Guild Wars 2

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

Ashen.2907:

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

Meanwhile, players who enjoy pvp, who enjoy wvw or who enjoy simple map exploration are not as well rewarded, which will get improved upon, while dungeons are giving too much and are going to be nerfed.

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons

Is the intention to reduce targeted liquid gold earning, or are you putting that liquid somewhere else thats targetable?

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?

do you see players seeking to earn main methods being through open world and tp trading

John, would you be able to answer (1)if the dungeon rewards are just being brought in line with other content (namely future content), or if it’s going further than that? (2)Also, was there any discussion about the rate of dungeon token earnings with this change?

Edit for clarity:

1. Mostly, are the rewards going to become far inferior to future fractals/open world, or will it be a small nerf to even them up?

2.You’ve said the dungeon token rate is staying the same, was there any discussion about increasing the amount of tokens you get per run to go along with the gold reduction?

Howdy John! Any plans to reduce the amount of bolts of silk required for crafting spools of silk weaving thread?

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

What incentives will players have to run dungeons after these changes go live? The entire game is based around doing what gets you to your goal fastest, and as of right now gold is the end-all-beat-all. If dungeons do not bring players to this goal, what incentive is there to play them?

As of right now if you play a dungeon you will get some gold, but the increase will be nowhere near that of farming the Silverwastes. The only reason to run dungeons is if you want the skins for armor/weapons. However, that goal isn’t as expansive as the pursuit of pure gold. Is ArenaNet aware of this disconnect here, and how they may be making finding a dungeon party immensely more difficult?

How do you suggest I find a group that is willing to participate in part of the game that will give you subpar rewards, just so I can get some weapon or armor skins? You need to pay close attention to a major aspect of psychology: When a player feels as if they’re actively wasting time participating in content, then something has failed utterly in the design of that content.

You never want players to feel as if they’re wasting time, and if you just nerf dungeons without adding any compensation for that nerf, then you’re going to severely hinder members of your community. There just needs to be some incentive for players to play this content, or else just remove it entirely and allow other means of getting this content. (Forcing players to PvP for the skins, by the way, is a bad idea. Leaves a sour taste in their mouths when it was originally PvE, and then you pull the rug out from under their feet).

I’m okay with reducing the gold output of dungeons, but I’m not okay with reducing the value of playing dungeons. Replace parts of the gold with T6 materials, lodestones, or something that matters to someone and can be sold to recoup some of the value. Don’t just take away the gold and give it nothing in return. A number of people play dungeons because they’re valuable even in spite of how old and unsupported they are; reducing their value will move those people elsewhere and that’s not good.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Ashen.2907:

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

Meanwhile, players who enjoy pvp, who enjoy wvw or who enjoy simple map exploration are not as well rewarded, which will get improved upon, while dungeons are giving too much and are going to be nerfed.

Dungeon running is not the most profitable activity by far. It simply generates gold better.
Time spent in orr or silverwastes or dry top(used to be) playing the tp, in eotm, in champ trains.

Earned more money.

Also every task required time. There for having good sources of earning in other content is all that is required.
If you have 3 hours a day and there are a bunch of tasks you choose the one you like the most. Removing one task doesnt make something else reward more

John Smith.4610:

Swagger.1459:

Howdy John! Any plans to reduce the amount of bolts of silk required for crafting spools of silk weaving thread?

Nope

Ok, thanks for the speedy reply!

I don’t understand the nerf to dungeon rewards, they were already like 4th or 5th on the gold/hour scale behind other methods such kitten chest farm.

Does the reward team even understand how to hand out rewards properly? People already flock to what is profitable (eg. world bosses, SW chest, dungeons) and ignore content that isn’t profitable. Rather than nerf dungeons they should have addressed the paltry rewards in open world events not killing off what little incentive there was to do dungeons.

If things like SW chest farm aren’t addressed then this just looks like ANet trying to shoehorn people into doing raids by making dungeons undesirable.

John Smith.4610:

Q.
So It seemed like in the blog post that you are trying to put more power in the hand of the buyers. Can you elaborate on that?
Would it be unreasonable to take this as this is a move against market manipulation by giving players more means to directly obtain materials that otherwise relied on RNG? Making things like the supply of lodestones and fine materials harder to control.

A.
The decision is higher level than that. We aren’t attacking anyone, we’re just adding the option to put some certainty in your rewards. This also adds resistance to items becoming too scarce and too valuable. If item X were to become super popular because of a LW release or something similar, players have the option to farm more item X rather than the option to attempt to compete with prices that have risen too far.

So I should be able to farm some power cores in HoT for my spinal blade back pack and not have to pay 20 gold each for the 10 blue power cores I need? That would be great for me. Will HoT be bringing back old items like power cores?

Is the Laurel vendor going to get HoT specific crafting bags for sale? Many people use laurels for T6 mats, should I be saving my laurels for an easy way to get HoT specific T6 mats?

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

Sir,

I disagree. My point does not fall under the false dilemma fallacy.

Hypothetically, If one’s primary interest in playing the game, that which one actually enjoys doing the most, has its income reduced then, in order to maintain the same level of income, without increasing one’s play time, one would need to reduce one’s time spent in one’s preferred content in order to play more lucrative (but less enjoyable), content.

The developer made the decisions for the dungeon income nerf either with full knowledge that some players enjoy dungeons, even to a degree that they prefer them over other content. The decision to nerf is intentional and is being made in the full knowledge of its impact on those who prefer dungeons over other content. That does not make the nerf malicious, but it is intentional.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the individual(s) who made the decision were unaware that there are players who enjoy, prefer, GW2’s dungeons over other content. I freely admit that I did not take this possibility into consideration when making my previous point because, at the time, It did not occur to me that such an oversight was possible if the decision itself had been at all discussed or given reasonable consideration.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m okay with reducing the gold output of dungeons, but I’m not okay with reducing the value of playing dungeons. Replace parts of the gold with T6 materials, lodestones, or something that matters to someone and can be sold to recoup some of the value. Don’t just take away the gold and give it nothing in return. A number of people play dungeons because they’re valuable even in spite of how old and unsupported they are; reducing their value will move those people elsewhere and that’s not good.

He answered that in mines, they dont want dungeons to be as desired an activity regardless

Averath.6283:

What incentives will players have to run dungeons after these changes go live? The entire game is based around doing what gets you to your goal fastest, and as of right now gold is the end-all-beat-all. If dungeons do not bring players to this goal, what incentive is there to play them??

Hmm … for fun? That’s why I and my friends run them. We pull everything, kill it, banter on Mumble, do as many paths of whatever we feel like and then we stop when we’re tired. It’s certainly not a huge gold source for me and I still have fun doing it.

Question to John Smith, though: Other than tokens, will anything drop in dungeons at all? Tonight’s casual fun run in CoE got my bags choked with things (usually I never see the Inventory is Full message on my dungeon/fractal alt), and I salvaged them for a lot of mats and sold off a few copper of minor runes and the like. Will we now be ending dungeon runs with bags as clear as when we entered?

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

Sir,

I disagree. My point does not fall under the false dilemma fallacy.

Hypothetically, If one’s primary interest in playing the game, that which one actually enjoys doing the most, has its income reduced then, in order to maintain the same level of income, without increasing one’s play time, one would need to reduce one’s time spent in one’s preferred content in order to play more lucrative (but less enjoyable), content.

The developer made the decisions for the dungeon income nerf either with full knowledge that some players enjoy dungeons, even to a degree that they prefer them over other content. The decision to nerf is intentional and is being made in the full knowledge of its impact on those who prefer dungeons over other content. That does not make the nerf malicious, but it is intentional.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the individual(s) who made the decision were unaware that there are players who enjoy, prefer, GW2’s dungeons over other content. I freely admit that I did not take this possibility into consideration when making my previous point because, at the time, It did not occur to me that such an oversight was possible if the decision itself had been at all discussed or given reasonable consideration.

Essentially they want people to stop playing dungeons
For the most part. They are meant to be a sideshow now not a main event

phys.7689:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m okay with reducing the gold output of dungeons, but I’m not okay with reducing the value of playing dungeons. Replace parts of the gold with T6 materials, lodestones, or something that matters to someone and can be sold to recoup some of the value. Don’t just take away the gold and give it nothing in return. A number of people play dungeons because they’re valuable even in spite of how old and unsupported they are; reducing their value will move those people elsewhere and that’s not good.

He answered that in mines, they dont want dungeons to be as desired an activity regardless

This leads me to believe it is exactly what I stated in another post about this. They are nerfing dungeons because they are afraid the new content won’t look appealing unless they finalize their abandonment of dungeons and make it not viable.

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

This is horrible, and I can speak for the dungeon community at large when I say that no one is happy about it.

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

This is refreshingly direct.

Dinks.2478:

phys.7689:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m okay with reducing the gold output of dungeons, but I’m not okay with reducing the value of playing dungeons. Replace parts of the gold with T6 materials, lodestones, or something that matters to someone and can be sold to recoup some of the value. Don’t just take away the gold and give it nothing in return. A number of people play dungeons because they’re valuable even in spite of how old and unsupported they are; reducing their value will move those people elsewhere and that’s not good.

He answered that in mines, they dont want dungeons to be as desired an activity regardless

This leads me to believe it is exactly what I stated in another post about this. They are nerfing dungeons because they are afraid the new content won’t look appealing unless they finalize their abandonment of dungeons and make it not viable.

I think what they are trying to do is deflate the economy a bit and when we get to that deflated state, the 20g you get a day from dungeons will be way more gold than you can get doing anything else, so I think that’s where they are going with this and i’m okay with it, I love my dungeons just as much as anyone else, but I understand bringing value back to items, it’s not an easy task for them to do and I really am grateful that my 5 gold will go a lot farther

Mechalibur.9618:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

This is refreshingly direct.

Agreed.

I think that Mr Smith’s willingness to be forthright about Anet’s intentions is wonderfully helpful. I really wish there was this degree of honest engagement from the company as a whole rather than from just one developer.

It is much easier to be an informed and engaged consumer if one has accurate information on the product.

If the problem with the dungeon rewards are the raw source of gold, do you guys have any plan of not only nerfing it, but making up with new dungeon rewards, like T6 materials? Or is just a gold nerf and nothing being added?

John Smith.4610:

Dungeons will stop drop things as well as they will still have some gold, they will just have much less gold.

Dungeons will stop dropping things as well as having a reduced gold output? Is that a typo or are they really being nerfed that hard?

John Smith.4610:

Renarde.3251:

Edit for clarity: You’ve said the dungeon token rate is staying the same, was there any discussion about increasing the amount of tokens you get per run to go along with the gold reduction?

I’m not prepared to answer the first one. I don’t believe we ever discussed changing the tokens from dungeons.

I hope you guys are thinking this over. With lessening coin rewards and with tokens still dropping at a very slow rate, it seems to remove the purpose of going to dungeons whatsoever.

A large increase to dungeon tokens earned would both provide incentive to keep going to them without putting almost any new money and materials into the economy. It seems like the perfect replacement reward. Why not?

Renarde.3251:

John Smith.4610:

Dungeons will stop drop things as well as they will still have some gold, they will just have much less gold.

Dungeons will stop dropping things as well as having a reduced gold output? Is that a typo or are they really being nerfed that hard?

Going by the rest of that statement and the following add-on, I’d say that it’s just a typo.

It is unfortunate, but I get why dungeons are being nerfed.

They are a creative dead end that will constantly detract from any new content Arena Net creates.

That said, I hope the nerf is enough to get people to move on, but not actively detract from playing the content.

An even better idea would be if A-Net moved some of the dungeons into the Fractals of the mist.

Aetherpath in particular.

Typing muscle memory, understandable.

I think this is my first time posting on the forums. I realize that many post here because they a have strong opinion about the game, positive or negative. I count myself included in that generalization.

I think this is a terrible change for the dungeon community. Dungeons have some of the most invigorating combat in the game. It really allows the unique mechanics of the game to shine. Open world — silverwastes, dry top, simple map completion, and others — do not allow for some of the unique tactics available in dungeons.

Plus, many find dungeons just fun to play.

It’s clear from your blog post that you want to reduce the gold reward and de-incentivize dungeons. Some dungeons are already not “worth it” to run – SE and HOTW paths 2, for example. And all the story modes. That’s a shame.

I’ve never really understood moving players away from game play they find fun. I mean, that’s the point of a game. And there’s so much content out there that is underutilized. And nerfing the rewards will shrink this game mode even further.

I somewhat understand the reasoning behind nerfing a gold influx into the game. OK. But please consider tuning dungeons so they give more materials, tokens, something. Already, most dungeoneers do not compete gold wise with a silverwastes chest farm. I’d rather get my gold from doing I find something fun, not soul-crushing.

I’m not sure if this decision is already a done-deal, or there is room for some maneuvering. If there is, please count me as a dungeon supporter.

Thanks.

Do you plan on doing something about the silverwastes chest farm – especially about the purses that give flat silver reward on top of the item value?

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why? It’s like deincentivizing to play the game at some level, why would developers ever do such a thing? I can understand taking the gold away for economy reasons, but give something back to keep the content alive. You should aim to have every part of your game 100% enjoyable and rewarding, this is what you wanted at release, to reward people everywhere they go, and now here you are admitting the intention of deincentivizing dungeons. It’s almost as bad as making SAB temporary.

Will the gold be replaced with some other non-gold reward to maintain interest in dungeons, particularly those dungeons whose rewards are already generally considered not commensurate with the time and skill investment (i.e. Aetherpath)? Perhaps a less random means of earning rare drops such as what is happening with fractal weapons in the update?

John, is this change to rewards an attempt to break the vicious cycle of grinding for gold to buy gems which raise the cost of gold bought gems which then requires even more grinding for gold, which then drives more of the player base to gold grinding activities.

Is the motivation behind these changes similar to the virtual elimination of key farming? It’s okay if a few people are doing it but as that number rises it becomes destabilizing and needs to be addressed.

Sublimatio.6981:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why? It’s like deincentivizing to play the game at some level, why would developers ever do such a thing? I can understand taking the gold away for economy reasons, but give something back to keep the content alive. You should aim to have every part of your game 100% enjoyable and rewarding, this is what you wanted at release, to reward people everywhere they go, and now here you are admitting the intention of deincentivizing dungeons. It’s almost as bad as making SAB temporary.

Agree. At least add tokens. What harm can tokens do?

munki.6402:

Sublimatio.6981:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why?

It’s dead-end content and injects gold from thin air (so to speak) into the economy, causing inflation. Two very good reasons to make adjustments moving forward.

It wouldn’t be dead-end content if they hadn’t chosen for dungeons to be dead-end content. That was completely ANet’s choice in this matter.

John Smith.4610:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons

Is the intention to reduce targeted liquid gold earning, or are you putting that liquid somewhere else thats targetable?

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?

do you see players seeking to earn main methods being through open world and tp trading

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Is the intention to reduce targeted liquid gold earning, or are you putting that liquid somewhere else thats targetable?
The intention is not entirely to reduce liquid gold earning, we’ll be using up the slack we generate in other locations

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?
Fractals

do you see players seeking to earn main methods being through open world and tp trading
I don’t understand this one

This is the first time i have seen a developer purposely sabotaging its own content to demoralize its costumers of doing it.

Surely you can understand people concerns right John? Try to see this not as economist, or as developer, but as player. Do you think it is fair? That it makes any sense?

I really would like to hear in more details the reasoning behind this. Do you guys hope that this will shift more players towards fractals or raids?

I just can’t make any sense of any of this, because raids are a weekly thing, and nothing stop people from doing both fractals and dungeons. You could have easily raised the tokens earned or simply replaced the gold with t6 mats. Dungeons are a daily thing, in no shape or form, it means it will detract the attention of people from doing the rest of the game as the blog said.

munki.6402:

Sublimatio.6981:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why?

It’s dead-end content and injects gold from thin air (so to speak) into the economy, causing inflation. Two very good reasons to make adjustments moving forward.

How about 75 people farming 50-100 champion bags an hour handing out 2-10 silver each. That’s without counting all the blue/green being sold to merchant. Pretty sure more gold is injected in the economy by people AFK-farming Silverwaste than dungeon runners.

Sublimatio.6981:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why? It’s like deincentivizing to play the game at some level, why would developers ever do such a thing? I can understand taking the gold away for economy reasons, but give something back to keep the content alive. You should aim to have every part of your game 100% enjoyable and rewarding, this is what you wanted at release, to reward people everywhere they go, and now here you are admitting the intention of deincentivizing dungeons. It’s almost as bad as making SAB temporary.

Short version, they dont want to be developing and promoting fractals and dungeons, so they unified fractals and dungeons playstyle wise and are cutting out dungeons.

fractals will now have selectable levels
fractals will now be shorter content

Im not saying its a good idea, but basically they want to consolidate 5 man instanced content into one form, and fractals are smaller, dont require context or real world location.

I personally feel its unecessary, and that fractals and dungeons served two different types of purpose, and more content is better. But anet disagrees.

Trice.4598:

munki.6402:

Sublimatio.6981:

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Why?

It’s dead-end content and injects gold from thin air (so to speak) into the economy, causing inflation. Two very good reasons to make adjustments moving forward.

How about 75 people farming 50-100 champion bags an hour handing out 2-10 silver each. That’s without counting all the blue/green being sold to merchant. Pretty sure more gold is injected in the economy by people AFK-farming Silverwaste than dungeon runners.

embroidered purses are said to give 17s on average, according to the science posts from reddit. so you open 7-8 chests and it’s equal to doing a dungeon path. gg.

I was going to write a big long angry post about the economy but I feel like it would go better if I just say it in fewer words: This is going to suck for the people who don’t have an inflated wallet. I want ascended gear, I don’t have time to make 1000 gold to pay for said gear, the game is also nerfing me from creating it myself by lower material rates. this isn’t fair to the people who can’t afford it.

Please make a material sink intended for massively wealthy characters, and allow normal people to obtain ascended gear because it will be the standard for raids. The way I suggest it would be to keep our material rates the same. Because those who have hoarded the most are going to make a huge profit right now and then you just have a rich get richer kind of deal going on.
I’m also a little bit agitated right now because yesterday I sold all of my crafting materials so I could get some gold to pay for things to make my ascended gear today, and the price has suddenly skyrocketed to well out of my reach. So I’ll just be sitting here with a long goal ahead of me for Grind wars 2 HoT, and right there my game just got a whole lot less fun, ascendeds were within reach of normal players, now they’re way out of it (and when the changes hit it will be further out of it because then I won’t be able to get the materials for myself to make this.)

As a side note, do you guys do this often? have you even seen the yakslapper achievement? is it fun for you guys to put things out of possible reach? This achievement and the one where you DEFEND the yaks, are well out of range for…. anyone, I’m willing to bet that not a single player has this. It seems rather impossible with such low spawn rates and such a high number demanded.