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Posted by: Countess Aire.9410

Countess Aire.9410

Why does all the new achievements become such a gold sink. The material grind and gold sink. It is getting out of control. The carnival weapons skins are way to expensive. For being a casual game why has all the achievements becoming crazy gold sinks. Anet needs to seriously rethink the cost of future achievements. Those on limited incomes can not afford to buy the achievements.

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Posted by: Haleydawn.3764

Haleydawn.3764

Achievements and skins/weapons are an entirely optional part of gameplay.

Think of these that are too expensive for you as long term goals if you’re that determined to have them.

Kitten.

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

‘gold sink’ suggests your are putting more gold into an achievement than you feel comfortable doing. The answer is don’t do it unless you want to. Re limited incomes, your looking at it back to front, in GW2 all player has access to everything, even those with limited incomes – they get long term goals.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

Anet hoping that impulsive players will buy gems and convert to gold to get the achievments out of the way faster. HoT ushered in a cynical emphasis on gold sinks with the guild hall probably being the most gross example.

Thank goodness I am not ocd about achievments.

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for those on a limited income, as most items can be purchased with in-game Gold, either directly or through the Gold-to-Gem exchange. One need never put a dime into the game, other than initial purchase and expansions.

Sweet deal!

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

  1. MMO’s essentially consist of lists of things to do
  2. Many of the things to do in MMO’s take time
  3. MMO business models depend on players playing the game over extended periods of time
  4. 2 and 3 are related
  5. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the MMO player base have an expectation of immediate (or short-term) gratification
  6. 3 and 5 are often in conflict; it’s against ANet’s business interests to give players anything they might possibly want with little time investment
  7. So, such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

At least they are not temporary achievements You have all the years in front of you to finish them

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Posted by: Tekey.7946

Tekey.7946

  1. MMO’s essentially consist of lists of things to do
  2. Many of the things to do in MMO’s take time
  3. MMO business models depend on players playing the game over extended periods of time
  4. 2 and 3 are related
  5. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the MMO player base have an expectation of immediate (or short-term) gratification
  6. 3 and 5 are often in conflict; it’s against ANet’s business interests to give players anything they might possibly want with little time investment
  7. So, such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears

Farming gold is not a good way to keep your players playing for a long time, as for many it will be too grindy and repetitive and they’ll just stop doing it.

Achievements should contain challenges, tie them to bosses and events and storylines, they should let you actually play the game instead of forcing you to mindlessly farm gold.

The Cultural Attaché achievement (Aurene) consisted of running to different merchants to buy souvenirs for gold and karma. A different approach would be: Do these events/kill specific bosses in Kryta to help the humans and get the first souvenir as reward. Do those events in the Shiverpeaks and get the Norn souvenir as reward,…

That way, the achievement actually involved the player, showing him the different cultures he’s collecting souvenirs from instead of just letting him farm gold and buy it.

(edited by Tekey.7946)

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Posted by: Doam.8305

Doam.8305

Achievements and skins/weapons are an entirely optional part of gameplay.

Think of these that are too expensive for you as long term goals if you’re that determined to have them.

What part of the game isn’t optional?
What part of the game isn’t a long term goal?

Everything in this game is a heavy sink there are no light deals inbetween to raise peoples spirits before they get back into the grind. Thus whether or not an item is cosmetic or not doesn’t matter because the game lacks hard items due to stat cap thus cosmetic is all we have and thus grind is all we have to do.

As for TC if things were easy people wouldn’t trade cash to gems for gold in order to complete this never ending grind. Thus no matter where you turn your head or look your going to find a sink.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

  1. MMO’s essentially consist of lists of things to do
  2. Many of the things to do in MMO’s take time
  3. MMO business models depend on players playing the game over extended periods of time
  4. 2 and 3 are related
  5. Meanwhile, a significant portion of the MMO player base have an expectation of immediate (or short-term) gratification
  6. 3 and 5 are often in conflict; it’s against ANet’s business interests to give players anything they might possibly want with little time investment
  7. So, such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears

Farming gold is not a good way to keep your players playing for a long time, as for many it will be too grindy and repetitive and they’ll just stop doing it.

Achievements should contain challenges, tie them to bosses and events and storylines, they should let you actually play the game instead of forcing you to mindlessly farm gold.

The Cultural Attaché achievement (Aurene) consisted of running to different merchants to buy souvenirs for gold and karma. A different approach would be: Do these events/kill specific bosses in Kryta to help the humans and get the first souvenir as reward. Do those events in the Shiverpeaks and get the Norn souvenir as reward,…

That way, the achievement actually involved the player, showing him the different cultures he’s collecting souvenirs from instead of just letting him farm gold and buy it.

My point was, asking for shorter paths to goals is contrary to MMO business interests, no matter how they’re implemented in game. Keeping players playing is always going to be a balancing act. Developers aren’t always going to get it “right.”

There are plenty of people who seem to like being able to do whatever content they prefer and still be able to get “stuff.” There sure are plenty of complaints about being “forced” to do X to get Y. There are plenty of things to do that involve rewards attached to specific content. Some of them are one-time things, some involve repetition, often due to RNG.

ANet does try to cater to different tastes, usually managing to anger people who prefer the opposite in the process. Now, if only some elements of the MMO audience could get the idea that everything put into the game is not going to be tailor-made for their preferences. Can’t happen when one group wants the opposite of what the other group wants.

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Posted by: Haleydawn.3764

Haleydawn.3764

What part of the game isn’t optional?

Levelling. We get no option to not level.

What part of the game isn’t a long term goal?

Enjoying it. Exploring, each small bit has it’s instant reward of you just exploring. Even getting to max level with appropriate gear, isn’t a long term goal.
If we break this down even further (which I personally can’t be bothered to break it down further) most legendary gifts can be considered short term investments.

My point really is, why play for instant gratification beyond the above? Because you wont find it in late/end-game.

Everything in this game is a heavy sink there are no light deals inbetween to raise peoples spirits before they get back into the grind. Thus whether or not an item is cosmetic or not doesn’t matter because the game lacks hard items due to stat cap thus cosmetic is all we have and thus grind is all we have to do.

There are many cosmetics ingame that don’t require a huge investment of time.
There are collections that require a consistent, yet relaxed effort to complete. (Dungeon Armor collections, Bladed/Ley-line/Carapace Armors, Fractal weapons etc)

Maybe we both just look at things differently. There are short term and long term goals in-game. The difference is people want instant gratification for something that is supposed to take time. /shrug

You can get anything ingame, if you do the content/make the gold for it. Not everyone flashing 3+ Legendaries/full Ascended sets/expensive collections whipped out a credit card for it.

If you feel like it’s just and endless grind, then maybe MMOs aren’t for you.

Kitten.

(edited by Haleydawn.3764)

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Posted by: Doam.8305

Doam.8305

What part of the game isn’t optional?

Levelling. We get no option to not level.

What part of the game isn’t a long term goal?

Enjoying it. Exploring, each small bit has it’s instant reward of you just exploring. Even getting to max level with appropriate gear, isn’t a long term goal.
If we break this down even further (which I personally can’t be bothered to break it down further) most legendary gifts can be considered short term investments.

My point really is, why play for instant gratification beyond the above? Because you wont find it in late/end-game.

Everything in this game is a heavy sink there are no light deals inbetween to raise peoples spirits before they get back into the grind. Thus whether or not an item is cosmetic or not doesn’t matter because the game lacks hard items due to stat cap thus cosmetic is all we have and thus grind is all we have to do.

There are many cosmetics ingame that don’t require a huge investment of time.
There are collections that require a consistent, yet relaxed effort to complete. (Dungeon Armor collections, Bladed/Ley-line/Carapace Armors, Fractal weapons etc)

Maybe we both just look at things differently. There are short term and long term goals in-game. The difference is people want instant gratification for something that is supposed to take time. /shrug

You can get anything ingame, if you do the content/make the gold for it. Not everyone flashing 3+ Legendaries/full Ascended sets/expensive collections whipped out a credit card for it.

If you feel like it’s just and endless grind, then maybe MMOs aren’t for you.

Pretty sure we’re on the same page

You listed leveling and enjoyment as counters and of course enjoyment is a long term goal if people can’t enjoy a game over time they wouldn’t play. Leveling is a basic feature as well.

Also saying something is relaxing overtime isn’t an argument against everything in the game is a long term goal. Saying instant gratification also doesn’t matter because not only is there no instant gratification in this game there are no short term goals either as you didn’t mention any and neither can I.

Argument for the sake of argument is what I read so I do believe we are on the same page the game is nothing but a string of long term goals with nothing in between to change up the flow.

This is completely by design because this method shovels people to convert cash to gems to gold to flush in the TP for mats to complete these extended goals thus making them money. Nothing wrong with it its just the model this game uses but also discredits anyone who says the game isn’t a grind since its that very grind that funds the game.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

Weird. I find there to be (for me) plenty of short term goals but few long term goals.

Short Term:
Lev main character to 80.
Equip main in ascended.
Develop alternate builds for main and get secondary equipment sets accordingly.
Level secondary character to 80.
Level one of each class to 80.
Finish the PS.
Get map completion to 100% on main.
Get the Kodan medium armor chest piece…get the rest of the set to match.
Get the Ascaloian Catacombs greatsword skin.
Get <insert specific skin earned through a reward track or dungeon here>.
Reach rank 50 in wvw.
Reach rank 100 in wvw
Reach rank 1000 in wvw.
Kill that one Druid roamer that is such a pain in my … at least once.
…and many more..

Long term goals:
Fully equip in ascended (unlikely as I do not craft ankitten ot fond of the design for fractals).

Again, thts just me. No attempt to speak for anyone else.

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Posted by: Malediktus.9250

Malediktus.9250

Is this topic a joke? There is rarely more than 1 expensive or time consuming achievement per LS release. If anything there should be way more of this so you cannot finish all new achievements in the same week as an update happens.
Time consuming, expensive or very difficult achievement would be the perfect opportunity for Anet to make contest last longer and bridge the time between updates. I am suprised Anet is not actually doing stuff like this to keep people occupied tbh.

1st person worldwide to reach 35,000 achievement points.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Is this topic a joke? There is rarely more than 1 expensive or time consuming achievement per LS release. If anything there should be way more of this so you cannot finish all new achievements in the same week as an update happens.
Time consuming, expensive or very difficult achievement would be the perfect opportunity for Anet to make contest last longer and bridge the time between updates. I am suprised Anet is not actually doing stuff like this to keep people occupied tbh.

There is at least one such achievement (difficult, time consuming or expensive) at each of the last 2 episodes of LS3 so far, “I’m rich you know (expensive)”, “hungry Hal (time consuming – unless cheating)” and the Jumping Puzzle (difficult) achievements were in Episode 2.
The Koda’s Warmth (expensive+time consuming) and the challenge mote for Nightmare Fractal (difficult) in Episode 3.
Who knows maybe we’ll get at least one such achievement from now on.

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Posted by: Malediktus.9250

Malediktus.9250

Yes, that is what he complained about. he wants all the achievements to be easy I guess

1st person worldwide to reach 35,000 achievement points.

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Posted by: Tekey.7946

Tekey.7946

Is this topic a joke? There is rarely more than 1 expensive or time consuming achievement per LS release. If anything there should be way more of this so you cannot finish all new achievements in the same week as an update happens.
Time consuming, expensive or very difficult achievement would be the perfect opportunity for Anet to make contest last longer and bridge the time between updates. I am suprised Anet is not actually doing stuff like this to keep people occupied tbh.

Are you seriously considering ‘expensive achievements’ to be a solution to make content last longer? What’s the difference to any other grindy asian MMORPG that gets hated on from GW2 players if Anet takes “I’m rich you know” 1000g gold sinks as a way to make their content last longer?

Challenging achievements? Yes. Difficult Achievements? Yes. Expensive achievements? No.

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Posted by: mauried.5608

mauried.5608

You can avoid levelling by simply getting to Lv 2, then deleting your char , making another one and doing the same thing.
You can repeat this as many times as you like.

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Posted by: ugrakarma.9416

ugrakarma.9416

the free skins for completing some free cost achievs inst bad at all. and hot stats equips.

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Posted by: lukejoe.1592

lukejoe.1592

Achievements and skins/weapons are an entirely optional part of gameplay.

Think of these that are too expensive for you as long term goals if you’re that determined to have them.

Why do people insist on giving this response? The OP wants to have fun playing a game and feels, very understandably, that having to invest too much time and energy into getting new weapon skins makes the game less fun. It’s an entirely legit viewpoint that isn’t addressed by these facile rebuttals.

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Posted by: Haleydawn.3764

Haleydawn.3764

Achievements and skins/weapons are an entirely optional part of gameplay.

Think of these that are too expensive for you as long term goals if you’re that determined to have them.

Why do people insist on giving this response? The OP wants to have fun playing a game and feels, very understandably, that having to invest too much time and energy into getting new weapon skins makes the game less fun. It’s an entirely legit viewpoint that isn’t addressed by these facile rebuttals.

Anything ingame, will take various lengths of time depending on the player.
Just because someone doesn’t have the time to earn what they want in one day/week doesn’t mean the acquisition methed needs to be changed. It’ll just take longer.
You can earn gold ingame through a variety of methods, if you want something, you save for it and work towards it. Like I said, someones short term goal is anothers long term goal. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m currently saving to buy Eternity, and have been for a few months. Do I think Anet should adjust the overall price of it’s components to lower it’s trading post price, so I can buy it sooner? Or is that a different story? Because saving 4k gold to buy something that isn’t actually essential to me enjoying the game, but I’m determined to get it, so I’ll save and save. It’s just a skin at the end of the day.

Kitten.

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

Achievements and skins/weapons are an entirely optional part of gameplay.

Think of these that are too expensive for you as long term goals if you’re that determined to have them.

Why do people insist on giving this response? The OP wants to have fun playing a game and feels, very understandably, that having to invest too much time and energy into getting new weapon skins makes the game less fun. It’s an entirely legit viewpoint that isn’t addressed by these facile rebuttals.

It’s understandable that the OP doesn’t want to invest too much time and energy. What’s harder to understand is why they can’t set their sights on something that better fits their budget of time & energy.

If stuff is too easy to obtain, then those with “too much time & energy” will acquire everything quickly and be out of goals, while those without “too much time & energy” won’t last all that much longer. Part of what makes some of this stuff worthy of our aspirations is that it’s not trivial to acquire, that it takes time, it takes effort, it takes some ingenuity.

In other words, reducing the cost won’t make the game more fun for more people in the long run; it will do the opposite.

Of course, there’s a balance between too hard and too easy and it’s possible that ANet hasn’t gotten the mix quite right. However, given how many people enjoy this game and continue to play it despite all the recent tumult and issues, I think they probably have gotten as close as one could expect.

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

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Posted by: Malediktus.9250

Malediktus.9250

Is this topic a joke? There is rarely more than 1 expensive or time consuming achievement per LS release. If anything there should be way more of this so you cannot finish all new achievements in the same week as an update happens.
Time consuming, expensive or very difficult achievement would be the perfect opportunity for Anet to make contest last longer and bridge the time between updates. I am suprised Anet is not actually doing stuff like this to keep people occupied tbh.

Are you seriously considering ‘expensive achievements’ to be a solution to make content last longer? What’s the difference to any other grindy asian MMORPG that gets hated on from GW2 players if Anet takes “I’m rich you know” 1000g gold sinks as a way to make their content last longer?

Challenging achievements? Yes. Difficult Achievements? Yes. Expensive achievements? No.

How else would you make content last longer? Grind for all kinds of rewards is the only way, fun is not enough of a motivator in MMOs to keep content lasting.
Difficulty in MMOs is basically the same as time investment in MMOs. Even the hardest skill based achievements in GW2 only take an evening of practicing at most. How many of those do you want to add in each patch to make the contest last weeks instead of days?
The skill cap in GW2 is pretty low, so any above average player will have no issues finding ways to complete all skill based things quickly. See new raid wings in GW2. The first people (even excluding testers) will have every new raid achievement before the first weekly reset happens. It is unlikely that there will ever be content harder than raids in GW2, so again we are left with using grind as a way to keep content interesting and alive.

1st person worldwide to reach 35,000 achievement points.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

I think it is very appropriate to offer achievements for difficult content, challenging content, and some that are expensive. Different rewards for different players/play styles. It is key, however, that they be different so that one can distinguish between them in terms of how they were earned.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Why does all the new achievements become such a gold sink. The material grind and gold sink. It is getting out of control. The carnival weapons skins are way to expensive. For being a casual game why has all the achievements becoming crazy gold sinks. Anet needs to seriously rethink the cost of future achievements. Those on limited incomes can not afford to buy the achievements.

because not all achievements need to be easy to get and available to all the community like kodan’s warmth its good to see something for the more deticated parts of the player base who put more time into the game and diserve such rare and prestigious things

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Anet hoping that impulsive players will buy gems and convert to gold to get the achievments out of the way faster. HoT ushered in a cynical emphasis on gold sinks with the guild hall probably being the most gross example.

Thank goodness I am not ocd about achievments.

u wut m8??? guild halls as a mean for ppl to ge gems to make gold? guild hals are supposed to be that hq of an entire guild and its a long term gold for them (the guild) to look for

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Is this topic a joke? There is rarely more than 1 expensive or time consuming achievement per LS release. If anything there should be way more of this so you cannot finish all new achievements in the same week as an update happens.
Time consuming, expensive or very difficult achievement would be the perfect opportunity for Anet to make contest last longer and bridge the time between updates. I am suprised Anet is not actually doing stuff like this to keep people occupied tbh.

Are you seriously considering ‘expensive achievements’ to be a solution to make content last longer? What’s the difference to any other grindy asian MMORPG that gets hated on from GW2 players if Anet takes “I’m rich you know” 1000g gold sinks as a way to make their content last longer?

Challenging achievements? Yes. Difficult Achievements? Yes. Expensive achievements? No.

How else would you make content last longer? Grind for all kinds of rewards is the only way, fun is not enough of a motivator in MMOs to keep content lasting.
Difficulty in MMOs is basically the same as time investment in MMOs. Even the hardest skill based achievements in GW2 only take an evening of practicing at most. How many of those do you want to add in each patch to make the contest last weeks instead of days?
The skill cap in GW2 is pretty low, so any above average player will have no issues finding ways to complete all skill based things quickly. See new raid wings in GW2. The first people (even excluding testers) will have every new raid achievement before the first weekly reset happens. It is unlikely that there will ever be content harder than raids in GW2, so again we are left with using grind as a way to keep content interesting and alive.

the wing 1 dificulty is not to be taken as a staple for future raid releases said anet they said that the dificulty should be same amount wing of the same raid but from raid to raid its a diff story

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

Anet could have left passive influence for guild halls. They instead made into a gold sink. Yes, many guilds view it as a long term goal but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were guilds that “rushed” their guild halls by pouring gold into them(buying the mats etc.) I think this was part of Anet’s thinking.

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Posted by: lukejoe.1592

lukejoe.1592

Well this might be a way out of left field suggestion for Anet, but the game could just have end game content that is fun to play for its own sake!

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Well this might be a way out of left field suggestion for Anet, but the game could just have end game content that is fun to play for its own sake!

Iirc, that was the plan before launch. The problems are: not everyone enjoys the same things; content rarely remains fun long enough to keep enough players playing —- which fuels a business plan that relies on retention; and — to an apparently large segment of the MMO player-base — MMO’s are more about getting “stuff” than they are about fun.

Regardless, I’d bet ANet developers do think that the content they make is fun.

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Posted by: Kelly.7019

Kelly.7019

Why does all the new achievements become such a gold sink. The material grind and gold sink. It is getting out of control. The carnival weapons skins are way to expensive. For being a casual game why has all the achievements becoming crazy gold sinks. Anet needs to seriously rethink the cost of future achievements. Those on limited incomes can not afford to buy the achievements.

Because HoT is a gold sink expansion, not like the original game.

I’d rather have endgame content that is almost limitless like housing within a community. Gardens to grow things. Farm gold to have great big mansions decorate and pimp out your house to make everyone around you jelly Show off your own style and skill based on rewards you get from chieves that could be placable objects. The ideas are definetly limitless anyways.

Yo, Ho, all together, raise the colors high,
Yo, Ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die

(edited by Kelly.7019)