Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

John Smith.4610:

3. Halloween 2 candy corn sinks. There was an insane amount of candy corn in the world (10’s of billions) and we underestimated the distribution of those materials and cranked up the sinks too high. This made it very difficult to interact with those sinks at all and it didn’t feel good.

I am extremely happy to hear this. Also, this thread is a great read. John Smith really is the most quotable person at ANET, IMO.

‘Specially the "you’re adorable" line.

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes and sigils in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes and sigils on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

It may have something to do with the ones you can get with dungeon tokens, how many tokens people have, and how easy it is to get tokens.

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for from dungeon vendors, true enough, but i dont see that as being a great way with already DR in tokens from dungeons. That and the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

John, I have only one pressing question. I even created a thread on it a while ago.

Why are WvW badges treated differently, forge-wise, than dungeon tokens?

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.

Serophous.9085:

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for dropping from dungeons, the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

The short answer is that it would crash the market for runes and raise prices for all materials involved in crafting them.

Is there any concerns over insider trading, and do you actively watch for/monitor the in game trading practices of anet staff and sub-contactors?

For example, I wish I’d have known to save my silk and not traded it all away at the zephyrites last time around

I’m sure there is nuggets of information contained on the in house dev build that could affect future markets

Ayrilana.1396:

Serophous.9085:

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for dropping from dungeons, the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

The short answer is that it would crash the market for runes….

I won’t argue the materials part – but crash from what – 2 silver a piece? The ones relevant to the suggestion are already just over vendor price. I’m a bit gamble-y (is that a word?); but at that value, well, “…something worthwhile in the Mystic Toilet is worth 2 silver in the hand…” err, or whatever

KarateKid.5648:

Ayrilana.1396:

Serophous.9085:

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for dropping from dungeons, the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

The short answer is that it would crash the market for runes….

I won’t argue the materials part – but crash from what – 2 silver a piece? The ones relevant to the suggestion are already just over vendor price. I’m a bit gamble-y (is that a word?); but at that value, well, “…something worthwhile in the Mystic Toilet is worth 2 silver in the hand…” err, or whatever

I’ll explain it more but we should start a new thread if we’re going to keep this topic going.

When all runes can be out into the mystic forge, you will have players attempting to get the more desirable ones such as travelers, scholars, strength, etc. This will cause the prices of the cheaper runes to rise as well as the associated ingredients to craft them (if they’re craftable). The rise in those ingredients will also cause the prices of other items that use them to rise as well. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium similar to conversions of tiered materials.

There’s also the dungeon tokens you ckittene for runes. Even though those runes are soulbound or accountbound (can’t remember), the runes you get will likely not be unless they were hard coded to be so. Many players have an incredible amount of tokens and will use these to try to get other runes. This will create a surplus and drive down the prices of all runes.

John Smith.4610:

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

And by “fantastic and functioning system,” you mean “a system that makes us money.” Your GW2 economy is as broken as the current world debt-based economy on exactly the same levels.
- It has the capacity to generate money from literally nothing.
- It has the capacity to destroy money instantly for no concrete reason in order to curb inflation.
- Most of the wealth and movement of the market is focused into the hands of a select few that often have inside information on upcoming market changes.
- Constant inflation over time eventually drives people to accrue debt (in GW2 this comes in the form of putting real money into the game in order to receive gems; by losing real world money, the player creates a set amount of in-game money from literally nothing) in order to pay for popular and expensive items.

Your economy is about as alive or vibrant as the scene of a middle school science student drawing shapes in a petri dish culture. Nobody fixes it or questions it because it was created with the sole purpose of generating money for NCSoft. I’m not saying that a company that’s making money off of a game that they are producing is bad, but let’s not lie about whether or not the economy of that game is broken or not.

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

So you’re telling me that all along the TP data could have told you guys that people on the official forums could have designed a better GW2 than you guys ever could have dreamed? Seems like a wasted resource to me.

What bothers me is the bottlenecks that are in the system and a good example of this would be with linen. When the game was new there were people through all the zones and therefore all tiers of materials were being harvested. The market showed this quite clearly as the highest tier (area) that people were currently in equated to the highest price on the materials harvested in that area.

Currently there seems to be a lack of people harvesting linen, rugged leather, hardwood or mid tier materials and I would hazard to guess is that many people are skipping these areas and using Tomes of Knowledge and pushing past this point. Linen for example will drop in a 60-70 area such as Fireheart Rise but by that point in time anyone leveling an alt has the resources to skip the area altogether. I know, as I have 9 level 80’s and only 3 have Fireheart Rise mapped.

The more shortcuts that you put in place that allow rapid character progression to level 80 the more upside down the market becomes and it ends up with lower tiered items becoming more costly then higher tiered items.

My suggestion would be to make the drop rates in a given area/zone proportional to the average number of people frequenting that zone. (adjust it monthly)So if the Cursed Shore has on average more people then Frostforge Sound the drop rates for gossamer would be higher in Frostforge. Eventually the map populations would balance out and so would the materials.

Ayrilana.1396:

KarateKid.5648:

Ayrilana.1396:

Serophous.9085:

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for dropping from dungeons, the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

The short answer is that it would crash the market for runes….

I won’t argue the materials part – but crash from what – 2 silver a piece? The ones relevant to the suggestion are already just over vendor price. I’m a bit gamble-y (is that a word?); but at that value, well, “…something worthwhile in the Mystic Toilet is worth 2 silver in the hand…” err, or whatever

I’ll explain it more but we should start a new thread if we’re going to keep this topic going.

When all runes can be out into the mystic forge, you will have players attempting to get the more desirable ones such as travelers, scholars, strength, etc. This will cause the prices of the cheaper runes to rise as well as the associated ingredients to craft them (if they’re craftable). The rise in those ingredients will also cause the prices of other items that use them to rise as well. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium similar to conversions of tiered materials.

There’s also the dungeon tokens you ckittene for runes. Even though those runes are soulbound or accountbound (can’t remember), the runes you get will likely not be unless they were hard coded to be so. Many players have an incredible amount of tokens and will use these to try to get other runes. This will create a surplus and drive down the prices of all runes.

But prices are rising on the rare form of runes and sigils already as people gamble them for the exotic version.

Now, the dungeon tokens, yes, could be hardcoded, just like the exotic trinkets from karma vendors.

Serophous.9085:

Ayrilana.1396:

KarateKid.5648:

Ayrilana.1396:

Serophous.9085:

KarateKid.5648:

Serophous.9085:

I just have one question:

Why isn’t it possible to put superior runes in the mystic forge to gamble? This would at least start using up the lowest priced runes on the market, and allow us to at least try for an unsoulbound rune.

I support this idea.

CAVEAT: I am biased since I flush tons of majors per week – I stand to potentially luck out and gain from it.

EDIT: Doh! He said runes vs. sigils. Echo this question related to sigils, please

I fixed it to support sigils too :p.

As for dropping from dungeons, the same ones drop from the MF too, but are just stuck to the character made on. I just wish I knew why we can’t allow this

The short answer is that it would crash the market for runes….

I won’t argue the materials part – but crash from what – 2 silver a piece? The ones relevant to the suggestion are already just over vendor price. I’m a bit gamble-y (is that a word?); but at that value, well, “…something worthwhile in the Mystic Toilet is worth 2 silver in the hand…” err, or whatever

I’ll explain it more but we should start a new thread if we’re going to keep this topic going.

When all runes can be out into the mystic forge, you will have players attempting to get the more desirable ones such as travelers, scholars, strength, etc. This will cause the prices of the cheaper runes to rise as well as the associated ingredients to craft them (if they’re craftable). The rise in those ingredients will also cause the prices of other items that use them to rise as well. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium similar to conversions of tiered materials.

There’s also the dungeon tokens you ckittene for runes. Even though those runes are soulbound or accountbound (can’t remember), the runes you get will likely not be unless they were hard coded to be so. Many players have an incredible amount of tokens and will use these to try to get other runes. This will create a surplus and drive down the prices of all runes.

But prices are rising on the rare form of runes and sigils already as people gamble them for the exotic version.

Now, the dungeon tokens, yes, could be hardcoded, just like the exotic trinkets from karma vendors.

Wow. That’s twice today that the ______ forum filters have filtered two words where the letters do not make up anything wrong.

Anyway, the prices for the rares could be rising for the same reasons the cheaper superiors would rise. People are trying to get the desirable superior runes. The thing is that this is slightly different than having superior runes being able to be out into the MF. There’s also more I could go in about the components to craft them but I won’t.

They could make it so you can’t put dungeon runes into the forge. The downside is that this won’t balance out the upward movement of prices of runes and related components as people attempt to gamble to get the more desirable runes. If dungeons runes were desirable, eventually prices would stabilize but all runes would be the same price more or less.

I’m not going to comment further than this unless it’s in a new thread. I’m sure John will make a comment, if he hasn’t already, which will either agree or disagree with my theory on why you can’t put superiors into the MF.

KarateKid.5648:

Guhracie.3419:

John Smith.4610:

3. Halloween 2 candy corn sinks. There was an insane amount of candy corn in the world (10’s of billions) and we underestimated the distribution of those materials and cranked up the sinks too high. This made it very difficult to interact with those sinks at all and it didn’t feel good.

I am extremely happy to hear this. Also, this thread is a great read. John Smith really is the most quotable person at ANET, IMO.

‘Specially the "you’re adorable" line.

Someone needs to copy that and quote it back every time Byron says something…

Also, JS is a collective account used by a group of economists because the game is just too big for one person to understand. That’s why he always has time to respond the forum messages…

Swagg.9236:

John Smith.4610:

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

And by “fantastic and functioning system,” you mean “a system that makes us money.” Your GW2 economy is as broken as the current world debt-based economy on exactly the same levels.
- It has the capacity to generate money from literally nothing.
- It has the capacity to destroy money instantly for no concrete reason in order to curb inflation.
- Most of the wealth and movement of the market is focused into the hands of a select few that often have inside information on upcoming market changes.
- Constant inflation over time eventually drives people to accrue debt (in GW2 this comes in the form of putting real money into the game in order to receive gems; by losing real world money, the player creates a set amount of in-game money from literally nothing) in order to pay for popular and expensive items.

Your economy is about as alive or vibrant as the scene of a middle school science student drawing shapes in a petri dish culture. Nobody fixes it or questions it because it was created with the sole purpose of generating money for NCSoft. I’m not saying that a company that’s making money off of a game that they are producing is bad, but let’s not lie about whether or not the economy of that game is broken or not.

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

So you’re telling me that all along the TP data could have told you guys that people on the official forums could have designed a better GW2 than you guys ever could have dreamed? Seems like a wasted resource to me.

Wow…So JS has been lying to us this entire time? And those who understand economics, and game economics, who can accuratly deduce whats going on in the in-game economy don’t know what they are about? or are lying to us as well? Just wow….

The only part of this I will comment on is: " Constant inflation over time eventually drives people to accrue debt (in GW2 this comes in the form of putting real money into the game in order to receive gems; by losing real world money, the player creates a set amount of in-game money from literally nothing) in order to pay for popular and expensive items"

Gold bought with gems bought with real world money is not created from nothing. It’s been discussed at length many times, but I’ll summerize it for you. Gold bought from gems is finite. There is a pool of gems, and a pool of gold, that was established from the very beginning of the game just for gold/gem conversion. Everytime you purchase gems and convert to gold, you add gems to the pool, and remove gold from the pool. Gold is not created from nothing using gems. It’s already there.

tolunart.2095:

KarateKid.5648:

Guhracie.3419:

John Smith.4610:

3. Halloween 2 candy corn sinks. There was an insane amount of candy corn in the world (10’s of billions) and we underestimated the distribution of those materials and cranked up the sinks too high. This made it very difficult to interact with those sinks at all and it didn’t feel good.

I am extremely happy to hear this. Also, this thread is a great read. John Smith really is the most quotable person at ANET, IMO.

‘Specially the "you’re adorable" line.

…Also, JS is a collective…

Oh no, they’ve gotten to even the formerly-capitalist JS!

Nice thread. Some questions!

• Could we see recipe changes in the future? For example, silk bolt and weaving recipe being nerfed, or leather recipes being buffed. I’m not discussing current recipes, just if there’s any chance for some of them to change in the future, more radically than the silk bolt and leather square change from 2 scraps to 3, or even towards lower requirements.
• Would it be viable to let us recycle composite crafting materials? There’s some of these, like bronze helmets, that have a ridiculous supply and price, and there’s no real way of getting rid of them, we’re talking about millions in some cases, and growing.
• Medallions and co. are useless. Why don’t transform them into inscriptions, and use them for crafting?
• Aren’t you worried about situations where a lower tier material is more expensive than their higher tier counterparts? Why not implement fixed conversion recipes for basic and fine materials, to maintain prices and value appreciation? (Rare materials, like shard, cores and lodestones already have fixed 2->1 recipes) While some of these materials can be farmed easily by going to their level zones and gathering their nodes, others like cloth and leather can’t be farmed as easily.
• What leads you and the team to add so many accountbound recipes? Isn’t it bad for the economy? Wouldn’t it be better for the market for there to be trade?
• Why can’t silver doubloons be forged with a fixed recipe, while gold and platinum can? Why can’t doubloons be crafted anyway?
• Are accountbound crafting disciplines viable? Most people have crafting disciplines divided across different characters anyway, and never switch crafting disciplines in a single character.
• Will we ever see Chef and Jeweler level 500?
• Could you tell us anything about the unused ascended material, Crystalline Ore? :P

Edited for clarity, looking forward official answers if possible

Conncept.7638:

Now wait, what metrics do you have on players economic satisfaction? Because every single night I play some amount of guild, map, and even WvW chat is taken up by long conversations bemoaning the economy and how they don’t feel the game rewards anything for anyone but those with god-like amounts of dumb luck or nothing else in their lives to spend any of their time on.

I know you probably have the numbers and the know-how to claim and even likely prove that the game is in a good economic state, from an economic perspective; but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective. Because as someone who plays the game, I can say that not only my but a whole lot of players experience shows there to be a sizable portion of the playerbase’ whose most positive view on the economy are ‘at least they’re not sucking me dry with a monthly fee’.

John is not a psychologist. That said, while player satisfaction is an important component of video game success, attempting to provide human beings with the experience that, “This game gives me enough.” is a losing proposition from an economic and psychological perspective. A company could thoroughly ruin its game’s economy, and people would still want more.

John, does Anet ever take an active role on the TP buy purchasing items that are in excess to bolster prices or does it only add new sinks for those materials and let nature take it’s course, so to speak?

Does it take an active role on the Gem Exchange either through tweaking the gold or gem amounts or by modifying the algorithm that determines the exchange rate?

Three questions:

• Was it always intended that the game should offer asymmetric data on the custom offer screens? e.g. buyers can see competitive offers, but sellers can only see the highest WTB and lowest WTS.
• Post-wardrobe, did ANet intend it to be difficult to recover runes and sigils from equipment? Similarly, is it an oversight that some gear can’t be forged due to its source? For example, you can forge but not salvage karma-bought armor and you can’t even forge badge-bought armor.
• A recent patch made some changes to the mystic forge output for L75+ average gear inputs. You stated at the time that you thought we’d be pleased with the results. Have you been?

Lonami.2987:

Nice thread. Some questions!

• Could we see recipe changes in the future? For example, silk bolt and weaving recipe being nerfed, or leather recipes being buffed.
  JS already stated in this topic that the bolt of silk change was not an accident. They also already implemented some measures to balance out the prices for Elonian Leather and Bolt of Damask. 1 example is the gift of Blades recipes which is craftable by all the armor professions and added supply of cloth during the LA events.
• Would it be viable to let us recycle composite crafting materials? There’s some of these, like bronze helmets, that have a ridiculous supply and price.
  Craft Helmets and salvage them.
• Medallions and co. are useless. Why don’t transform them into inscriptions, and use them for crafting?
  I agree that they should have a new sink introduced for them. However, in the past, many changes have been introduced to move items away from vendor value, so we could see one for this as well
• Aren’t you worried about situations where a lower tier material is more expensive than their higher tier counterparts? Why not implement fixed conversion recipes for basic and fine materials, to maintain prices and value appreciation? (Rare materials, like shard, cores and lodestones already have fixed 2->1 recipes)
  If lower tier mats are more expensive, it gives players incentives to go into those zones and farm them. It also gives new players, a way to earn more gold while leveling their first character. I would say its working as intended and serves its purpose.
• What leads you and the team to add so many accountbound recipes? Isn’t it bad for the economy? Wouldn’t it be better for the market for there to be trade?
  Many players appreciate rewards that are only obtainable by finishing content and not purchaseable with gold and many players would like to sell those rewards to boost their income. Anet has to find a middle ground to cater t both groups of players. So they introduce Ley Line Weapons which are tradeable and Ambrite Weapons, which arent.
• Why can’t silver doubloons be forged, while gold and platinum can? Why can’t doubloons be crafted anyway?
  Silver Doubloons can also be forged with t1 and t2 gem stones. Gold Doubloons can actually be crafted as well (from 2 Silver Doubloons and 1 Shimmering Dust), though the other 3 Doubloons cant be crafted.
• Is accountbound crafting viable? Most people have crafting disciplines divided across different characters anyway.
  Why shouldnt it be viable? I think the main reason for some crafted items to be account bound is to prevent you from trading it.
• Will we ever see Chef and Jeweler level 500?
  Yes, at some point.
• Could you tell us anything about the unused ascended material, Crystalline Ore?
  He propably can but he wont.

Try to keep it at 1 question at a time, i answered some of yours in bold text.

Hi John.

I think this will be a wall of text, but I’d be happy if you took the time to read it and maybe give some answers.

I’ve come to amass some thoughts about cloth(bolts and scraps) and given by one of your previous posts in this topic, at least for silk the curent situation seems to be intended.
Mostly those thoughts arose in the time I crafted the ascended armor for my main character and reflected over my playtime so far.
I kinda like the fractals and to surpass the lvl40-border the additional infusion-slots are neccessary, so I’ll expand on ascended armor too.

In order to advance faster with the armor, I delved a small step into the trading post, took some notes and observed a bit.
In all honesty, I tend to have a gag-reflex when dealing with economics to this extend and it’s one of the aspects of my rl-work I hate the most. Don’t take this as a judging of your work, though.

I’ve read that you intended fot the prices for crafting mats to rise, so that new players get more reward when they want to sell their gatherings.
However, isn’t that a two-edged sword?
Let me explain what I mean.
I would count myself to the people who like crafting. When the game launched my friends and I each chose a crafting profession so we could supply us with the gear everyone of us needed. The crafting system of GW2 is one of the most fun systems I encountered so far, but I don’t see new players crafting their own gear with the current prices of the TP.
For new players buying gear is(financially) way more efficient than crafting it yourself.

Apart from this, I’d like to ask about the economical planning regarding ascended crafting. Namely, the cloth.
You mentioned that the current situation for silk is no accident.
Every profession needs damask. Given my experiences with the trip into the trading post, cloth is the most expensive. Damask is listed for pretty solid 15 gold per piece.
Aside from the six insignias/18 bolts of damask every set needs, the requirement of damask is:
-7 bolts for a set of heavy armor (25 total)
-6 bolts for a set of medium armor (24 total)
-18 bolts for a set of light armor (36 total)
I’m not complaining that endgame-content needs time and a little bit of dedication to achieve, but differing by profession?
I don’t mean to be offending, but I’m really clueless so: What is the intention behind this?
For me it seems a lot of work has gone into the professions being equally powerful in pvp and that (while it can be helpful) no profession is needed for any of the content in pve like dungeons or fractals, so I’m a little bit lost here.
I’m not asking to relay secret information of the game-design, but I’d be happy to get an insight into how that decision came to be.

tekfan.3179:

wall of text

The ratios of cloth/metal/leather being used by each armor profession have been there before ascended crafting got introduced. I understand that light armor classes feel shafted by its current implementation but for about a year they were able to craft light rare and exotic armor for a way cheaper price than heavy armor users could craft theirs because silk/gossamer was way cheaper than mithril/orichalcum.

Cutting the bolt of silk requirements from 100 to 50 wouldnt neccessarily fix this dilemma. It would shortly cut 4g from the overall price but that would result in more people crafting bolts of damask, which would add demand for Wool, Cotton and Linen as well, which all would rise in price. Right now people are willing to 15g per bolt of damask, and they will be willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask after you half the costs for silk. The added value would come from the t2-4 mats.
I think the requirement of 100 bolts of silk (compared to 50 mithril ingots for example) is more a testament of the ratio, new silk is introduced to the economy compared to t2-4 cloth.
Apart from ascended crafting, silk has very little sinks, while mithril has because it is used by 5 professions and also has a huge sink by crafting rare weapons to forge into precursors.

KarateKid.5648:

tolunart.2095

…Also, JS is a collective…

Oh no, they’ve gotten to even the formerly-capitalist JS!

Resistance is futile…

Wanze.8410:

tekfan.3179:

wall of text

The ratios of cloth/metal/leather being used by each armor profession have been there before ascended crafting got introduced. I understand that light armor classes feel shafted by its current implementation but for about a year they were able to craft light rare and exotic armor for a way cheaper price than heavy armor users could craft theirs because silk/gossamer was way cheaper than mithril/orichalcum.

Cutting the bolt of silk requirements from 100 to 50 wouldnt neccessarily fix this dilemma. It would shortly cut 4g from the overall price but that would result in more people crafting bolts of damask, which would add demand for Wool, Cotton and Linen as well, which all would rise in price. Right now people are willing to 15g per bolt of damask, and they will be willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask after you half the costs for silk. The added value would come from the t2-4 mats.
I think the requirement of 100 bolts of silk (compared to 50 mithril ingots for example) is more a testament of the ratio, new silk is introduced to the economy compared to t2-4 cloth.
Apart from ascended crafting, silk has very little sinks, while mithril has because it is used by 5 professions and also has a huge sink by crafting rare weapons to forge into precursors.

this is not neccessarily true, part of the cost is represented will be effected by increased supply, as well as the difficulty of not buying it. With only 50 silks, some would opt out of buying it. 50 silks in a day is annoying but doable, 100 is totally different. The decrease in demand, and increase in supply, would like likely lower the cost

its possible that decreasing the cost, could incentivize new buyers, but its pretty hard to predict that reliably before it happens.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

tekfan.3179:

wall of text

The ratios of cloth/metal/leather being used by each armor profession have been there before ascended crafting got introduced. I understand that light armor classes feel shafted by its current implementation but for about a year they were able to craft light rare and exotic armor for a way cheaper price than heavy armor users could craft theirs because silk/gossamer was way cheaper than mithril/orichalcum.

Cutting the bolt of silk requirements from 100 to 50 wouldnt neccessarily fix this dilemma. It would shortly cut 4g from the overall price but that would result in more people crafting bolts of damask, which would add demand for Wool, Cotton and Linen as well, which all would rise in price. Right now people are willing to 15g per bolt of damask, and they will be willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask after you half the costs for silk. The added value would come from the t2-4 mats.
I think the requirement of 100 bolts of silk (compared to 50 mithril ingots for example) is more a testament of the ratio, new silk is introduced to the economy compared to t2-4 cloth.
Apart from ascended crafting, silk has very little sinks, while mithril has because it is used by 5 professions and also has a huge sink by crafting rare weapons to forge into precursors.

this is not neccessarily true, part of the cost is represented will be effected by increased supply, as well as the difficulty of not buying it. With only 50 silks, some would opt out of buying it. 50 silks in a day is annoying but doable, 100 is totally different. The decrease in demand, and increase in supply, would like likely lower the cost

its possible that decreasing the cost, could incentivize new buyers, but its pretty hard to predict that reliably before it happens.

I am not denying that a change to 50 silk bolts might even lower its price but in your scenario you totally disregard the added demand to wool, cotton and linen.
If someone only crafted a bolt of damask every 2nd day because he only got 150 silk scraps per day, we is now able to craft one every day. But by doing so, his demand for wool, cotton and linen doubles at the same time.

Thanks for all the feedback John.

I edited my OP to summarize the questions that have been answered and linked the answers.

Some questions triggered discussions between players, which isnt neccessarily bad but we should keep it to a minimum in this topic. If you would like to discuss certain questions (or answers) in more detail, please open a new topic about it.

Some tips on how to post a good question:

• Start your post with QUESTION:, its will be easier to spot and distinguish from other posts
• Keep your question short, while allowing a long and interesting answer
• Try to keep your personal opinion about matters to yourself. This topic is primarily to get to know JS opinion and point of view on matters, not yours.

Also keep in mind that its weekend now and most propably, no questions will be answered until at least Monday/Tuesday.

I am not entirely sure, but i think Devs can see upvoted posts. So I think it might be a good idea, to give a +1 to a question you would like to see answered. That way, JS can focus on the most popular ones.

Thanks all for participating.

2. When looking at inflation I use a large bundle of common goods
(the bundle changes depending on the time frame and the game state). I never use super-rare items or anything involving gems.

From the outside, it seems as if you don’t care about the price of high value super rare items. what would it take to get you to care, and to adjust supplies to more accurately meet demand and reduce the prices to more convenient levels for those players who want those items and cannot afford them?

I’m curious about the intention behind building tiers of materials where there’s a big imbalance in the desirability of material in that tier. I had a strong suspicion that this design was intentional given that we’ve seen it with charged lodestones, and then blood vials, and now silk. It’s an irritating design, but reward and drop design isn’t really a question John can answer.

So I have two questions: firstly, what does the market look like for things like lodestones that aren’t charged, where the drops are fairly rare but the biggest outputs are superior runes? What is the volatility and velocity in this market like, and is this profile – rare but kinda useless – the kind of thing that gets looked at when designing new sinks?

Secondly, are conversions within a tier something that’s desirable from an economic standpoint? Like, if you fed some totems and, say, bloodstone dust and skill points into the mystic forge, and got out blood vials, would that on balance make things better or worse?

Ohoni.6057:

2. When looking at inflation I use a large bundle of common goods
(the bundle changes depending on the time frame and the game state). I never use super-rare items or anything involving gems.

From the outside, it seems as if you don’t care about the price of high value super rare items. what would it take to get you to care, and to adjust supplies to more accurately meet demand and reduce the prices to more convenient levels for those players who want those items and cannot afford them?

I dont want to steer the discussion towards precursors again but their price inflation can be measured and taken into consideration without actually including them into the bundle of goods, by including mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, which are the main ingredients for rare weapons, which are used to forge precursors.
Especially the price inflation for fine t5 mats, is very close to that of precursors.

Wanze.8410:

Lonami.2987:

Nice thread. Some questions!

• Could we see recipe changes in the future? For example, silk bolt and weaving recipe being nerfed, or leather recipes being buffed.
  JS already stated in this topic that the bolt of silk change was not an accident. They also already implemented some measures to balance out the prices for Elonian Leather and Bolt of Damask. 1 example is the gift of Blades recipes which is craftable by all the armor professions and added supply of cloth during the LA events.
• Would it be viable to let us recycle composite crafting materials? There’s some of these, like bronze helmets, that have a ridiculous supply and price.
  Craft Helmets and salvage them.
• Medallions and co. are useless. Why don’t transform them into inscriptions, and use them for crafting?
  I agree that they should have a new sink introduced for them. However, in the past, many changes have been introduced to move items away from vendor value, so we could see one for this as well
• Aren’t you worried about situations where a lower tier material is more expensive than their higher tier counterparts? Why not implement fixed conversion recipes for basic and fine materials, to maintain prices and value appreciation? (Rare materials, like shard, cores and lodestones already have fixed 2->1 recipes)
  If lower tier mats are more expensive, it gives players incentives to go into those zones and farm them. It also gives new players, a way to earn more gold while leveling their first character. I would say its working as intended and serves its purpose.
• What leads you and the team to add so many accountbound recipes? Isn’t it bad for the economy? Wouldn’t it be better for the market for there to be trade?
  Many players appreciate rewards that are only obtainable by finishing content and not purchaseable with gold and many players would like to sell those rewards to boost their income. Anet has to find a middle ground to cater t both groups of players. So they introduce Ley Line Weapons which are tradeable and Ambrite Weapons, which arent.
• Why can’t silver doubloons be forged, while gold and platinum can? Why can’t doubloons be crafted anyway?
  Silver Doubloons can also be forged with t1 and t2 gem stones. Gold Doubloons can actually be crafted as well (from 2 Silver Doubloons and 1 Shimmering Dust), though the other 3 Doubloons cant be crafted.
• Is accountbound crafting viable? Most people have crafting disciplines divided across different characters anyway.
  Why shouldnt it be viable? I think the main reason for some crafted items to be account bound is to prevent you from trading it.
• Will we ever see Chef and Jeweler level 500?
  Yes, at some point.
• Could you tell us anything about the unused ascended material, Crystalline Ore?
  He propably can but he wont.

Try to keep it at 1 question at a time, i answered some of yours in bold text.

You didn’t really answer anything, don’t dismiss my questions and let him answer them if he wishes to.

Try to keep your personal opinion about matters to yourself. This topic is primarily to get to know JS opinion and point of view on matters, not yours.

No point at making 9 different posts for <20 word questions, either :/.

Lonami.2987:

Wanze.8410:

Lonami.2987:

Nice thread. Some questions!

• Could we see recipe changes in the future? For example, silk bolt and weaving recipe being nerfed, or leather recipes being buffed.
  JS already stated in this topic that the bolt of silk change was not an accident. They also already implemented some measures to balance out the prices for Elonian Leather and Bolt of Damask. 1 example is the gift of Blades recipes which is craftable by all the armor professions and added supply of cloth during the LA events.
• Would it be viable to let us recycle composite crafting materials? There’s some of these, like bronze helmets, that have a ridiculous supply and price.
  Craft Helmets and salvage them.
• Medallions and co. are useless. Why don’t transform them into inscriptions, and use them for crafting?
  I agree that they should have a new sink introduced for them. However, in the past, many changes have been introduced to move items away from vendor value, so we could see one for this as well
• Aren’t you worried about situations where a lower tier material is more expensive than their higher tier counterparts? Why not implement fixed conversion recipes for basic and fine materials, to maintain prices and value appreciation? (Rare materials, like shard, cores and lodestones already have fixed 2->1 recipes)
  If lower tier mats are more expensive, it gives players incentives to go into those zones and farm them. It also gives new players, a way to earn more gold while leveling their first character. I would say its working as intended and serves its purpose.
• What leads you and the team to add so many accountbound recipes? Isn’t it bad for the economy? Wouldn’t it be better for the market for there to be trade?
  Many players appreciate rewards that are only obtainable by finishing content and not purchaseable with gold and many players would like to sell those rewards to boost their income. Anet has to find a middle ground to cater t both groups of players. So they introduce Ley Line Weapons which are tradeable and Ambrite Weapons, which arent.
• Why can’t silver doubloons be forged, while gold and platinum can? Why can’t doubloons be crafted anyway?
  Silver Doubloons can also be forged with t1 and t2 gem stones. Gold Doubloons can actually be crafted as well (from 2 Silver Doubloons and 1 Shimmering Dust), though the other 3 Doubloons cant be crafted.
• Is accountbound crafting viable? Most people have crafting disciplines divided across different characters anyway.
  Why shouldnt it be viable? I think the main reason for some crafted items to be account bound is to prevent you from trading it.
• Will we ever see Chef and Jeweler level 500?
  Yes, at some point.
• Could you tell us anything about the unused ascended material, Crystalline Ore?
  He propably can but he wont.

Try to keep it at 1 question at a time, i answered some of yours in bold text.

You didn’t really answer anything, don’t dismiss my questions and let him answer them if he wishes to.

Try to keep your personal opinion about matters to yourself. This topic is primarily to get to know JS opinion and point of view on matters, not yours.

No point at making 9 different posts for <20 word questions, either :/.

If I would have dismissed your questions, i wouldnt have tried to answer them and i never suggested for JS to not answer them.

My statement about keeping your (or my) personal opinion to ourselves was meant for when we articulate our questions, not when trying to answer other peoples questions.

I dont know how closely you follow this forum but some questions that came up have already been answered by him in other topics, so I dont see why other player shouldnt chip in and link that response for example, or a thread where that issue has been discussed. On some things, for example your last question about Crystalline Ore, he simply is not allowed to comment.

Also, why not post 1 question at a time, so he can answer questions from multiple players? Just pick the one you are most interested in hearing an answer to and next week, post another one.

Hi John!

Cool idea, would love to hear some of your experiences when creating the BLTP

Can you explain how you started designing the BLTP when approached by Anet? Like how big was/is your team, how many variants and iterations did you come up with and how different were they? Did you have to change some aspects that make perfect sense economically but didn’t fit lore?
If there have been others, what were the alternative names for the BLTP?
How many hours aprox did you spend working with sound engineers & audio artists?
How much gold do you have in game?

Angel’s post was really interesting

//edit
@Wanze
Questions aren’t about the current economy, still fits the spirit of the thread I hope. More than one because I don’t want a specific answer.

Wanze.8410:

If I would have dismissed your questions, i wouldnt have tried to answer them and i never suggested for JS to not answer them.

My statement about keeping your (or my) personal opinion to ourselves was meant for when we articulate our questions, not when trying to answer other peoples questions.

I dont know how closely you follow this forum but some questions that came up have already been answered by him in other topics, so I dont see why other player shouldnt chip in and link that response for example, or a thread where that issue has been discussed. On some things, for example your last question about Crystalline Ore, he simply is not allowed to comment.

Also, why not post 1 question at a time, so he can answer questions from multiple players? Just pick the one you are most interested in hearing an answer to and next week, post another one.

No disrespect, but half your answers were your plain opinion, and the others didn’t answer to my question (Like the first one, your answer has nothing to do with the question, or the 7th one, where I’m talking about accountbound crafting and you reply about accountbound items).

I’m going to edit them for clarity just in case, but I think they’re pretty clear.

Lonami.2987:

Wanze.8410:

If I would have dismissed your questions, i wouldnt have tried to answer them and i never suggested for JS to not answer them.

My statement about keeping your (or my) personal opinion to ourselves was meant for when we articulate our questions, not when trying to answer other peoples questions.

I dont know how closely you follow this forum but some questions that came up have already been answered by him in other topics, so I dont see why other player shouldnt chip in and link that response for example, or a thread where that issue has been discussed. On some things, for example your last question about Crystalline Ore, he simply is not allowed to comment.

Also, why not post 1 question at a time, so he can answer questions from multiple players? Just pick the one you are most interested in hearing an answer to and next week, post another one.

No disrespect, but half your answers were your plain opinion, and the others didn’t answer to my question (Like the first one, your answer has nothing to do with the question, or the 7th one, where I’m talking about accountbound crafting and you reply about accountbound items).

I’m going to edit them for clarity just in case, but I think they’re pretty clear.

Of course they are my personal opinion unless i quote a post from someone else to answer it. Some of your questions ask him to reveal planned changes to certain items, which he simply isnt allowed to comment on to prevent market shocks (Question 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9).

About question 7, it seems i misinterpreted your question. If you mean, why crafting progression isnt account but character bound, here is my opinion about that:
If Crafting progression would be account bound, it would mean you can only level each craft once per account. Many people use crafting to gain experience to level alts.
I think its a feature that many people appreciate and it also keeps demand high for lower tier crafting materials. While lower tier common mats have a sink in end game ascended crafting, fine and rare crafting mats would loose alot of demand from those players that decide to rather invest gold to gain levels. This would result in alot of value loss to those mats and in consequence mean that new players, who level their first character would get alot less value from their loot.

Hi Wanze, I know you mean well, but try and let John do the answering. The thread is inflating rapidly and as you said yourself, we need to keep this short and manageable for him/her. Thank you!

Buttercup.5871:

Hi Wanze, I know you mean well, but try and let John do the answering. The thread is inflating rapidly and as you said yourself, we need to keep this short and manageable for him/her. Thank you!

Well, i hope we are still in the early stages of this topic and I am still trying to give tips on how to best post your questions in order to get an answer from JS. When I am picking on questions/posts that already have been posted, its not to undermine the possibility of them being answered by JS but I try to show why the layout/format/intent of the question makes it harder to answer for him.

Michael Walker.8150:

Hi John!

Cool idea, would love to hear some of your experiences when creating the BLTP

Can you explain how you started designing the BLTP when approached by Anet? Like how big was/is your team, how many variants and iterations did you come up with and how different were they? Did you have to change some aspects that make perfect sense economically but didn’t fit lore?
If there have been others, what were the alternative names for the BLTP?
How many hours aprox did you spend working with sound engineers & audio artists?
How much gold do you have in game?

Angel’s post was really interesting

//edit
@Wanze
Questions aren’t about the current economy, still fits the spirit of the thread I hope. More than one because I don’t want a specific answer.

No, i think its actually quite a good post, even though its some more questions than one. I am quite interested in some of the answers as well, so you get a +1 from me.
Sometimes it makes sense to post some more questions in one post, if they all are related (which most of yours are) and are more or less able to be answered in one fluid post.

I agree that Angels Post was very interesting and i think Dev feedback like that (and JS answers in here) go a long way wit hthe community.
Recently, Technical Designer Anthony Ordon commented on the Defiance Mechanic in this post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-logic-of-Defiance/page/2#post4188516

While i dont really care about that mechanic because it doesnt affect my gameplay much, i think it was also a well written post.

John Smith.4610:

[…]
3. Halloween 2 candy corn sinks. There was an insane amount of candy corn in the world (10’s of billions) and we underestimated the distribution of those materials and cranked up the sinks too high. This made it very difficult to interact with those sinks at all and it didn’t feel good.

You don’t say. That was one of the worst cases. Instead a sink for stuff, it was just something else that made the ones with the most stuff get even more stuff, and the rest of the players just watch in the sidelines, as only those who already had lots of gold or candy corn could even think about affording anything. Time-gated legendaries Instead something extra to go for during Halloween.

The festival of the four winds had a really nice sink for all the tokens. You could get many of the items without grinding way too much, a bit more if you grinded, but not way too much, an once you had everything, there was the the materials to keep sinking them.

I think that’s the way. I decent list of guaranteed rewards to aim for, then small useful items like materials and some random sink to spend the rest “aimlessly”. Both things combined compel people to spend the stuff.

QUESTION:

About that drunk Drooburt, Vol actually asked an interesting question in another topic, so i just gonna quote it here:

I can’t be the only one around here that is curious to see how much gold Drooburt took from players?

Can we get an official response on how much gold he took from us, JS? I wouldn’t call Drooburt a scammer, but I feel miffed that he took my gold and dropped dead.

And if you can as well, I’m interested to hear how much gold Robotron took from us during the Pavillion event. If TTS pavillion runs are an indication, Lion’s Arch should no longer look like a pirate haven and more like Divinity’s Reach…

Would be nice to get some background info on why gold sinks that trigger an event (Robotron) and gold sinks that do absolutely nothing (Drooburt) are implemented and if they actually have any significant impact.

Relevant data to the cloth discussion I suppose:
Current cost:
Damask 15g
Elonian Leather 2g
Deldrimoor Steel 3.66g.

Cost for armor, only counting the cloth/leather/metal parts
Light: 552 gold
Medium: 396 gold
Heavy: 434 gold

Light armor is 39% more expensive than Medium
and 27% more expensive than Heavy.

Heavy is 10% more expensive than Medium.

Not sure if this goes with this thread but :

And what about the loot drops in WvW for support builds?
I play a water ele, I spend most of my time giving water field and spamming skill #1 which has a chance to heal, as well as water sigil.

Whilst hearing everyone else say “OMG look at all my loot”, I barely have any loot at all!
So there I am keeping people alive for longer to get more loot for themselves, whilst I’ve spent all that effort to keep them alive for scraps, if I’m lucky! Seems rather unfair.

Mikuchan.7261:

Relevant data to the cloth discussion I suppose:
Current cost:
Damask 15g
Elonian Leather 2g
Deldrimoor Steel 3.66g.

Cost for armor, only counting the cloth/leather/metal parts
Light: 552 gold
Medium: 396 gold
Heavy: 434 gold

Light armor is 39% more expensive than Medium
and 27% more expensive than Heavy.

Heavy is 10% more expensive than Medium.

Buy prices are not necessarily the true price of what they are selling for. I could buy up all the dusks and re-list them for 5k. It doesn’t mean that that is the new price for them. For damask, you can craft it for about 60% of the cost if you have patience.

For the rest, I suggest taking it to an already existing thread that is discussing this topic.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Why-the-double-Standard-on-Silk/first#post4187138

Just one point I’d like to make since a lot of this seems to be focusing on the prices of cloth: A lot of people don’t seem to realize that, at least Wool and Linen, can be “printed” cheaper than you can buy them on the TP.

By “printing”, I mean, you can buy cloth armor from some of the fixed level armor-smiths in the world, then toss them into the forge and salvage what comes out.

I’ve done this quite a few times with a character with ~120 item inventory: Fill up my bags with either lvl 15 or lvl 45 cloth chest pieces, throw them all into the forge, salvage them, refine them into bolts, sell them on the TP. Even with the TP tax and listing fee, I usually make somewhere between 80s – 1.5g.

Yes, throwing all these into the forge is a pain. My point though, is that inflation for some items shouldn’t be a concern, because some of these items have built-in mechanisms for equalizing their price.

Conncept.7638:

I know you probably have the numbers and the know-how to claim and even likely prove that the game is in a good economic state, from an economic perspective; but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective. Because as someone who plays the game, I can say that not only my but a whole lot of players experience shows there to be a sizable portion of the playerbase’ whose most positive view on the economy are ‘at least they’re not sucking me dry with a monthly fee’.

I could hazard to guess that there is a way to do this without necessarily polling the community. Honestly, I could be the most aggressively and negatively vocal about the in-game economy but if data shows that I’m able to buy off the TP while my gold is still increasing, I manage to switch out to different playstyles in a session (e.g. gathering, doing pvp, doing WvW, doing dungeons), my APs increase on a regular basis, I’m doing the Living Story, I’m logging on a daily basis, and other behavioral indicators that I am interacting with the affordances (designed gameplay experiences) in-game, then chances are I am relatively happy with the way things are going.

Since you’ve mentioned that “silk wasn’t an accident”, I’d love to know some of the reasoning behind that. When you say you want to add volatility, I’m very curious as to what the benefits are to putting an immense amount of demand stress on to a specific commodity. Doing so effected the price of all cloth (except jute), since Damask is so profitable to craft. However, it is more than triple the price of other ascended materials and all cloth is at least twice as expensive as its counterparts. it’s been terrible for newbs who want to level up their armor related crafting. I don’t understand the need for the imbalance so I’d love some illumination.

On a related note, is there an economic reason why superior runes and sigils are not able to be put into the mystic forge? Adding a mystic forge recipe would help equalize the prices of all of the superior runes, adding value to the, well, crappy ones and adding supply to whichever ones are currently en vogue. Was this inequality something else that was planned and if so, why?