Guild Wars 2

EDIT: While typing the title, I pressed enter and it’s wrong. Don’t mind it, please

For over a month, every time the news say there are awesome items/sales in the black lion, there’s a “Get More Gold” in bold, pretty big

So, that’s odd. There’s so much to be bought in the TP (agony resist, materials, equips, and even legendaries), and the game is barely rewarding that I feel they are trying to get some extra money instead of fixing the rewards – or, at least, while they do it

Any thoughts?

PS: I’m not saying this is wrong, but it doesn’t seem like what the game was when it launched

It’s no coincidence that pretty much every gold-making farm in the game has been nerfed.

I’ve gone from making 15g/h to nothing.

Legitimized gold selling. Welcome to the future of the genre. WildStar does it too with CREDD.

I just wish they’d break away from gold as a currency and start seriously rewarding players for performing well. The legendaries should have been so much more than just gold grinds.

They are reminding players that you can convert cash into gold legitimately in order to combat the spike in gold sellers.

mtpelion.4562:

They are reminding players that you can convert cash into gold legitimately in order to combat the spike in gold sellers.

Sorry, do not agree. Anyone who is going to buy gold illegitimately is going to do so to save money, and will not change their actions based on ads from ANet. I’ve played this game since launch and I can see the path to gold get more and more narrow every single patch. Granted, this is a B2P game, and they are relying on the gem shop sales to fund future stuff. Fine. But let’s call it as it is shall we?

ozmaniandevil.6805:

mtpelion.4562:

They are reminding players that you can convert cash into gold legitimately in order to combat the spike in gold sellers.

Sorry, do not agree. Anyone who is going to buy gold illegitimately is going to do so to save money, and will not change their actions based on ads from ANet. I’ve played this game since launch and I can see the path to gold get more and more narrow every single patch. Granted, this is a B2P game, and they are relying on the gem shop sales to fund future stuff. Fine. But let’s call it as it is shall we?

I am calling it like it is. The correlation is between gold seller activity and ANet announcements.

Gold sources versus sinks is a separate issue that has been very well balanced so far. It seems like it hurts a bit right now since they just removed a passive (i.e. bad) source of gold generation (champ bags) and the prices haven’t adjusted downwards yet to reflect the reduction in gold supply.

To be fair, there was no mention of Gem exchange to Gold in last week’s Gem Store announcement. So, it’s not been every time.

Not appearing too much. Just about the right amount IMHO.

Anet should use a f2p/b2p subscription model similar to swtor. They can make revenue with gem store items, but they won’t have to rely on strictly the gem store due to a strong dedicated base of players paying $15 a month. Subscribers should get discounts at the gem store and other perks. With Anet securing a consistent flow of income they should be able to afford the additions and modifications to GW2 that we have been asking for.

For those of you that don’t want to spend money on gems, you should be encouraging others to buy gold with gems. That way your gold to gem cost goes down. Anet advertising gems to gold conversions only helps you. The more people that buy gold with gems the less it costs you to convert gold to gems.

Zephyron.7081:

Anet should use a f2p/b2p subscription model similar to swtor. They can make revenue with gem store items, but they won’t have to rely on strictly the gem store due to a strong dedicated base of players paying $15 a month. Subscribers should get discounts at the gem store and other perks. With Anet securing a consistent flow of income they should be able to afford the additions and modifications to GW2 that we have been asking for.

I specifically left SWTOR because their changed subscription system made the F2P people second class citizens who couldn’t play the game. I would still be playing it had they correctly implemented the F2P model like GW2 did.

Zephyron.7081:

Anet should use a f2p/b2p subscription model similar to swtor. They can make revenue with gem store items, but they won’t have to rely on strictly the gem store due to a strong dedicated base of players paying $15 a month. Subscribers should get discounts at the gem store and other perks. With Anet securing a consistent flow of income they should be able to afford the additions and modifications to GW2 that we have been asking for.

I think that might be the VIP (or whatever they changed the name to) system in the China release.

JustTrogdor.7892:

For those of you that don’t want to spend money on gems, you should be encouraging others to buy gold with gems. That way your gold to gem cost goes down. Anet advertising gems to gold conversions only helps you. The more people that buy gold with gems the less it costs you to convert gold to gems.

Yep. That’s me……

Vol.7601:

It’s no coincidence that pretty much every gold-making farm in the game has been nerfed.

I’ve gone from making 15g/h to nothing.

That’s funny you should say that since you were such a fan of the Queensdale train nerf.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GOODBYE-QUEENSDALE-TRAIN/first#post4040240

Vol.7601:

As a former hardcore farmer, this is the best change Anet had made in a long time.
They should have done it sooner, but it’s done.

if the gem to gold exchange was fair (in a real money kinda way) i would consider it, just 7-8 gold for 100 gems is a huge kick in the balls if you ask me.

I’m not complaining.
If this was any other subless MMO I would have spent hundreds
of dollars/euros to buy the services that I bought for no real money
with in game gold.
Although I liked,and took advantage of the gold gain rates before the
champ train nerfs,they were ridiculous for a game where everything,
even stuff like game and account upgrades can be bought with just gold.
You can still make more than enough gold in game but you can’t yolo
farm a legendary every 4 weeks.
If people wanna buy gold they should buy from Anet and not gold sellers.

The Gem Exchange system was balanced during the early launch days and months, but over a year later, the ratio has become extremely imbalanced. There are less players now, so now the gap keeps increasing. A-net never did resolve this, and i don’t think they ever will. It’s even harder to make gold, especially with diminishing returns.

Currently, it’s 50g for 507 gems. That’s just insanely imbalanced.

mtpelion.4562:

Zephyron.7081:

Anet should use a f2p/b2p subscription model similar to swtor. They can make revenue with gem store items, but they won’t have to rely on strictly the gem store due to a strong dedicated base of players paying $15 a month. Subscribers should get discounts at the gem store and other perks. With Anet securing a consistent flow of income they should be able to afford the additions and modifications to GW2 that we have been asking for.

I specifically left SWTOR because their changed subscription system made the F2P people second class citizens who couldn’t play the game. I would still be playing it had they correctly implemented the F2P model like GW2 did.

I would prefer a sub model like TSW’s more. SWTOR pretty much still runs on a P2P model because if you;re a F2P player, there’s so many restrictions it ends up like a single player game for you.

mtpelion.4562:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

mtpelion.4562:

They are reminding players that you can convert cash into gold legitimately in order to combat the spike in gold sellers.

Sorry, do not agree. Anyone who is going to buy gold illegitimately is going to do so to save money, and will not change their actions based on ads from ANet. I’ve played this game since launch and I can see the path to gold get more and more narrow every single patch. Granted, this is a B2P game, and they are relying on the gem shop sales to fund future stuff. Fine. But let’s call it as it is shall we?

I am calling it like it is. The correlation is between gold seller activity and ANet announcements.

Gold sources versus sinks is a separate issue that has been very well balanced so far. It seems like it hurts a bit right now since they just removed a passive (i.e. bad) source of gold generation (champ bags) and the prices haven’t adjusted downwards yet to reflect the reduction in gold supply.

Uuuuhhh isn’t buying gems to convert to gold another form of passive gold generation which will not help adjust prices downward?

TSW is going to crash and burn soon as the company is running out of money. So that model is not very good.

SWTOR’s is what I call the ‘pay door’ – if you want to go beyond a certain level, you have to pay. That is a P2W type.

I like GW2 the way it is.

mtpelion.4562:

Zephyron.7081:

Anet should use a f2p/b2p subscription model similar to swtor. They can make revenue with gem store items, but they won’t have to rely on strictly the gem store due to a strong dedicated base of players paying $15 a month. Subscribers should get discounts at the gem store and other perks. With Anet securing a consistent flow of income they should be able to afford the additions and modifications to GW2 that we have been asking for.

I specifically left SWTOR because their changed subscription system made the F2P people second class citizens who couldn’t play the game. I would still be playing it had they correctly implemented the F2P model like GW2 did.

Not really. At least in Swtor, as a f2p player, you could buy just about anything on their cash shop, but only if other players list them on the auction house. The only limitation is the gold cap, which is 350k i think.

It’s also so much easier to make “gold” in swtor. It’s not this way in GW2, because of all the restrictions on diminishing returns.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

mtpelion.4562:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

mtpelion.4562:

They are reminding players that you can convert cash into gold legitimately in order to combat the spike in gold sellers.

Sorry, do not agree. Anyone who is going to buy gold illegitimately is going to do so to save money, and will not change their actions based on ads from ANet. I’ve played this game since launch and I can see the path to gold get more and more narrow every single patch. Granted, this is a B2P game, and they are relying on the gem shop sales to fund future stuff. Fine. But let’s call it as it is shall we?

I am calling it like it is. The correlation is between gold seller activity and ANet announcements.

Gold sources versus sinks is a separate issue that has been very well balanced so far. It seems like it hurts a bit right now since they just removed a passive (i.e. bad) source of gold generation (champ bags) and the prices haven’t adjusted downwards yet to reflect the reduction in gold supply.

Uuuuhhh isn’t buying gems to convert to gold another form of passive gold generation which will not help adjust prices downward?

Well, we don’t know. There’s the other side of it, converting gold to gems which might balance itself out.

But they sound really desperate with that tagline at every notice…

Not every notice. People are exaggerating again.

HELLruler.4820:

EDIT: While typing the title, I pressed enter and it’s wrong. Don’t mind it, please

For over a month, every time the news say there are awesome items/sales in the black lion, there’s a “Get More Gold” in bold, pretty big

So, that’s odd. There’s so much to be bought in the TP (agony resist, materials, equips, and even legendaries), and the game is barely rewarding that I feel they are trying to get some extra money instead of fixing the rewards – or, at least, while they do it

Any thoughts?

PS: I’m not saying this is wrong, but it doesn’t seem like what the game was when it launched

Just as a note, you can edit the topic title by clicking the words “Edit Topic” that are just underneath the “Add Reply” and “Subscribe” buttons underneath the actual title of the thread at the top of this page.

See the attached image.

There’s less players though, which means less people converting gems to gold. This is why the conversion rate is so high. Instead of fixing the ratio to be in balance with the population, Anet is being complacent with this, since it forces players to buy gems. The days of converting gold to gems is long gone now, unless you’re willing to spend hundreds of gold for an average of 1000 gems.

Ya nexxe, it’s way easier and less time consuming for me to work an hour and convert that to gems than to “work” in-game to earn gold to buy gems. It takes me 1 hour to earn enough to buy 2800 gems in real life. To use in-game gold for that would take me months of farming… oh… wait.. farming no longer allowed… make that a year or so of “normal” game-play.

I am okay to spend some dollars once in a while in a game I like.

But personally I don’t like the idea of buying gold with gems because it feels like the fantasy world is somehow too much linked with your real life.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Ya nexxe, it’s way easier and less time consuming for me to work an hour and convert that to gems than to “work” in-game to earn gold to buy gems. It takes me 1 hour to earn enough to buy 2800 gems in real life. To use in-game gold for that would take me months of farming… oh… wait.. farming no longer allowed… make that a year or so of “normal” game-play.

Comparing a game to work.. Maybe that should be a sign that something is wrong with the game.

-No monthly fee
-No way to 100% purchase items that increase stats and makes you win (P2W).
-Not a must to use gem system to have top items or exclusive items. (can change gold for gems)

Boys this is a business, and IMO a noble one . . .

Why you get mad if the company tries to profit? . . . they have REAL alternatives to never use your credit card.

JustTrogdor.7892:

For those of you that don’t want to spend money on gems, you should be encouraging others to buy gold with gems. That way your gold to gem cost goes down. Anet advertising gems to gold conversions only helps you. The more people that buy gold with gems the less it costs you to convert gold to gems.

I’d rather nobody spend money on gems so ANet will stop relying on them and allowing that dependence to screw up literally everything in the game.

SoLeciTO.3490:

-No way to 100% purchase items that increase stats and makes you win (P2W).

When “winning” becomes having cool skins, does the ability to buy them with gems not make the game P2W?

SoLeciTO.3490:

-No monthly fee
-No way to 100% purchase items that increase stats and makes you win (P2W).
-Not a must to use gem system to have top items or exclusive items. (can change gold for gems)

Boys this is a business, and IMO a noble one . . .

Why you get mad if the company tries to profit? . . . they have REAL alternatives to never use your credit card.

Nobody’s really getting mad. People are just upset that most released content is on the Gem Store only. Just look at today’s update. There are 5+ items for the Gem Store, but nothing available to be acquired in game, which could be earned. Everything is centered on the Gem Store in this update.

Those alternatives aren’t viable either. They aren’t factoring in the use of people’s time, which is more valuable than money. The amount of time it will take to convert gold to gems would be weeks to months for the average person, and i’m only talking about for around 1000 gems. So it’s either people’s time or their money, and most people have chosen to spend their time on other games or real life things. How do i know this? Because the gold-to-gem conversion keeps going up, which means less people are buying gems, and selling them for gold, because there’s less people playing overall.

If it was truly viable, they would allow the sale of certain items from the Gem Store to be sold on the Trading Post. That would actually incentivize more people to buy Gem Store items, and they can choose which items to sell for gold.

nexxe.7081:

SoLeciTO.3490:

-No monthly fee
-No way to 100% purchase items that increase stats and makes you win (P2W).
-Not a must to use gem system to have top items or exclusive items. (can change gold for gems)

Boys this is a business, and IMO a noble one . . .

Why you get mad if the company tries to profit? . . . they have REAL alternatives to never use your credit card.

Nobody’s really getting mad. People are just upset that most released content is on the Gem Store only. Just look at today’s update. There are 5+ items for the Gem Store, but nothing available to be acquired in game, which could be earned. Everything is centered on the Gem Store in this update.

Those alternatives aren’t viable either. They aren’t factoring in the use of people’s time, which is more valuable than money. The amount of time it will take to convert gold to gems would be weeks to months for the average person, and i’m only talking about for around 1000 gems. So it’s either people’s time or their money, and most people have chosen to spend their time on other games or real life things. How do i know this? Because the gold-to-gem conversion keeps going up, which means less people are buying gems, and selling them for gold, because there’s less people playing overall.

If it was truly viable, they would allow the sale of certain items from the Gem Store to be sold on the Trading Post. That would actually incentivize more people to buy Gem Store items, and they can choose which items to sell for gold.

If people want to exchange their Gold to Gems, they must want to do that to purchase something from the Gem Store. The fact that people buy Gems, and use them to purchase something from the Gem Store does not indicate that less people are buying Gems, just because they choose not to exchange them for Gold.

Perhaps, they want the same things everyone else (who does exchange Gold to Gems) wants from the Gem Store, but would rather use cash than in-game Gold.

Thus, the ratio of Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems is not indicative of player population.

Has anyone else seen the latest article by Anatoli Ingram over at Massively on his article written for Flameseeker Chronicles, where he basically tells everyone that all of the nerfs to open world loot is all in our imaginations. That’s right folks, the past two years never happened. The 9 months we waited on the infamous original loot bug, the constant dropoffs of loot when we login, the sudden no drops from anything even when we teleport to a new location, the T6 material drought, the double RNG on bags, the DR that hasn’t stopped a single bot from logging in since it’s been created, and most recently the Unidentifiable Objects that now drop from boss bags, boss chests, and those special daily rare boxes are all in our heads.

tigirius.9014:

Has anyone else seen the latest article by Anatoli Ingram over at Massively on his article written for Flameseeker Chronicles, where he basically tells everyone that all of the nerfs to open world loot is all in our imaginations. That’s right folks, the past two years never happened. The 9 months we waited on the infamous original loot bug, the constant dropoffs of loot when we login, the sudden no drops from anything even when we teleport to a new location, the T6 material drought, the double RNG on bags, the DR that hasn’t stopped a single bot from logging in since it’s been created, and most recently the Unidentifiable Objects that now drop from boss bags, boss chests, and those special daily rare boxes are all in our heads.

I’m not sure you read the same article as I did, as he mostly comments on how unrewarding most of the systems in the game are to nearly everyone. The article pretty much echoes what is found posted in the forum threads.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/flameseeker-chronicles-the-strange-case-of-guild-wars-2s-rewar/

Meh, this again. Guess it’ll be a weekly or bi-weekly topic.

First, Evon’s blog posts are always about what’s new, returned or on sale at the Gem Store. Don’t ever forget that Gems bought with cash is the only means of continuing income ArenaNet has after you bought the game. Converting Gems to Gold isn’t anything new, it’s just now starting to make sense since the price is so high.

Second, players are finally noticing that their isn’t enough hours in the day to acquire enough in-game coin to convert to gems to buy all this new stuff for free from the Gem Shop. The exchange rate has tripled over the last year and ArenaNet isn’t going to open the reward faucets to match it. The exchange rate going up is solely due to players converting gold to gems, en masse, every time something desirable pops up at the Gem Shop. The only way the exchange rate goes down is from converting Gems to Gold. Better for ArenaNet if it’s bought Gems.

TANSTAAFL. We’ve now reached a point where players are forced to confront the choice of paying for stuff from the Gem Shop with real money or go without. You could still reduce your final cost with some gold to gem conversion but we’ve reached the point where those who’ve enjoyed the bounty of the Gem Shop for free is over.

Hey, you still get to play for free.

i remember back in the first couple of months when you could get 300 gems for 1g and a 23g jack-e-lop was a lot

Vol.7601:

It’s no coincidence that pretty much every gold-making farm in the game has been nerfed.

I’ve gone from making 15g/h to nothing.

i realize they nerfed farming and it really grinds my gears that player gold income relies heavily on other players, but a competent casual can still make 4-7g per hour.. i never found gem to gold conversion very appealing, but if anything the tyrian economy is predictable

i saw someone made a screenshot of all the advertisements for gem buying with real world money.. i’m not sure where they got it so it is no bother to me, but if arena net wants to advertise and players feel like spending the money for gems then fine

cheshirefox.7026:

i remember back in the first couple of months when you could get 300 gems for 1g and a 23g jack-e-lop was a lot

Vol.7601:

It’s no coincidence that pretty much every gold-making farm in the game has been nerfed.

I’ve gone from making 15g/h to nothing.

i realize they nerfed farming and it really grinds my gears that player gold income relies heavily on other players, but a competent casual can still make 4-7g per hour.. i never found gem to gold conversion very appealing, but if anything the tyrian economy is predictable

i saw someone made a screenshot of all the advertisements for gem buying with real world money.. i’m not sure where they got it so it is no bother to me, but if arena net wants to advertise and players feel like spending the money for gems then fine

I think that is off Spidy and it doesn’t show advertisements but the rates at which Gold exchanged to Gems through the life of the game.

what an incredible eye for detail you have
here is the image i was talking about.. it doesn’t appear on the game client or any sub-forum i frequent so it doesn’t really bother me.. maybe people who read those will want to buy gems for gold, i dunno

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

tigirius.9014:

Has anyone else seen the latest article by Anatoli Ingram over at Massively on his article written for Flameseeker Chronicles, where he basically tells everyone that all of the nerfs to open world loot is all in our imaginations. That’s right folks, the past two years never happened. The 9 months we waited on the infamous original loot bug, the constant dropoffs of loot when we login, the sudden no drops from anything even when we teleport to a new location, the T6 material drought, the double RNG on bags, the DR that hasn’t stopped a single bot from logging in since it’s been created, and most recently the Unidentifiable Objects that now drop from boss bags, boss chests, and those special daily rare boxes are all in our heads.

I’m not sure you read the same article as I did, as he mostly comments on how unrewarding most of the systems in the game are to nearly everyone. The article pretty much echoes what is found posted in the forum threads.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/flameseeker-chronicles-the-strange-case-of-guild-wars-2s-rewar/

“GW2 is marketed on having a cosmetic endgame, where stats only matter to a certain point and one of the ultimate goals is making your character look cool. If ArenaNet is putting over half of those cosmetic goals into the gem store, then the store is effectively working against the game.”

This has got to be my favorite quote of that article. He basically TL;DR’s the article with this short paragraph, and this is exactly why I don’t feel motivated to play much anymore.

Well apparently it’s working cause the gold to gem market is dropping like rain right now.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Thus, the ratio of Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems is not indicative of player population.

I disagree. It’s very indicative of the population. Just look at that graph above. Prices were very low, because there were literally millions of players during, and after, launch. Then it continually declined, hence the megaservers (basically a merge).

If there was more people playing, they would definitely be buying gems and selling them for gold, but that’s not what’s happening.

Anyway, i don’t want to steer off-topic into a population argument. The fact is, that not enough players are buying gems, and/or, selling them for gold. This is because of a variety of reasons. The two biggest factors being, that the population dropped off, and the other, is that gold isn’t really needed for anything in game, except for Legendary items. Just look on the Trading Post, and you’ll see every item under the Top Valued Items section, is a Legendary.

Anet needs to make more valuable items worth gold, other than a Legendary item. This would give more incentive for people to convert gems to gold, and bring the ratio down to a more reasonable conversion.

Instead, they just pump out content exclusive to the Gem Store only, which is really limiting their customers, and driving the rest away. People would rather earn their items in-game, instead of with their wallet. I could understand if both Gem Store items, and items earned in-game, were balancing each other out, but that’s not what’s happening.

The items that are earned in-game, are single-piece back slots, or gauntlets, or minis, or tonics, or boosts, or recipes, etc. These things aren’t going to entice players to stick around for the long term. There needs to be full armor sets, like the dungeon sets, added to the game. Sets that don’t require gems. This is where GW2 falls short. A wasted opportunity.

Lil Puppy.5216:

Well apparently it’s working cause the gold to gem market is dropping like rain right now.

I wouldn’t exaggerate that much. My quote above, from earlier, said 50g for 507 gems. I just checked right now, and it’s 50g for 548 gems. Not much of a difference. lol.

Yeah, they don’t’ feel they need to fix rewards. They’ve slowly brought them down the extinct level they are at now intentionally. Most rewards we do get now are worthless ascended mats, badges of honor, or chances at a chance for a chance of loot. Meanwhile they come out with convenient messages about how to trade gems to gold on the updates. Removing threads that disagree with the current greed model and labeling them as off-topic or picking some other grey area to remove them for. At this point I’m not sure I can stomach to see what they do to LS S2. RIP GW2

How do you know the gold to gem ratio isn’t just more or less rigged?

SoLeciTO.3490:

-No monthly fee
-No way to 100% purchase items that increase stats and makes you win (P2W).
-Not a must to use gem system to have top items or exclusive items. (can change gold for gems)

Boys this is a business, and IMO a noble one . . .

Why you get mad if the company tries to profit? . . . they have REAL alternatives to never use your credit card.

Because they do it in a way that negatively effects the game. Most people have no problem paying for content btw. Release an expansion every year, get rid of the cash-shop focus and it’s results and many people will be happy.

Maybe one day that will read: “Don’t forget to pre-order Guild Wars 2’s upcoming expansion!” instead of “BUY GEMS”

nexxe.7081:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Thus, the ratio of Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems is not indicative of player population.

I disagree. It’s very indicative of the population. Just look at that graph above. Prices were very low, because there were literally millions of players during, and after, launch. Then it continually declined, hence the megaservers (basically a merge).

If there was more people playing, they would definitely be buying gems and selling them for gold, but that’s not what’s happening.

Anyway, i don’t want to steer off-topic into a population argument. The fact is, that not enough players are buying gems, and/or, selling them for gold. This is because of a variety of reasons. The two biggest factors being, that the population dropped off, and the other, is that gold isn’t really needed for anything in game, except for Legendary items. Just look on the Trading Post, and you’ll see every item under the Top Valued Items section, is a Legendary.

Anet needs to make more valuable items worth gold, other than a Legendary item. This would give more incentive for people to convert gems to gold, and bring the ratio down to a more reasonable conversion.

Instead, they just pump out content exclusive to the Gem Store only, which is really limiting their customers, and driving the rest away. People would rather earn their items in-game, instead of with their wallet. I could understand if both Gem Store items, and items earned in-game, were balancing each other out, but that’s not what’s happening.

The items that are earned in-game, are single-piece back slots, or gauntlets, or minis, or tonics, or boosts, or recipes, etc. These things aren’t going to entice players to stick around for the long term. There needs to be full armor sets, like the dungeon sets, added to the game. Sets that don’t require gems. This is where GW2 falls short. A wasted opportunity.

So, why would people be buying Gems to exchange for Gold, rather than spending them in the Gem Store? If, as you infer, everyone wants gold, and would be exchanging Gems for it, why do people exchange Gold for Gems? The items sought after are in the Gem Store. Isn’t that what some people are complaining about, including you? Then why would people exchange the Gems they bought for Gold when the items they seek are in the Gem Store?

This is why the ratio of Gems-to-Gold and Gold-to-Gems doesn’t speak to the population of the playerbase. If it did, then everyone who spent cash would only want those items (such as Legendaries) that can be bought in-game for Gold. What seems indicated is that more items are sought after in the Gem Store than in-game. So, there will be more Gems spent, whether they were obtained with cash or with in-game Gold.

Anomaly.7612:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

tigirius.9014:

Has anyone else seen the latest article by Anatoli Ingram over at Massively on his article written for Flameseeker Chronicles, where he basically tells everyone that all of the nerfs to open world loot is all in our imaginations. That’s right folks, the past two years never happened. The 9 months we waited on the infamous original loot bug, the constant dropoffs of loot when we login, the sudden no drops from anything even when we teleport to a new location, the T6 material drought, the double RNG on bags, the DR that hasn’t stopped a single bot from logging in since it’s been created, and most recently the Unidentifiable Objects that now drop from boss bags, boss chests, and those special daily rare boxes are all in our heads.

I’m not sure you read the same article as I did, as he mostly comments on how unrewarding most of the systems in the game are to nearly everyone. The article pretty much echoes what is found posted in the forum threads.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/flameseeker-chronicles-the-strange-case-of-guild-wars-2s-rewar/

“GW2 is marketed on having a cosmetic endgame, where stats only matter to a certain point and one of the ultimate goals is making your character look cool. If ArenaNet is putting over half of those cosmetic goals into the gem store, then the store is effectively working against the game.”

This has got to be my favorite quote of that article. He basically TL;DR’s the article with this short paragraph, and this is exactly why I don’t feel motivated to play much anymore.

He is completely right with that, it’s where I am complaining about here on the forums for over a year. It’s also why I went for GW2 in the first place, this being a B2P game not a F2P game so to not have this. Sadly the game turned cash-shop focused anyway.

BTW he is also saying that adding some new stuff to chest would already help but that invalid. It would keep the game a gold-grind because you can’t directly work towards those items if they are just open world drops. They should be in specific places and Anet will always try to put better looking items in the cash-shop (why would anybody else by them) making those in the world close to obsolete. Well or so they try. The hardest content or rares drops should be the best or most special looking. But that is a problem if you earn your money with a cash-shop.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Vol.7601:

It’s no coincidence that pretty much every gold-making farm in the game has been nerfed.

I’ve gone from making 15g/h to nothing.

That’s funny you should say that since you were such a fan of the Queensdale train nerf.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GOODBYE-QUEENSDALE-TRAIN/first#post4040240

Vol.7601:

As a former hardcore farmer, this is the best change Anet had made in a long time.
They should have done it sooner, but it’s done.

I am sure Vol is not refering to the Queensdale champ train in terms of his gold loss from farming. Go ahead and search the forum for his gold making guide, you are misinformed. He was doing his rounds at Orr.