Guild Wars 2

eithinan.9841:

Ayrilana.1396:

micro managing.

phys.7689:

one off corrections, not micro managing

Bernie.8674:

If you don’t micromanage markets …..

Shiyo.3578:

John Smith.4610:

You don’t micromanage markets to maintain equilibrium. Not only is it an incredible amount of work you can never be wrong in, it’s not physically possible inside a live game environment.

You assume that absolute parity is required inside of tiers, I don’t necessarily agree.

Except this is LITERALLY what you did,

Astraea.6075:

one-off corrections =/= micro-management

Everyone is throwing around accusation about micro managing the TP and market. I brought up the term earlier in THIS thread in reference to the t6>t5>t4>t3>t2>t1 price lock subject. Not everything suggested would be micro managing. the Silk change was a well thought out, intentional market shift by the devs to bring value to a core material in the game. Now that the material has value they can do adjustments to the market without destroying it through rewards. Also the “use elonian leather/deld steel for insignias/inscriptions” suggestion wouldn’t be micromanaging.

It started with Ohoni’s post where they want materials in there to behave specific ways and for changes to continually occur to have them remain that way despite how complex the game is now.

Your constant suggestion of blocking markets for a while when they get changed due to new updates is a very good example of micro managing.

Ok, then I support that sort of micromanaging. The micromanaging I meant as something I would not support is if the devs were expected to keep tweaking this or that on a daily or weekly basis. That would clearly be too much work. But sure, the devs intervening in one or two commodities every 2-4 weeks, whenever a major content shift causes a significant disruption in the markets, yes, do that, it’s neither too much work for someone paid to manage their economy, nor is it a negative impact to the economy. If that’s what you consider “micromanaging” then micromanage away.

Your argument that precursor markets might change with HoT is irrelevant until HoT goes live.

Nope, because we’re talking about the future of the game, and HoT is the future of the game.

If there is a cost difference, in Tyrian gold, between crafting a set of heavy, medium and light Ascended armor; that difference only warrants attention if there is also a corresponding difference in the cost, measured in time, of gathering the materials directly.

Nope. If the price of the mats on the marketplace is different, that needs to be taken into account as well. If someone can collect half the mithril he needs in the world and half the silk someone needs to make cloth armor, then can sell the silk, buy mithril with it, make his own metal armor and have plenty left over, then that is an imbalance, and needs correcting. So long as the TP exists, you don’t have the luxury of ignoring that it exists for balance considerations.

Also remember that almost any source of silk also provides mithril, since metal armor AND weapons will drop from the same bags, so a player farming for mithril will likely gain it at a much faster rate than silk.

Easy fix which would balance everything out but you would lose alot of variety and immersion.

Yes, which is why they shouldn’t do it. Of course, there are better ways to do that, like having a Forge recipe that would convert a stack of Mithril and one Silk into a stack of Silk, or an NPC that provides a similar function.

The only way that supply can be controlled is if PLAYERS are unable to impact the rate at which they generate it.

No. The markets are CURRENTLY being controlled, just in a sloppy manner. They are being controlled every time they adjust an existing recipe, or add a new one, every time they provide new sources of materials or new places that take them in. You don’t have to remove players from the equation, you just take them into account. This is not hard, anyone who makes any money speculating on the markets is doing this every single day, figuring out how players will react to a predicted change in the game. This is just taking it one step further, predicting how players will react, and then taking a further step to head off that reaction. And again, the goal is not to rigidly control prices so that they never budge a copper, it’s just to control the natural balance points around which the daily price fluctuates, so that maybe it’s a little high one day or a little low the next, but the month-to-month average falls within the intended range. Prices already do this for the most part, the relative values of mats currently change very little and when major changes do occur they tend to last for months, not days at a time. All I’m suggesting is that they make changes that would adjust the balance points from where they have currently stabilized, and then let it ride.

Psientist.6437:

Weight locked insignias would increase the cost disparity, measured in time, between armor weights. The majority of materials needed to craft heavy armor would come from 100% reliable, high frequency sources. Combine this with an increase in the number of days required to craft time gated materials and more players may fill their demand quantity by gathering and not by turning to the TP. An increase in the TP price of ores is not guaranteed.

Not entirely. The lack of demand being so high for cloth would contribute to the price decreasing by, currently, an unknowable amount. Leather, now needing more for medium armor, would increase in price from the pathetic level it is now. Yes, this can impact light armor’s crafting “cost,” but if you’re buying everything to craft the ascended stuff, a few gold here or there isnt anything to complain about when you’re already looking at close to 500g (regardless of weight).

An increase in price is guaranteed for mithril as a result of this change. Permanent? Maybe not, but it may last a few weeks because of the delays needed to craft it. Not like AoLA’s spinal blade market stroke, where things like the t3 dust catapulted to something like 27s a piece within an hour, and then crashed back down to a more normal price. Additionally, even if they come from 100% renewable sources, that does not guarantee people wont be reaching out to the TP as it’s often far more efficient to allocate your time earning funds for resources instead of heading out trying to harvest 100% of the raw resources.

That’s part of the reason elder wood is pretty cheap. A vast majority of it probably comes from weapon salvage, less so from from open-world harvest.

Finally, beyond all that, it depends on the demand for the armor. For all we know, even if they add weight-restricted insignia (which could simply be for ascended ones, to reduce cost impacts on other armor tiers), cloth could stay the same or increase in price because light armor classes are the majority of those actively played. Or, if heavy armor is the preference, mithril could become the new silk, and silk could become the new mithril.

Ohoni.6057:

it’s just to control the natural balance points around which the daily price fluctuates, so that maybe it’s a little high one day or a little low the next, but the month-to-month average falls within the intended range.

So you want anet to manipulate the faucets for materials BEFORE they see the impact of new content? No. That is a terrible idea. There would be a much greater possibility of making the markets less stable doing this or even wipe the market out if they misjudge the adjustment.

What they are doing now by opening the faucets and closing them keeps things in balance without too heavy a hand on the economy. The bold part of the quote is what they are doing now with regards to silk. Only anet lets it fluctuate between 1.5s and 2.5sish seasonally based on demand. When it went higher wintersday came along with its silk faucet and a 1 time adjustment. No player can singularly determine what the “intended range” of cost is for any item in game. That is for the entire populace to choose with their ability to buy from sell listing or to place a buy order at what they are willing to pay.

I have a lot of buy orders for things that may or may not ever get filled. I just recently finished mjolnir when charged cores and lodes dropped in price because I had orders for a couple hundred of each at what I was willing to pay for them. but I didnt follow the market trend for that, and I was happy to wait. Same with silk. When it dropped recently I got a lot around 1.3s because I had decided a long time ago that was what I was willing to pay for it and placed orders at that price. For a long time others were willing to pay more than that so I had to wait.

I disagree totally with the posters who claim this is about “pay to win.” My main Mesmer is in a full set of ascended armor. It took time and salvage but I’ve never ( that I recall ) bought gold.

Making Ascended gear is frustrating and time consuming. Just wait till you start on Legendary and have to grind out those Mystic Clovers, 2 at a time.

So you want anet to manipulate the faucets for materials BEFORE they see the impact of new content? No. That is a terrible idea. There would be a much greater possibility of making the markets less stable doing this or even wipe the market out if they misjudge the adjustment.

So you want anet to manipulate the faucets for materials BEFORE they see the impact of new content? No. That is a terrible idea. There would be a much greater possibility of making the markets less stable doing this or even wipe the market out if they misjudge the adjustment.

Plenty of decent market speculators have a good idea of where market trends will be going within minutes of patch notes hitting, if not sooner. ANet knows that these changes will be coming weeks, if not months in advance, as well as far more comprehensive data to work with about actual player behavior, actual drop numbers, etc. They can have plenty of time to figure out what players are likely to do, and can also plan out contingencies if things swing a little high or low of expectations.

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

Only anet lets it fluctuate between 1.5s and 2.5sish seasonally based on demand.

But again, “based on demand” is a nonsense term in this context. Players do not cause demand, ANet causes demand. Player demand is a constant, players want. The market demand rises when ANet adds new things to want. You can just substitute out “based on demand” and replace it with “based on the new sinks they add,” and then instead of “seasonal fluctuations” they can just have “counterbalancing faucets.”

I have a lot of buy orders for things that may or may not ever get filled. I just recently finished mjolnir when charged cores and lodes dropped in price because I had orders for a couple hundred of each at what I was willing to pay for them. but I didnt follow the market trend for that, and I was happy to wait. Same with silk. When it dropped recently I got a lot around 1.3s because I had decided a long time ago that was what I was willing to pay for it and placed orders at that price. For a long time others were willing to pay more than that so I had to wait.

And you can always do that under the current system, and maybe it will swing outside of expected boundaries from time to time, but most of the time it would remain within a much more predictable, and much more logically relevant framework, in which the supposedly “superior” ingredients would cost more than the supposedly “inferior” ones.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Psientist.6437:

Weight locked insignias would increase the cost disparity, measured in time, between armor weights. The majority of materials needed to craft heavy armor would come from 100% reliable, high frequency sources. Combine this with an increase in the number of days required to craft time gated materials and more players may fill their demand quantity by gathering and not by turning to the TP. An increase in the TP price of ores is not guaranteed.

Not entirely. The lack of demand being so high for cloth would contribute to the price decreasing by, currently, an unknowable amount. Leather, now needing more for medium armor, would increase in price from the pathetic level it is now. Yes, this can impact light armor’s crafting “cost,” but if you’re buying everything to craft the ascended stuff, a few gold here or there isnt anything to complain about when you’re already looking at close to 500g (regardless of weight).

An increase in price is guaranteed for mithril as a result of this change. Permanent? Maybe not, but it may last a few weeks because of the delays needed to craft it. Not like AoLA’s spinal blade market stroke, where things like the t3 dust catapulted to something like 27s a piece within an hour, and then crashed back down to a more normal price. Additionally, even if they come from 100% renewable sources, that does not guarantee people wont be reaching out to the TP as it’s often far more efficient to allocate your time earning funds for resources instead of heading out trying to harvest 100% of the raw resources.

That’s part of the reason elder wood is pretty cheap. A vast majority of it probably comes from weapon salvage, less so from from open-world harvest.

Finally, beyond all that, it depends on the demand for the armor. For all we know, even if they add weight-restricted insignia (which could simply be for ascended ones, to reduce cost impacts on other armor tiers), cloth could stay the same or increase in price because light armor classes are the majority of those actively played. Or, if heavy armor is the preference, mithril could become the new silk, and silk could become the new mithril.

Pardon the bluntness but I consider what you’re describing to be fundamentally flawed game design. Weight-locked insignias would increase the disparity for players who spend time for the sake of hypothetical parity among players who spend currency.

Your predictions are hypothetical, they do not take into account the wide range of possible player reactions. For instance, the change in TP demand for silk could be accompanied by a decrease in the TP supply of silk as both medium and heavy armor crafters move towards more reliable sources of leather and ore.

Ithilwen.1529:

I disagree totally with the posters who claim this is about “pay to win.” My main Mesmer is in a full set of ascended armor. It took time and salvage but I’ve never ( that I recall ) bought gold.

Making Ascended gear is frustrating and time consuming. Just wait till you start on Legendary and have to grind out those Mystic Clovers, 2 at a time.

People like you often forget that the way their RNG system works in this game cuts several thousand people off from the type of loot needed to actually make any gold in the game. It prevents people from getting the currency they need to progress with their system that requires that you buy what you need from the TP when it doesn’t drop. It’s a terrible system and it’s further exacerbated by the use of DR a system that’s never done any player any good at any point in MMO history.

So while there are some few who have been able to get what they need to progress, there are many more who are not and that’s the issue here.

It’s not just RNG it’s RNG plus DR plus several anti-farming systems in place to prevent people from getting the materials they need themselves without the need for gold at all or the use of the TP and that’s central to the issue.

If for example, it wasn’t silk but some other form of cloth that was only available from Karma vendors, this situation would have never come up in conversation because that would have been superior to the system they have right now in that you would actually have to have played the game to get the karma you need, you would have to buy the items not from the TP but from vendors in towns, and there would be no worries over if Karma had dropped for you during your activities, and you wouldn’t have to worry about drops not occurring on your account at all because DR has cut you off from everything in game that is a reward.

That’s the issue I’m seeing with this situation, is it’s not so much that some people CAN get these with gold for the TP it’s that it’s designed in such a way that loot, DR, and the use of gold determines where you’re character can progress which are all dependent on RNG (when we ignore the purchase of gold direct from the gem store).

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Wanze.8410:

Why do people assume that the changes to the refinement of silk bolts and their high requirement were only meant to get rid of surplus silk?

I think its way more reasonable to think they introduced those changes to have silk high in price as it is the only material used in all armor classes.

I don’t buy this because the T6 mats (powerful blood, ancient bones, etc.) are already used across all armor classes. If you want to apply the gold sink evenly then manipulate those. Silk requirements are not even across all armor classes. They hit cloth wearers the most.

Wanze.8410:

Crafting ascended weapons didnt really occupy the player base for a long time after it was released, so they made sure that armor will take significantly longer

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

So what you’re telling me is that they deliberately made a change to enforce a restriction that the lead designer explicitly stated was never intended.

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

Why do people assume that the changes to the refinement of silk bolts and their high requirement were only meant to get rid of surplus silk?

I think its way more reasonable to think they introduced those changes to have silk high in price as it is the only material used in all armor classes.

I don’t buy this because the T6 mats (powerful blood, ancient bones, etc.) are already used across all armor classes. If you want to apply the gold sink evenly then manipulate those. Silk requirements are not even across all armor classes. They hit cloth wearers the most.

Wanze.8410:

Crafting ascended weapons didnt really occupy the player base for a long time after it was released, so they made sure that armor will take significantly longer

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

So what you’re telling me is that they deliberately made a change to enforce a restriction that the lead designer explicitly stated was never intended.

You’re making a mistake here. What Colin said is that you shouldn’t have to grind for the best gear. Ascended weapons and armor are not a grind, by Anet’s definitions. They are a long term goal, but not as long term as Legendaries.

Players choose to make getting the best gear fast, thus they create their own “grind”. Because the players are responsible for this, they have no rights to complain. It’s like me deciding to go for my PhD in Economics, then complaining to the university that my degree is a grind.

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

Why do people assume that the changes to the refinement of silk bolts and their high requirement were only meant to get rid of surplus silk?

I think its way more reasonable to think they introduced those changes to have silk high in price as it is the only material used in all armor classes.

I don’t buy this because the T6 mats (powerful blood, ancient bones, etc.) are already used across all armor classes. If you want to apply the gold sink evenly then manipulate those. Silk requirements are not even across all armor classes. They hit cloth wearers the most.

Wanze.8410:

Crafting ascended weapons didnt really occupy the player base for a long time after it was released, so they made sure that armor will take significantly longer

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

So what you’re telling me is that they deliberately made a change to enforce a restriction that the lead designer explicitly stated was never intended.

T6 fine mats are not used in ascended armor crafting in a high volume.
Sure they could have raised that requirement to 50 t6 mats per piece and have low silk requirements but that would also put a higher price tag on exotic gear, which is probably something they wanted to avoid. silk doesnt have much use beside ascended armor and is used by all armor classes so they decided to use silk to make up for the bulk of the costs.

IF you would have read Colins post, you would have read his definition of grind.

Its not required to kill the same mob over and over again to get mats for your ascended gear.

Especially silk can basically be acquired by killing nearly any mob in the game that drops loot, through salvage mats, bags or light armor gear.

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Wanze.8410:

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Not necessarily as the prices fluctuate. It might not be worth it if the linen costs are very low. However, if there was a way of getting silk by buying karma items from vendors that too would be far superior to the system we have now because then even with the salvage kits cost you’d have people who could actually get directly the kind of materials they need without the use of the TP which was a secondary problem people face with this game, the game is too TP centric.

tigirius.9014:

Wanze.8410:

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Here is something that i think annoys a lot of people out there. The prices of everything on the TP is set by other players. At this point in the games life there are some very wealthy players having a small impact on some things on the market. BUT the majority of common items like silk and other key things cant be manipulated to such a degree. They are too high of a volume in trades and in the end the market comes into balance between supply/demand.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom. Then the faucet closes, and demand starts to eat away at the lower priced supply. If you announce any faucet openings or closings you just help out anyone trying to manipulate those markets.

The reality is I know a few people who have 100’s of thousands of silk bolts from when they went from 2 scraps ->3. They quit the game a year ago but may come back for the xpac.

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Not necessarily as the prices fluctuate. It might not be worth it if the linen costs are very low. However, if there was a way of getting silk by buying karma items from vendors that too would be far superior to the system we have now because then even with the salvage kits cost you’d have people who could actually get directly the kind of materials they need without the use of the TP which was a secondary problem people face with this game, the game is too TP centric.

The TP is a part of Tyria. It’s a system that helps facilitate trade between players. People only feel the game is TP centric because they feel Entitled to getting everything they want fast. That allows people to profit off of items from those who demand it here and now.

Using the TP is optional. You don’t need to get your Legendary within a day. You don’t need to get Silk from other players. Game mechanics allow people to target and farm any material they need, albeit at a cost. That cost can be either coin or Karma.

Silk is expensive because it’s needed. Demand > Supply. To break that down further, the Demand is modified by how quickly a player wants to gather the required sub-materials for crafting T7 mats. Anet did this on purpose. You may not agree with it, but that’s how it is, that any changes to this would break the market in ways that John wouldn’t want.

For instance, the change in TP demand for silk could be accompanied by a decrease in the TP supply of silk as both medium and heavy armor crafters move towards more reliable sources of leather and ore.

So long as the price of silk remains high, players will continue to farm it as they do now, no less. Only once silk prices fall will player behavior shift.

This isn’t the worst idea when you clarified what you meant. The issue I see happening is that with clearly announced mat faucets it would end up pushing the price lower during the “faucet opening” and then higher afterwards. Savvy market speculators would pull most of their buy orders that make the buy order walls and crash the price during this time, then just buyout all the under priced items afterwards. For better or worse those giant price walls are necessary for items to have value over vendor+1.

Maybe, but quick price swings when a change is made already happen, so I don’t think it would be worse than what we’ve got. I think whatever initial chaos it may cause, it would level out faster than it would currently, when most players have less of an idea what’s going on and take a while to catch up. Ideally they could lock the market for 12-24 hours after announcing the change, preventing buy or sell orders from being fulfilled and allowing players to remove/place orders without penalty so that the prices can adjust without money and items changing hands.

I am not against faucets being opened, but they also need to be closed. When a faucet opens and the material loses its value because of that, people leave that farm when it hits bottom.

Well, there are three types of faucets, I think. There are temporary faucets, which are purely temporary, like a two-week event or something, when it’s done, it’s done. Then there are permanent outlier faucets. They are in forever (until they aren’t, at least), but they are a specific activity in a specific location and only players that farm that area get that. Then there are “evergreen” faucets. These are rewards for activities that most players do most of the time, and will do whenever they have free time. This is partly why the price of mithril is low, because there are more “evergreen” sources of mithril that cause people like me to accumulate a full stack of it every week or so when I don’t even want the stuff.

They need to balance these out, so that there are enough “evergreen” faucets to cover the long term trends, with “outlier” faucets to cover short term demand spikes, and “temporary” faucets to cover immediate demand spikes. The outliers are the reliable hedge against price rising, because if the evergreens are not providing enough mats to stabilize the markets, prices creep up and players shift to farming the outliers.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Bernie.8674:

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

You’re making a mistake here. What Colin said is that you shouldn’t have to grind for the best gear. Ascended weapons and armor are not a grind, by Anet’s definitions. They are a long term goal, but not as long term as Legendaries.

My eye sight isn’t what it once was either. I’ve left the part that completely contradicts what you just said bolded for your convenience.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Players choose to make getting the best gear fast, thus they create their own “grind”. Because the players are responsible for this, they have no rights to complain. It’s like me deciding to go for my PhD in Economics, then complaining to the university that my degree is a grind.

If you’re suggesting that the work required to obtain gear in a video game well should approximate the amount of work required to obtain a doctorate then I think you and I have completely different perspectives on what a game should and shouldn’t be.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

Wanze.8410:

tigirius.9014:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Of course part of this is that they need to better communicate these changes. They can’t just slip a new faucet in under the radar and hope players notice it fast enough to offset the new sink they announce, they need to announce both at once.“We added a new recipe for a backpack. . .” and elsewhere in the notes “we upped the drop rate for silk scraps in Silverwastes by 2%” or something. Really they only need to say enough to communicate to the savvy speculators “there will be no supply/demand changes here, do not waste your time.” The regular players will just do their thing and the economy will balance out as a result.

I can see why some would object to this, it would cut into their phat, phat economic PvPing, but it’s for the good of the game as a whole.

snip

tigirius.9014:

RNG gold TP DRRNG it’s RNG plus DRgold cloth that was only available from Karma vendors,karma TP vendors in towns, a Karma DR everything in game that is a reward. CAN get these with gold for the TP loot, DR, RNG.

That argument to me is no less irrelevant than someone saying world poverty doesn’t exist because I got a paycheck today.

You can get karma armor from temples in orr that can serve you for any content available. I also convert my karma to linen with the mystic forge which isnt really behind a RNG wall.

Can you for silk. That’s the question I would have and does salvaging these things from the Karma vendors really produce as much as those bags that drop silk? That would be my other question because those bags aren’t just behind an RNG wall they are behind 2 as well as DR.

You can convert your karma to gear that salvages into silk but due to the higher karma prices for that gear, it would be economically more efficient to get linen armor with your karma, sell the linen and buy silk from it.

Not necessarily as the prices fluctuate. It might not be worth it if the linen costs are very low. However, if there was a way of getting silk by buying karma items from vendors that too would be far superior to the system we have now because then even with the salvage kits cost you’d have people who could actually get directly the kind of materials they need without the use of the TP which was a secondary problem people face with this game, the game is too TP centric.

The TP is a part of Tyria. It’s a system that helps facilitate trade between players. People only feel the game is TP centric because they feel Entitled to getting everything they want fast. That allows people to profit off of items from those who demand it here and now.

Using the TP is optional. You don’t need to get your Legendary within a day. You don’t need to get Silk from other players. Game mechanics allow people to target and farm any material they need, albeit at a cost. That cost can be either coin or Karma.

Silk is expensive because it’s needed. Demand > Supply. To break that down further, the Demand is modified by how quickly a player wants to gather the required sub-materials for crafting T7 mats. Anet did this on purpose. You may not agree with it, but that’s how it is, that any changes to this would break the market in ways that John wouldn’t want.

That’s a false premise designed to try to make people’s arguments invalid and it’s a logical fallacy. Sorry you’re going to have to do better than “people just want things instantly” as an argument against the draconian systems in place right now which historically have been proven to cause populations to drop significantly in these games and historically have been proven to be not as profitable as people might think! I have several examples all of which have had to drastically change the AH centric nature of their games in order to keep their populations as well as their profits high.

So until you can come up with another argument I suggest we keep on target as to why silk is not available from karma and the damage that TP centric progression does to the playerbase.

It’s also not a natural progression nothing is natural here in this title, so bringing nature into this is not relevant and it’s no more relevant than the notion that the TP is optional. For many an account (and yes whole accounts we’re talking about here) the TP is not optional at all because you can’t farm for the materials.

I was also not talking about legendaries I was talking about making ascended gear.

Wanze.8410:

IF you would have read Colins post, you would have read his definition of grind.

Especially silk can basically be acquired by killing nearly any mob in the game that drops loot, through salvage mats, bags or light armor gear.

I did read his definition of grind, and it still applies. The sheer quantity of silk that is now required cannot be acquired by just killing any mob in the game. Otherwise I would have a full set of ascended gear now that I’ve been playing for 10 months. In order to acquire the necessary silk I’m forced to focus on the subset of creatures that drops salvagable cloth/cloth armor and/or loot bags. That falls within Collin’s definition of grind, which used the word creatures (as opposed to the singular creature that you claimed).

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Bernie.8674:

I’d like to direct your attention to this post:

ColinJohanson.2394:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

You’re making a mistake here. What Colin said is that you shouldn’t have to grind for the best gear. Ascended weapons and armor are not a grind, by Anet’s definitions. They are a long term goal, but not as long term as Legendaries.

My eye sight isn’t what it once was either. I’ve left the part that completely contradicts what you just said bolded for your convenience.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Players choose to make getting the best gear fast, thus they create their own “grind”. Because the players are responsible for this, they have no rights to complain. It’s like me deciding to go for my PhD in Economics, then complaining to the university that my degree is a grind.

If you’re suggesting that the work required to obtain gear in a video game well should approximate the amount of work required to obtain a doctorate then I think you and I have completely different perspectives on what a game should and shouldn’t be.

I’d like to point out that when this game launched they specifically made Exotic easily obtainable because in their interviews they said that gear shouldn’t be used to keep players playing, that one of the goals of GW2 was to NOT have players coming back doing repeats of the same things over and over again in place of content. That’s exactly what’s happening now with Ascended so the grind involved in getting the material for ascended goes against their original design statements and thus a new definition of a grind is irrelevant under these circumstances.

Having to go to the TP for silk is not part of the original design philosophy when Exotics were obtainable by buying items with karma and you could gear including all necessary runes and sigils direct from vendors. They’ve also nerfed the ability to obtain materials from vendors with karma because people were then able to craft with very little grind which was far superior then having to turn to the silk trade in order to do anything meaningful with max gear and that’s the point of the thread really, that you have to buy silk now instead of using salvaging from karma vendors or buying silk directly or farming it for your own purposes. If there was an alternative to the TP and it’s prices this thread wouldn’t exist.

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

IF you would have read Colins post, you would have read his definition of grind.

Especially silk can basically be acquired by killing nearly any mob in the game that drops loot, through salvage mats, bags or light armor gear.

I did read his definition of grind, and it still applies. The sheer quantity of silk that is now required cannot be acquired by just killing any mob in the game. Otherwise I would have a full set of ascended gear now that I’ve been playing for 10 months. In order to acquire the necessary silk I’m forced to focus on the subset of creatures that drops salvagable cloth/cloth armor and/or loot bags. That falls within Collin’s definition of grind, which used the word creatures (as opposed to the singular creature that you claimed).

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

Bernie.8674:

My eye sight isn’t what it once was either. I’ve left the part that completely contradicts what you just said bolded for your convenience.

I’ll quote the part that invalidates your post:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You’re making a mistake here. What Colin said is that you shouldn’t have to grind for the best gear. Ascended weapons and armor are not a grind, by Anet’s definitions. They are a long term goal, but not as long term as Legendaries.

Ascended crafting is not a grind. Players choose to make it one.

Back on topic, please. This isn’t about player choices and goals that were set improperly. For that, I’m sure there was plenty of discussion in PvP about Dragon Rank. Point being, the numbers guys can and do mess up every so often. Trying to slander the player base as whining or ignorant merely on the basis of desire doesn’t move the discussion forward.

Phys was on the right track a few pages ago, and we’ve seen some good ideas come out of it, especially in looking in how insignia are handled.

If we could continue to look for compromises that better fit actual game play without breaking the economy, that’d be great.

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended crafting is not a grind. Players choose to make it one.

How is accumulating 7200 silk scraps not considered a grind? By your definition, nothing is a grind. Even foxfire clusters (which I should point out were intended to be a grind) are not a grind by the arbitrary definition you’re applying. Of course you can get silk without grinding. No one is complaining about the need for silk in crafting. It’s the quantity of silk that’s required that makes it a grind.

tigirius.9014:

That’s a false premise designed to try to make people’s arguments invalid and it’s a logical fallacy. Sorry you’re going to have to do better than “people just want things instantly” as an argument against the draconian systems in place right now which historically have been proven to cause populations to drop significantly in these games and historically have been proven to be not as profitable as people might think! I have several examples all of which have had to drastically change the AH centric nature of their games in order to keep their populations as well as their profits high.

So until you can come up with another argument I suggest we keep on target as to why silk is not available from karma and the damage that TP centric progression does to the playerbase.

It’s also not a natural progression nothing is natural here in this title, so bringing nature into this is not relevant and it’s no more relevant than the notion that the TP is optional. For many an account (and yes whole accounts we’re talking about here) the TP is not optional at all because you can’t farm for the materials.

I was also not talking about legendaries I was talking about making ascended gear.

1) You can get Wool, Linen, and Silk with Karma in a way that’s allowed by Anet. Last year, me and Gaile had a long conversation regarding the Anet’s definition of an exploit for using Karma to get low level armors to salvage. She confirmed with her Customer Support division that it’s acceptable to buy armors → MF them → salvage. I kept that e-mail in case someone ever decides to ban me for doing that.

2) Entitlement exists in all games. When I had an NES (yes I’m old), I used something called Game Genie to cheat my way to the best scores. It’s because I wanted the best score as quickly and easily as possible. Now with GW2, players want to fully equip their characters with the best gear as quickly as possible. The TP allows for this by purchasing necessary mats from other players. Because a lot of players Demand Silk, we’re able to sell them for a profit. Some legendary market players like Vol invested accounts worth of cheap goods to resell. If you stocked up on Silk when it was near merchant cost, you made a killing. So until you can come up with an example of how you can alter human nature, the TP will always cater to those who want stuff here and now. Prices will fluctuate on the Demand for said item, and the Supply of it. Break it down more, and it’s Demand (at a low price) vs. Supply (at a low price). If someone buys all the cheap stuff, you’re left with either paying a higher price, or waiting for someone else to sell cheap.

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended crafting is not a grind. Players choose to make it one.

How is accumulating 7200 silk scraps not considered a grind? By your definition, nothing is a grind. Even foxfire clusters (which I should point out were intended to be a grind) are not a grind by the arbitrary definition you’re applying. Of course you can get silk without grinding. No one is complaining about the need for silk in crafting. It’s the quantity of silk that’s required that makes it a grind.

You need to read Colin’s definition of what a grind is.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

I subscribe to his definition. The game doesn’t force you to get all Ascended gear. Players choose to. You can enjoy this game just fine with Exotic gear, or heck, even Rare gear.

By the way, yes I’m fully geared with all Ascended armor, accessories, amulet, Legendary weapon, and Laurel upgrades. I played smart, saved up mats before Ascended crafting came out, and was able speed through the sets. The only thing that slowed me down are the time gates, which I didn’t mind.

phys.7689:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Exactly. It’s like saying that we could always take a steam powered ferry in order to get to the other side of the US to have a meeting we’d get there of course and that technically is a choice but really would it let you do what you need to do? You’d never make it to the meetings you’d be going to. There’s a reason why planes were invented just as there’s a reason why multiple games once used the system that’s here in this game right now for progression for gear, but no longer do that because they learned from experience and they learned that it makes players stop playing en masse when these systems are in place! Several examples out there.

You wouldn’t use a fishing boat to get to a foreign country just to have a meeting and that’s analogous to the situation with gear.

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

phys.7689:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Walking is an option, if work starts in 3 hours. But you chose to do something different for 2 hours and 48 minutes before driving to work.

If a gallon of gas would cost 100 bucks, you might reconsider walking.

Wanze.8410:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

fractals give you like 10-30 scraps per run, it takes like .7-1.5 hours to complete. you earn about 1-3 gold an hour which drops off rapidly after dailies.(including selling stuff)
Its one of the forms of content that most needs ascended armor. You will take a long time trying to get ascended if your main type of play is fractals

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Walking is an option, if work starts in 3 hours. But you chose to do something different for 2 hours and 48 minutes before driving to work.

If a gallon of gas would cost 100 bucks, you might reconsider walking.

In those cases people tend to quit their job. 6 hours in transport makes the amount you earn roughly half as much. there is only 24 hours in the day, 8 of which is reccomended to be sleep.

If you really feel that walking is a real option, you are showing a sharp disconnect with reality

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

fractals give you like 10-30 scraps per run, it takes like .7-1.5 hours to complete. you earn about 1-3 gold an hour which drops off rapidly after dailies.(including selling stuff)
Its one of the forms of content that most needs ascended armor. You will take a long time trying to get ascended if your main type of play is fractals

But fractals has the highest droprate for ascended armor and weapon boxes of any content, plus all the rings, to make up for it. I dont know any high level fractal player that was slowed down in his fractal progress because he didnt have enough ascended gear to put his AR infusions in.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended crafting is not a grind. Players choose to make it one.

How is accumulating 7200 silk scraps not considered a grind? By your definition, nothing is a grind. Even foxfire clusters (which I should point out were intended to be a grind) are not a grind by the arbitrary definition you’re applying. Of course you can get silk without grinding. No one is complaining about the need for silk in crafting. It’s the quantity of silk that’s required that makes it a grind.

You need to read Colin’s definition of what a grind is.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

You need to read it because this is what it says:

ColinJohanson.2394:

When our company president said we have an anti-grind philosophy way back before Gw2 shipped, and when it has been repeatedly reinforced since then, our statement is simply: “We don’t think you should need to grind to get the best gear and stats in Guild Wars 2”.

So what exactly does that mean:

- The best gear/stats: This means to have statistically the best abilities in the game, you shouldn’t need to, by our definition of the word, grind. This goes for leveling and getting top gear (by our definition that’s ascended gear, legendary being an optional extra thing you can do, but don’t need to do.)

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I subscribe to his definition. The game doesn’t force you to get all Ascended gear. Players choose to. You can enjoy this game just fine with Exotic gear, or heck, even Rare gear.

The game doesn’t force you to get ascended gear, but Collin, who you claim you agree with, explicitly stated that ascended gear was not intended to be a grind. Others have said it, but I think it bears repeating, that a choice between spending a year gathering silk and grinding for a couple of weeks is equivalent to a choice between spending four hours walking 10 miles to/from work every day and spending 20 minutes driving a car. It’s only a choice in the loosest sense of the word.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

By the way, yes I’m fully geared with all Ascended armor, accessories, amulet, Legendary weapon, and Laurel upgrades. I played smart, saved up mats before Ascended crafting came out, and was able speed through the sets. The only thing that slowed me down are the time gates, which I didn’t mind.

I wouldn’t call that smart; I would call it lucky. You crafted your set while the mats were plentiful before ArenaNet decided to boost the requirements. No one in this thread is even mentioning the time gating, because the rate at which mats are typically accumulated doesn’t even make the time gating relevant. Now you say that gold and silk are plentiful. Of course they are for you. You have no use for silk and can afford to dump it on the TP at 2.4 silver apiece. This is also why you don’t understand how anyone could have gold problems. I’ll bet you didn’t have to choose between spending 80 gold and 200 skill points on your traits and running map completion, WvW, and world events for them.

Wanze.8410:

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

Ironically running low level fractals is one of those activities that rewards almost no silk. I guess I don’t need ascended armor for those, but it would be nice to run the high level ones with my guild sometime.

phys.7689:

yes, this is the big mistake with colins definition of grind, he says its ok, because you can get things through many means, but he is forgetting that highly ineffecient options are not real choices.

If i could walk to work, but it would take me 3 hours, versus a 12 minute drive, then that is not a real option.

Remember, driving is a privilege, not a right. If the government decides to revoke your license because of reasons, then you’d have to walk to work, car pool, or catch a bus. Sure it’s inefficient, but it’s still a choice. You could also find a job closer to where you live. Or you could move closer to where you work.

Bernie.8674:

The game doesn’t force you to get ascended gear, but Collin, who you claim you agree with, explicitly stated that ascended gear was not intended to be a grind.

Ascended gear isn’t a grind. Anet doesn’t require you to have it to play this game. You choose to make it a grind. Big difference.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

fractals give you like 10-30 scraps per run, it takes like .7-1.5 hours to complete. you earn about 1-3 gold an hour which drops off rapidly after dailies.(including selling stuff)
Its one of the forms of content that most needs ascended armor. You will take a long time trying to get ascended if your main type of play is fractals

But fractals has the highest droprate for ascended armor and weapon boxes of any content, plus all the rings, to make up for it. I dont know any high level fractal player that was slowed down in his fractal progress because he didnt have enough ascended gear to put his AR infusions in.

yes, actually it does, they generally do other something more effecient at earning gold (grind) and buy it. If you only did fractals, your progress would be extremely low.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

fractals give you like 10-30 scraps per run, it takes like .7-1.5 hours to complete. you earn about 1-3 gold an hour which drops off rapidly after dailies.(including selling stuff)
Its one of the forms of content that most needs ascended armor. You will take a long time trying to get ascended if your main type of play is fractals

But fractals has the highest droprate for ascended armor and weapon boxes of any content, plus all the rings, to make up for it. I dont know any high level fractal player that was slowed down in his fractal progress because he didnt have enough ascended gear to put his AR infusions in.

yes, actually it does, they generally do other something more effecient at earning gold (grind) and buy it. If you only did fractals, your progress would be extremely low.

You dont even need ascended armor to get 50 AR.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended gear isn’t a grind. Anet doesn’t require you to have it to play this game. You choose to make it a grind. Big difference.

You’re trying to link two statements together, but they are unrelated. Whether or not the gear is “required” to play the game is up for debate (and I think you and I would be on opposite sides of that debate as well), but it is irrelevant because, required or not, ArenaNet explicitly stated that acquiring it was never intended to require a grind. You yourself linked a post from last month where Collin reiterated that stance.

The second issue is whether or not a choice between waiting a year to get end game gear and grinding for it is an actual choice. I contend that it’s not a choice.

Even if you were to convince me that it was a choice, I would never see it as a pleasant one. The reason I stopped playing Guild Wars for six years was the realization that the faction that I had been happily grinding for through PvP was much more easily obtainable by repeatedly sending my heroes on the same quest over and over ad nauseum. That was a choice, and it was one that made me realize the game’s futility. I had already achieved every other non-grindy objective that the game had to offer by that point.

Grind is not fun in any form. Waiting for 1200 scraps of silk to accumulate in my bank isn’t fun either.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear dont force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

I’m not complaining that silk is required. I’m complaining that I need 1200-1500 silk (4.8-6 stacks) for one piece of leather gear. I’m saying that without going out of my way to grind (i.e. by the means that you claim is reasonable) I accumulate a stack every couple of weeks. For a full set of leather armor I need 24 damask. That translates to 7200 silk, or 28 stacks. That’s 56 weeks for leather. For armorsmiths it’s slightly worse, and for cloth wearers it’s even worse than that. Was ArenaNet’s intent seriously to keep non-grinders out of end game gear for a year? Whether grinding is a choice or not is irrelevant when the choice is between waiting for over a year to acquire a full set of end game gear and spending hours mindlessly grinding for mats.

I’m willing to bet that those arguing that there is no grind either enjoy grinding or crafted their ascended sets back when materials could be purchased and salvaged with karma. It’s in their best interest to maintain this system because it rewards their grinding disproportionately and allows them to unload a material that is now worthless to them at a premium rate.

Your playstyle doesnt seem to give you much silk, if you only get a stack every 2 weeks.
Not sure what you are doing, maybe hanging out in a city, killing rabbits or speed clearing dungeons, skipping all mobs that potentially drop silk to get the gold reward as fast as possible. Or you are constantly leveling new chars and therefore mostly play lower level content.

However, you still get silk, even though at a slow pace. I would wager that if your mostly play content that rewards you with little silk, you dont need ascended armor to play it.

fractals give you like 10-30 scraps per run, it takes like .7-1.5 hours to complete. you earn about 1-3 gold an hour which drops off rapidly after dailies.(including selling stuff)
Its one of the forms of content that most needs ascended armor. You will take a long time trying to get ascended if your main type of play is fractals

But fractals has the highest droprate for ascended armor and weapon boxes of any content, plus all the rings, to make up for it. I dont know any high level fractal player that was slowed down in his fractal progress because he didnt have enough ascended gear to put his AR infusions in.

yes, actually it does, they generally do other something more effecient at earning gold (grind) and buy it. If you only did fractals, your progress would be extremely low.

You dont even need ascended armor to get 50 AR.

But you need 70 ar for level 50

Wanze.8410:

You dont even need ascended armor to get 50 AR.

What does that have to do with anything? The point is that ArenaNet claimed that ascended armor was not intended to be a grind. Whether it’s “needed” or not doesn’t matter. You can also do 99% of this game’s content at level 75. Does that mean we should turn the last five levels into a grind too?

Wanze.8410:

I once sailed from Kopenhagen to Brazil and it took me 5 months. The flight back took me 8 hours. Somehow, i much more enjoyed the sailing and ports of call on my way to Brazil, rather than my return trip to europe, which felt like a waste of time.

But what was your objective? Was it just to get to Brazil or was it to visit a bunch of ports of call?

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

You dont even need ascended armor to get 50 AR.

What does that have to do with anything? The point is that ArenaNet claimed that ascended armor was not intended to be a grind. Whether it’s “needed” or not doesn’t matter. You can also do 99% of this game’s content at level 75. Does that mean we should turn the last five levels into a grind too?

And I already answered that. Basically any content rewards you with items and currency that will aid you in your acquisition of ascended gear. No grind involved.

Anet provided you with the context and their definition of grinding, Colin never mentioned any timeframe for acquiring ascended gear, just that they want you to be able to work towards it by basically enjoying any game content.

And that is the case.

Wanze.8410:

Walking is an option, if work starts in 3 hours. But you chose to do something different for 2 hours and 48 minutes before driving to work.

So you’re saying that I could choose to cut my sleep down from eight hours to five, and to completely ignore my wife and children in the morning. OK, then.

Wanze.8410:

If a gallon of gas would cost 100 bucks, you might reconsider walking.

No, I would probably quit my job and find one closer to home because a three hour walk in the mornings followed by one in the evening is not reasonable. If my company valued my presence enough they would give me a raise to offset the cost of gas. Or (more likely) they would give me the option of working from home. I don’t know what world you live in where you have the leisure time to waste six hours commuting. That may be where the disconnect lies. I wish I had that much time on my hands…

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended gear isn’t a grind. Anet doesn’t require you to have it to play this game. You choose to make it a grind. Big difference.

You’re trying to link two statements together, but they are unrelated. Whether or not the gear is “required” to play the game is up for debate (and I think you and I would be on opposite sides of that debate as well), but it is irrelevant because, required or not, ArenaNet explicitly stated that acquiring it was never intended to require a grind. You yourself linked a post from last month where Collin reiterated that stance.

The second issue is whether or not a choice between waiting a year to get end game gear and grinding for it is an actual choice. I contend that it’s not a choice.

Even if you were to convince me that it was a choice, I would never see it as a pleasant one. The reason I stopped playing Guild Wars for six years was the realization that the faction that I had been happily grinding for through PvP was much more easily obtainable by repeated sending my heroes on the same quest over and over ad nauseum. That was a choice, and it was one that made me realize the game’s futility. I had already achieved every other non-grindy objective that the game had to offer by that point.

Grind is not fun in any form. Waiting for 1200 scraps of silk to accumulate in my bank isn’t fun either.

Again, Ascended gear isn’t a grind as per Anet’s standards. That invalidates your first claim. It’s a long term goal that wasn’t meant to be achieved in a day. I’m not here to say that you don’t think it’s a grind, only to inform you that your definition is your own. You choose to want items faster, thus in your mind, it becomes a grind for yourself only.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get items faster. That’s why there’s the TP. It allows players to put in bids for items they want, or to buy it off of other players for a price. Want 1,200 Silk scraps now? Buy it from the TP. Want it the old fashioned way? Play the game.

Lastly, getting 1,200 Silk scraps is fun. How so? You see, before Ascended gear came out, I was drowning in Silk from just playing the game. If you didn’t sell them, you had a good supply to make Silk Bolts.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Bernie.8674:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ascended gear isn’t a grind. Anet doesn’t require you to have it to play this game. You choose to make it a grind. Big difference.

You’re trying to link two statements together, but they are unrelated. Whether or not the gear is “required” to play the game is up for debate (and I think you and I would be on opposite sides of that debate as well), but it is irrelevant because, required or not, ArenaNet explicitly stated that acquiring it was never intended to require a grind. You yourself linked a post from last month where Collin reiterated that stance.

The second issue is whether or not a choice between waiting a year to get end game gear and grinding for it is an actual choice. I contend that it’s not a choice.

Even if you were to convince me that it was a choice, I would never see it as a pleasant one. The reason I stopped playing Guild Wars for six years was the realization that the faction that I had been happily grinding for through PvP was much more easily obtainable by repeated sending my heroes on the same quest over and over ad nauseum. That was a choice, and it was one that made me realize the game’s futility. I had already achieved every other non-grindy objective that the game had to offer by that point.

Grind is not fun in any form. Waiting for 1200 scraps of silk to accumulate in my bank isn’t fun either.

Again, Ascended gear isn’t a grind as per Anet’s standards. That invalidates your first claim. It’s a long term goal that wasn’t meant to be achieved in a day. I’m not here to say that you don’t think it’s a grind, only to inform you that your definition is your own. You choose to want items faster, thus in your mind, it becomes a grind for yourself only.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get items faster. That’s why there’s the TP. It allows players to put in bids for items they want, or to buy it off of other players for a price. Want 1,200 Silk scraps now? Buy it from the TP. Want it the old fashioned way? Play the game.

Lastly, getting 1,200 Silk scraps is fun. How so? You see, before Ascended gear came out, I was drowning in Silk from just playing the game. If you didn’t sell them, you had a good supply to make Silk Bolts.

Guy already posted, been saving silk for 2 years, he had like 3k scraps. Which is only 1/3 the way to ascended cloth.
I have friend who been saving for like a year has like 1700

Bernie.8674:

Wanze.8410:

Walking is an option, if work starts in 3 hours. But you chose to do something different for 2 hours and 48 minutes before driving to work.

So you’re saying that I could choose to cut my sleep down from eight hours to five, and to completely ignore my wife and children in the morning. OK, then.

Wanze.8410:

If a gallon of gas would cost 100 bucks, you might reconsider walking.

No, I would probably quit my job and find one closer to home because a three hour walk in the mornings followed by one in the evening is not reasonable. If my company valued my presence enough they would give me a raise to offset the cost of gas. Or (more likely) they would give me the option of working from home. I don’t know what world you live in where you have the leisure time to waste six hours commuting. That may be where the disconnect lies. I wish I had that much time on my hands…

One reason why I dont like analogies in economical/gameplay discussions on this forum is because they tend to create off topic discussions. Thats why I usually dont use them to prove a point of mine but i sometimes react to them.

Personally, i care very little about your wife, your children or your professional commute and commitments, so i dont know why you ask me about how to split your time between them.

phys.7689:

Guy already posted, been saving silk for 2 years, he had like 3k scraps. Which is only 1/3 the way to ascended cloth.
I have friend who been saving for like a year has like 1700

There’s no required timeframe in which to get fully geared. If it takes him 5 years of casual gaming to get enough Silk scraps, that’s ok. We all play at our own pace. But there are ways to speed up the process.

1) Convert Karma into cloth armors → MF → Salvage
2) Buy Silk from the TP
3) Get lucky with an Ascended armor box

The first two are individual choices. The last is RNG (which also isn’t a bad thing).

The TP is a part of Tyria. It’s a system that helps facilitate trade between players. People only feel the game is TP centric because they feel Entitled to getting everything they want fast. That allows people to profit off of items from those who demand it here and now.

Using the TP is optional. You don’t need to get your Legendary within a day. You don’t need to get Silk from other players. Game mechanics allow people to target and farm any material they need, albeit at a cost. That cost can be either coin or Karma.

Silk is expensive because it’s needed. Demand > Supply. To break that down further, the Demand is modified by how quickly a player wants to gather the required sub-materials for crafting T7 mats. Anet did this on purpose. You may not agree with it, but that’s how it is, that any changes to this would break the market in ways that John wouldn’t want.

I agree with all of that, and the market still needs some fundamental changes made to it because this is a game, and players are entitled to be able to earn everything in it in a fun and rewarding manner, and should not feel that their efforts are cheapened because other players just buy their way to success on the TP. So long as the TP is part of the game, the TP has to be responsible to the rest of the game, it cannot be considered an inviolate exception to the rules the rest of the game has to live by.

You can get silk by playing any content in the game that has the level range of silk. Mileage may vary but the silk requirements for ascended gear don’t force you to play specific content. If you complete the same content over and over again to get silk because you think its the fastest way, thats your choice, not a requirement.

Pointless semantics.