Guild Wars 2

It seems a lot of these holiday events have items (like the mini bloody prince), which can only be gained by farming ludicrous amounts of items (candy corn). For the Mini Bloody Prince you need 20 Candy Cob, which equals 20,000 candy corn. Now I play GW2 a few hours every day, and I have about 2000 candy corn now. No way I would ever get my hands on that much candy corn, which means the only sensible way to get the item, is by buying stacks of candy corn from the trading post.

I do not like buying stuff. I think it ruins my sense of accomplishment. I like working towards a reward, by doing fun things in the game. I don’t like grinding my way to get one item. I think it kind of sucks the fun right out of this sort of content. Now Halloween brought us some rewards which can simply be earned, such a the Mini Candycorn Elemental. Why not make all of it available through simply playing the game?

Please development team, listen to your own manifesto. Do away with the grind, it isn’t any fun. Replace the grind with things we players can do to get these items in a fun and none repetitive way.

While I agree in spirit with your post, I believe the reason why they made prices so high is because they want massive sinks to take out all those millions of Candy Corn and other festive items on the TP.

That said, I think the best compromise would be to reduce the amount of Candy Corn (and other festive items) needed for the Halloween goodies. Reduce the Bloody Prince mini to 10 Cobs, the Pail to 5 Cobs, and the Halloween recipes to 5 of the upgraded festive items. This makes the items easier to obtain for an individual player, and I believe what the TP loses out in higher price points, it would make up for in volume, since more players now think the item(s) are within reach and thus buy more.

I don’t mind the “trade in a bunch of _ to get a ______” mechanic. Jorbreakers were overpriced, but the system worked fine for other Dragonbash prizes, as well as with Fortune Scraps during Bazaar of the Four Winds. The prices for Halloween are just too darn high. Mini Carlotta and Mini Bloody Prince are the only Halloween items acquired with upgraded candies that are even worth considering. As for the rest:

Barring a major market shift before Nov. 11, there will never have been a time when it was cheaper to bother buying candy than to directly buy the item you want on the Trading Post.

Which means that while demand and prices might be relatively high for candy corn at the moment, surprisingly little of that is actually getting removed from the economy. Some people might combine a couple stacks of candy corn into cobs because they get the impression it will be valuable somehow, but few people are probably using those cobs for anything, since they can’t afford enough of them. So we do convert some corn into cobs at a rate of 1000->1, which is pretty impressive, but then very few of those cobs are themselves getting removed from the economy. Sounds okay, right? Even if the cobs are around, that’s still .001% the total number of items! Not so fast.

Since only a very, very small minority of players will have both the interest and wealth to actually use cobs, the vast majority of candy corn will go unconverted, and will probably get shoved up on the trading post. Supplies and demand are both higher now, leading to higher prices, but it’s hard to say how much is actually getting removed from the game— Rich players are probably aware that it’s cheaper to buy Halloween weapon recipes (or weapons) directly off the trading post without dealing with candy, so it’s really only the hardcore mini-collectors who are actually removing substantially large amount of candy corn from the economy completely. Cobs will show up on the trading post, but since corn prices have been dropping, it will likely remain cheaper to buy raw corn and make your own cobs than to buy them pre-made, at least until Halloween ends and supply slowly begins to dry up.

I really wish I had some actual metrics to see how players are behaving, since they’re not all going to play optimally (see: players who make cobs without being able to spend cobs,) but as far as I can tell, the math just doesn’t work. I could pay 98g for Recipe: Gift of the Moon on the trading post, or I could pay roughly three times that for the candy corn and chattering skulls needed to forge one. The copies of the Recipe that are on the Trading post must be leftovers from last year at that price, and though they have quadrupled since this time last month, they’re still cheaper than going the trade-up route. In theory, the old supply would run out, prices would climb, and the trade-up route would eventually become cheaper, but that option is more or less going to be disabled on Nov. 11, when Sonder stops selling Gibbering Skulls and the like, and I’m not convinced that will be enough time for the market to reach that point, given that it hasn’t already.

I don’t think that this aspect of reward is so much about grind as it is about the monetization scheme. With RMT and a cash shop there has been a fundamental shift from receiving reward in-game to rewarding yourself outside the game. GW2 is not alone here and I actually first noticed this with Diablo 3.

Since we are used to receiving reward for play, I’m not sure how this will work long term. In the meantime, some players buy gems and others keep a bowl of M&M’s by their computer. For reward, the choice is up to you.

Raine.1394:

I don’t think that this aspect of reward is so much about grind as it is about the monetization scheme. With RMT and a cash shop there has been a fundamental shift from receiving reward in-game to rewarding yourself outside the game. GW2 is not alone here and I actually first noticed this with Diablo 3.

Since we are used to receiving reward for play, I’m not sure how this will work long term. In the meantime, some players buy gems and others keep a bowl of M&M’s by their computer. For reward, the choice is up to you.

Fortunately Bliz realized it’s a bad idea and is removing it next year…

Raine.1394:

I don’t think that this aspect of reward is so much about grind as it is about the monetization scheme. With RMT and a cash shop there has been a fundamental shift from receiving reward in-game to rewarding yourself outside the game. GW2 is not alone here and I actually first noticed this with Diablo 3.

It’s a very troubling development in videogames, and not just MMO’s. All these cash shops really are a bad new direction for the players. I understand the need to generate revenue for a free-to-play MMO. But the sheer amount of items that can only be bought from this store is starting to overwhelm the game. And I find it more bothersome during the holidays.

I presume that ideally the developers would like to see their game world populated with people dressed up in fun costumes during Halloween, and wielding Halloween themed weapons. But this is not the case. Do you see anyone dressed up for Halloween in Guild Wars 2? Hardly. That is because all the costumes cost gems, and all the Halloween weapons are hidden behind insane grind, or again money. In GW1 the players could obtain most of their Halloween goodies in-game, by doing fun quests. So during Halloween, GW1 is full of dressed up players, just like Halloween is supposed to be. I miss that design philosophy.

Its an example of Extrinsic reward values not being properly validated by the game mechanics. Most people would just say go champ train for ~10g/hr or TP flip. But that, in itself, it not actually playing the game, you’re just actively farming the same way the Chinese farm for other MMOs.

You know why SAB weapons are my favourite? I earned those, and its the only reward at this moment in the game that considered rewarding for skill. Or just perserveance, whatever, I just know I like these because very rarely do you see others with it.

Then you see people with skins that are bought with gold/gems, and you don’t really consider them better, you just see another farmer, they didn’t earn it, they just took the easy path at rewards.

The lack of extrinsic values in this game that is suppose to be purely about cosmetic looks, and not gear progression is a strong kill factor of the game. You’re not giving your players a chance to earn better reward and in turn are only rewarding zerg play and one button mash trains.

At the moment, 10g/hr means working $2.5/hr. You are farming at a rate of 1/4 of minimal wage. I don’t like it and I know others don’t like it.

At least WoW raiding had a reason, I never farmed for gold and never needed it. I earned my tier gear by working with 24 other people at about 12 hours a week. My gold count in WoW is massive cause I never had to spend any of it.

Then you come here, and everything is based off gold because they want you to use the gemstore. Gold isn’t a ‘fun’ commodity. Extrinsic values based on skill holds much more weight and gives the player more playtime investment.

Farming IS playing the game. You may not like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not playing the game. It’s just not how YOU like to play the game.

Shut up OP, here’s a You Tube vid of happy players :P

12 turns = Tic gets ascended

Sylv.5324:

Farming IS playing the game. You may not like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not playing the game. It’s just not how YOU like to play the game.

actually farming stuff is game breaking, if you need to farm your way through then the dev team did something wrong.
i would agree with you if we were talking about legendaries but this is a festival thing, you should not be forced to farm the heck out of your time just because there are others who are so addicted to the game that they think the game has to run around them.

IMO a mini should simply be 2k normal candy corn, the rest is self explanatory.
it’s suppose to be a game, not a side job.