owner that sells things to the adventurers, then sure, base the results on people’s economic savvy, but for a game billed first, foremost, and last of all as an action/adventure RPG,

Well, what makes the game inherently action/adventure?

Ohoni.6057:

knowledge of how economics work should not be at all necessary to maximizing your gameplay experience (including having the money to buy the things you want). What economic understanding you need should be baked into the systems so that even an idiot can’t mess it up.

More ‘should’ this, ‘should’ that. The phrase ‘maximizing your gameplay experience’ is so vague it’s not even funny. Different people want different things, and you can’t generalize them all into one statement of what they should and shouldn’t be.

Ohoni.6057:

I am not leaving out 3 – 3 is not a solution. I said “The solutions” – giving up is not a solution – it is failing.

And yet it’s still a choice that actual humans will make, given only options 1 and 2.

That’s true, and that’s also utterly irrelevant unless you can prove it happens in large numbers.

Ohoni.6057:

Well here’s another issue then – apart from the fact that I fundamentally disagree with your “yes” answer – when my answer would be “definitely no” – why just in this area of the game? Why just this aspect?
Why not give them the Liadri mini too? I mean if they want it let’s hand it over to them – doesn’t matter if they don’t even know what Liardri is.

Because that is an action-adventure aspect of the game.

And that’s all the game should, is, or ever will be…right? Because that only makes sense if that was meant to be the only thing in the game, and everything else was unintended.

That’s what people come for (even though that particular element is not my cup of tea). And at the end of the day, what do you get for it, a single mini? Not a big deal. If you got a Precursor I might take more issue with it.

Except all the same arguments for Liadri can be made for precursors…

Ohoni.6057:

Also this is not an “Adventure game” – I have never seen it marketed as such. This is an MMORPG. MMORPG have economies built into them.

Look at any official marketing material for this game, what do you see? You see people swinging swords and shooting spells, fighting monsters.

Because marketing is the whole entire game and anything not in marketing content should be removed, right?

Ohoni.6057:

That is the primary selling point of this game. Do they show people standing around in LA with their TP UI’s open? No they do not. It is something you can do, but it should be incidental to the game experience.

You think it should be. What you think should be has no place unless you can objectively substantiate it, something which you have utterly failed to do.

Ohoni.6057:

And the TP isnt the best way to make money.
The median player makes 15% loss.

First, where would you get that statistic, and two, it’s not about the median player, it’s about the best players. If the best players of the TP do way better than the best players at any other activity, then it’s still a balance issue, as back to the example of the “god class” that requires a base level of skill to do well with, but if you have that skill then it obliterates any other class, even if they are played with equivalent levels of skill.

I’m also curious, where is that statistic from? I’ve already explained why the ‘god class’ analogy breaks down, I won’t bother repeating myself here.

Ohoni.6057:

We should remove all traders then because it’s Guild Wars 2, not Market Wars 2, and traders clearly aren’t running around killing mobs.

Are you beginning to see why it doesn’t make sense?

I don’t think we have to actually remove them, it just should be balanced against the other activities, no more profitable than the other things you could be doing.

It’s just pointing out how little sense the logic you use to defend your position actually makes.

Ohoni.6057:

The activity that requires the most effort out of me . . .pays me, arguably, the most. What’s wrong with that?

That alone? Nothing. That’s fine. It’s that it pays you, potentially, WAY more than other players can get for doing any other sort of activity in the game. That is the problem. If it paid you more than anything else you could be doing, but still less than most other players could make for PvPing, or dungeon running, or event farming, then that would be fine, the problem comes in when people end up making several times the rates for those activities.

You haven’t demonstrated that this is actually a problem. Substantiate THAT, and then I might start agreeing.

Ohoni.6057:

But most players just admire rare and expensive skins and minis because they are rare and expensive, not because they are particularly cool looking.

Lol, no. Some do that, and they are laughable, but most players wear the gear that they think looks cool on them, even though a great deal of it is common as dirt. I mean, plenty of people run around with elements of dungeon armor, or even starter armor if it suits them.

And they are laughable…why? You can’t just dismiss things because you don’t agree. That said, this is completely irrelevant. People that are wearing dungeon/starter armor and don’t want anything more have nothing to do with this. As to the idea that ‘most players…,’ have you polled the playerbase?

Ohoni.6057:

There are plenty of skins that need account bound mats to acquire. Those skins will be unobtainable by players who only play the tp. So they are more excluded than players who play other content.

Yes, but you’re building a relatively false situation here (again, because it’s easy to shoot down). Yes, a player who NEVER leaves the TP UI will be unable to create certain items. However, the amount of actual adventuring he would need to do would be insignificant compared to the gold that typically goes into creating those items. Earning the gold would take a typical player dozens if not hundreds more hours than earning the account bound elements for most items. Take a new player, start him at zero resources and he can do nothing on the TP except sell items he finds matching lowest sell price, and see how long it would take him to be able to earn all the purely account bound things needed to make all the rarest skins in the game, verses the time it would take him to earn the gold needed to buy anything purchasable involved in making all the rarest items in the game (including Legendary Weapons directly). I think you could perform the former much faster.

Let’s also take a new player, start him at zero resources, and allow him to only use the TP ever to make gold. You don’t seem to realize that the people that make lots from the TP, they have to put a risk of money in doing that. It’s not just 0 to 10,000 in a month with no risk.

Ohoni.6057:

How is this any different from TP players? Is it because you’re only envious of the amount of Gold one can make, and not how many games one wins in PvP?

Yes, because “number of games won in PvP” doesn’t really impact much, while “amount of gold earned” impacts quite a bit.

So if a PvP player wins more matches because he’s skilled, that’s fine. But a trader that wins more gold because he’s skilled is evil and makes everything too expensive for you.
/logicfail

Ohoni.6057:

Fallacy. When you discuss fairness, you need to use examples from the same subject matter. Your arguments are like saying “It’s not fair that Pele is such a good football player, because then the New York Yankees don’t have a chance to win.”

To be fair, I don’t think the Yankees could beat him at football. In his prime, at least. They could probably beat him today.

To be fair, his argument still stands.

Ohoni.6057:

From my personal experience, I don’t see how playing the TP allows you to beat Mordremoth. Unless you’re not judging success on who can complete the Living World storyline, but rather who has the fanciest outfit.

Yes, the latter. Beating Mordremoth rewards you with one piece of armor, and some various other junk.

The point is that you keep saying that the TP makes people more successful, but successful can be at pretty much whatever you want to suit your argument.

Ohoni.6057:

You realize that we’re talking about a game, and not real life implications of a human being’s health and safety, right?

I do. Do you? I’m not sure why you wouldn’t understand how an analogy works.

I’m not sure you understand how analogies work. They only work when comparing two items/situations of the same type/circumstance. A person being homeless and a person not being able to afford a precursor are vastly different things with vastly different results, and are thus incomparable.

Wolf, there is no onus on me to give “evidence”, as I am merely going by a study that suggests that people become less motivated/disinterested in participating in society, if they are too starved of money.

Especially if this “money starvation” isn’t totally universal and a very few people still make/receive a lot of it.

I am then translating that finding into the game.

There is no evidence (as far as I know) that people don’t think similarly in games of this nature, as they do IRL.

Unless you can provide some (of the totally non-anecdotal kind)?

The point is, you don’t have to provide “evidence” for a theory.

It happens to make sense to me, as I am a player who mainly does EotM/WvW (less of the latter, especially since HoT struck) and I can confirm that the “rewards” can feel pretty miserly.

There’s no point in me answering any of the other questions people have raised, as they and their potential solutions (in some cases) have all been covered, ad nauseam, throughout this thread.

Not only that, but I’m not really interested in telling Anet, exactly, how they should solve the (potential) problem, or not…

That is up to them.

Again, there have been possible solutions put forward throughout the thread; some with more merit than others, IMO.

I find this whole discussion to be on questionable terms in the first place. Sure, in a real world economy it is easy to see disparities in wealth, although I wouldn’t argue they are a problem unless the disparity of wealth directly causes someone to be without necessities. You can see the nice car, the better clothes, the hotter wife, the better food, and these all have an impact on personal satisfaction and all that.

But tell me, what is the impact of the divide of wealth in this game? I can see 20 players standing by the bank, all with various random skins and dyes. Which one is the Gatsby of us? Whom am I to be envious of? Is it the guy with a sword so glowy that he can’t see his enemies anymore? Is it the girl who got a precursor… but didn’t say word about selling it so I don’t even know if she did or not? I have 50 gold right now, but if I had 5000 gold instead, would players go around being jealous of my otherwise utterly invisible digital currency?

The “best off” in GW2 consists almost solely of cosmetics, titles, and the flimsiest of standards. The wealth is superfluous, and the skins are for personal use only This isn’t like other games, where mechanical performance is heavily tied to wealth. The only arguable gap is the 300-600 gold between having ascended weapons or not, and that isn’t too large of a difference. While Wanze probably has exponentially more money than I have ever made, if you put us into a PVP match you wouldn’t be able to tell us apart. Put us in Cursed Shore, and good luck picking either of us out of a crowd.

With peak performance only being about 10% difference between exotic and ascended, most players are already mechanically “best off”.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

With peak performance only being about 10% difference between exotic and ascended, most players are already mechanically “best off”.

It is probably worth noting, here, that “real” raiders, in WoW, most of whom min/max obsessively, would laugh at the idea of 10% being considered very little difference.

I’m not really sure why people have decided 10% doesn’t matter, here?

In one way it’s good, I suppose, as it should be about talent, not gear…

…but, quite frankly, it also reeks heavily of people being falsely and continuously reassured, in an attempt to keep the maximum number of players happy.

Or not so unhappy.

Tigaseye.2047:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

With peak performance only being about 10% difference between exotic and ascended, most players are already mechanically “best off”.

It is probably worth noting, here, that “real” raiders, in WoW, most of whom min/max obsessively, would laugh at the idea of 10% being considered very little difference.

I’m not really sure why people have decided 10% doesn’t matter, here?

In one way it’s good, I suppose, as it should be about talent, not gear…

…but, quite frankly, it also reeks heavily of people being falsely and continuously reassured, in an attempt to keep the maximum number of players happy.

Or not so unhappy.

Then please also note that one’s progression in wow depends/depended (?) on what other players allow you to have as the weapon drops are usually a lower level than your own, so you can’t get a weapon for your level but have to hope that someone sells it/or allows you to loot it. If no one does you’re undergeared and not allowed to take part in raids/dungeons.
If you want to have the best weapon statwise in GW2 you have to farm – and no one (but Anet to an extend) has control over whether or not you’re allowed to have it.

Jana.6831:

Tigaseye.2047:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

With peak performance only being about 10% difference between exotic and ascended, most players are already mechanically “best off”.

It is probably worth noting, here, that “real” raiders, in WoW, most of whom min/max obsessively, would laugh at the idea of 10% being considered very little difference.

I’m not really sure why people have decided 10% doesn’t matter, here?

In one way it’s good, I suppose, as it should be about talent, not gear…

…but, quite frankly, it also reeks heavily of people being falsely and continuously reassured, in an attempt to keep the maximum number of players happy.

Or not so unhappy.

Then please also note that one’s progression in wow depends/depended (?) on what other players allow you to have as the weapon drops are usually a lower level than your own, so you can’t get a weapon for your level but have to hope that someone sells it/or allows you to loot it. If no one does you’re undergeared and not allowed to take part in raids/dungeons.
If you want to have the best weapon statwise in GW2 you have to farm – and no one (but Anet to an extend) has control over whether or not you’re allowed to have it.

You’re talking about loot while levelling, here?

For better, or worse, nothing matters much loot-wise, in WoW, anymore, while levelling.

You mentioned, previously, not being able to get a weapon, for your level, from the auction house?

I didn’t respond to that point, as I was a little confused and it just seemed somewhat off-topic, anyway.

Obviously, if no one happens to have listed a level 20 (for example) weapon, on the AH, you can’t buy one.

However, you can still get them from questing and/or dungeons, or from crafting.

Then, once you have one max level char (or maybe below max level, by now?), you can buy heirloom armour and weaps for your alts.

These are accountwide and can be used as many times as you like.

I have the full compliment of them, on my WoW account.

It really takes the pressure off, as you can relax a bit more, about loot, in dungeons and only have to be outraged about loot ninjas in terms of gold-loss and/or transmog-loss and/or the principle of the matter.

As opposed to a significant performance loss, as was the case previously.

It wasn’t hard to get the currency to, gradually, accumulate heirlooms, either.

Group loot in levelling dungeons in WoW, I agree, has always been a total nightmare, due to rampant “ninjaing” (AKA loot theft).

Fortunately, they introduced personal loot in MoP, for max level, for everything up until “Normal” (now renamed “HC”) raids.

But, they then decided to make it non-compulsory in Flex (now renamed “Normal”) level raids, in WoD, for some reason best known to themselves and these raids became virtually unpuggable, due to all the ninjas.

Personal loot is definitely the way to go, in all games, at all levels.

I would never dispute that, it is something I specifically asked for and I would, seriously, question the hidden motives of anyone disputing it as the best way.

In fact, it no longer being compulsory in Flex/Normal was one of the main reasons I left WoW, in WoD and haven’t gone back.

Tigaseye.2047:

You’re talking about loot while levelling, here?

For better, or worse, nothing matters much loot-wise, in WoW, anymore, while levelling.

You mentioned, previously, not being able to get a weapon, for your level, from the auction house?

I didn’t respond to that point, as I was a little confused and it just seemed somewhat off-topic, anyway.

Obviously, if no one happens to have listed a level 20 (for example) weapon, on the AH, you can’t buy one.

However, you can still get them from questing and/or dungeons, or from crafting.

Then, once you have one max level char (or maybe below max level, by now?), you can buy heirloom armour and weaps for your alts.

These are accountwide and can be used as many times as you like.

I have the full compliment of them, on my WoW account.

It really takes the pressure off, as you can relax a bit more, about loot, in dungeons and only have to be outraged about loot ninjas in terms of gold-loss and/or transmog-loss and/or the principle of the matter.

As opposed to a significant performance loss, as was the case previously.

It wasn’t hard to get the currency to, gradually, accumulate heirlooms, either.

Group loot in levelling dungeons in WoW, I agree, has always been a total nightmare, due to rampant “ninjaing” (AKA loot theft).

Fortunately, they introduced personal loot in MoP, for max level, for everything up until “Normal” (now renamed “HC”) raids.

But, they then decided to make it non-compulsory in Flex (now renamed “Normal”) level raids, in WoD, for some reason best known to themselves and these raids became virtually unpuggable, due to all the ninjas.

Personal loot is definitely the way to go, in all games, at all levels.

I would never dispute that, it is something I specifically asked for and I would, seriously, question the hidden motives of anyone disputing it as the best way.

In fact, it no longer being compulsory in Flex/Normal was one of the main reasons I left WoW, in WoD and haven’t gone back.

No, I really wasn’t able to and since WoW is the worst game possible in my opinion from a to z, I brought it up as an example to show you how a TP “controlled by the rich” really looks like.
I was level 80 then and was thinking about getting the expansion or leaving the game – I left as I had no chance to get a level appropriate weapon. That much to discouraging players.
I guess the rest of what you wrote is because of your confusion as to why I brought WoW up – I hope I explained why I did.

The game has ways to make gold. They’ve recently buffed the rewards for doing events and I can make what I consider a nice amount by doing events and harvesting whatever I come across and selling off mats at the end of the day. If I’m willing to spend a few minutes refining once I have a stack of mats then I make a bit more. Maybe it’s not Wanzelike income but I’m content with it. In an economy where I don’t need food or shelter, whatever income I get is above my few needs. All that’s left are wants.

So, can I as a farmer/event doer have my wants satisfied in this game? Pretty much. I ruled out some cosmetics as being more expensive than my “want enough to work for” scale and settled on others and now each char has a look that I’m happy with that fit with my budget. What more do I need? Should I be thinking about other players with way more than me if I can’t even see how much they have? Spending time making yourself unhappy about other’s riches when you don’t need these invisible riches is the definition of envy.

The game offers lots of ways to get gold. It simply can not offer ways to get gold that suit everyone’s taste. Which means you might need to do boring farming or crafting or doing events in a map that pays well to get gold.

Truthfully the arguments that I’ve seen where people want more gold yet refuse to do what is needed reminds me of an old joke.

There once was a man who fell into a river and was swept away. Other people, seeing him in the river rushed to help. One man with a rope stood on a bridge and when the man sent by he threw the rope to him. But the man refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” Another man was in a boat and tried to grab him as he went by, but he refused his help, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” People in a helicopter, seeing him in the water flew to him and lowered a ladder but he refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!”

and then he drowned.

He arrived in Heaven, and there is God. And he reproached him saying, “God, I believe in you and you let me die.” And God said, “I sent you a man with a rope. I sent you a man with a boat. I sent you a helicopter. What more did you want from me?”

The moral is, maybe those who refuse to do what is necessary to make the gold that the game offers should stop crying out “ANet should save me,” and save themselves.

Tigaseye.2047:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

With peak performance only being about 10% difference between exotic and ascended, most players are already mechanically “best off”.

It is probably worth noting, here, that “real” raiders, in WoW, most of whom min/max obsessively, would laugh at the idea of 10% being considered very little difference.

I’m not really sure why people have decided 10% doesn’t matter, here?

In one way it’s good, I suppose, as it should be about talent, not gear…

…but, quite frankly, it also reeks heavily of people being falsely and continuously reassured, in an attempt to keep the maximum number of players happy.

Or not so unhappy.

I never said it was “very little difference”. I don’t care what “real” raiders in WoW think, since what a “real” raider is defined as is an arbitrary set that exists solely to justify your claims. This isn’t WoW. I never said 10% didn’t matter, either. Don’t put words in my mouth.

Personally I think of Runescape as a frame of reference. In Runescape, every successive tier of equipment is 10%-20% stronger than the last, and an order of magnitude more expensive. First you spend a few thousand, then you spend a few million, then you spend tens of millions, then you spend hundreds of millions. It gets out of hand quite quickly, and a lower tier has little to no chance against anything not immediately in succession. It would be like if after ascended were legendary (10% over ascended), and then after legendary there was epic (10% over legendary), and epic cost 30k gold per piece.

GW2 is not as bad. Yes, the difference between exotic and ascended is nearly an order of magnitude in cost, but a good portion of it is superfluous. The trinkets are bought with a daily reward currency distributed equally among all players, or with other currencies earned independent of gold. The armor contributes the most minuscule of differences, of so the only thing you need to "buy’ are the weapons. And the weapons themselves are a 6% difference.

The reason why 10% is on the threshold of “not too bad” is because it is within the margins of the random number generator. Weapon attack strength varies by a total of 10% per skill use, so even with an ascended weapon there is no guarantee that in any particular fight your opponent won’t luck out and either do high damage, or you do low damage. It is only after a long series of trials that the obvious pattern emerges. Likewise, this is only true for direct damage. The total advantage granted by ascended for condition damage is much smaller (weapon attack strength doesn’t matter, so around 5%). There is a large overlap in performance between these two sets, so much that there is kitten chance that exotic will be in the performance range of ascended.

Tigaseye.2047:

Wolf, there is no onus on me to give “evidence”, as I am merely going by a study that suggests that people become less motivated/disinterested in participating in society, if they are too starved of money.

Especially if this “money starvation” isn’t totally universal and a very few people still make/receive a lot of it.

I am then translating that finding into the game.

There is no evidence (as far as I know) that people don’t think similarly in games of this nature, as they do IRL.

Unless you can provide some (of the totally non-anecdotal kind)?

The point is, you don’t have to provide “evidence” for a theory.

Looking back at what I said, you are right on that point. I stand corrected on that.

Tigaseye.2047:

It happens to make sense to me, as I am a player who mainly does EotM/WvW (less of the latter, especially since HoT struck) and I can confirm that the “rewards” can feel pretty miserly.

cough cough anecdotal evidence cough cough

Bruno.3812:

There once was a man who fell into a river and was swept away. Other people, seeing him in the river rushed to help. One man with a rope stood on a bridge and when the man sent by he threw the rope to him. But the man refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” Another man was in a boat and tried to grab him as he went by, but he refused his help, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” People in a helicopter, seeing him in the water flew to him and lowered a ladder but he refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!”

and then he drowned.

He arrived in Heaven, and there is God. And he reproached him saying, “God, I believe in you and you let me die.” And God said, “I sent you a man with a rope. I sent you a man with a boat. I sent you a helicopter. What more did you want from me?”

I haven’t heard that one before, that’s great.

Tigaseye.2047:

It is probably worth noting, here, that “real” raiders, in WoW, most of whom min/max obsessively, would laugh at the idea of 10% being considered very little difference.

I’m not really sure why people have decided 10% doesn’t matter, here?

Sup, real raider here

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/thaurissan/Saihah/simple

Best M Archi attempt is 13%.

It’s important to note a few things;

10% peak output is not necessarily 10% extra stats. The peak output you generate from having those extra stats depends on your build. Because of how Might and Fury work in this game, the value of all damaging stats on gear as far as overall damage contribution is reduced significantly.
10% extra stats is nowhere near enough to allow you to ignore fight mechanics and understanding your class. You can give an LFR player a Mythic raider’s gear and the Mythic raider the LFR player’s gear and the Mythic raider will likely still produce higher numbers and die less, and the difference between those two stat levels is bigger than 10%.
10% extra stats is not going to allow you to overcome bad RNG, nor is it going to substitute for good RNG. This depends on the encounter, of course.

Tigaseye.2047:

In one way it’s good, I suppose, as it should be about talent, not gear…

It should and it is.

Tigaseye.2047:

…but, quite frankly, it also reeks heavily of people being falsely and continuously reassured, in an attempt to keep the maximum number of players happy.

Or not so unhappy.

If you want that gear and you’re good enough to compete in a raid, making the money to get it is child’s play. If you can manage those bossfights, you can manage a spreadsheet.

Players who are simultaneously capable of incredible play which is the planned requirement for raids, while not having the time to practice and therefore time to farm up a bit of gold, are few and far between. You can say it’s ‘an unfair advantage’ but to be frank, if you think you’re amazing enough to do full raid clears while simultaneously not having the time to farm up a bit of gear, you’re having a giggle.

Bruno.3812:

Yet how can the game give all people more gold without also raising the prices on the trading post, unless it simultaneously increases the drops of everything by a large amount.

What happens in that situation? Everyone has a lot of gold. All items drop so frequently that they flood the trading post and prices crash. You can buy everything you want for a few silver or at most a gold or two.

And then what? Maybe you’ll be happy with that but will the majority of players be happy when everything that they get as a drop is essentially worthless and there is nothing to strive for? The trading post is flooded with more items than people want to buy? I can’t see that’s that’s a healthy MMO at all.

Bingo bango bongo. Having seen this movie a couple of times (I’m old), the final scene is usually a “Thank you for your time, but we are closing our doors”.

To the notion mentioned elsewhere that I became a TP player because I was envious, no. I became a TP player because games where you CAN play the TP like this are the only healthy ones. When typical theories of basic economics are actually working as they should, magic happens. In this case, the magic is a healthy velocity and volume of trading, with the side effect of some coin in my purse.

If I can’t “game” the TP, it is usually because the TP is broken and the game is dying to bot cancer or poor currency management choices.

NonToxic.9185:

Bingo bango bongo. Having seen this movie a couple of times (I’m old), the final act is usually a “Thank you for your time, but we are closing our doors”.

Old enough to remember when the Germans did it? :^)

lighter.2708:

Wait, what’s the point of this thread? are you trying to get legendary for free?
well, not happening.

actually, i am starting to understand the op sentiment.

The op seems to be part of disgruntled group of players whom does not like how rare items are distributed; Ascended armor and nice skins.

Anet drop rare item has been considerable low to the point I wonder how many goods are in the game that have even worse odds than the actually lottery. With items have such low odds, either you are ridiculously lucky or have bags of money.

Effectively, Anet has literally place a gold value on a goods especially for heavily sought goods like invisible shoes. Some players would rather obtain it through a real trophy rather than a purchase. To obtain gold through the game, a player must farm but John Smith will probably always restrict the flow of items which limits the overall potential. Nevertheless, the TP will always be unaffected. The problem gets worse as things get balance more around those who have huge sums of money. Guild Halls anyone?

Either way, I do not see anything that the OP propose that will yield any way to help balance earning potential.

loseridoit.2756:

Effectively, Anet has literally place a gold value on a goods especially for heavily sought goods like invisible shoes.

No they have not.
Players have placed a gold value on heavily sought goods. That is the nature of the market. A lot of people want these shoes; therefore they are willing to pay a lot of gold to consume the limited supply.
There are plenty of cheap items which are as rare as other items of similar acquisition methods but their prices are radically different because of the value the playerbase places on them. Genesis and Entropy are a prime example.

loseridoit.2756:

To obtain gold through the game, a player must farm but John Smith will probably always restrict the flow of items which limits the overall potential. Nevertheless, the TP will always be unaffected. The problem gets worse as things get balance more around those who have huge sums of money. Guild Halls anyone?

This statement misrepresents how the economy works. Big-ticket items like Guild Halls are explicitly designed to increase the value of common crafting items and therefore increase the amount of overall income the ‘working’ player can make. Just look at Elder Wood Log prices compared to pre-HOT; anyone can generate four times as much gold by farming Elder Wood than before simply because of those moguls willing to shell out their money to fund their guild hall.

loseridoit.2756:

Either way, I do not see anything that the OP propose that will yield any way to help balance earning potential.

No, they’ve suggested something that will do that; the complete destruction of the market.

Sarrs.4831:

No they have not.
Players have placed a gold value on heavily sought goods. That is the nature of the market. A lot of people want these shoes; therefore they are willing to pay a lot of gold to consume the limited supply.
There are plenty of cheap items which are as rare as other items of similar acquisition methods but their prices are radically different because of the value the playerbase places on them. Genesis and Entropy are a prime example.

You know, the answer will be different if there is a huge supply of said skin or there was a route to obtain them per char/account

Sarrs.4831:

This statement misrepresents how the economy works. Big-ticket items like Guild Halls are explicitly designed to increase the value of common crafting items and therefore increase the amount of overall income the ‘working’ player can make. Just look at Elder Wood Log prices compared to pre-HOT; anyone can generate four times as much gold by farming Elder Wood than before simply because of those moguls willing to shell out their money to fund their guild hall.

John Smith can control the overall cost of recipes. We have to refine mats so they have diret control over all basic mats. They made ascended recipes more expensive when hot is release. Face it, guild halls is a huge resource sink. Especially that scribing profession

btw, increasing incomes does not work if the average player end up spending much for mats. In the end, the average player get screwed

No, they’ve suggested something that will do that; the complete destruction of the market.

exactly.

I really do not care but how much reality do you guys want in the game. Ohoni seems to want to change it so you are gaining something while playing

Sarrs.4831:

There are plenty of cheap items which are as rare as other items of similar acquisition methods but their prices are radically different because of the value the playerbase places on them. Genesis and Entropy are a prime example.

You really should have looked deeper into how each of those skins is obtained. Hint: one is not like the other, and the difference lies not in visuals.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarrs.4831:

There are plenty of cheap items which are as rare as other items of similar acquisition methods but their prices are radically different because of the value the playerbase places on them. Genesis and Entropy are a prime example.

You really should have looked deeper into how each of those skins is obtained. Hint: one is not like the other, and the difference lies not in visuals.

So, I was curious enough after reading this post to look up how Genesis and Entropy are obtained.

Genesis: Acquisition
Dungeoneer’s Grandmaster Chest
Gilded Coffer
Grand Weapon Crate

Entropy: Acquisition
Dungeoneer’s Grandmaster Chest
Gilded Coffer
Grand Weapon Crate

The methods of acquisition look the same to me.

Ohoni.6057:

I was just reading an interesting article about the psychological effects of windfalls, and thought it was an interesting commentary on the debates we have around here about who “deserves” Legendaries and other high-value items, and what is best for teh game as a whole. Here is an except:

“As expected, those who received transfers reported greater satisfaction with their lot after the money arrived. Cortisol levels and the incidence of depression fell too.

However, the satisfaction of those who did not receive anything fell sharply as their neighbours’ fortunes improved. The decline in satisfaction prompted by seeing one’s peers get $100 richer was bigger than the increase of satisfaction from getting a handout of the same size. The bigger the handouts to others in their village, the greater the dissatisfaction of non-recipients. (The handouts did not seem to have any impact cortisol levels or the prevalence of depression among non-recipients.)"

Full article can be found here:
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21677223-new-study-shows-money-can-buy-you-happinessbut-only-fleetingly-others?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/keepingupwiththekarumes

Take from it what you will, but I remain convinced that the game as a whole benefits most when large portions of the population are “best off,” rather than when only a tiny minority are “best off” and the majority of the population are well behind them.

Happiness comes from tending to one’s own affairs without regard for the affairs of others.

That people choose to be unhappy because they prefer to “keep up with the Joneses” over enjoying what they have is not the fault of the game, nor should it be their concern. Pandering to the intentionally dissatisfied is a recipe for failure.

Wait, 8 pages because OP is jealous of other people? Whose game are we playing?

Wanze > The funny thing about limiting the number of sells / profit you can make per day on the TP is that it would limit the supply while the demand would remain as high as before. Therefore, all the prices would literally inflate. Therefore, wealthy people would still be able to buy anything they want while poor people wouldn’t be able to buy anything anymore.

OP, you should definitly go there and post a lot about yourself and how your wonderful brain works : https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart

loseridoit.2756:

I really do not care but how much reality do you guys want in the game. Ohoni seems to want to change it so you are gaining something while playing

GW2 provides easy access to most items. The result is that most items have very little value, and players complain that the game is unrewarding — despite the sheer amount of loot it is possible to accumulate in a short play session. All of those items are thought to be unrewarding because they are so common.

Ohoni is asking for reasonable access to anything he might conceivably want. To accomplish this, all items would have to be easy to get. This would mean that all items would become more common, and would thus be considered less valuable.

You cannot both make stuff easier to get and also have it maintain its value.

IndigoSundown.5419:

GW2 provides easy access to most items. The result is that most items have very little value, and players complain that the game is unrewarding — despite the sheer amount of loot it is possible to accumulate in a short play session. All of those items are thought to be unrewarding because they are so common.

I guess that is a mental problem with the community. I personally do not care about the economy until the dreaded ascended update…….. Anet… you literally force the average player to care about normal mats cost….. Pretty jerk move.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ohoni is asking for reasonable access to anything he might conceivably want. To accomplish this, all items would have to be easy to get. This would mean that all items would become more common, and would thus be considered less valuable.

You cannot both make stuff easier to get and also have it maintain its value.

I really think he just does not care about the perceive gold value of said item.

Ohoni would you help chime in?

Ohoni.6057:

Not terribly, considered that even the method you suggest involves knowing and working the TP. You get barely any “gold” via the log-in rewards, what you get is various tokens and materials that, if you unsderstand their market value, you can parlay into gold, but if you don’t understand the best way to capitalize on them, your “40 gold per month” can rapidly drop to nothing. I imagine that if most players were earning 40 gold per month via that strategy, it would actually drop to 30 or even 20, due to overcrowding those markets

Are you serious? Even if you sell them to the lowest bidder – just selling them without thinking – you will still make around 35 gold. How is that not free money?
It’s a handout and even if you don’t understand the TP just pressing sell will give you access to it. Do you think people are so inept they cannot press sell?

Also the items being sold are in very high demand so the prices have not dropped despite there being a significant group of people doing this.

Ohoni.6057:

Sure, but if you had enough gold to buy ten Ascended armors flat, would it really hurt you that much if you just bought one? Would it really so deplete your finances that you could not quickly recover it? At a certain point, even if something is very expensive, if you still have enough to buy it several times over, it starts to just become miserly to penny-pinch it rather than just picking it up in a reasonable period of time.

Yes it would have – because i’m careful about my finances and spending a lot of money instead of making a lot of money is never a good idea especially if there’s no real pressure to spend and you’re just as well off if you wait a while.
You might consider it “miserly” but this “penny-pinch” attitude is exactly why I can afford to buy whatever I want in game many times over – because I’m effective at what I do and because I manage my finances properly. Not because I play the TP.

Like I said before – there was no immediate game-driven need for ascended. The people who got it on day 1 or so were really bad at what they were doing.

Ohoni.6057:

:(

You might be sad – but that doesn’t mean I’m not right

Ohoni.6057:

But again, the market in this game is too powerful for that sort fo thing to apply. The amount you can stand to win or lose through poor play is out of proportion to other areas of the game. If this game were advertised primarily as a market simulator, like that one game where you play the shop owner that sells things to the adventurers, then sure, base the results on people’s economic savvy, but for a game billed first, foremost, and last of all as an action/adventure RPG, knowledge of how economics work should not be at all necessary to maximizing your gameplay experience (including having the money to buy the things you want). What economic understanding you need should be baked into the systems so that even an idiot can’t mess it up.

Are you incapable of reading? This game is not an action-adventure RPG. It is a MMORPG – and has all the basic characteristics of one.
An action-adventure RPG would be for example the latest LOTR game – shadow of mordor.

What economic understanding you need should be baked into the systems so that even an idiot can’t mess it up.

Why? because people are bad and they can’t learn themselves? So we have to make the game make sure they can’t mess up?
Why then have deaths in the game? Let’s just make it so that nobody can mess up at any point.

Ohoni.6057:

And yet it’s still a choice that actual humans will make, given only options 1 and 2.

Choice? sure. Is it a solution? No. Because by its definition a solution is a way of solving or resolving a problem. Giving up doesn’t mean you did any of that – is it too hard to understand?

Ohoni.6057:

(even though that particular element is not my cup of tea). And at the end of the day, what do you get for it, a single mini? Not a big deal. If you got a Precursor I might take more issue with it.

Enjoy Raids then.

Ohoni.6057:

Look at any official marketing material for this game, what do you see? You see people swinging swords and shooting spells, fighting monsters. That is the primary selling point of this game. Do they show people standing around in LA with their TP UI’s open? No they do not. It is something you can do, but it should be incidental to the game experience. Even if you want to insist, against all reason, that it should be considered a co-equal element of the game to, say, dungeon running, then it would STILL be beholden to being balanced against those activities, with equivalent levels of of reward, no higher.

Look at every single trailer for call of duty – you see people shooting guns. Is it then meant to be marketed as a realistic Mil-Sim game? No.
Just because it has swords and experience doesn’t mean it’s an “action-adventure”.

Ohoni.6057:

then it would STILL be beholden to being balanced against those activities, with equivalent levels of of reward, no higher.

Why?

Ohoni.6057:

No, Tomb Raider is very clearly a game about physics-based hair simulation, the adventure stuff is just filler. And the funny thing is, the hair simulation in TR has received more marketing attention than GW’s trading post.

You’re clearly too out of touch to take seriously.