Guild Wars 2

So there was a discussion in another thread, but I think this one deserves its own thread.
We’ve all been there: getting enough of a specific currency to get what we want, then trying figure out what to do with any left-overs.

Arenanet has it even rougher. They can’t use overfarmed, overused old currencies, instead they need to make new ones all the time. Why can’t we use Geodes outside Dry Top? Bandit Crests outside Silverwastes? I doubt we will use those in Heart of Thorns, HoT will use their own new Currencies. Why?

The answer is fairly simple. Aside from Gold, no other currency in the game has a regular updated sink. This means that players accumulate enough of it to last for a lifetime, therefore making it impossible for the devs to add more items to buy with that currency. They would either need to make new things VERY EXPENSIVE to account for older players (but make it hard for new players), or keep things relatively cheap so new players can’t compete, but make it super easy for older players to get them.

So how do we fix this? Let’s take a look at the BEST DESIGNED currency in the game, Guild Merits. Before anyone mentions how it is bad for small guilds, I’m not talking about acquisition here, I’m talking about hoarding and spending it (acquisition could use some work for small guilds, that’s NOT my point)

If Guild Halls require an amount of Guild Merits to be fully upgraded, guilds won’t be able to get everything on day one, because there is a 250 cap on Guild Merits. So, Arenanet can keep costs of anything Guild Hall – related LOW, so new and old guilds, small and large guilds can start at an almost equal footing. It’s their INTAKE of Guild Merits that will play a role how fast they unlock everything and not how much they’ve HOARDED. However, imagine if Guild Merits worked like Karma, the largest guilds would unlock everything on day one, AND Arenanet would have to make certain things insanely expensive, to allow those large guilds to have something to strive for.

Imagine if ALL Currencies had caps. Now they could add new usage for Bandit Crests in the HoT areas, they could add new rewards for Geodes, they could fill the Dungeon vendors with new gear obtainable with Dungeon tokens, they could make Karma useful AGAIN. And NEVER add a new currency again.

tl;dr make all currencies work like guild merits (give them an upper cap), then the game won’t need any new currencies at all

Thoughts?

I’d much rather a new currency consolidation, as they tried once before. Serves toward the same effect, that is, older players can’t right hoard it if they have to spend the same currency toward a myriad items.
At the same time, it’ll save up space taken up every update by some new currency.

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

No. Just no. I dont want a cap on my karma, dungeon tokens, fractal relics, or anything else in my wallet.

Geodes, crests, and festival tokens are not a currency in the wallet. They are event/zone specific items, who only have a use in those events/zones. There is no reason to put a cap on them.

No. I don’t want to have caps. I want to invest my time like i want, not being forced to login every day.

“I am too inefficient at earning and spending and don’t want to improve, so let’s make EVERYONE ELSE equally inefficient!”

Where do people even get those ideas from?

It’s not that hard to make a sink for all those currency that can last a long time.

Laurels : you can buy heavy crafting bag for tier 6
Bags of Stolen Goods : chance at tier 6 and others stuff

Plenty of crafting material that could be bought with leftover specific currency.

I’d be happy to just see geodes and crests go to the wallet instead of taking inventory/bank space..

Phoenix.5047:

I’d much rather a new currency consolidation, as they tried once before. Serves toward the same effect, that is, older players can’t right hoard it if they have to spend the same currency toward a myriad items.
At the same time, it’ll save up space taken up every update by some new currency.

But the old currencies aren’t used anymore, because there aren’t enough sinks for them. The idea is to make OLD currencies more important, not just deal with the new ones.

Olvendred.3027:

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

The “simplest” Solution is to prevent players from earning anymore of a specific currency until they are below the cap. As for how large the caps should be, it depends on the currency itself, they can’t have the same caps

They already have a cap. The amount a player is willing to hold in their bank and inventory. It isn’t like the wallet with an unlimited cap.

Aidan Savage.2078:

No. Just no. I dont want a cap on my karma, dungeon tokens, fractal relics, or anything else in my wallet.

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Geodes, crests, and festival tokens are not a currency in the wallet. They are event/zone specific items, who only have a use in those events/zones. There is no reason to put a cap on them.

All those can be added to the wallet. And why should they have a use only on those zones? I doubt you will ever see anything new released that will require geodes or bandit crests, but why not? Why not keep those currencies relevant and make them more important altogether?

Tyr.6097:

No. I don’t want to have caps. I want to invest my time like i want, not being forced to login every day.

caps dont force you to log in everday.

He is not talking about a time gate on earning, but rather a cap on your max amount of the currency

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not that hard to make a sink for all those currency that can last a long time.

Laurels : you can buy heavy crafting bag for tier 6
Bags of Stolen Goods : chance at tier 6 and others stuff

Plenty of crafting material that could be bought with leftover specific currency.

Exactly. Of course, if someone is worried that material prices will plummet if players can use all sorts of wacky currencies on buying, lets say, iron… well, there are surely some account bound goodies you could give. Like, Boost Enchantment Powder, that’s useful and relatively expensive and can’t be spammed for fun nor exploited in large quantities. A perfect sink.

Tyr.6097:

No. I don’t want to have caps. I want to invest my time like i want, not being forced to login every day.

Did you read my suggestion? What’s the point in having more than a specific amount of tokens? If you want to use your tokens to buy exotic dungeon gear, or bandit chest keys or bags of gear, you can do it the same way you do now. Gather currency → spend it → profit, there is absolutely no change there, or in the way you play or enjoy your time in the game.

What my suggestion is aimed at, is players who hoard 100000 bandit crests, making it impossible for the devs to reuse that currency in the future.

maddoctor.2738:

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Wait, what’s wrong with having millions of karma in your wallet? It’s not like your character would run slower from being encumbered. It doesn’t even consume any inventory slots. And there is always few repeatable uses for Karma anyways.

In other words, anything that goes in your wallet, is just a figure. It doesn’t hurt you, no matter what that figure is. Why’d you want to hurt that figure?

maddoctor.2738:

All those can be added to the wallet. And why should they have a use only on those zones? I doubt you will ever see anything new released that will require geodes or bandit crests, but why not? Why not keep those currencies relevant and make them more important altogether?

Now, I think we can all get behind that. Give more uses for old currencies. Absolutely. I disagree on throwing in some arbitrary cap tho. GW1 had a cap on the amount of money you could have. That was horrible, I maxed out and still didn’t have enough to buy certain equipment.

Lishtenbird.2814:

“I am too inefficient at earning and spending and don’t want to improve, so let’s make EVERYONE ELSE equally inefficient!”

Where do people even get those ideas from?

thats not really how it works.

Basically what happens when you have caps, is people spend their currencies. You can then keep using the same currencies, in non stupid amounts for new content.

lets face it, your old currencies are basically valueless, once you have gotten whatever you want out of them. They will very rarely offer much of value for them because they want to slow you down.
you are not gaining anything by having 1000000 geodes, they wont use them for anything else, because they know you have 1000000, and you dont want any thing that they are currently allowing you to get with it, or you would have already spent it.

it honestly works so much better, and keeps various gameplay valuable,

Lishtenbird.2814:

“I am too inefficient at earning and spending and don’t want to improve, so let’s make EVERYONE ELSE equally inefficient!”

Where do people even get those ideas from?

Funny that you attached that pic. Because all old currencies (other than gold) are broken at the moment. When was the last time you saw anything requiring karma introduced in the game? Or dungeon tokens? Or Fractal relics? or any other old currency?

How is effiency in any way harmed by having a cap on a currency? You want to get bags of gear or exotic dungeon gear, find the most efficient way to earn that currency and convert it. With my suggestion you will still be able to do that without ANY DIFFERENCE AT ALL.

But by adding a cap on those currencies it will allow the devs to add new items using that currency. They can’t do it now, if players are hoarding insane levels of that currency and are able to buy anything on day one. That’s why we get time gates, that’s why the new skills cost way way more than old skills (older players have too many skillpoints).

I gave the Guild Merit example for a reason. Guild Merits will be used again and again in future content without problems, because it’s a reliable currency. If there were NO CAPS for Guild Merits, like with the other currencies, then the devs would implement different/new currencies to get anything new for your guild, or add insane time-gates or both. Guild Merits without a cap would be pointless as a currency to get new items.

Fred Fargone.3127:

maddoctor.2738:

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Wait, what’s wrong with having millions of karma in your wallet? It’s not like your character would run slower from being encumbered. It doesn’t even consume any inventory slots. And there is always few repeatable uses for Karma anyways.

In other words, anything that goes in your wallet, is just a figure. It doesn’t hurt you, no matter what that figure is. Why’d you want to hurt that figure?

maddoctor.2738:

All those can be added to the wallet. And why should they have a use only on those zones? I doubt you will ever see anything new released that will require geodes or bandit crests, but why not? Why not keep those currencies relevant and make them more important altogether?

Now, I think we can all get behind that. Give more uses for old currencies. Absolutely. I disagree on throwing in some arbitrary cap tho. GW1 had a cap on the amount of money you could have. That was horrible, I maxed out and still didn’t have enough to buy certain equipment.

i dont think he is talking about gold, and you make the caps higher than the most expensive things.
baiscally lets say the most expensive thing on geodes costs 200 geodes, you might make the cap 1000 geodes. this allows you to go over what you need, but not so much that they can never use geodes in new content rewards for fear of you getting everything too fast.

Essentially this makes your time getting geodes, more valuable in the long run.

phys.7689:

Fred Fargone.3127:

maddoctor.2738:

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Wait, what’s wrong with having millions of karma in your wallet? It’s not like your character would run slower from being encumbered. It doesn’t even consume any inventory slots. And there is always few repeatable uses for Karma anyways.

In other words, anything that goes in your wallet, is just a figure. It doesn’t hurt you, no matter what that figure is. Why’d you want to hurt that figure?

maddoctor.2738:

All those can be added to the wallet. And why should they have a use only on those zones? I doubt you will ever see anything new released that will require geodes or bandit crests, but why not? Why not keep those currencies relevant and make them more important altogether?

Now, I think we can all get behind that. Give more uses for old currencies. Absolutely. I disagree on throwing in some arbitrary cap tho. GW1 had a cap on the amount of money you could have. That was horrible, I maxed out and still didn’t have enough to buy certain equipment.

i dont think he is talking about gold, and you make the caps higher than the most expensive things.
baiscally lets say the most expensive thing on geodes costs 200 geodes, you might make the cap 1000 geodes. this allows you to go over what you need, but not so much that they can never use geodes in new content rewards for fear of you getting everything too fast.

Essentially this makes your time getting geodes, more valuable in the long run.

Exactly. Caps will allow older currencies to stay relevant FOREVER. Without caps they are relevant as long as Anet releases new items to get with them, which isn’t often enough (see: dungeon tokens)

maddoctor.2738:

Olvendred.3027:

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

The “simplest” Solution is to prevent players from earning anymore of a specific currency until they are below the cap. As for how large the caps should be, it depends on the currency itself, they can’t have the same caps

The problem with that, is getting rid of the excess. If the cap for karma is put at, say, 1 million, then there are people who are going to need to get rid of >10 million before they can start earning again. To allow players to get rid of that amount, you need to add fairly large sinks. And if you’re willing to add sufficiently large sinks to that currency, then people are going to wonder why you couldn’t just do that without adding a cap.

maddoctor.2738:

Aidan Savage.2078:

No. Just no. I dont want a cap on my karma, dungeon tokens, fractal relics, or anything else in my wallet.

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Yes, I want to hoard them. If I want to hoard 5 million karma and then craft 5 new or old legendaries in a row or take a week to forge it all into linen, there’s no sane reason not to allow me to. If I want to hoard dungeon tokens and turn them into ectos, insignias, collection unlocks or new character armour, there’s also no sane reason not to allow me to.

There’s also a very important part about hoardable currencies from the economical point of view: it reduces market elasticity. As stated by John Smith, the system has been designed to resist influxes of players and other changes in supply, and having hoardable currencies is one of the things which brings the scales back to the equilibrium if one of the sides shifts for whatever reason.

But you know what is the worst part of your suggestion? Chores:

- Hey, wanna go for AC?
- No sorry, my tokens are capped.
- Use them?
- I haven’t decided what to use them for. Well, if you give me half an hour…
- No way! party disbands

maddoctor.2738:

When was the last time you saw anything requiring karma introduced in the game? Or dungeon tokens? Or Fractal relics? or any other old currency?

There have been rumours of that thing called… expansion, I think? And… new legendaries. And… new tribe NPC traders unlocked at different mastery tiers. And… new tiers of fractals and fractal masteries.

How can you say that it is broken when you don’t know what it is going to be used for in the future?

Dungeon tokens are already plenty relevant with many sinks (eg. ectos, insignias etc). You just sound like you’re jealous of people who hoard dungeon tokens.

Olvendred.3027:

maddoctor.2738:

Olvendred.3027:

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

The “simplest” Solution is to prevent players from earning anymore of a specific currency until they are below the cap. As for how large the caps should be, it depends on the currency itself, they can’t have the same caps

The problem with that, is getting rid of the excess. If the cap for karma is put at, say, 1 million, then there are people who are going to need to get rid of >10 million before they can start earning again. To allow players to get rid of that amount, you need to add fairly large sinks. And if you’re willing to add sufficiently large sinks to that currency, then people are going to wonder why you couldn’t just do that without adding a cap.

i think karma is a ship that has sailed, i dont think we can come up with a number that will solve the karma issue. However, you can come up with something for things like geodes, bandit crests, dungeon tokens, etc.

Olvendred.3027:

maddoctor.2738:

Olvendred.3027:

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

The “simplest” Solution is to prevent players from earning anymore of a specific currency until they are below the cap. As for how large the caps should be, it depends on the currency itself, they can’t have the same caps

The problem with that, is getting rid of the excess. If the cap for karma is put at, say, 1 million, then there are people who are going to need to get rid of >10 million before they can start earning again. To allow players to get rid of that amount, you need to add fairly large sinks. And if you’re willing to add sufficiently large sinks to that currency, then people are going to wonder why you couldn’t just do that without adding a cap.

There are already sinks in all currencies (even karma), you can get exotic dungeon gear with tokens, bags of gear with crests, armor to forge and salvage with karma etc

However, once players get what they are after from those currencies, a specific armor set, carapace armor sets etc, they have very little reason to continue spending. Those 10mil karma are useless to you, unless you spend it, however seeing players with 10mil karma disallows Arenanet from adding anything new and useful with karma.

Now that I think about it, maybe the most elegant solution for Karma (because in Karma players will have the most differences) is a way to convert your karma into potions of karma. So for example, you turn 10mil karma into 10 potions of 1mil karma each, then it’s up to you when to use them, and spend the karma, without feeling punished that you have to spend it before you can earn new.

Of course this conversion can only be done for karma above the cap (for old players) otherwise it’s pointless.

fishball.7204:

Dungeon tokens are already plenty relevant with many sinks (eg. ectos, insignias etc). You just sound like you’re jealous of people who hoard dungeon tokens.

for people doing what you are talking about, you lose nothing.

you just turn them in consistently instead of building up insane amounts.

It really changes nothing, other than limiting the upper cost for new goods.

also he is not saying to remove the amounts people already earned. Thats the biggest issue he will have, coming up with a way to institute caps without invalidating old work.

phys.7689:

i dont think he is talking about gold

It’s okey, I’m not talking about gold either. GW1 was just an example of how caps can fail.

phys.7689:

, and you make the caps higher than the most expensive things.

Well, that’s fine for account bound items, but I’d like to see more of a player run economy.

phys.7689:

baiscally lets say the most expensive thing on geodes costs 200 geodes, you might make the cap 1000 geodes. this allows you to go over what you need, but not so much that they can never use geodes in new content rewards for fear of you getting everything too fast.

So if the most expensive thing happens to be a piece of armor, you ensure that a player needs to grind 200 geodes, or 1400 geodes if they want to get it for a second char, instead of cumulating them at their leisure?
I don’t think we want to add grinding.

maddoctor.2738:

Exactly. Caps will allow older currencies to stay relevant FOREVER. Without caps they are relevant as long as Anet releases new items to get with them, which isn’t often enough (see: dungeon tokens)

phys.7689:

Essentially this makes your time getting geodes, more valuable in the long run.

I’m sorry, maybe I’m just not understanding the mechanism here, but I don’t see that happening.

As getting X amount of <currency> consumes the same amount of time Y with or without the cap, it shouldn’t matter when the time Y was spent, and hence shouldn’t be a deciding factor on not releasing new buyables for that <currency>.

To me, it would seem that adding an artificial cap would just promote grinding when you spend the currency, as opposed to cumulating the <currency> via normal play.

Lishtenbird.2814:

maddoctor.2738:

Aidan Savage.2078:

No. Just no. I dont want a cap on my karma, dungeon tokens, fractal relics, or anything else in my wallet.

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Yes, I want to hoard them. If I want to hoard 5 million karma and then craft 5 new or old legendaries in a row or take a week to forge it all into linen, there’s no sane reason not to allow me to. If I want to hoard dungeon tokens and turn them into ectos, insignias, collection unlocks or new character armour, there’s also no sane reason not to allow me to.

You can already forge your karma into linen, turn tokens into ectos etc I don’t see your point. Why do it all at once, and not as you get it? No sane reason? How about keeping the old currencies important and adding new items to buy with them instead of adding new currencies all the time?

There’s also a very important part about hoardable currencies from the economical point of view: it reduces market elasticity. As stated by John Smith, the system has been designed to resist influxes of players and other changes in supply, and having hoardable currencies is one of the things which brings the scales back to the equilibrium if one of the sides shifts for whatever reason.

Imagine that. Players can already destroy the market if they choose to convert all those currencies into something else, yet they don’t for some reason. All hoardable currencies do is increase the prices of everything. If Bandit Crests were capped at 1000 or 2000 then there would be little reason to price Carapace armor pieces at 1000. So yeah, hoardable currencies make everything cost more, and force people to grind more for whatever they want, while also making those currencies useless once someone gets what they want.

But you know what is the worst part of your suggestion? Chores:

- Hey, wanna go for AC?
- No sorry, my tokens are capped.
- Use them?
- I haven’t decided what to use them for. Well, if you give me half an hour…
- No way! party disbands

If someone is sooo indecisive then they will have bigger problems

To quote Koptev from SE P3: “No no no. No no no. No no no.”

If you place an arbitrary cap on a currency without addressing the generation and destruction of said currency, you’ll wind up with the same problem GW1 had: fiat currency. Do you really want 1 ecto to represent 1000 platinums again? Especially in a game that doesn’t have player to player trading?

This would be horrible for the health of the game, because you’ll have people leaving once they hit cap (nothing to buy, no reason to do any content because they won’t receive any monetary rewards and the item rewards cannot be sold), or leaving because of rampant scamming (fiat money and lack of protection in mail-trading), or leaving because the currency they do have is rendered worthless (everything is priced in fiat money); all you’ll have left is an extremely small player base of players who refuse to leave because they invested too much time in the game and a market environment that is downright unfriendly to new players.

So, to reiterate: “No no no.”

Fred Fargone.3127:

As getting X amount of <currency> consumes the same amount of time Y with or without the cap, it shouldn’t matter when the time Y was spent, and hence shouldn’t be a deciding factor on not releasing new buyables for that <currency>.

It takes the same amount of time to get X amount of currency. However having a Z cap will force players to use that currency and not hoard it, therefore allowing Arenanet to add new items for that currency.

To me, it would seem that adding an artificial cap would just promote grinding when you spend the currency, as opposed to cumulating the <currency> via normal play.

I don’t think anyone needs 2000 dungeon tokens or 20mil karma to play the game. An artificial gap won’t make a difference on players getting items and using said currency, it will only affect those who hoard large amounts of it.

If they added a cap, people would start trading even more outside the trading post, using other items as currency.

The cap can’t be in the currency.

What makes guild marit work is not the upper cap they have as much as the weekly cap in how much you can earn.

Since you can’t earn too many weekly, you have to repeat the guild missions each week, or you’ll eventually run out.

If you really want to bridge the gap between the highest and lowest income players, make earning caps harsher against repetitive gameplay.

Lishtenbird.2814:

maddoctor.2738:

Aidan Savage.2078:

No. Just no. I dont want a cap on my karma, dungeon tokens, fractal relics, or anything else in my wallet.

Why? You want to have thousands of dungeon tokens and millions of karma just staying there being useless? You want to hoard your currencies for no reason at all, and the developers never ever release anything new for those?

Yes, I want to hoard them. If I want to hoard 5 million karma and then craft 5 new or old legendaries in a row or take a week to forge it all into linen, there’s no sane reason not to allow me to. If I want to hoard dungeon tokens and turn them into ectos, insignias, collection unlocks or new character armour, there’s also no sane reason not to allow me to.

There’s also a very important part about hoardable currencies from the economical point of view: it reduces market elasticity. As stated by John Smith, the system has been designed to resist influxes of players and other changes in supply, and having hoardable currencies is one of the things which brings the scales back to the equilibrium if one of the sides shifts for whatever reason.

But you know what is the worst part of your suggestion? Chores:

- Hey, wanna go for AC?
- No sorry, my tokens are capped.
- Use them?
- I haven’t decided what to use them for. Well, if you give me half an hour…
- No way! party disbands

maddoctor.2738:

When was the last time you saw anything requiring karma introduced in the game? Or dungeon tokens? Or Fractal relics? or any other old currency?

There have been rumours of that thing called… expansion, I think? And… new legendaries. And… new tribe NPC traders unlocked at different mastery tiers. And… new tiers of fractals and fractal masteries.

How can you say that it is broken when you don’t know what it is going to be used for in the future?

your complaints make sense, but the reality is its just not worth it.
now we have too many currencies, and they have to create more for every content. Many of these currencies have low, to no value. And you can still do the same things you are talking about with them, you just dont wait for a million currnecies to do it.

heres what you gain with no caps
the ability to save a lot and spend all at once

heres what you gain with caps
less currencies
more value per work
the ability to use old work for new rewards
prices based around how much people can earn instead of how much they can hoard

i mean if you have other solutions fine. but we cant keep getting new currencies every couple months, that they either add no new uses for, or they make the amount of currency required too high too match the way the content is supposed to be experienced (halloween 2)

Pandaman.4758:

To quote Koptev from SE P3: “No no no. No no no. No no no.”

If you place an arbitrary cap on a currency without addressing the generation and destruction of said currency, you’ll wind up with the same problem GW1 had: fiat currency. Do you really want 1 ecto to represent 1000 platinums again? Especially in a game that doesn’t have player to player trading?

This would be horrible for the health of the game, because you’ll have people leaving once they hit cap (nothing to buy, no reason to do any content because they won’t receive any monetary rewards and the item rewards cannot be sold), or leaving because of rampant scamming (fiat money and lack of protection in mail-trading), or leaving because the currency they do have is rendered worthless (everything is priced in fiat money); all you’ll have left is an extremely small player base of players who refuse to leave because they invested too much time in the game and a market environment that is downright unfriendly to new players.

So, to reiterate: “No no no.”

Not talking about gold, gold is an exception because unlike all other currencies in the game, it gets constant sinks (gem store items for example), however the other currencies do not have anything similar to gems so they have limited usage once players get what they REALLY want from them.

MithranArkanere.8957:

If they added a cap, people would start trading even more outside the trading post, using other items as currency.

The cap can’t be in the currency.

What makes guild marit work is not the upper cap they have as much as the weekly cap in how much you can earn.

Since you can’t earn too many weekly, you have to repeat the guild missions each week, or you’ll eventually run out.

If you really want to bridge the gap between the highest and lowest income players, make earning caps harsher against repetitive gameplay.

almost all the currencies he is talking about dont give you items that you can trade.

I dont think he is talking about gold here

phys.7689:

i mean if you have other solutions fine. but we cant keep getting new currencies every couple months, that they either add no new uses for, or they make the amount of currency required too high too match the way the content is supposed to be experienced (halloween 2)

The only other possible solution I can think of is to add new items for all currencies constantly. For gold, we have regular GEM store updates that serve as a gold sink, the other currencies could get something similar, it happened while they were introducing the Carapace armor, a new piece for 1000 crests every 2 weeks. However I don’t see how they could do that for all currencies and keep up.

maddoctor.2738:

It takes the same amount of time to get X amount of currency. However having a Z cap will force players to use that currency and not hoard it,

This far I can accept as a logical fact…

maddoctor.2738:

therefore allowing Arenanet to add new items for that currency.

The link between aforementioned fact and this effect I cannot understand.
What mechanism stops ANet from adding new items to currencies that do not have caps? (Such as, gold)
We have already established that it takes the same amount of time to get those items, no matter if there is a cap or not.

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t think anyone needs 2000 dungeon tokens or 20mil karma to play the game. An artificial gap won’t make a difference on players getting items and using said currency, it will only affect those who hoard large amounts of it.

Now, there are few points here that I disagree with:
While you don’t need 2000 dungeon tokens or 20mil karma, because if you did, I sure couldn’t play the game, but it doesn’t bug me that there is some guy who happily sits on a pile of 20mil karma. Good for them.

Also, an artificial cap has the potential to hinder everyone who casually play the game, hoarder or not. As long as you get some of that currency every once in a while without using it, you’re running a risk of being forced to
A) Lose potential gains
B) Get something you weren’t planning to
C) Find another area with a currency you don’t have maxed out.
I just don’t find that desirable.

maddoctor.2738:

You can already forge your karma into linen, turn tokens into ectos etc I don’t see your point. Why do it all at once, and not as you get it? No sane reason? How about keeping the old currencies important and adding new items to buy with them instead of adding new currencies all the time?

Because today I don’t feel like doing it, and tomorrow I don’t? Because it is a frigging game to enjoy and not a daily inventory management simulator (oh wait…) or something to feel bad about simply because I don’t feel like doing it today and not tomorrow? We already have enough stupid daily limits and daily chores and enough of bank/bag space issues which turn this game into Click Wars. No need for more.

maddoctor.2738:

Imagine that. Players can already destroy the market if they choose to convert all those currencies into something else, yet they don’t for some reason. All hoardable currencies do is increase the prices of everything. If Bandit Crests were capped at 1000 or 2000 then there would be little reason to price Carapace armor pieces at 1000. So yeah, hoardable currencies make everything cost more, and force people to grind more for whatever they want, while also making those currencies useless once someone gets what they want.

You know why they don’t do it? Because
a) it’s boring to do it,
b) they don’t need to convert it at the moment,
c) they’re waiting for something to happen to use all of it (remember the laurel to UnId Dye conversion) since at that moment it will be worth the effort,
d) they expect something which will require these items in the future.
This is

maddoctor.2738:

If someone is sooo indecisive then they will have bigger problems

That’s plain silly and you know it.

If I want to play AC today, I want to play AC today and not sit on my new character and buy armour for it, or sit and choose between two skins in a rush because I’ll miss on tokens.
If I want to play EoTM, I want to go play EoTM and not convert karma to linen.
If I want to play SW, I want to go play SW and not decide which of the tonics or skins to choose at the moment. And so on.

The only things that your suggestion adds are frustration from lost rewards, excessive time sinks and stress on managing capped currencies, inflexible markets, and inability to freely play the content you want with your friends when you have limited time (like 90% of players do). And all this in a game you paid for to enjoy in your free time.

No, currency should never be capped. This suggestion is ridiculous. Just learn to manage your resources better and don’t farm for stuff you don’t need, it really isn’t that difficult.

So which currency isn’t used anymore in the first place? Afaik they all have sinks.

Fred Fargone.3127:

maddoctor.2738:

It takes the same amount of time to get X amount of currency. However having a Z cap will force players to use that currency and not hoard it,

This far I can accept as a logical fact…

maddoctor.2738:

therefore allowing Arenanet to add new items for that currency.

The link between aforementioned fact and this effect I cannot understand.
What mechanism stops ANet from adding new items to currencies that do not have caps? (Such as, gold)
We have already established that it takes the same amount of time to get those items, no matter if there is a cap or not.

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t think anyone needs 2000 dungeon tokens or 20mil karma to play the game. An artificial gap won’t make a difference on players getting items and using said currency, it will only affect those who hoard large amounts of it.

Now, there are few points here that I disagree with:
While you don’t need 2000 dungeon tokens or 20mil karma, because if you did, I sure couldn’t play the game, but it doesn’t bug me that there is some guy who happily sits on a pile of 20mil karma. Good for them.

Also, an artificial cap has the potential to hinder everyone who casually play the game, hoarder or not. As long as you get some of that currency every once in a while without using it, you’re running a risk of being forced to
A) Lose potential gains
B) Get something you weren’t planning to
C) Find another area with a currency you don’t have maxed out.
I just don’t find that desirable.

the point is, it actually does stop them from making new items, designer at anet have mentioned it. Its why they constantly create new currencies.

They dont want people to be able to get things day one, so they dont release new uses for many of these currencies.

Lishtenbird.2814:

maddoctor.2738:

You can already forge your karma into linen, turn tokens into ectos etc I don’t see your point. Why do it all at once, and not as you get it? No sane reason? How about keeping the old currencies important and adding new items to buy with them instead of adding new currencies all the time?

Because today I don’t feel like doing it, and tomorrow I don’t? Because it is a frigging game to enjoy and not a daily inventory management simulator (oh wait…) or something to feel bad about simply because I don’t feel like doing it today and not tomorrow? We already have enough stupid daily limits and daily chores and enough of bank/bag space issues which turn this game into Click Wars. No need for more.

maddoctor.2738:

Imagine that. Players can already destroy the market if they choose to convert all those currencies into something else, yet they don’t for some reason. All hoardable currencies do is increase the prices of everything. If Bandit Crests were capped at 1000 or 2000 then there would be little reason to price Carapace armor pieces at 1000. So yeah, hoardable currencies make everything cost more, and force people to grind more for whatever they want, while also making those currencies useless once someone gets what they want.

You know why they don’t do it? Because
a) it’s boring to do it,
b) they don’t need to convert it at the moment,
c) they’re waiting for something to happen to use all of it (remember the laurel to UnId Dye conversion) since at that moment it will be worth the effort,
d) they expect something which will require these items in the future.
This is

maddoctor.2738:

If someone is sooo indecisive then they will have bigger problems

That’s plain silly and you know it.

If I want to play AC today, I want to play AC today and not sit on my new character and buy armour for it, or sit and choose between two skins in a rush because I’ll miss on tokens.
If I want to play EoTM, I want to go play EoTM and not convert karma to linen.
If I want to play SW, I want to go play SW and not decide which of the tonics or skins to choose at the moment. And so on.

The only things that your suggestion adds are frustration from lost rewards, excessive time sinks and stress on managing capped currencies, inflexible markets, and inability to freely play the content you want with your friends when you have limited time (like 90% of players do). And all this in a game you paid for to enjoy in your free time.

Im as lazy as the next guy, and dont really like the insane amount of inventory management we currently have to deal with, but to be honest, i would rather have less currencies cluttering up inventory, and greater value for my old currencies, as well as new things that can use some of the work i have previously done, rather than new currencies every day, or things requiring 10000 of something because people have built up more than anet can handle.

i mean there are pros and cons, but we been on this road for ahwile, and it only seems to be getting worse.

Fred Fargone.3127:

maddoctor.2738:

It takes the same amount of time to get X amount of currency. However having a Z cap will force players to use that currency and not hoard it,

This far I can accept as a logical fact…

maddoctor.2738:

therefore allowing Arenanet to add new items for that currency.

The link between aforementioned fact and this effect I cannot understand.
What mechanism stops ANet from adding new items to currencies that do not have caps? (Such as, gold)
We have already established that it takes the same amount of time to get those items, no matter if there is a cap or not.

Simple. Without a cap, they can’t add new items for a particular currency because old players will be overflowing with it. So, they’d rather add a new currency on every map (so all players start at the same place), rather than use the existing ones. Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Also, an artificial cap has the potential to hinder everyone who casually play the game, hoarder or not. As long as you get some of that currency every once in a while without using it, you’re running a risk of being forced to
A) Lose potential gains
B) Get something you weren’t planning to
C) Find another area with a currency you don’t have maxed out.
I just don’t find that desirable.

How is it hurting someone who is not a hoarder? If you spend it already then it won’t be any different

maddoctor.2738:

Fred Fargone.3127:

maddoctor.2738:

It takes the same amount of time to get X amount of currency. However having a Z cap will force players to use that currency and not hoard it,

This far I can accept as a logical fact…

maddoctor.2738:

therefore allowing Arenanet to add new items for that currency.

The link between aforementioned fact and this effect I cannot understand.
What mechanism stops ANet from adding new items to currencies that do not have caps? (Such as, gold)
We have already established that it takes the same amount of time to get those items, no matter if there is a cap or not.

Simple. Without a cap, they can’t add new items for a particular currency because old players will be overflowing with it. So, they’d rather add a new currency on every map (so all players start at the same place), rather than use the existing ones. Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Also, an artificial cap has the potential to hinder everyone who casually play the game, hoarder or not. As long as you get some of that currency every once in a while without using it, you’re running a risk of being forced to
A) Lose potential gains
B) Get something you weren’t planning to
C) Find another area with a currency you don’t have maxed out.
I just don’t find that desirable.

How is it hurting someone who is not a hoarder? If you spend it already then it won’t be any different

one thing lishtenbird alludes to, which is accurate, is it is more effecient to keep a currency sometimes over an item.

Because honestly the item glut in this game is really overpowering. 20k dungeon tokens is many sets of armor potentially, without taking up all that space.

then again 5 stacks of bandit crests is just as annoying.

maddoctor.2738:

Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Why would they add new rewards to old content they no longer update whatsoever? Aside from a few stealth updates every now and then they don’t give a crap about dungeons. Has nothing to do with having too many tokens. Besides, there’s still a pretty good sink for it.

Olvendred.3027:

How do you propose to implement this on the existing system? And how large do you want the caps to be for specific currencies?

Other games have already done it. It’s not a new concept. The numbers themselves can be tweaked so that’s not an issue.

The bigger problem lies in the fact that there will likely be that one “most efficient” method to farm whatever currencies we settle on so people will largely just do that.

cranos.5913:

maddoctor.2738:

Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Why would they add new rewards to old content they no longer update whatsoever? Aside from a few stealth updates every now and then they don’t give a crap about dungeons. Has nothing to do with having too many tokens. Besides, there’s still a pretty good sink for it.

because inspite of the fact that its old, they still want people to play it, and in general they plan to have a smaller world, to keep people together.

they want people to feel like their is a reason to be in old tyria.

maddoctor.2738:

Pandaman.4758:

To quote Koptev from SE P3: “No no no. No no no. No no no.”

If you place an arbitrary cap on a currency without addressing the generation and destruction of said currency, you’ll wind up with the same problem GW1 had: fiat currency. Do you really want 1 ecto to represent 1000 platinums again? Especially in a game that doesn’t have player to player trading?

This would be horrible for the health of the game, because you’ll have people leaving once they hit cap (nothing to buy, no reason to do any content because they won’t receive any monetary rewards and the item rewards cannot be sold), or leaving because of rampant scamming (fiat money and lack of protection in mail-trading), or leaving because the currency they do have is rendered worthless (everything is priced in fiat money); all you’ll have left is an extremely small player base of players who refuse to leave because they invested too much time in the game and a market environment that is downright unfriendly to new players.

So, to reiterate: “No no no.”

Not talking about gold, gold is an exception because unlike all other currencies in the game, it gets constant sinks (gem store items for example), however the other currencies do not have anything similar to gems so they have limited usage once players get what they REALLY want from them.

Even taking gold out of the equation the other currencies would still suffer the same problem: if you cap it without addressing how quickly they can be earned or have adequate sinks in place, you’ll just create a situation where people will simply stop doing the related content because it will literally become unrewarding.

Instead of the current behavior of having people constantly grind the same content to hoard currency in anticipation of new sinks, they’ll simply hit cap and not bother with the content until there’s actually something new to spend it on. You’ll see far fewer people in dungeons, Dry Top, and Silverwastes; the karma trains in Edge of the Mist will be replaced almost entirely by leveling trains bloated with uplevels; and there will be a massive uptake in people complaining about the lack of sinks and rewarding content (so they’ll either be demanding a cap increase or new alternate currency).

In essence a cap doesn’t solve the problem, it just drags it out and makes it painfully obvious in the process. I can only see that as being bad for the health of the game and its community.

phys.7689:

cranos.5913:

maddoctor.2738:

Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Why would they add new rewards to old content they no longer update whatsoever? Aside from a few stealth updates every now and then they don’t give a crap about dungeons. Has nothing to do with having too many tokens. Besides, there’s still a pretty good sink for it.

because inspite of the fact that its old, they still want people to play it, and in general they plan to have a smaller world, to keep people together.

they want people to feel like their is a reason to be in old tyria.

And people still have a good reason to play it considering the gold reward. I highly doubt they would add more to something that’s already so rewarding, not when they pretty much consider it a failure anyway.

Now fractals, that could use extra rewards. Which they are doing, according to reddit posts of ppl who’ve been to PAX, regardless of this “cap”.

Pandaman.4758:

maddoctor.2738:

Pandaman.4758:

To quote Koptev from SE P3: “No no no. No no no. No no no.”

If you place an arbitrary cap on a currency without addressing the generation and destruction of said currency, you’ll wind up with the same problem GW1 had: fiat currency. Do you really want 1 ecto to represent 1000 platinums again? Especially in a game that doesn’t have player to player trading?

This would be horrible for the health of the game, because you’ll have people leaving once they hit cap (nothing to buy, no reason to do any content because they won’t receive any monetary rewards and the item rewards cannot be sold), or leaving because of rampant scamming (fiat money and lack of protection in mail-trading), or leaving because the currency they do have is rendered worthless (everything is priced in fiat money); all you’ll have left is an extremely small player base of players who refuse to leave because they invested too much time in the game and a market environment that is downright unfriendly to new players.

So, to reiterate: “No no no.”

Not talking about gold, gold is an exception because unlike all other currencies in the game, it gets constant sinks (gem store items for example), however the other currencies do not have anything similar to gems so they have limited usage once players get what they REALLY want from them.

Even taking gold out of the equation the other currencies would still suffer the same problem: if you cap it without addressing how quickly they can be earned or have adequate sinks in place, you’ll just create a situation where people will simply stop doing the related content because it will literally become unrewarding.

Instead of the current behavior of having people constantly grind the same content to hoard currency in anticipation of new sinks, they’ll simply hit cap and not bother with the content until there’s actually something new to spend it on. You’ll see far fewer people in dungeons, Dry Top, and Silverwastes; the karma trains in Edge of the Mist will be replaced almost entirely by leveling trains bloated with uplevels; and there will be a massive uptake in people complaining about the lack of sinks and rewarding content (so they’ll either be demanding a cap increase or new alternate currency).

In essence a cap doesn’t solve the problem, it just drags it out and makes it painfully obvious in the process. I can only see that as being bad for the health of the game and its community.

to be honest dungeon runners dont care about currency other than turning it into gold anyhow. Which is still doable. you just cant wait for a million tokens to get around to it.

people on karma trains, want karma to spend on something, not for the joy of having karma

anet has straight up said they cant use things like karma/tokens in other content because it would give older players too much of a headstart.
The end result is a lot of near worthless currencies, and new ones all the time

a cap could solve that

cranos.5913:

phys.7689:

cranos.5913:

maddoctor.2738:

Why do you think they don’t use dungeon tokens for new items anymore?

Why would they add new rewards to old content they no longer update whatsoever? Aside from a few stealth updates every now and then they don’t give a crap about dungeons. Has nothing to do with having too many tokens. Besides, there’s still a pretty good sink for it.

because inspite of the fact that its old, they still want people to play it, and in general they plan to have a smaller world, to keep people together.

they want people to feel like their is a reason to be in old tyria.

And people still have a good reason to play it considering the gold reward. I highly doubt they would add more to something that’s already so rewarding, not when they pretty much consider it a failure anyway.

Now fractals, that could use extra rewards. Which they are doing, according to reddit posts of ppl who’ve been to PAX, regardless of this “cap”.

the problem with gold rewards is they cannot build them without large implications for the economy. Which limits their ability to reward gameplay.

thats part of the reason almost all currencies(non gold) are designed to have little to no trading power, or a very ineffecient one. Tokens allows them to reward people based on good design, rather than economic concerns.