Q:
Resident smug Englishman on the NA servers, just because.
What determines the gem:gold exchange rate?
bump
i wanna know too
You can find the answers over in the BLTC sub-forum from the Game Economist himself, if you so desire.
But, basically, it is determined by how much Gold is exchanged for Gems vs. how many Gems are exchanged for Gold. More Gold to Gems raises the Gold-to-Gem rate and more Gems to Gold lowers the Gold-to-Gem rate. And of course, vice versa. =)
But, basically, it is determined by how much Gold is exchanged for Gems vs. how many Gems are exchanged for Gold. More Gold to Gems raises the Gold-to-Gem rate and more Gems to Gold lowers the Gold-to-Gem rate. And of course, vice versa. =)
And the amount of gold which is exchanged for gems is directly tied to how easy it is to make gold. (Loosely tied to how much gold there is in everyone’s accounts combined. How easy it is to make gold minus how much you have to spend during gameplay is the first derivative of how much gold you have banked).
When I got my first character to 80 in Dec 2012, I could make about 1 gold/night of play and gems were about 1.8 gold/100 gems according to GW2Spidy. A ratio of 1.8 nights/100 gems.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem
Today I can make about 10 gold/night, and gems are about 17 gold/100 gems. A ratio of 1.7 nights/100 gems.
So while the price of gems has gone up a lot, their price in terms of hours played hasn’t changed that much.
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
I think alot of gold making activites come through knowledge, experience and research. In the beginning, as new players, we were more excited to play the game and discover Tyria. Making lots of gold, while appealing, wasn’t a huge focus for many of us. I remember when I got my first gold selling an exotic. I was really excited. I wasn’t doing a bunch of dungeon tours, or doing much farming. I was going for map completion, and working on crafting to gear my character. But as I got to level 80, had map completion, I started looking into gold making, running dungeons, farming world events and dragons, etc. At least thats my experience. I am sure there were others like me who kind did the same thing.
“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
They vastly increased the frequency of rares from world boss events. A lot of little changes too (e.g. many blues and greens I can make more money from selling on TP than to an NPC). But the world boss rares are the big one.
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
They vastly increased the frequency of rares from world boss events. A lot of little changes too (e.g. many blues and greens I can make more money from selling on TP than to an NPC). But the world boss rares are the big one.
you were just bad at farming back then. gems are objectively way more valuable now. If the gem shop hadnt changed, the value would still be pretty low.
gem to gold exchange isnt really based on inflation, its based on how valuable people find gems compared to gold.
though, how valuable they find gold is effected somewhat by inflation.
The way I understand it, it’s based on how many people convert gold to and from gems, basically.
Simplifying things a lot… Imagine it as two pots, one with gem and one with gold in it. Let’s say there are 1000 gold and 100 gems on it, that means that at that point you can get 100 gems for 10g.
Let’s say that player A buys 500 gems and exchanges them for gold, he receives 500 gold, so there are now 500 gold and there are now 500 gold and 600 gems… at that point you can get 100 gems for about 0.83g.
So now player B sees that the rate went down a lot and decides to take the chance to buy lots of gems, he buys 500 gems for 4.15 gold (what a deal!!!)… now there are 504.15 gold and 100 gems, so now 100 gems cost 504.15 gold.
Of course, that’s simplifying things a lot, and not taking into account several factors (converting gold to gems and back to gold has a 30% tax, for example), but it’s the general idea. The system works by taking into account how many gems are converted to gold and the other way around, and it’s mostly a self regulatory system. If too many gems are added to the system (people converting gems to gold), the price goes down. As it goes down, it becomes more attractive to buy gems with gold, and as more gold enters the system, the price goes back up, becoming more attractive to sell gems for gold, and so on.
Prices going up with time usually means that there’s either inflacion (more gold generated in the game than it’s being taken out by gold sinks) or very attractive things added to the gem store (like the sales) that drive more people to get gems with gold.
It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training,
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
They vastly increased the frequency of rares from world boss events. A lot of little changes too (e.g. many blues and greens I can make more money from selling on TP than to an NPC). But the world boss rares are the big one.
Actually I think that is not that big of a deal, I’d say the dungeon reward change (guaranteed 1g+ per run) and other rewards (guild missions, achievements, for example) are doing more to generate inflation than the guaranteed rares.
Inflation happens when new gold enters the economy at a rate much higher than what the gold sinks can get it out. When most people get a rare or exotic from the world bosses, they’re usually sold on the TP, or salvaged to sell the results (ecto, materials)… that’s not new money entering the economy, it’s money changing hands between players. Actually it acts as a money sink, as each transaction on the TP takes 15% of the gold out of the economy
It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training,
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.
How much moolah or money if you will, is in Anet’s vault.
what did you have now and you did not have then that you can make more gold?
They vastly increased the frequency of rares from world boss events. A lot of little changes too (e.g. many blues and greens I can make more money from selling on TP than to an NPC). But the world boss rares are the big one.
Let’s also not forget that after Ascended crafting (particularly armor) was introduced, the TP prices (and thus profit) on many crafting mats increased dramatically.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19748
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19699
Click on the all tab on the graphs.
The basic is if many people buy gems and turn them into gold. Price go down. If many people use gold and buy gems, price go up.
That make sense because Anet dont’ want to give people too many gold for the gem so people’ll need to spend more real cash to buy gem. But at the same time, if gem price is too low, most people’ll find no need to spend real cash, they can just farm gold to buy gem.
Oh ya and Anet determine the price of gem, because they make the algorithm. The truth is whatever maximize GW2 sale is the gem price. If not, they should consider hire a different financial team.