Guild Wars 2

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the whole idea of a cosmetic endgame to eliminate the sense of competition between the haves and have nots? Now people are saying that itactual is the opposite?

I’m confused by people.

BioFringe.7945:

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the whole idea of a cosmetic endgame to eliminate the since of competition between the haves and have nots? Now people are saying that itactual is the opposite?

II’m confused by people.

Not everyone is meant to have everything. If that were the case then end game would be boring.

Another hyperbolic thread.

People will still buy them, either with gold or with RM.

GWT says it would currently cost ~15g to get 200gems atm, something most gamers who play daily could do in a few hours(a couple dungeon paths, some TP play, and maybe a couple world events, etc.). Even in the future if they go up to ~25-40g, so what? you have to wait a day or two to get your transmute stones. BFD bro, BFD.

On the other hand we have RM → gems: assuming you are working a job in America you are easily making MUCH more than anything you could be in-game(eg: 1hr of IRL work is going to net you WAY more gold than 1hr of in-game farming will). This route will grow in popularity more and more as time progresses(heck, it’s already the best route to take atm and has been for quite some time).

The only people who might “lose” out on the rising gem conversion costs are those who don’t spend much time in-game/are averse to spending RM. Not much to say to them other than too bad; either put in the time, put in your own time(RL money), or GTFO and stop making threads about wanting 3c bubble gum and 30c gasoline.

Guhracie.3419:

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

So if 1300 gems is 75g then 2000 (one card) is around 100g? if you get 6 cards (12000 gems), you could get your precursor.

Approximately. And, hey, if you have a spare $150 for a precursor, have at it.

You’re talking to one that dumped $125+ on this game in gems all on trans stones though and unlimited tools and a few boosters here and there and two complete makeovers.

1) Guild Wars Principle #3: Players should look the way they want to look.

2) Q: How much will transmutation stones cost? Will they be available outside of the in-game store?

Eric: We haven’t finalized the pricing structure on transmutation stones. We’re not certain at this time whether or not transmutation stones will be available outside of the in-game store. Philosophically we believe that players should have a way to acquire items like transmutation stones through the course of playing the game and not just through purchase in the in-game store. We’ll talk in greater detail about how we plan to accomplish this when we arrive at a final paradigm.

3) Q: Will all of the most desirable armors in the game have crappy stats, thus “requiring” the expenditure of real money to acquire transmutation stones in order for our characters to wear the armors we want?

Eric: Absolutely not. We’re not changing the way we make armor at all because of this system. Guild Wars 2 starts players off with basic but very attractive armor (as seen in our demo) and from there the armor only gets cooler. In fact, we have a ton of very cool armor at the high end of the game, which means that many players will never use a transmutation stone since they’ll want to keep the appearance of the new gear that they find.

I remember back then when I read these lines and I was totally hyped, stupid me.
But now I see what they meant ._.
1) You just have to choose if you want to pay or grind. (inb4: or just play)
2) Infinitesimal chance while playing.
3) T3. Orders. “Cool” ascended armor… (inb4: dungeon armors! <- not every stats available for every model)

Well at least, if I’m not wrong, they said they are considering ways to implement something to better manage skins.
I’m ok with the idea of an horizontal progression through skins, but this can be achieved encouraging you to acquire new skins, forcing you to grind again for something that you’ve already got it’s not really fun (imo).

It’s not just having to get them through the store that irks me, it’s with this in addition to the gems being single use and destroying an item that crosses the line.

Let’s say you really like the TA armor, but you have multiple sets of gear you like to use. You have to do the dungeon at least twenty times for each set. Just one example.

The trans. gems system just feels needlessly restrictive, not up to MMO standards, and – when you look at the dye system – inconsistent.

The only thing I hate about the transmutation crystals is the gem shop is the only reasonable way to get them. Sure you can get them from dailies, monthlies and blacklion chests but with 2k hours of play I have rarely seen any.

For a second there, I thought the OP was going to point out that those who level their toons doing nothing but dailies and the queensdale champ train don’t need to transmute their gear until they hit level 80 and that’s only if they plan on leaving queensdale when they make it that far.

If thats the plan, level 20 gear is more than adequate. Find the skins you like early and transmute them at that point. Don’t transmute again until you want to actually upgrade your stats and move out of the “house.” /shrug

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Credit Cards are not free money. If you can’t pay it back, you better not use it ever… even for 25 trans-crystals!

—SNIP—

Unless Anet can take directly from a bank account…securely, not many on here will use a credit card. Debt even of a few dollars is not good to have period! I’ll never touch a credit card ever even for a game such as this.

Isn’t that what Debit Cards and PayPal is for?

BioFringe.7945:

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the whole idea of a cosmetic endgame to eliminate the sense of competition between the haves and have nots?

Absolutely not. The ENTIRE POINT of cosmetic endgame is competition between players over looks – with stats being largely equivalent and non-competitive.

I spent 8 months building an Infinite Light instead of pursuing a Legendary skin. While I did so because its a look I liked, there is no doubt that its not intended to show up in the hands of any and every player that decides they want one too.

You have to want it. You have to want it enough to commit to some massive multi-month farming or a not inconsiderable amount of gold-making.

sinzer.4018:

I love being able to transmute my gear. There’s alot of ugly in the world of skins but a few awesome ones that are just to die for. Each to their own i suppose?

The problem is it seems we won’t be able to transmute our gear in the future (a bit hyperbolic but my point remains). Transmutation crystals cost us 32gems each if we buy 25 at a time and 40gems each if we just buy the minimum of 5 at a time. When i started playing towards the beginning of the year 100gems was <1g50. What’s it now? 5g+? You’re looking at 10g just to change the looks of 5 items compared to the <3g at the beginning of the year. This will obviously continue.

The exchange rate will result in no transmutations for the majority of the playerbase as it becomes more and more expensive in terms of gold. This isn’t so much a problem for things like the deluxe edition of the game or other big buys from the gemstore but for something as small as transmutation? You’d have to be insane to spend real world money on transmutation crystals!

This isn’t so much a suggestion thread (although you can infer a suggestion) but a prediction of the ever increasing cost of making it so our gear doesn’t look terrible. Something will have to change in this regard otherwise they might as well just delete transmutation crystals.

So my questions to you: what do you make of this? Will you be able to afford transmutations in 2015?

I’m more shocked people are only working this out now… The economy will just keep going up permanently until the game dies or something big happens (like free Precursors) this happens in all Free MMO’s…

Its also a major factor of why i am not bothering with Wildstars Payment scheme of CREDD it will keep costing more and more until the only viable way to pay is real money..

Nike.2631:

BioFringe.7945:

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the whole idea of a cosmetic endgame to eliminate the sense of competition between the haves and have nots?

Absolutely not. The ENTIRE POINT of cosmetic endgame is competition between players over looks – with stats being largely equivalent and non-competitive.

I spent 8 months building an Infinite Light instead of pursuing a Legendary skin. While I did so because its a look I liked, there is no doubt that its not intended to show up in the hands of any and every player that decides they want one too.

You have to want it. You have to want it enough to commit to some massive multi-month farming or a not inconsiderable amount of gold-making.

I think you’ll find that only a tiny percentage of people who play games like Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 “compete” on this level.

Most people don’t care what your character looks like or what he’s carrying. Most people in this type of environment are making a character that looks like their image of who that character should be.

I’m pretty sure only a very small minority of players are competitive about looks.

…Really?

Because I seem to remember nearly a year of people being HIGHLY competitive about Legendary ownership that conferred NOTHING outside of “looks”.

Wait for the decision to transmute over that 30 gold cultural chest piece skin or craft a second ascended chest piece. Skins are already dead to me, I have very few pieces that don’t have gem store or cultural skins on them and there is no way I’m transmuting over them or paying more money to save the time and money I already spent acquiring them.

The character that bound the skin should be able to apply it again, simple as that. Just like dyes. The only reason they aren’t handled like dyes, which would be a no-brainer in consistent design, is they made a decision to soak us for more money. Which is why I’m done supporting them. There is nothing left for me to buy that wouldn’t require me throwing something out.

I don’t spend cash on this game, so prolly not. lol

When ANet set cosmetics as a big part of this game, they should have looked closely at other games that also have cosmetics as ‘endgame’ and used that as a basis to build a flexible system for it, not the rigid, limited one they installed. Surely they saw the wardrobe systems of other games. Why didn’t they put a PvE wardrobe system with reusable skins into this game? Why is cosmetics such an afterthought in a game built on cosmetics?

Each of my 8 level 80s is wearing the same armor that was decided upon when they hit 80, no matter how many months ago it was, a year ago in a least 3 cases now. Should I change the one I bought gem store armor for? Not likely. Should I try mixing and matching other armor just for fun? Not likely. The ones I chose so many months ago were the best I could find then and since switching will cost gold to buy the new armor skins and then more gold to rebuy the old set if I want to switch back, this is a big deterrent to playing around with looks.

The town clothes system is also too limited and rigid. Here again, they could have used the flexible Guild Wars 1 system with unlimited use, both for in and out of combat and for all your characters. Here again, they chose a rigid, limited system.

TL:DR: they need to revamp the cosmetic setup for both gear and town clothes and put in a PvE wardrobe, including making town clothes wearable in combat and accessible to all your alts.

Astral Projections.7320:

TL:DR: they need to revamp the cosmetic setup for both gear and town clothes and put in a PvE wardrobe, including making town clothes wearable in combat and accessible to all your alts.

Very good point. A wardrobe system similar to LOTRO’s would be great for this game. As it stands, I would never spend any money for cosmetics that I can’t wear while out in the world fighting or that I can’t add sets to without repeatedly buying armor I don’t need in order to use the skins. Just a waste of money.

Nike.2631:

…Really?

Because I seem to remember nearly a year of people being HIGHLY competitive about Legendary ownership that conferred NOTHING outside of “looks”.

Legendaries get you achievement points and a litle chest on your character select screen. I have a legendary. No one ever sees it because its an underwater one. It still makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Nike.2631:

…Really?

Because I seem to remember nearly a year of people being HIGHLY competitive about Legendary ownership that conferred NOTHING outside of “looks”.

And the percentage of players that actually own legendaries? Much smaller than one would think.

Sure there are competitive people, but it won’t come as a surprise to most MMO players that the bulk of the MMO playerbase is casual. They’re looking for a look, not competing with others for looks. Because most people, logically, can’t dedicate the time and energy TO compete with others. So why would they?

A guy who has 90 hours a week to play the game is going to have better stuff than a guy who can play 10 hours a week. That’s just logical. In Guild Wars 2 you can sell gems for gold but not everyone is going to be willing to do that. Most people will get something that looks cool to them and be done with it.

As a personal example, though I have two legendaries, one’s on a character I almost never use, and one’s an underwater weapon most people will never see. I got ascended weapons and immediately changed the skins of them to zenith skins that almost anyone can get, because I thought they looked better.

My main characters aren’t wearing high end gear, they’re wearing gear I think looks nice. Probably the highest end skin I have on my mains is either the leggings from Arah dungeon or the tier 2 Sylvari armor.

psyckos.6893:

For a second there, I thought the OP was going to point out that those who level their toons doing nothing but dailies and the queensdale champ train don’t need to transmute their gear until they hit level 80 and that’s only if they plan on leaving queensdale when they make it that far.

If thats the plan, level 20 gear is more than adequate. Find the skins you like early and transmute them at that point. Don’t transmute again until you want to actually upgrade your stats and move out of the “house.” /shrug

And you don’t even need crystals if you are below lvl80, but the stones, which you can get for almost every map completion (though, I’m eternally running out of stones :P).

redhand.7168:

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Credit Cards are not free money. If you can’t pay it back, you better not use it ever… even for 25 trans-crystals!

—SNIP—

Unless Anet can take directly from a bank account…securely, not many on here will use a credit card. Debt even of a few dollars is not good to have period! I’ll never touch a credit card ever even for a game such as this.

Isn’t that what Debit Cards and PayPal is for?

Yes, that’s what I use… Whenever I buy something from the gemstore, it’s debited immediately from my bank account.

Serv.6073:

See every one thought I was crazy when I made my post of the poor cant compete.

Because you need T3 Culturals and shiny Legendaries to be competitive..

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I buy gems with gold regularly. The rates are still fine, IMO.

The poor can compete. The lazy and poor can’t.

not everyone can play the tp to make 100s of gold. Doing every dungeon everyday only nets about 20-35g a day. And that takes a LONG WHILE. Now if you want 5 transmutation stones and i mean 5 not 6 like you need for a whole armor set but just 5. Atm its 8g something for 100 gems and 5 stones are 250 gems. That is about 16-18g. Thats a lot of game time if you arnt playing the tp to buy 5 stones just to move skins. Oh and if you want to move a skin from 1 character to another you spend 2 stones.

It might not seem costy to you rich ppl but the casuals/try hard pve gold farmers cant make gold fly out the air like the tp players can.

Cosmetics are just like titles if you want them you either do the in-game stuff to earn them (or gold to buy) or spend RM on the item.

Case in point….

Last spring with about 50s sitting in my bank I decided I wanted to get the “Golden” title, so I started working toward acquiring 100g through farming, salvaging, and selling on the TP, once I reached 100g I was thrilled for about 30sec when I found out it’s 200g not the 100g I originally thought! lol, so off I go again working my kitten off to acquire another 100g, it was actually fun once I got into the routine.

In the process of gaining the 200g I found I was lacking in bank space for the things I really wanted to hold on to either for alts or to sell on the TP at a later date, so I decided to start a personal guild for the storage, little did I understand the amount of influence it took to have a stash, treasure trove, and deep cave, I spend 100 of my 200g buying drinks to gain influence and kept on my routine of farming, salvaging, and selling on the TP, didn’t take too long and I had plenty of storage and the ability to drop banners at events…pretty cool I thought.

I have found that I like the play-style, I run Orr, do Champs, do LS content, dailies, monthlies, meta events,…my point is I always have content to do, some fresh, some boring, but I’m playing the game the way I want to play and really finding it a lot of fun.

Now I have a system to acquire gold in game that works for me, I don’t do a lot of PS stuff I think my main’s PS is in the high 70’s I have a pretty good stack of both types of transmutation stones from leveling alts and a few BL chests I’ve opened, if I want a Legendary (I don’t) I feel I could acquire the gold in-game (yes it would take a long time) to buy a precursor everything else is obtainable by just taking your time and playing the game IMHO.

Vayne.8563:

Nike.2631:

BioFringe.7945:

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the whole idea of a cosmetic endgame to eliminate the sense of competition between the haves and have nots?

Absolutely not. The ENTIRE POINT of cosmetic endgame is competition between players over looks – with stats being largely equivalent and non-competitive.

I spent 8 months building an Infinite Light instead of pursuing a Legendary skin. While I did so because its a look I liked, there is no doubt that its not intended to show up in the hands of any and every player that decides they want one too.

You have to want it. You have to want it enough to commit to some massive multi-month farming or a not inconsiderable amount of gold-making.

I think you’ll find that only a tiny percentage of people who play games like Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 “compete” on this level.

Most people don’t care what your character looks like or what he’s carrying. Most people in this type of environment are making a character that looks like their image of who that character should be.

I’m pretty sure only a very small minority of players are competitive about looks.

And that was the point I was trying to make…

When stats are required for endgame then stats become a competition. However, since nothing cosmetic is required for endgame then by its very nature cosmetics are not competitive. The subjectivity in how one looks makes them mostly equivalent depending on ones view thereby rendering them non-competitive unless one chooses to see the cosmetic endgame as competition whereby that is a players choice; not game design.

So in essence if one feels that a legendary skin or any other cosmetic item thrusts them ahead of others then that is on them, not the game. Self induced concern over how others look is of no concern of mine.