Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this has been said before, if so I apologize.

I’ve recently been entertaining the idea of buying a commander tag. The problem? 300g.

Previously commander tags were 100g. However, now, they are 300g but all your characters can use it. One time buy. Ok, fine. But right now, for various reasons irrelephant to this thread, I am playing only one character. So how about this:

On the commander trainer you get another item. A commander tag that only works on the character that uses it for 100g (not sure if previously it required honor badges, but the cost for the 300g version is minimal and makes no difference). Also, if you buy one of those, you are locked out of buying the 300g version. An achievement is introduced to keep track of the number of “tags” you’ve bought (doesn’t need to give AP, just for us to keep track). Once you’ve reached 3 items bought, reaching the 300g cost, you get it unlocked for account. Or just buy the 300g version right away.

It is my opinion that people that people can be useful while just paying 100g at a time (a considerate amount) rather that to be forced to buy something they might not fully take advantage of.

Anyone got anything to add or change to this idea?

You can get 30g a day without doing anything hard. If you don’t want to invest a tenday into getting your commander’s tag, you don’t deserve it.

Keneth.6490:

You can get 30g a day without doing anything hard. If you don’t want to invest a tenday into getting your commander’s tag, you don’t deserve it.

Okay, tell us what we can do to get 30g a day?

Keneth.6490:

You can get 30g a day without doing anything hard. If you don’t want to invest a tenday into getting your commander’s tag, you don’t deserve it.

Thank you so much for your valuable input and thread derailing. People that were lucky to get a commander tag for 100g and get it upgraded to the account version for free don’t deserve, by your line of thinking. It was just as easy to get those 30g.

Some of us have no reason to get an account-wide all at once and/or can put 200g to better use.

Keep on topic.

Edit: forgot to quote…

Iyeru.5240:

Okay, tell us what we can do to get 30g a day?

Take your pick. Dungeon runs, WvW zerging, power trading, SW farming, etc. Pretty much all endgame activities will earn you 25g+ every single day, though some may be faster than others.

Ashendale.2165:

Keep on topic.

It was on topic. If anything, I think acquiring commander tags should be harder, not easier, and I’ve been lobbying for that since the release. Alas, simply raising the price was not the answer since getting the tag is still trivial, but I suppose it was a logical choice of making them account bound.

Also, this is Guild Wars. You have at least 5 character slots. Use them. Just because you decided you only want to play one character doesn’t mean you should get special privileges. But since you are only playing on one toon, you should have plenty of gold left to invest into a commander’s tag.

And no, I don’t think it’s unfair older players got theirs for 100g. Not only was gold worth more in the past (a lot more at release), but those that bought more than one tag only got a refund if they had bought more than three.

What is SW Farming by the way? Also what if I hate PVP? I’ve never done a fractal before either, and have no craftings above 100… I also don’t have any guildmates who will do dungeons really, and don’t like voice chat or bigger guilds anyway.

What do I do then? This isn’t a troll or sarcastic post either, this is a GENUINE question / post.

I dont think that this is a slope we should be starting down.

“I only want to use my infinite tools on one character, I want a discount/refund”

“I only want to use my Legendary on 3 of my 9 characters, I want a proportionate discount.”

And so on.

Choosing to not use something to its fullest potential should not mean that one should get a discount IMO.

Money making is not a sign of experience, as you’ve stated; that’s not the way to go.

And just because I have 5 character slots, I am in no way obliged to use them. I don’t want special privileges, but I should not be at a disadvantage for having chosen not to use them. What? You buy a game and should be forced to play it because you can?

Ashendale.2165:

Money making is not a sign of experience, as you’ve stated; that’s not the way to go.

And just because I have 5 character slots, I am in no way obliged to use them. I don’t want special privileges, but I should not be at a disadvantage for having chosen not to use them. What? You buy a game and should be forced to play it because you can?

You are not at a disadvantage. You have the same options as everyone else….to use a purchased commander tag on 100% of your characters.

Iyeru.5240:

What is SW Farming by the way? Also what if I hate PVP? I’ve never done a fractal before either, and have no craftings above 100… I also don’t have any guildmates who will do dungeons really, and don’t like voice chat or bigger guilds anyway.

What do I do then? This isn’t a troll or sarcastic post either, this is a GENUINE question / post.

Quickest thing first, SW stands for Silverwastes. Silverwastes farming refers to either repeatedly doing the Breach/Vinewrath Meta-events (with many hopping from map shard to map shard in order to get at these specific events as quickly as they can), OR Silverwastes farming can refer to “Shovel Trains,” in which players who posses moderate to large numbers of Shovels and Lost Bandit Keys gather together and roam the map digging up a large number of Bandit Chests.

As far as the rest of your post goes:
I’m usually on the side of making things easier to acquire— I think inflating numbers to get players to grind (so they spend more time in game) is lazy design (admittedly a somewhat necessary evil in MMOs, but lazy nevertheless). And I’m genuinely sympathetic to the frustrations of those who “were late to the party:” I know for certain that I would never buy a tag at it’s current price, and I’m a player who consistently has more gold than “average.”

BUT what your post essentially boils down too is: “I don’t like most of the content in this game” and “I don’t like making friends in a game that’s very genre classification contains both the words online and multiplayer.”

Now, again, I’m sympathetic: I’ve been struggling to find a guild the past couple months myself, but I hate pugging so dungeons are currently barred to me. I also (like you) hate PvP, and after a two to three hundred hours in fractals (I have every single Fractal achievement, including 500/500 in Fractal Frequenter) I now find them insufferable.

First I’m going to make the obvious point that I was clearly building towards: if you choose not to participate in the content that’s available to you, how can you then also expect to posses the rewards that content provides?

Now to be a bit more helpful:

Even with a genuine distaste for such a broad portion of the game’s content, there are still numerous ways to make money solo (or rather, as an individual. You’ll be part of a zerg for most part).

1. You now know two different ways to farm Silverwastes.
2. It’s been a while since I’ve been out there, but Dry Top is a (slightly less efficient) alternative: even if you can’t do the clay pot thing (cause of your low crafts), you can get Zephyrite Lockpicks and open chests there (similar to SW Shovel farming, except the Dry Top chests give you a different type of Champ Bag, so the prices on some of the rare exotics you get will be slightly better.)
3. There’s the Meta Boss train. You know, Shadow Behemoth, Claw of Jormag, etc… Everyone has their preference, but there are various “Timer” websites to help you keep track of them (<a>“http://dulfy.net/2014/04/23/event-timer/”</a> for example). If you look at the Timer, you’ll even note that if you dislike the bigger, more involved bosses like Tequatl and the Evolved Triple Wurm the bosses have been laid out so that an easier boss always spawns right around the time that these “big” bosses spawn (at the time of this writing, the Taidha Covington event is set to begin a mere 5 minutes after Tequatl), so the “big bads” won’t interfere with your train.
4. Though it’s been altered many times, the Frostgorge Sound Champion Train is still as strong as ever.
5. Similarly, Cursed Shore farming is still a prevalent thing, with people also branching out into other parts of Orr to do temple events.
6. Finally you can also kick it old school and go node farming: iron, platinum, hard wood, seasoned wood, all the “mid level” crafting materials are worth a pretty penny, if you happen to have the disposition for this type of farming.

All of the above are relatively rewarding. None of it requires that you have friends/guildies/or even a particular skill level. You may have to take a little time to familiarize/get comfortable with an area’s indiosyncrasies, and you will have to spend at least some time “following the zerg,” but all of these things can be done without having a reliable pool of friends/guildies to draw on.

And if you can’t find something on that list that you can enjoy and/or tolerate doing… (and I really hate to be this guy but) maybe you’re a bit burned out and should consider taking a brief break from GW2. Maybe play through a single player game or something, then come back refreshed.

I think the better question is, how do you define a ‘day’?

Most people spend, what, ~3hours per day…

None of those activities will get you that much gold in just 3 hours.

I have to agree with the others on this one original poster. You are at no disadvantage in playing only one character, you are simply limiting yourself. The tag was not just raised because of account wide. We also got three more colors to use. I don’t think raising the price was the correct way to tackle the problem with the tag.

I think it should have been 100g, 100,000 Karma, and 3000 Badges of Honor. Perhaps even WvW levels and a new item added from World Bosses, some type of token you need 100+ of (Think Collectibles from GW1 but from world bosses instead).

Iyeru.5240:

What is SW Farming by the way? Also what if I hate PVP? I’ve never done a fractal before either, and have no craftings above 100… I also don’t have any guildmates who will do dungeons really, and don’t like voice chat or bigger guilds anyway.

What do I do then? This isn’t a troll or sarcastic post either, this is a GENUINE question / post.

If you don’t or haven’t done any of those things you honestly do not need a commander tag.
SW Farming – Silver Wastes farming is the new map added where you farm events and boxes(like champ farming but through events not champions).

Deamhan.9538:

I think the better question is, how do you define a ‘day’?

Most people spend, what, ~3hours per day…

None of those activities will get you that much gold in just 3 hours.

Accurate.
Also accurate? Larger quantities of time invested = larger quantities of rewards received. That’s been true of every MMO ever (and a lot of single player games too). Anet has made great strides in the “play how you want,” “all content is rewarding” department, but that fundamental truth is unchanged (even if you buy gems, that’s just substituting “work time” ours for “leisure time” hours. That money comes from somewhere, after all).

One of the people on my friends list has gold in the thousands (several thousand), but he runs every dungeon every day, some of them in the evening after reset, some of them in the morning/afternoon of the next day. Often times he literally runs from reset to reset (with just a couple hours for a nap).
Am I angry because I don’t have as much gold as he does? Nope. Because he puts in exponentially more time than I do, thus deserves exponentially more rewards than I.

Also, I usually spend about three hours on average doing my SW farm (Breach/VW, not shovel train), and I average anywhere from 16-21 gold (depending on if I get any good drops from my champ bags)— and for the record, that’s two or three Breach/VWs (I don’t map hop), with the Breach almost always failing and VW almost always succeeding. During the seventeen minute “Time Out” I either Champ Train or hit the Labyrinth (depending on where the majority of players congregate after the event).

This morning I spent exactly 2 hours and 33 minutes in Silverwastes (known because I popped a pair of primers right when I started, and that was how far their duration had fallen). And in that time I squeezed in two Breaches (a success and a failure), and two Vinewraths (two successes, one of them was super sketchy though, lol).

After salvaging and/or selling all the loot and materials I recieved, I earned a total of 21 gold and 37 silver— mind you, that’s after expenses like my daily 300 silk, thermocatalytics, and various waypoint costs. But for now let’s just keep it simple and stick to 21g, 37s.

Let’s round down because I’m lazy and call it 20 gold in 2.5 hours. 300 divided by 20 is 15, so we need fifteen 2.5 hour sessions to get our commander tag. In order to figure out how many hours that is, we take our 15 sessions and multiply it by 2.5, which comes out to 37.5 hours. Let’s round again (this time up: I always round in the direction which favors the arguments of those with the opposite viewpoint of mine) to a nice 38 hours.
So doing only Breach/Vinewrath Silverwastes farming, it will take you 38 hours to earn a commander tag. If we allow your average of three hours per day, then 38 divided by 3 comes out to 12.6 repeated— again let us round up. That’s basically 13 days. Let’s go a step further and call it 2 weeks. Two weeks to get your commander tag doing nothing but but Silverwastes farming, if that’s what you want to do.

Given that 1) Commanders are intended to be experienced players capable of successfully leading groups of less experienced players and 2) Commander Tags are (debatably) a “prestige” items like Ascended gear— something that is nice to have, but unneccesary/useless in a significant amount of content, two weeks seems like a rather fair time requirement.

BUT it’s worth noting that 1) I farm inefficiently: I don’t map hop, which severely decreases my time invested to loot received ratio (people jump map shards for a reason), and 2) this includes no other sources of loot, like materials from my home instance, or mats bought and then sold with laurels, which you get automatically just for logging in, and 3) is, once again the amount I’m left with after I’ve bought expensive materials like silk and thermos. Therefore that two weeks could very likely be reduced by quite a large margin.