Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ulrich.7253:

I see that people that have bought more than 3 Commander tags will be getting a refund. This does not sit right with me. Those of us that have 2-3 Commander tags invested a lot of time, effort and resources to procure them, yet we are being blown off as insignificant. 100-200 gold and 250-500 badges of honor is not just spare change to most players! We deserve to be re-imbursed right along with the Big spenders!

You aren’t being “blown off as insignificant.” ANet explained the rationale, other people explained it above. No one is getting all the money reimbursed and unless you bought the second tag just before the announcement, you got full use of two characters with tags.

Here’s the other way ANet could have handled it:

• All commander tags are removed from all characters.
• Each account gets a 100g refund per tag. Perhaps also a badge refund.
• Anyone who wants an account-wide command tag with an option of four colors gets to pay 300g + 1,500 badges.

I hope you’ll agree while that would be “fair,” it would also create unnecessary work for ANet, their support team, and every player involved. Doesn’t it seem more reasonable to give a discount to people who spent more than 300g, but not to those who spent less?

I actually wish they had done this. Announcing the what the price was going to be and then announcing that the 100g tags would carry over created a huge influx of tags.

At least adding badges to the mix makes them some how earned through game play. Having them as a gold only purchase makes it a vanity item.

Your best bet is to sell them on the TP or salvage them. That has 100% to get some money out of it.

The Mystic Forge does not.

Some people argue that the game has already received an expansion pack worth of content over the past 2 years.

Some argue that the game is in dire need of an expansion and the LS and Feature Packs are not enough.

Do the Living Story and Feature Packs eliminate the need for an expansion?

Tobbo.7601:

Not in-game at the moment, What is the current Gem – Diamonds rate? And how much would a Eternity cost in $$.

Before anyone says anything. I work a lot, Have kids don’t have as much time as some people. It’s easier for me to do extra hours at work and buy the weapon outright.

Thanks guys.

I’m not judging you mate, what you do with your money is your business.

That said, a few words of advice.

1. It’s a weapon skin. That’s all, just a skin. Is it really worth 5-600 dollars to you?

2. Buying a ton of gems to convert to gold to buy a legendary is exactly the kind of thing Anet wants you to do and one of the reasons they are kept so expensive. It’s not because they’re prestigious or a mark of skill or commitment. Please don’t enforce it by paying a ridiculous amount of money for one.

My wife and I have both made legendary weapons. There was no great feeling of accomplishment or happiness that we’d done it. It was more exhaustion and relief that the grind was over. Like many others, once the Legendary was one we took our first of many breaks.

You said you have children. I do too. You’ll get a lot more from that money by doing something with them.

The Legendary Weapon experience should be as much about the experience to get it as it is to wield the weapon. If it’s not for you, buying it from the TP isn’t going to make it better.

Rieselle.5079:

Do you have faith that ANet is secretly working away on something REALLY BIG that is meaningful and relevant to you, that will address your concerns about the game, that will give it new life and make you enjoy the game more?

Or do you expect that they are completely ignoring you and are either on autopilot and doing nothing, or working on stuff you actively don’t want?
(WvW, PvP, and Dungeon players seem particularly likely to fall in this group?)

An expansion?

GW2 took Anet over 5 years to develop and they were exclusively working on GW2.

For an expansion to be feasible I’d have to believe they’ve been secretly working on it in the background while also working on: Living Story (multiple teams), Gem Store items, Feature Packs, and the China release.

I don’t have faith that an expansion is in the works nor do I believe Anet in it’s current state is even capable of delivering one without taking a large chunk of time and development staff away from the Living Story.

My question is: Does Anet have the manpower to do both the Living Story and feature pack updates, release in China… AND have a team working on an expansion in the background. Wouldn’t today have been the optimal time to announce it?

Considering how long it took to make GW2, I don’t believe they have the current staff to make even half of that and do all the other stuff they’ve done over the last two years.

I wish. I want an expansion more than anything else.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Our knowledge of the game makes low level areas easy. Not the game system.

Sorry, this is absolutely not true.

As an 80, I can skip into any bandit cave in Queensdale and burn anyone’s face off in about 2 seconds. You can clear out Beggar’s Burrow in less than a minute.

Content should be harder and more rewarding for returning vets to low level areas. It would be beneficial for all parties involved.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also . . . I don’t think the hesitation is based on their RMT through Gems so much as watching the Trading Post go absolutely ape-kittykitty if it’s ever announced to be on the way, and the current high-end economy collapsing from hundreds of gold to something else . . . or maybe even the reverse if people expect the crafting will make them harder to get ahold of or more limited!

The potential of such a shakeup is not to be lightly disregarded or tossed aside.

Therein lies the problem of attaching in game currency to real world currency.

If the value of gems is too low, people can easily convert in-game gold to gems and no one buys gems with real money. It it ALWAYS in Anet’s best interest to do whatever possible to keep the value of gems high. The “good” side of this is that if you ever decide to convert gems to gold, you’re getting more gold for your money.

The bad side is basically everything else. Every aspect of loot is now affected by gold, gems and cash being tied together. Precursors and Legendary Weapons available on the Trading Post. Certain mats like Crystal Lodestones being kitten near unfarmable. Make it a grind, but offer a shortcut… all it takes is a little cash.

It’s a shame. The items that should have held some prestige and maybe have been a mark of what someone has accomplished, are just a reminder that anything can be acquired, for a price.

Vayne.8563:

This game has all kinds of players who want all kinds of things. I’m pretty sure most players never post on the forums. I’m pretty sure Anet uses metrics of what people actually do in game to figure out what they need to do next.

Say you have 100 people who love pizza. You don’t have pizza to give them at the moment, so you offer them apples and bread. 70% of the people chose apples over bread. They must love bread. We’ll have bread from now on.

That’s basically what’s going on with the game right now. Their metrics may show every one gobbling up Living Story like it’s their favorite thing ever, but if it’s the only new content available, competing with content that’s 2 years old… it’s not an accurate measure of what players want.

I don’t know why they don’t use the in game survey system that we had in beta. People actually playing the game could give quick surveys on the content they want to see next.

We’ve been asking for this feature since release.

Shalloe.4867:

“We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013. Building your precursor will require a large amount of the new crafting material rewards listed above, 500 in crafting, and likely a combination of other items earned for completing more specific content in the game”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

That is why people still go on about this. Over a year later and I’ve not seen any more on the subject but have not been playing or following forums/announcements prior to living story season 2 so may have just missed stuff. But if nothing more has been mentioned about this update I can perfectly understand why people go on about this and are not happy.

Surely an explanation as to why this has been dropped/forgotten about/delayed is owed to the players after failing to deliver this when every other feature in that announcement was implemented into the game long ago.

From Mark Katzbach in March of this year:

“We want to let you know that the ability to build your precursor will not be in our upcoming Feature Pack. The way progression and rewards work in Guild Wars 2 have changed quite a bit since we initially talked about that feature, and our main horizontal progression systems are about to get some additional updates in the upcoming feature pack. Because of that, we are looking into several ways to integrate building your precursor into our new updated reward and progression systems we’re working on, which is requiring additional development time and iteration. As always, we’ll share details on this system once it’s far enough along in production we’re ready to discuss it.”

We should probably take that last bit as an indication that we won’t be finding out ANY info about it until it’s actually released.

Berelious.3290:

Seriously, why do people still demand this? Bite the bullet like the rest of us poor schmucks who have never had one drop and just buy the dang thing from the TP. To be perfectly honest it’s quite likely it’ll cost just as much to craft one as it is to buy it anyway, so what’s the point? If you really want to make a legendary now, save your gold, buy the precursor, and quit griping about it.

The major issue is that there is nothing legendary about legendary weapons.

As soon it became clear Anet was going to allow them to be sold on the trading post, they stopped being legendary. There is no prestige. It’s not a mark of skillful play or commitment. You either got extremely lucky with a drop or the mystic forge, or you spent hours grinding or flipping on the TP.

Or worse, you spent real money to buy one.

And on that note, why would Anet make them craftable? It doesn’t make them any more money. Keeping the demand for precursors high and the drop rate low just means more and more people biting the bullet and finally shelling out real cash for them.

MaxRage.5072:

Not everyone is in favour of Precursor Crafting. As it is already in place, at a place called the Mystic Forge.

If and when they add Precursor Crafting at the Weaponsmith, it should be just as hard as the Mystic Forge, or harder.

Crafting is taking a set of materials and making something new out of them. It has a definite beginning and end. The Mystic “Forge”, despite the name, is all about taking gold from the economy. It’s gambling, not crafting.

As someone who has made a legendary AND had a precursor drop, I still feel the system needs to be reworked.

The problem is bigger than precursors and legendary weapons though. I think the biggest issue is that the content the player has to grind through to get there isn’t fun or engaging. If people were having fun doing it and felt like they were actually making progress toward it, legendary weapons would be icing on the cake. The journey should be fun as well.

As it is, it’s just not.

To begin with OP, I would take great issue with the claim “The content you are getting every 6 months is equal to a full expansion in other MMOs”. Expansions do just that, expand the game. If anything, the game has been stretched slightly, but not expanded. If things Super Adventure Box had been permanent additions, I might be inclined to agree with you.

As it is though, we’re just doing the same thing we’ve been doing for years, in the same areas in the same way. Sometimes we get a new coat of paint, but it’s still the same rooms in the same house.

Aside from that though, I would very strongly caution against the “Don’t complain, you’re getting all this content for free” attitude.

It’s true that players sometimes (often) go outside the bounds of constructive criticism to the point of just bashing Anet and the game. I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of it myself. I think a lot of that stems from lack of communication on the devs side though.

Still, criticism and feed back from the players is a good thing, and should be encouraged, especially now that we have devs active on the forums again.

We should be active as well, and it’s okay to let them know what content we want to see. A customer who tells you want they want and what they’re willing to pay for is a good thing. We just need productive discussion on both sides.

FourthVariety.5463:

Quite the shopping list we have here in the meantime.

(1) Players who want to know ArenaNet’s stance on every feature, game mode and even disabled content (such as adventure box or kite city)
(2) Players who want to know concrete examples which type of content is to be expected medium to long term.
(3) Players who want ArenaNet to change the game according to their suggestion.

Meanwhile in another department, Guild Wars made $93 million in the past 12 months (July13-June14) according to quarterly reports filed by NCSOFT.

It appears more and more as if there was a huge chasm between two types of customers.
(1) People trained in the ways of the old business models, who expect to know details that are relevant for the old business model to work. Because the old model requires a groundswell of better informed people evangelizing future updates.
(2) The players who are monetized. The ladder group hardly ever asking for stuff to buy in any of these threads. Doesn’t anybody find that strange? So many things get asked for, but hardly anything connected to monetization.

Shouldn’t one of the question ArenaNet asking its customers be what they would like to spend their money on? Living World gets torn apart quite a bit, but the most powerful statement you can practically can make in this forum is not just saying that you want something, but that you would even be willing to pay for it.

This is actually a great point. I often times feel I want to support the game but I refuse to do it through the RNG of Black Lion Chest or items that are marked up for the sole purpose of getting people to buy the next tier of gems.

I would HAPPILY give money for an expansion though. New race, new class, new zones to explore, MORE SKILLS, more weapons and more permanent content.

Flytrap.8075:

By keeping radio silence, they let each player individually build up their own hype and expectations. I wonder what they’re working on… I mean, as far as we know, it could literally be anything.

And that’s the point.

It all makes sense now. Guild Wars 2 development is basically RNG. Everyone gambles their time (and money on gems) hoping on hope that the thing they want most (S.A.B., Dungeons, Expansion) is being worked on. You pour hundreds of comments into any outlet that will listen. You make posts and posts of complaints and requests and criticisms all over these forums and reddit. You keep investing time into the game, thinking that the content you want MIGHT be coming. Anet didn’t say it wasn’t!

They just can’t talk about it right now.

The curtain has to come down guys. For as many people that will hang around waiting, many more are leaving because they’re not being told what’s going on. Tell people what you’re working on and start listening to what they want to see.

ipan.4356:

SkylightMoon.2098:

Might as well just give us a list of topics to choose from instead. Ones you are actively pursuing or are going to work on next. This way we don’t choose a topic and then have to wait a while before there is a window to work on that area.

That’s not a bad idea.

I second this. Anet chooses, but gives us options to pick from.

For a game so focused on aesthetic upgrades, we’re moving backwards instead of forward.

Capes should have been in from the get go, town clothes became tonics, gem store outfits instead of pieces we can mix and match, single pieces of armor costing as much as $6? and 2 years and no new in game armor sets besides the ascended which is … unfortunate.

Should have voted for Evon.

Fatalyz.7168:

I hate to say it, but I don’t really see it as being in the game’s best interest to change the way that they are acquired. Think about it, every time one is listed to be sold, that is a large chunk of money that is removed permanently from the game environment. Let’s say I post a Dusk at 1000 gold, as soon as I post it, I pay a non-refundable 150 gold. Yes, there are a lot of interactions that occur daily, but to be able to remove such a significant amount of gold from the world with just one item, is too good.

They could still remove a that much gold through crafting. The issue many people have with the way things are set up now is a tiny fraction are rewarded with a ton of gold while others have to grind for hundreds of hours.

The legendary weapons are honestly one of the laziest things in the game.

No lore attached, no quests attached, only way to acquire the precursor is a near nonexistent drop rate, gambling away rares or saving 1000+ gold, and despite all the account bound stuff you need to make it you can just buy them on the TP…

For being a “legendary” the method to get them is anything but.

Leo G.4501:

That still doesn’t answer what I was asking :p

Did anyone ask the devs, likely in the condition of some sort of press conference, meet-and-greet, live-stream or podcast or whatever, if they ever considered adding more skills? I know someone has had to ask since this was a question people were asking about 10 months after the game released and I witnessed it

Funny you should ask… from a blog post a little over a year ago from Colin Johnson.

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

The regular addition of skills and traits that you can earn as you play provides us an extremely stable, easily expandable reward system that fits neatly into the pillars of progression and advancement that Guild Wars 2 are all about. Your character will be able to grow and change for years to come without invalidating everything you’ve earned so far.

My wife and I have both had precursor drops (once from a champ bag and once from a white ooze) and I still agree the system needs to change. There is a large player base that wants more options to obtain a precursor than farming 1000+ gold to reward someone who got a lucky drop.

You can make them hard to obtain, but please give us more options.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Leo G.4501:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Romek.4201:

some players we already pay arenanet to do this things

Fixed this. Original purchase does not pay for new content in any way. Buy gems or quit complaining (not directed at above poster).

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

My “attitude” is based on the fact that many players seem to assume they are OWED some content just for logging in and the fact of the matter is that Anet’s continued success (and the game’s Servers being powered up) depends on Gem sales.

I could have expressed that in nicer terms, so sorry if I offended.

The flip side of this is Arena Net assuming they are owed money/gems because they are delivering regular updates and keeping the game running. I’m not saying they think this, but some of the current gem store offerings would certainly imply it.

Guild Wars 2 has one of the absolute best value per dollars ratio ever. You could have bought the game and never once spent money on gems and easily gotten hundreds of hours of play out of it. No subscription means you’re not “forced” to play and the ‘log in and unlock the current story’ system is a great way for people to play the living story at their own pace.

Even with all that, I don’t think they have enough people throwing money at them for no other reason than to support the game. I’m sure not.

It is absolutely CRUCIAL that Anet start offering goods and services on the Gem Shop that people actually want. Goods and services that are reasonably priced.

The Home Portal Stone and the Tyrian Explorer’s Knapsack are two examples of what not to do, being priced just above the denominations of a gem card (or 2) to get people to buy the next tier.

Is there a separate team handling the gem shop? Maybe the game devs are facepalming just as hard as the player base.

Either way. Gem Shop needs to make money so Anet can work on the game. Give us things worth buying.

We probably won’t see this for multiple reasons.

• The zones are small enough as it is. They’ll feel that much smaller if we’re moving around them even faster.

• Waypoint gold sink wouldn’t be as effective if people are just running.

Zaxares.5419:

I don’t think it’s good value either, but therein lies your solution. Since we feel it is not a good bargain, don’t buy it. ANet will take note of the low number of sales, and either adjust the price appropriately for future items, or fill it with more appealing goods.

I agree, but it’s sad that this is even an issue 2 years after the game has been released.

Ideally, we have items on the gem shop that are mutually beneficial. Anet makes money and we’re happy with our purchase.

Not only is this pack an awful value, but it goes beyond to the point of actually insulting the players that it was offered in the first place.

Lytalm.5673:

This is truly, truly, truly outrageous.

Truly Outrageous…. Gems……. …. Jem.

O_O

darkace.8925:

proviticus.4183:

can I just point out that in this stupid contrived metaphor the pastries have never actually gotten any worse? Sure the owner create the shirts or whatever the hell your analogy is but the pastries remained of the same quality. The correct analogy would be that the owner started making new shirts but never made new pastries.

I respectfully disagree. The new pastries (Living Story) are, in my opinion, of significantly lower quality than those available at the grand opening (Guild Wars 2, circa launch).

I’d agree, and now that we’re almost 2 years out, I wish they would have worked on an expansion instead. I can complete most living story content (that wasn’t designed for grind) in a few hours. After that, it’s right back to what’s been on offer for months and months.

To keep on topic, it’s very dangerous to shun the people offering constructive criticism. I’d take each opinion on it’s own merit, not on whether the player is active or not. Some of the best changes come from player suggestions.

If I were ArenaNet, I’d want to know why people aren’t happy with the game.

1650! I see they’re trying the same tactic they used with the Home Portal Stone. Gems only go up to 1600… guess I’ll have to buy 800 more. Either bank on people buying more gems or attempt to bleed them for a little conversion.

This is shameful Anet. The pack isn’t anywhere close to being worth $20 and the stupid top hat makes your character bald so it’s only to serves to highlight how bad some of your customization options are.

Also, I love how other games have barbers in world that cost a couple silver and boom, haircut. An actual barbershop with a chair you sit in. It adds to the game world and costs a few silver. Guild Wars? Just a menu that pops up and 3 bucks.

At least the Zephyr pack had black lion keys.

Gem Shop just keeps getting worse.

laokoko.7403:

mtpelion.4562:

Here is an example using small numbers to illustrate why the method they currently use is good for generating revenue:

1. Directly selling skins
1a. 100 people buy the skikitten0 each.
1b. Total revenue = $1,000

2. Indirectly selling skins via tickets
2a. 1000 people buy a ticket at $2 each.
2b. Total revenue = $2,000

You make more money selling something very cheap to a LOT of people than you do selling something that costs more to a few people.

That is why Black Lion Keys exist.

I think the math is more like 10 people spend a few hundred dollar buying keys. And most of the skins aren’t even bought with cash.

If the drop rate is so bad, players are to blame for this, why sell black lion weapon so cheap.

I’d wager most of the black lion weapon skins being sold on the trading post are from key farmers. They make a new character, run it to the level 10 quest, get black lion key, repeat. The only investment on their end is time.

It offers players a way to get skins cheaper in the short term, but undercuts ArenaNet and makes the skins less valuable.

Behellagh.1468:

AlphaNeonic.1925:

I’d argue that the price of some of the items on the Gem Shop seem to only serve the purpose of making the black lion keys appear to be a good value.

Is anyone spending 150 gems or 12-15 gold on a single boost?

I think the chest would be a more viable option if they contained more chest exclusive/non gem shop goods. Let the items themselves be worth it, not the perceived value from the gem shop.

Cost of gems in gold is never considered. They want you to spend real money on gems and the price is set based on that, never ever the cost in gold.

The purpose of the gold to gem side of the exchange is to fund the gem to gold side of the exchange to provide a legitimate route for buying gold without introducing inflation caused by injecting new gold into the economy.

That’s fine, and it’s good that the exchange exists, but even at the $1.88 that most of the boost cost I can’t see where they would ever be worth it. At least with armor and weapon skins, it’s fair to say that they’re worth what people want to pay for them because the aesthetic value is objective. If someone really likes an armor set and wants to pay $10.00 for it, good for them.

The boosts seem like a waste regardless of what method you use to pay for them. There is no return on the investment.

Behellagh.1468:

Since the BLTC is listed as containing three random items of similar value to the cost of a key, it’s not gambling, it’s a grab bag. Just because you wouldn’t have ever bought most of the stuff you get from a chest doesn’t negate it’s implied value. The fact that by adding much rarer, highly valued items to the list of possible items doesn’t make it gambling either.

I’d argue that the price of some of the items on the Gem Shop seem to only serve the purpose of making the black lion keys appear to be a good value.

Is anyone spending 150 gems or 12-15 gold on a single boost?

I think the chest would be a more viable option if they contained more chest exclusive/non gem shop goods. Let the items themselves be worth it, not the perceived value from the gem shop.

It would be nice if they removed the essence of luck and scrolls of knowledge too. I’m not saying they’re useless, but they’re so plentiful in the world it doesn’t feel like it has enough worth to be in a black lion chest.

It’d be cool if the chest had more chest exclusive items in it.

Obtena.7952:

AlphaNeonic.1925:

I don’t think any of us have a problem with Anet making money.

The problem I have is that they’re being shady about how they’re going about it.

If it’s shady to you, the answer is to simply understand what you get for a key. The description for what the BL key does and what you can get from chests is very clear. Problem solved.

I understand how the black lion chests work. That’s why I don’t purchase black lion chest keys. The problem isn’t solved though. The “problem” is a player wants to support the game but that player feels like the gem shop is unfairly priced and can see through the lottery box price bleeding done by Anet.

If I were Anet, I’d want to hear why people are displeased with the offerings and come up with things that both make money and make players happy.

froacus.6892:

how is the scraps —> tickets route shady in any way?

if ANET simply decreased the drop rate of scraps by 10 (10 scraps per ticket), people would be up in arms because ‘the droprate is too low.’

as you acknowledge, NOTHING offered by the BLC is needed to play. so if the idea of scraps is that detestable to you, just buy skins with gold.

and if you do like to support ANET with cash, just buy gems. Then convert it to gold and get whatever you want.

additional thought- the BLC is a gamble. and it has certain super duper silly rare rewards, which are exclusive (perm contracts comes to mind). some people are willing to gamble for them. anyone who is in earnest buying BL keys to earn BL tickets is being really inefficient, as they could just buy skins @ 50-70g when they come out.

The claim tickets are shady because their only purpose is hide the potential cost of the skin. If ArenaNet put one of the Ley Line skins on the Gem Store for 1600 gems, people would laugh at the outrageous price. That’s exactly what is happening with the ticket scraps though.

Mind you, this is the same Gem Store that sold a SINGLE RED DYE for 250 gems.

Yes you could (and definitely should) buy the skins with gems to gold if you want one that badly, but that’s besides the point. Tactics like this burn the good will of people that might spend money on the game and make them think twice about making any future purchases.

This is the Wizard’s Tower. It’s been around since the first Guild Wars.

Wooden Potatoes has a pretty good video on it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xslnnsNAUPA

Ulion.5476:

If you look at this like a sub based mmo players would spend $10 a month on the game. If player only buy gems it should take 2-4month to get that skin. The new black lion skins come out every 2 months or so. You do not have to update your outfit to play the game.

It is impossible determine how much money A-net is making from any gemstore item without any data. If you enjoy the game you buy from some items from the gemstore to support the game every now and then. A-net wants to make a good game and make money from doing so.

I don’t think any of us have a problem with Anet making money.

The problem I have is that they’re being shady about how they’re going about it. Using gems to get keys to get scraps to get tickets to get a skin? Come on, there’s no reason to go through that many steps except to deceive the customer into spending more money on an item than they would if they knew the actual cost.

Instead of selling skins to the masses at 2-4 bucks a piece they’d rather gouge the rich and the ignorant by selling them at exorbitant prices.

You’re right. We don’t have to buy outfits to play the game. Anet does have to make money to run it though. For many of us, the options to give them that money are rapidly vanishing.

Minos.5168:

TL;DR: BLC drop rates are pathetic (like real-life gambling)
The game’s economy and ArenaNet’s coffers would be better served by simply selling skins.

The goal is to get people to end up spending 20-40 dollars on one black lion weapon skin.

No one in their right mind would pay that much upfront, but when you obfuscate the cost behind all the hoops you have to jump through to get the black lion claim ticket, people don’t realize it and keep buying those keys.

Buy Gems – Buy Black Lion Keys – Open Black Lion Chests – Get Black Lion Ticket Scrap (Maybe)

Repeat until you have 10 scraps – Trade in scraps for a Black Lion Claim Ticket – Finally get a weapon skin.

Most of the loot from the Black Lion chests are garbage and the scrap to ticket shenanigans combined with the “Back for 2 weeks only!” garbage with the Permanent Hair Style Contract only serves to highlight that the gem store is a cash grab.

It’s a shame it went this route to be honest. It leaves some players who want to support the game without a viable avenue to do so.

Ayrilana.1396:

AlphaNeonic.1925:

There is nothing “legendary” about an item that takes an insane amount of luck or hundreds of dollars worth of real world money to acquire.

…..

Players will either flush tons of gold down the mystic toilet gambling for a precursor or keep on converting those gems to gold until they finally have enough to buy one from the trading post. Either way, it’s a win/win for ArenaNet.

People are not buying gems and converting to gold as frequently as you appear to be suggesting. You also completely ignore that people simple play the game and farm the gold.

AlphaNeonic.1925:

Yes, you’re right. It is luxury item. It’s also a gold sink and a brilliant way to slowly bleed players of money and time because of the forced scarcity. Why isn’t there a way to craft precursors? Like you said, the system is working as intended.

What else is there to spend gold on this game? Let’s say they implement a system that requires as much time to earn one as it would to farm the gold to buy one. Would you still have a problem?

Well first, as far as I know, we don’t have any stats on what people are spending money on except that converting gold to gems has become increasingly and consistently more expensive since the game’s release. Making gold is a lot easier than it was when the game was released sure, but you also get far less from the conversion.

What else is there to spend money on? Ascended crafting, new items in the gem shop, both style and convenience, new skins released every few months, etc… There are tons of things in the game that cost money. None of them are necessary of course but let’s throw that argument out. The game itself isn’t necessary. This is all about a balance between time spent and rewards earned. If it works, Anet makes money and the players are happy. Everyone wins.

As far as a system to earn one that took as much time as it takes to farm the gold? Yes, yes a thousand times yes I would be for this.

Quest chains, lore, a big old checklist of having to complete every single dungeon and every heart in a “hard more”, a story behind the legendary you seek… I would LOVE that and quite honestly, I’d put money toward it. It makes a lot more sense then “Hey, I found this weapon… maybe if you put it in the forge with all this other stuff (check the wiki) you’ll get it back with a cool skin”

It would be a lot more fun than running the same dungeons or doing the same events hundreds of times over.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

That only means it’s in demand. Sorry, but all is working as intended. You need to pay the price for an item with this high of a demand.

Edit – Just wanted to note that your obsession with this one Luxury item seems a bit much. Perhaps instead of complaining about the price, you go out and make one yourself? You just need to toss 4 Rare or Exotic Greatswords into the MF, and pray that RNG favors you. This is what we all do.

Disclaimer: I’ve bought a precursor from the trading post, made a legendary and I got an additional precursor from a drop a couple weeks ago, and I still think the system is broken.

There is nothing “legendary” about an item that takes an insane amount of luck or hundreds of dollars worth of real world money to acquire. What could have been a cool symbol of accomplishment in the game is more often than not a slap in the face to the players who have spent hundreds of hours and gold in a futile attempt to win a precursor in the brutal and unforgiving lottery that is the mystic forge.

When I see people with legendary weapons, I’m not impressed. I usually think to myself, “Wow they’re lucky” or “Wow, they must be loaded” when really it should have been “Wow, they’ve really accomplished a lot in Guild Wars 2.” The prestige of these weapons has been tarnished for a long time.

Yes, you’re right. It is luxury item. It’s also a gold sink and a brilliant way to slowly bleed players of money and time because of the forced scarcity. Why isn’t there a way to craft precursors? Like you said, the system is working as intended.

Players will either flush tons of gold down the mystic toilet gambling for a precursor or keep on converting those gems to gold until they finally have enough to buy one from the trading post. Either way, it’s a win/win for ArenaNet.

We will be able to craft precursors when ArenaNet figures out a way for it to be more profitable than the system we have now.

Charming Rogue.8071:

Dear anet,

Increase the droprate or make it a permanent drop. Thanks.

Sincerely, the entire gw2 community.

Ask yourself this, why is the item available to be traded on the trading post to begin with? You can’t sell Self Style Hair kits or Total Makeover Kits… why the Permanent Hairstyle contract?

Simple.

Create an in demand item people want.

Create scarcity for no other reason than to increase value. All the item does it let you repeatedly change your hairstyle for free. Most other players wouldn’t even know you owned it.

Item now exists with a well known value of 3000+ gold on the trading post.

After not being available for months, it finally pops back up… 2 WEEKS ONLY, buy your keys now while you still can!!!

Make bank from everyone buying keys in a futile attempt to try and win the permanent hair tonic.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Even if the above wasn’t true, imagine what would happen if ANet decided to offer items in the gem store that were clear money makers: people would go ape accusing ANet of creating pay-to-win (and other people would go even apier saying, “that’s not p2w, darn it!”) and the gold:gem exchange rate would skyrocket, as people converted to take advantage.

---

Finally, I agree with Kaldrys about the primary metric for deciding if things are priced too high is whether ANet is selling enough at those prices.

I’m not saying we should be able to buy things on the Gem Shop and immediately turn around and sell them in game for profit. It’s not about players making money, it’s about getting value out of the money we spend and not feeling cheated by what we got from our purchases.

Whether you go by the actual dollar value of the item or the time spent in game making gold to acquire the item without spending real world money, the items are too expensive. When you can do the math and the price of an in game item is insanely marked up on the Gem Shop, you don’t feel good about your purchase.

Ideally, ArenaNet makes money and players feel good about the purchases they make. It should be a win/win situation.

It’s not though. The black lion claim tickets are a perfect example.

Use money to buy gems so you can buy Black Lion Keys so you can open Black Lion Chests for a chance to get Black Lion Ticket Scraps until you get Ten Black Lion Ticket Scraps and trade them in for a Black Lion Claim Ticket and trade that in for a skin.

The only reason there is to make you jump through all those hoops is to disguise the fact that you’re ultimately paying 20-40 dollars for a single weapon skin. If you’re okay with paying half the price of the game for one skin, more power to you.

It clearly works. You’re right. If Anet is selling enough of these items, things won’t change. I suppose I’m not the demographic for the Gem Shop, which seems to be either people who don’t care about how much money they spend, or people who can’t see they’re being charged outrageous prices for skins or lured by the extremely minute chance of a permanent exotic dropping.

As it stands now, I won’t be buying anything from the gem shop until they get rid of the lottery boxes and start offering things at fair prices.

I think some of the pricing on this stuff is WAY off. Let’s discuss!

100 gems – 14g – $1.25

Let’s start with the Home Portal Stone – 900 gems

First, having this priced at 900 gems so people either have to buy a 1600 Gem Pack or convert hard earned gold to gems is just lame. Let’s ignore that for a moment though, and look at the actual price.

$11.25 or 126g

The most a port will ever cost is about 5 silver, and that’s if you go all the way across the world. Let’s say 10 silver per use, for porting to home and back to where you were. You’d have to use this item over well over 1,000 times for it to start paying for itself. That’s being generous too. More often than not, the port will probably only cost you about 3 silver or so.

Besides the nodes, is there ANY reason to justify going to your home instance that often?

You’re paying 1/6th the price of the game for something other MMOs (Everquest, WoW, Rift, etc) have built into the game. The home instance portal seems way too expensive for what it offers. It’s a neat convenience item, but until the home instance actually means something, the item is about worthless.

That’s an item unique to the Gem Store though. Let’s look at items you can actually get in world.

Dye Packs

One Dye Pack sells for 200 gems.

200 gems – 28g – $2.50

With this pack, you get 5 common dyes and 2 uncommon or rare dyes.

Maybe… MAYBE this might be worth it if you got an Abyss or Celestial, but chances are you won’t. Every single common dye can be purchased for 6s or less (a total of 30s for the 5 random ones you will get in the dye pack) and the most expensive uncommon dyes (besides Gold which is 4g) is about 66s.

Out of all the rare dyes, only 5 of them are over 10 gold.

This item is not worth it. In fact the ONLY reason to buy this over just buying the dyes you want on the trading post would be gambling to make money from the rare dyes you MIGHT get. More often than not, you’ll be receiving 1-2 gold worth of random dyes for about 28 gold. I can’t see this as anything other than preying on the ignorant.

Of course, the Gem Shop briefly offered ONE RED DYE for 250 gems, so compared to that, the Dye Pack seems downright generous…

Let’s get to the bread and butter of the Gem Store:

Black Lion Keys

One Key – 125 gems – 17g – $1.56
5 Keys – 450 gems – 85g – $5.63

In a Black Lion Chest you will receive 3 items. A booster, and two other items from selected drop categories.

The Good – Self Style Hair Kits and Total Makeover kits are pretty decent offerings here. At $3.13 and $4.38 each, they seem to be a great find if you get one out of the chest. Also, they’re only available in the gem store so there are no feelings of being ripped off because you could have bought it for 10 times less on the trading post. A Black Lion Claim Ticket is nice as well.

The Bad – Essence of Luck of Scrolls of Knowledge are pretty insulting as they’re plentiful and easy to aquire in game. It only takes about 10 seconds of salvaging to get either rarity essence and many of us have a full stack or more of the scrolls, and counting. The ticket scraps are pretty bad too as they only serve to have you buy MORE chests.

“Man, 8 scraps… might as well buy 5 more keys.”

Looking at the prices of keys, unless you’re lucky enough to get a full scrap as a drop, you’re spending a minimum of $11.00 for a full ticket. More likely you’re spending $15 to $20 for a full ticket and sometimes more than that.

Why is this a problem?

If you were to get $20 in gems and covert to gold, you’d have about 140g. The most expensive Ley Line skin (and typically the most expensive skin of any of the active black lion sets) is 70g.

You could buy one and have 70g leftover.

The armor? Full sets for $10 … but then single pieces for $5-$6??

Give us more things that aren’t in the game. Don’t take 2 gold worth of dye and sell them for 30 gold.

Stop with the lottery boxes! They might make you more money in the short term, but trust me, they only make people angry and feel like they’ve wasted money. The drop rate on the “good stuff” in the Black Lion Chests is CLEARLY not in line with what people want from them. I started out buying keys at least once a month. I’ve bought them maybe twice this year. Each time ended with “Well, that was a waste.”

I hate the Gem Shop. I feel like most of the offerings fall between price gouging and insulting the average player’s intelligence. I want to support the game ArenaNet, but I’m not going to gamble on lottery boxes because “Hey, the current living story is pretty good.”

Give me something worth purchasing, at a fair price and without gambling, and I will give you my money.

Whimpered.6095:

I really don’t have a problem with the new set-up to the Pavilion. The only problem I do have is how people will argue and tell everyone that they need to zerg in order to get gold rewards when a good handful of us will spend a lot of time trying to explain that zerg = failure.

We tried all sorts of ways. Getting multiple commanders to take 10 or so people to each boss and fighting them off all at once, or trying to sort everyone out to their own wedge of the Pavilion before the blitz starts, but in the end, more people come, choose one commander to follow, scream at the other commanders to deactivate their tag, and calls everyone who doesn’t zerg at one boss a dummy. ( Harsher words but forum rules. )

Anet is trying to get rid of all the zergfesting, which I applaud, as I would much rather plan a base of attack rather than just tell everyone to group up and shoot at everything that moves. It’s more satisfying when your goals are accomplished. Now we just need the people with the ZERG ZERG ZERG mentality to follow suit before more fall down the path.

It’s disappointing for people to expect everything to come easy, and then complain if they have to put a little work in for a reward.

I agree with you to a point, but I’m going to call foul on Anet here for a few reasons.

1.) I think it’s awesome to have people working in small groups, but forcing it into arguably the zergiest well known farming event since the game came out was a mistake. Most people knew what the Crown Pavilion was and were looking forward to farming it. Bags were empty and boosters were ready… those of us who farmed it last time were ready to do so again. Doing the opposite has turned many people off the event all together. If this type of content had been introduced in a new event, it would have been better received.

2.) People are confused enough with the event being totally opposite from last year. Now sprinkle in MegaServer and the fact that we don’t see our normal commanders from our own servers.

3.) Very little in the game is training us not to zerg and it has little to do with the admittedly paltry rewards. It’s not fun fighting the rest of the map to try to get them to “do the right thing”. Add to this that X number of people are going to do whatever they need to for their achievement, regardless of what the event requires to be finished in a timely manner.

I think it would have been better if the game closed off every section of the pie and just divided the players on the map between them. Force us to do the content as intended… we will learn.

I have to disagree. One of the best ways to actually have a Living World is to show the progression of zones over time. It would be cool if they updated all the zones with little touches to show the world aging.

Plus, we’re giving money to Heal-O-Tron and Dolyak Races, etc. I want to see it used to make Lion’s Arch better than ever.

I don’t know if this will help anyone else, but I uninstalled Guild Wars 2 and reinstalled it, and the issue (so far) seems to have cleared up.

Having the same issue. Played fine since Beta but since last night: Constant disconnects and skill lag.

I’ve rebooted my PC, reset my router, made sure my ports are open, etc.

My wife is playing on the same set up from the same router and she’s having no problems at all.

Please help Anet, it’s pretty much unplayable at this point.

Personally, I’m disappointed.

The dye gamble pack, the metabolic primer and the nodes are not a good deal. We’ve done the math, it’s not a good value. It’s frustrating too, because I WANT to support ArenaNet with gem store purchases (and I’ve done so many times when I thought something was worth it) but this is pretty insulting.

What I’d like to see:

• No more dye lottery. Let me buy a set of the 5 new dyes. I will give you my money for nice dyes. I will not give you my money to gamble for nice dyes. There’s enough gambling in the game with money we earn from playing it. I’d rather not gamble with money I earn from my real life job.

• Armor and Weapon skins. I am happy to give you my money for new armor and weapon skins. I do not want to gamble for ticket scraps to assemble a FULL ticket to get a weapon skin. Maybe this system makes you more money, but it feels like you’re trying to milk your players and that’s not a good feeling.

• Stop with the lottery boxes, please. Maybe your economist figured out that’s the best way to make money, but it’s not enjoyable. Personally, I’ve stopped buying them altogether and many of my guild mates have done the same. I’d rather pay money for something I KNOW I’m going to get then something I might (very little chance) get.

Please, give me a reason to spend money.

• Add new skills and let us use signet of capture. Put those skills on champs and bosses all over the world.

• Each zone has a unique skin that can randomly drop. Chance of drop goes up with each event you do in that zone.

• All mobs drop level 80 mats and gear. Players now have the ability to “break down” higher tier mats to lower ones the same way we can promote lower ones to higher.

• Every zone has a unique zone wide meta event that can happen, with unique rewards.

Klas.4863:

Gaile, it has been ANOTHER 72 hours since you said ticket 130907-000297 was under review and my friend has not recieved any response in over a week.

It appears as though this is not an isolated issue, just from reading this thread tickets 130907-000374, 130907-000104, and 130907-000659 seem to be having the same problem.

Could we please get a proper response on this issue? It appears as if several players have been falsely banned for exploiting. This is not the first time something like this has happened.

My hope at this point, is that maybe we’ll hear something by the next update. It’s been over a week since my wife’s escalation with no further response.

Any updates on ticket #130907-000374?

This is my wife’s ticket that’s been open since last Friday. All we know is that it’s been escalated further for review. Trying to be understanding here as I’m sure you’ve got a ton of tickets to go through, but this is totally frustrating to have an account terminated when you know you’ve not broken the rules. I’m sure both our accounts would show this if someone would only look at them.

Hoping to get back into the game soon