Guild Wars 2

the price of everything is going up. new players cant earn gold like 10 gold per hour, all prices on tp is getting way too high. to earn a stable income in champ farm etc you need a very high magic find, but we new players dont have any. been playing like ages and still got a little bit of gold. what to do now?

Just keep on playing the parts of the game that you enjoy, and one day you’ll find that the gold has piled up and you are able to buy some things you thought unreachable before .

I started playing about three months after launch, and for the longest time I felt poor and was unable to afford stuff (like exotic equipment) that every ordinary player around me seemed to buy with their spare change. But I slowly learned more about the game and how to handle my characters, survive in high-level areas and events, do dungeons and fractals and enjoy WvW, and the gold (and other currencies) did start to accumulate.

I don’t think I started seriously thinking about exotic armor before I had played the game for half a year, if not more. I just didn’t have the resources, and since I hate to farm anything and try to spend my free time (what little of it there is) with things I enjoy, I found that yellows were much more affordable and adequate for what I enjoyed in this game (world exploration, events, casual dungeons with guildies).

Try to take your time. You can’t really go wrong with anything you are doing in this game, pretty much every activity will help you gather equipment, materials and currencies, and eventually you will have aquired enough to improve your equipment piece by piece. Contrary to popular belief (in part due to other MMOs where you do need specific equipment to participate in a large part of the “endgame”) there is (almost) no content in this game inaccessible if you are not equipped fully exotic/ascended.

Learn your class(es) and the abilities you have, how to use your weapons and skills to maximum efficiency, and how the game works in general. That knowledge will be much more helpful to you than getting the most expensive equipment right from the start. Eventually you will want better equipment of course, but once you have aquired skill and knowledge, the gold will come naturally, and you will be able to upgrade to whatever equipment you desire.

Just harvest all copper and iron and whatever and sell it, and a new player can make a lot more money then we could made when the game startet.

It was even hard to have the 10s for the first traitbook at level 10 in the beginning, now harvest 2-3 copper nodes or whatever and you already have it.

My husband started playing at the end of March and he seems to be making gold much faster than I was when I was new. It helps that it’s a lot easier to get 5 daily achievements (or 4 monthly) than when the game first game came out and there were only 5 fixed options. Plus there’s achievement chests which award gold and various useful items.

Also whilst it might take longer to build up high magic find most new players who regularly salvage items will still have more than the average player did before it was made account wide. Before the change you had to have gear with magic find stats, which meant sacrificing another stat for it. Most players didn’t bother, or had one set of magic find gear they used only on specific farming trips. At other times they’d have maybe 5% if they hadn’t yet gotten a proper set of gear, if they had it would be 0%.

And hopefully most new players aren’t mindlessly following a champ train, regardless of when they started. That’s something to do when you’ve run out of other options, not when you’re new and haven’t even seen what the game has to offer yet.

I started at launch and it took me a while to get my first gold. Don’t remember how long it was but I still remember the first one. At the first Halloween I remember I had about 30 gold. That was 3 months to get that much, with the gold coming easier as time went on so it wasn’t 10 gold the first month.

While prices for what you want are higher, in return the mats you sell once you get out of the starter areas sells for more. For example, iron back then was around 10 copper. Right now it’s 1.23 silver. If you go to somewhere like Brisbane and harvest all you find you can make good money. Repeat on any alts you have and it adds up fast.

Tak.6981:

the price of everything is going up. new players cant earn gold like 10 gold per hour, all prices on tp is getting way too high. to earn a stable income in champ farm etc you need a very high magic find, but we new players dont have any. been playing like ages and still got a little bit of gold. what to do now?

Well, of course a new player will be at a disadvantage compare to a veteran. We got almost 2 years under our belt during which not only did we get a lot more loots, but also a lot more information about the game itself. But don’t think that it was easier to get a legendary back in the days because it was a lot less expensive. We had a lot less money back then and collecting gold was a lot harder. Stuff were selling for less and dungeon didn’t gave us 1 gold or more for each path. I had to exchange about 75 gold with my friend to get my Golden Achievement and we were all afraid to be targeted by hacker if we were to show off our Golden Title. Right now 200 golds is something you can get a couple weeks or even a couple of days.

But anyway, its all about the guild you’re in and the if you fit or not into that guild. We had a new members a couple months (about 3-4 months) back that joined us and he always play with us, we show him the best way to get gold and playstyle. He have now a level 80 warrior with all ascended trinkets, he play the meta just fine, he’s about to start crafting his ascended armor and have about 500 gold in bank. If you have people to show you the ways, its not that hard for new player. But of course if you try to figure out things by yourself, then you are at the same points the veteran were in the early days of the game, when 50 gold was EPIC and AC was view as a freaking hard dungeon (took us 3 hours and we gave up the first time we did it). Ahh good old times.

Why would a new player need to buy anything off the TP? I’ve been playing for ages and still haven’t bought a single thing off the TP.

If TP prices go up, then new players can sell their items for the higher prices. Seems fine to me.

Tak.6981:

champ farm

Well, there’s your problem. champ farming is somewhere around the 6th-most lucrative thing you could be doing to get gold. to name a few other things:
TP trading
daily dungeons
guild commendations
world bosses
even gathering platinum or iron ore has higher gold/hour

this is why they nerfed queensdale champs. because it gave a false impression to new players of what they should be doing.
also, there are surprisingly few things that magic find actually affects. for starters, it does NOT affect those bags the champs drop. or any chest you open. It basically only affects items that come directly off mobs. So unless you’re killing large amounts of loot-dropping mobs, magic find isn’t doing you much good.

Life is getting easier for new players. As player to player trade price level rises (TP) the price level of npc purchases diminishes (kits, trait books, tier 1/2/3 skins).

OP is assuming it was easier at any time for new players. It always was hard for new players to get money. When you start off you don’t have access to the high level areas, and this was true at launch as well as now. But new players don’t need much. A new set of gear every 10 level maybe and for that greens from the trading post will do. During this time you should be harvesting everything and selling what you can.

Are you level 80 and wanting the coolest stuff right away? If so then extremely few ding 80 for the first time and immediately deck themselves in exotics and named weapons with nice skins. Most start grinding dungeons or farming at that point. I certainly didn’t have exotics and named weapons. I got rares and farmed, farmed, farmed for gold to get better stuff.

Ye, I remember when I dropped exo axe last week and sold it for 18 g(crafting at mf costs about 10) Looted another one 2 days ago and prices went to mininum 25. And legendaries when I started playing(Unlike now they were rare back then) did cost around 2-3k. They are rly common right now and cost will hit 5k soon.Event Skins are only thing I agree on being high price. Well, but item prices are all dependant on mats and ppl are greedy

Tak.6981:

the price of everything is going up. new players cant earn gold like 10 gold per hour, all prices on tp is getting way too high. to earn a stable income in champ farm etc you need a very high magic find, but we new players dont have any. been playing like ages and still got a little bit of gold. what to do now?

Sounds like you’re talking about the economy for new players, and not the other stuff that has changed (reworked traits being foremost in my mind). I agree, earning gold is not easy but maybe it never was. What I do is harvest everything; don’t ever walk past materials. In some cases you can craft and sell for gold (keep an eye on the TP for what is hot), but in every case you can sell the materials, often times for more than the crafted items you would have otherwise made. It’s not magic but it works if you’re diligent about it, even for new characters.

Prices do seem high, but the earning power of most players has gone up considerably as well. For instance, just running around in a low level map harvesting all Copper and Iron you come across can net you a huge return for those cheap copper/iron mining picks. Completing your Daily can also earn you 1g every single day by trading your Laurel for a Heavy Crafting Bag.

Tak.6981:

the price of everything is going up. new players cant earn gold like 10 gold per hour, all prices on tp is getting way too high. to earn a stable income in champ farm etc you need a very high magic find, but we new players dont have any. been playing like ages and still got a little bit of gold. what to do now?

The more players who go into WvW, the more players will have a decent cash flow that no one even notices is not “as good” as the dungeons and k-trains.

I hate the EOTM – WvW is the real end game of WvW and it’s garnered me over 200 gold this season alone.

Did you ever stop to think, for even a second, that the reason prices have soared so high is because we had level 5-10s making 10-15+ gold per day in the first place? This just seems like a sad attempt at a “the Weeniedale train is gone” QQ than a truly empathetic rant for how ‘tough’ new players have it, tbh. We had a LOT tougher time back at launch. Leveling is easier and more of a joke than ever. Gold is virtually thrown at you now. To top it all off, day 1 veterans have spent countless hours and resources figuring things out and providing tutorials, guides, tips n tricks, ways to maximize efficiency, fruitful locations, and great builds to make being new easier than ever. You’re welcome for all of our hard work, dedication, and kindness to share our findings.

/sillythread

There is NOTHING a starting player needs to buy on the TP prior to reaching LVL 80. At that point, they are no longer “starting” characters. Anything they DO need to buy (salvage kits, gathering tools, armor, weapons, etc.) can be gotten from NPCs or crafted. While crafting materials have gone up in price on the TP, they still drop and are gathered the same way they did on launch day (and the NPC prices are still the same).

The change in the Trait system does present more of a challenge, but a decent build can be obtained without much effort or gold (and the rest can be obtained post-80). Also, the pre-80 areas have been toned down a bit to compensate for slower Trait / Build development.

Theory disproved.

Brother Grimm.5176:

There is NOTHING a starting player needs to buy on the TP prior to reaching LVL 80. At that point, they are no longer “starting” characters. Anything they DO need to buy (salvage kits, gathering tools, armor, weapons, etc.) can be gotten from NPCs or crafted. While crafting materials have gone up in price on the TP, they still drop and are gathered the same way they did on launch day (and the NPC prices are still the same).

The change in the Trait system does present more of a challenge, but a decent build can be obtained without much effort or gold (and the rest can be obtained post-80). Also, the pre-80 areas have been toned down a bit to compensate for slower Trait / Build development.

Theory disproved.

It already was in the post above ;p

I just started 2 days ago and I made 2 gold yesterday with no effort. As a long time MMO fan, I’ve come to understand that no matter what state the game’s economy is in, there is always a way to make money. Sometimes you just have to get a little creative.

I think long time players with well established accounts are overlooking how bad the new traits system is for players with new accounts. Especially if they’re new to MMO’s. IMO, the acquisition/progression part of the trait system is bad for everyone. But especially for people new to the game.(the ones who really need to get a good first impression) Please consider how hard it would be to level and fill out your traits with a new account before making disparaging remarks. Others may not have your resources and experience.

And I would also think being new, as they are, that they wouldn’t know any different than the system they now find themselves a part of. Plz consider how silly your stance seems when playing the ‘hero’ nobody asked for. I haven’t seen/heard ANY new players complaining about the new system…only somewhat ‘experienced’ players complaining under the guise of some noble empathy. Good try though.

Please give new players a little more credit than that. Double blind and placebo effect studies have given us useful information about human psychology, but they don’t give us license to make sweeping “Ignorance is Bliss” generalizations. “New player” in this context means new to Guild Wars 2, not someone with no gaming or life experience to draw on.(Because probably there are very few players like this playing Guild Wars 2. Wouldn’t you think?)
Games and other entertainment have a precarious effort/reward ratio, which must be maintained. If your effort/reward ratio gets too far out of balance, then people will go do something else.(Something which gives them a better reward for their effort.) And if you lose too many players, the game can’t be sustained.
While ignorance of the old trait acquisition system may give new players some measure of protection against bias, they’re still going to be balancing their effort versus their reward. And with a character under level 80, character progression is part of that reward.
So you can’t just float a flimsy assertion “They don’t know how it used to be – they’ll be fine.” You also can’t presume that they’ll stay ignorant. Once they start asking for advice on character progression, they’ll find out that the trait acquisition system used to be different, and that people didn’t have to do all the extra things(or pay the extra money) to unlock their traits. And there is no better way to poison someone against something, than for them to think that they’ve been cheated – that someone else has had it better than they have. When they hear that “Oh, it used to be so much better.” And it’s inevitable that they’ll hear experienced players say things like that. Along with evidence to support it.
re: I haven’t seen/heard ANY new players complaining about the new system – Oh, have you spent a lot of time helping out new players? I have spent a good bit of time in new player areas helping new players, since the trait system change. And while the response isn’t as bad as I though it would be, a good many of them dislike it, and are resentful. Especially when they find out how it used to be.
Then there are players who are not new to the game, who want to make new characters. They remember the old system, and will make their own comparisons. While they may have more resources and experience to help them, why shouldn’t they resent a trait system that gives less progression for more effort and expense?
Yes, excess money needs to be drained out of the economy, but you don’t want to burden new player creation, and especially new accounts with that. You want it to come from older accounts with more experienced players who can more easily bear the loss. And it should be for luxury/cosmetic items, rather than something vital and unavoidable, like new character progression.
In short, I can’t think of any good reason for someone to want character progression to be more difficult. Especially when it could turn new players away, and make the game less viable in the long run.