Guild Wars 2

So with all this talk about gem store outfits and weapons vs in-game counter parts part of HoT, got me thinking what is the breaking point for people when it comes to “too much in gem store, not enough earned in game.”

For an example at x (in-game)to y (gem), your like fine little much on the gem store but ok. But as soon as its x to y+1 then your like, ok enough is enough put some dam things in game already. <- This is the ratio I am looking for.

To make it a little easier to compare number, one piece armors (don’t belong to a “Set”), can’t be counted same for back items or weapons. With that said for this comparison the elite spec weapons will be one set even though there are only 9/16 land weapons, and all the known misc weapons (21 as far as I am aware)from HoT will be another set. And the comparison will only be from HoT launch forward.

As it stands now there are 5 armor sets in Hot (Bladed, leystone, guild, legendary, and mistward[ throwing elite spec armors in here to pad out for leather and light].) Then 10 Weapon sets (Chak, Auric, reclaimed, machined, shimmering, plated, tenebrous, elite spec, legendary set 2, and misc HOT.).

Gem stuff is:
Armor: 6 (Crystal arbiter, Lunatic guard, Lyssa regalia, Bandit, slayer, winter solstice.)
Wepons 6 (Improvised, immortal, Glittering, plasma, Merciless, time keeper)

So the ratio as it stands right now is:
5:6 for armor or 0.83 in-game armors to ever 1 gem store outfit.
10:6 for weapons or 1.66 in game weapon sets to 1 gem store set.

Collectively 1.25:1 in-game to gem store. Only did this part so people know what the ratio is right now if they are fine with thing as is. So what ratio is too far either way for you, be it different for weapons and armor or all combined.

Please reframe from 0:X or X:0 as both are bs answers, anet still needs money and player still need something to work for. If any of my number are wrong or a missed a set let me know so I can fix it.

I think the gulf between those who collect skins and those who don’t (like me) is so large that it would be hard to quantify the issue as you frame it.

Even though I detest the direction that Anet has taken PvE maps with the HoT expansion, I don’t begrudge their selling skins in TP. That’s how they generate revenue and I have no problem with that.

The bigger issue is nerfing Guild Upgrades as a method of generating Gem sales to acquire gold to purchase mats on TP.

Anet can make all the money they want selling Vanity items on TP, as far as I’m concerned. Just leave game-play mechanics out of it.

While I’m aware that some people think the ratio in GW2 is skewed toward gem store, I don’t think so. I’ve played the two other B2P MMO’s out there (ESO and TSW) and both of them sell a lot of skins in the store, and I’ve yet to find anywhere near the number of skins in game that GW2 offers. At the end of the day, if a company’s ongoing revenue is from selling items, I’d much rather they sold skins than power. And, if you pause to think about it, there’s almost nothing they could sell that isn’t going to kitten somebody off because he wants it for nothing — even if he can earn gold in game and never actually pay for anything.

So. my answer is that the ratio in GW2 is just fine. I won’t attempt to quantify it, as the issue is more about personal tastes than it is about hard numbers.

I don’t mind them selling a bunch of stuff on the gem store (we do buy the game once but anet has to pay their monthly costs). The thing I have a problem with can be summerized as:

• Them adding stuff you can’t earn only buy: glider (and mail carriers), etc…
  By default you have 1 glider and 1 mail carrier), couldn’t they have added 1 or 2 gliders (and mail-carriers) that you earn through achievements? I’m not asking for a dozen free ones, just 1 or 2 to be earned through achievements. Seeing as how we can have around 7 gliders or so in the gem store in a month time. 1 or 2 through achievements shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

• It’s a 50 dollar expansion, I really expected for more weapons/armor to be able to be earned. (as long as not all of them are earned on a rng based method. Like the almost unobtainable teq. set (getting 1 item can be a massive time-based rng sink, never mind getting 2 or 3 of them and just forget about getting the whole collection. Same thing goes for the ‘Leystone armor’ in the dragon stand map)

• Horrible gem store interface: (Yes, I know this is a personal opinion). For example the ‘style’ tab needs filters for outfits, backpacks, individual pieces, weapons. Preview on different races/genders (currently going to dulfy for that). Special option so necromancers can see what their staff auto-attack would look like. Filter between: harvesting cycle, logging axe, etc… for the ‘special’ tab, and stuff like that.

Overall: I think the wait for the expansion was too long and the price too high for there to be this little (earnable) stuff in it. For all I care: they can create a dozen of outfits and gliders and mailcarriers a day and I would have no problem with that. The only thing I expect is a functional store AND a being able to earn some different skins in a game.

I think most players expected a lot of stuff to come with the expansion, since we were already getting skins for free with the living world updates. The fact that there are no obtainable glider skins in the game is a huge disappointment. It is not about the ratio of things released. I expect most things following the expansion to be gem related, like its been in the past, but for the money spent, the expansion just did not have enough skins. Visuals are imo one of the biggest parts of this game, and while I decided to spend a bunch of money to get varying glider skins at release, when I realized that was all I was getting, I got very upset and decided to stop spending money on this game. I think it was safe to expect about a dozen new full armor sets, and the same amount of weapons (per type). I think the lack of skins and recent visual nerfs are really hurting a part of the game that was very important to me. (GIVE ME BACK MY FIREBALL!!!) Anyway, I hope this helped.

The thing is outfit looks all the same for all classes and armor set have heavy,light and medium. So if are going to count you got mutilply that 5 by 3 so we got 15 armor sets in HoT.

I dont know that it can be expressed so mathematically for me. It is a feeling subject to entirely too many shifting variables for so absolute an answer. For example, taking every skin out of the gemstore to be put into the game as earnable rewards would not really improve the ratio for me as I do not particularly care for most of the current lot and would not use them.

I was stoked when 5 keys cost me about 25-40g. That range seemed fair. That also meant that 800 gems didn’t cost as much gold. I bought a few armor sets. Now, not only is the price for gold to gem conversion really bad in my opinion, but you can’t key farm like you used to and they don’t sell or even make a reasonable amount of armor for the game anymore(gem shop or earnable).

Am i the only one who thinks that having a ratio of 1, is very wrong?
Like it would be ok if it was a F2P, but when you pay 45€ to have half of the cosmetic content, is that considered ok?

Like they introduce the masterie system that allows you to glide and yet 99% of cool gliders are in the gemstore…

This is a very hard question, because the value of gems tends to fluctuate with the value of gold. While the actual amount of gold needed to buy gems would increase, the relative amount would stay the same, as gold would be easier to get.

What would annoy me isn’t the conversion price, but the actual price on items. If anet starts making everything cost 1200, 1600, and 2000 gems, then we start to have a problem.

MasterMc.7543:

So with all this talk about gem store outfits and weapons vs in-game counter parts part of HoT, got me thinking what is the breaking point for people when it comes to “too much in gem store, not enough earned in game.”

When I buy a game (HoT is B2P, not subscription based and not F2P or “freemium”) I expect to buy 100% of the content (which includes gear/skins/toys etc…).

The fact that A-Net, shortly after the release of HoT, put new glider skins in the gem store and not included them within HoT, was kind of a breaking point for me, that showed me that A-Net became too greedy for my taste.

They can add all the crap they want as long as it doesnt affect gameplay power wise. For instance, even tho they add good looking gliders i wont buy em cuz the next week they might add another awesome glider. In stead ill in time make awesome rare ones through ingame progression like pvp and raids

I don’t really mind the gemstore stuff as long as it doesn’t have a power increase. There is always the option to farm gold in-game and transfer it to gems so you can buy gemstore items without spending real money to it.

The gemstore stuff is totally irrelevant. I don’t care about skins so it might as well not exist for me. If one came along that was really awesome I might consider it though, so the more they add the better.

The people that must have everything in game and buy everything in the gemstore have a psychological problem. If they become a slave to it, it’s no different than any other addiction.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is a very hard question, because the value of gems tends to fluctuate with the value of gold. While the actual amount of gold needed to buy gems would increase, the relative amount would stay the same, as gold would be easier to get.

What would annoy me isn’t the conversion price, but the actual price on items. If anet starts making everything cost 1200, 1600, and 2000 gems, then we start to have a problem.

Now, that’s a point. I’m not pleased with the current trend of bundling stuff that is less (or un) desirable along with one item that is desirable.

Personally I’m fine with how it is.
Gem store gets them money, money keeps them getting us content.

I’m not sure that ratios themselves bother me much. What bothers me is, for example, the situation with gliders, where (unless I’m missing a skin or two somewhere) there are literally 0 glider skins that you obtain through gameplay. There is the 1 glider skin that you get with HoT, the 1 that you get from buying the special edition, and everything else is Gem Store.

That, to me, is unacceptable. If there were 20 Gem Store glider skins and 5 obtainable through gameplay, released within roughly the same timeframe, I probably wouldn’t have an issue. It’s unbalanced, but at least there are obtainable options through regular gameplay. Item goals to go after, as opposed to purely currency farm goals. I would also be more apt to be bothered, in this scenario, if the 5 were all super difficult to get through regular gameplay. I am of the opinion that for any item such as gliders (which is such a flagship piece of content) there should always be a handful of easy-to-acquire alternatives. For instance, a Bladed skin with VB tokens, an Auric one with Tarir tokens, and so on.

Then you have stuff like BL weapon skins. For the most part, I ignore these, but if they are putting out a ton and adding virtually 0 weapons through regular gameplay at a similar pace, then my eyebrows go up into my hair. Ratios are one thing. A complete absence of new stuff through regular gameplay, while you churn out store items, is a whole other thing and is incredibly off-putting to me. You have artists who churn out beautiful designs and then you won’t even put a taste of them into the game itself, in a way that is simple and/or easy to acquire.

To me, that kind of practice is detrimental, even in terms of marketing, because you’ve got this ceiling for becoming a consumer in your special kind of marketplace (BL skins). Either getting lots of gold or having really good luck with keys. So instead of outsiders getting drawn into the market by getting a taste of the sort of designs BL skins offer by putting a few into the gameplay itself, you have a market where even the rich of RL money are going to struggle to keep up due to the RNG nature of keys.

You might make lots of sales in the short term, but it seems like poor practice to me in the long-term and, more subjectively, puts me off the whole market.

There’s an asterisk there. Technically, everything in the gem store can be obtained in-game. You just need to accumulate enough gold to buy the gems for it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There’s an asterisk there. Technically, everything in the gem store can be obtained in-game. You just need to accumulate enough gold to buy the gems for it.

Technically, yes, but it’s a bit different than other forms of getting items in a few respects:

1) Impermanence: Gem Store skins are rarely stocked permanently, so there is a small window in which to get the items.

2) Fluctuating Price: With the Store, it’s gem exchange fluctuations and with BL skins off the TP, it’s market fluctuations. BL skins have the benefit of some permanence due to lingering supply, but only go up in price over time as old sets are phased out and supply becomes limited to what already exists in the market.

In other words, the reality is that “technically, everything in the gem store can be obtained in-game” means “if you’re super rich and super active, you can get everything in the gem store with in-game currency.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, necessarily. If it was too easy to get store items with game currency, few would spend RL money.

But let’s make sure we’re clear on the reality is all.

MasterMc.7543:

So with all this talk about gem store outfits and weapons vs in-game counter parts part of HoT, got me thinking what is the breaking point for people when it comes to “too much in gem store, not enough earned in game.”

For an example at x (in-game)to y (gem), your like fine little much on the gem store but ok. But as soon as its x to y+1 then your like, ok enough is enough put some dam things in game already. <- This is the ratio I am looking for.

To make it a little easier to compare number, one piece armors (don’t belong to a “Set”), can’t be counted same for back items or weapons. With that said for this comparison the elite spec weapons will be one set even though there are only 9/16 land weapons, and all the known misc weapons (21 as far as I am aware)from HoT will be another set. And the comparison will only be from HoT launch forward.

As it stands now there are 5 armor sets in Hot (Bladed, leystone, guild, legendary, and mistward[ throwing elite spec armors in here to pad out for leather and light].) Then 10 Weapon sets (Chak, Auric, reclaimed, machined, shimmering, plated, tenebrous, elite spec, legendary set 2, and misc HOT.).

Gem stuff is:
Armor: 6 (Crystal arbiter, Lunatic guard, Lyssa regalia, Bandit, slayer, winter solstice.)
Wepons 6 (Improvised, immortal, Glittering, plasma, Merciless, time keeper)

So the ratio as it stands right now is:
5:6 for armor or 0.83 in-game armors to ever 1 gem store outfit.
10:6 for weapons or 1.66 in game weapon sets to 1 gem store set.

Collectively 1.25:1 in-game to gem store. Only did this part so people know what the ratio is right now if they are fine with thing as is. So what ratio is too far either way for you, be it different for weapons and armor or all combined.

Please reframe from 0:X or X:0 as both are bs answers, anet still needs money and player still need something to work for. If any of my number are wrong or a missed a set let me know so I can fix it.

I think its mostly about the lack of new armors. For an expansion it just seems really low. They could have very easily made some more cool armor or at least make some of the outfits in the gemstore armors in game instead. Now I have no problems with the gemstore or outfits I buy a decent amount. But for an expansion I just think more armor sets makes sense. For example 10 new dungeons with 10 new armor sets (lol i know anet hates dungeons now just logically it makes sense) Add in some new pvp/wvw armors, some new karma armors etc. Out of the ones listed most people only have access to bladed, some leystone and mistward atm. That’s a very sad small amount.