Guild Wars 2

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aurisai.3416:

But if they’re all overpowered, isn’t that balance?

Only if those who don’t use elite specs aren’t overpowered.

Either non-HoT needs an elite spec which is as balanced as HoT’s elite specs, or elite spec needs to be as balanced as non-elite specs.

Simple as that.

Otherwise you run into the same issue as pay to win. Which is explicitly something ArenaNet said they don’t want.

Sorry, but in my opinion buying an expansion does not qualify as “pay to win”. It is a given that if you want to play the game to its full that you will actually buy the game (now free) and its expansions. GW1 was exactly the same. If you didn’t buy the expansions you didn’t get access to the new skills/heroes and most likely weren’t as competitive simply because you couldn’t put together as strong a build as those that could pick from a larger pool of abilities.

But if they’re all overpowered, isn’t that balance? Isn’t growing into awesomeness what games are all about? I played most of the characters in beta and in my opinion they’re awesome. Elite specs should be stronger. And yes I have had a serious whipping in spvp and wvw from beta characters while playing my normal characters and I find myself thinking – “Just wait till I get my elite spec going on this character…”

Having read through this thread I do think some are getting unnecessarily upset about their perceived future enjoyment of the game – which may or may not become reality. I would advise that you try not to get quite so bent out of shape as in my opinion some of the most frustrating things about raiding in other MMOs in the past are unlikely to occur in GW2. The concerns fall into 2 main categories so I’ll share my thoughts / suggestions below for each.

1. I have raided in a number of MMOs for the last 12 years or so and almost without exception the most common and difficult hurdle to overcome in gaining access to a raid has been gearing. As others in the thread have pointed out, stats are a non-issue as exotics are reasonably cheap to craft and ascended rings/accessories etc are available with relatively little effort. As such, your stat choice and skill/build setup is going to have far bigger influence on your impact in the raid than the tiny difference in stats between fully ascended kitted characters and exotic ones.
2. The next issue is the “skill” factor and in a different category altogether, the “elite 0.0001%er mentality”. There is no way to really say this gently so to those complaining that there is nowhere in the game for hardcore players, guess again. GW2 has pvp tournaments (it’s very own version of the Olympics) where you can go compete for the GW2 version of the gold medal – a legendary weapon for each member of the winning team. If you’re so convinced you’re the best and strongly desire to compete, why not go prove it against other players? Anyways, I’m getting besides the point here (I really enjoy pvp myself btw). What I’m trying to say here, is that “skill” is really something that the vast majority of players do have. With some listening skills and following a leader, people can do all the “complex” things in the game like positioning themselves correctly, blasting fields and dodging a devastating attack. With reference to the 30-40hrs/week some think are required for raids (I was GM for a raiding guild in WoW WotLK), firstly that was mostly for gearing requirements to ensure that team members progressed at the same rate and didn’t hold each other back since people can read up on the fights in their own time and learn the general tactics. Usually a few tries is enough to get someone into the swing of things once they’ve read up on the fight. Secondly I don’t recall ever spending 40hrs/week for a raid, maybe 20, 25 at a push. So I hate to suggest it, but maybe the guild was the problem? Now I know many of the WvW guys DO spend 40+hrs/week “raiding” in there. This isn’t the same kind of raid so no offence intended.

Long story short, when the devs say raids are going to be “hard”, I think what that means is that you’re going to have to spend a little time studying and practicing the content. Without the gear stat curve to contend with though, sooner or later repetition will kick in and you’ll be completing it smoothly. Be positive, this sort of thing is very much mind over matter

I’m assuming that “a real economy” is the actual mixed economic system (i.e. market economy with regulation and subsidies etc etc) in use today, which is hugely complex and difficult if not impossible to replicate perfectly in a virtual video game environment scenario.

I realize some of my points below might seem a bit idealistic, but the idea is to maximize enjoyment of the game. For me the most important differences are as follows:

1) In the real world, if you do not already have wealth passed down to you, you either get a job, or you trade the heck out of the stock market as a day trader, or you innovate (i.e. create a new product or provide a service that adds value) and potentially encapsulate this in a business entity. In GW2, you can kill stuff and vendor/TP the proceeds, or you can flip items on the TP or you can transfer real world wealth in-game, assuming you have real world wealth. As a side note, to maximize in-game wealth generation you actually pay a real world monthly fee for an application which tells you exactly what items to buy from the TP and when to sell them. These robo-vamps just suck the lifeblood out of the economy and add very little value in return.

2) The real world market economy was created to breed competition (see game theory by John Nash). In a video game like GW2, one could argue that competition should be limited to PvP type scenarios. As an example, it should not be the case that legendary weapons take say 2 months to earn for people that started the game from the beginning (assuming they didn’t just buy it with real world currency), and 8 months for people that start the game later due to intensified competition on the TP for the requisite items and/or decreased drop rates to counteract the quantity of items on the TP.

3) In the real world, taxes (ideally) get spent on social welfare programs. In GW2 they just disappear In the real world governments actually need to spend money, thereby justifying taxes. In the virtual economy we get little to no benefit from the taxes levied on us (this point is purely meant in jest).

In short, the objective of a video game economy should be to provide people with the means to achieve everything they could want to achieve in the game given a reasonable amount of effort. This is not necessarily the goal of the real world economy where 1% of the people hold 40% of all the wealth combined and try as I might, I’m probably never going to own a significant portion of Manhattan Island. For clarification I do not mean robo-vamp trading the TP as one of the means of generating wealth. As others have mentioned it just destroys the game. If you (Anet) want to preserve the current model, which essentially is just promoting the “rich get richer” due to the robo-vamps now getting enough gold to seriously manipulate certain aspects of the market, then Anet needs to provide alternative means to accumulating in-game wealth.

That’s about all I have time for right now so I’ll have to leave it there.

Pandemoniac.4739:

What evidence do you have that there’s been a big increase due to gem->gold conversions? I’m not seeing a huge influx of gold from gem conversions, otherwise the gold->gem conversion cost would be lower, wouldn’t it?

I think it’s a big assumption also that the ability to earn gold has remained flat. You aren’t accounting for the fact that my earnings go up when the price of items I can sell on the TP goes up. I make far more gold by selling what I find than what actually drops as gold.

I speak under correction, but as I understand it the gem->gold buy rate is based on the real value of the gold. As John has put it in a previous post: i.e. 1 real gold buys a stack of ore. So if it takes 2 in-game gold to buy that ore stack, and assuming 100gems buys 1 real gold, then the rate would be 100gems->2g. So a rising gold rate implies that you are not able to buy as much with gold as you were previously. If you look at a graph showing the gold->gem and gem-> gold prices over the past 8 months, you will notice that they are perfectly proportional to each other with a loss on the gold->gem being factored in. This implies that both conversions use exactly the same real value conversion formula. So basically, if prices go higher, gem/gold conversion rates go higher.

With regards to selling on TP, yep I do it too. I typically salvage whites/blues and sell greens to the higher of the vendor/TP, usually ends us being the vendor. I salvage yellows as the ectos are way more valuable than what I could vendor it for or sell on the TP.

munkiman.3068:

There are quite a few other factors involved with what you’re saying. Although i agree the earning potential has remained somewhat flat, and there isn’t any hard numbers we can use to confirm that, it’s not a flood of gold on the market particularly that has contributed to price increases in certain aspects of the market. Some factors we may want to include:

1.) A reduced supply – bot banning, less people farming or changes in drop rate
2.) Increased demand – More people going for the big ticket luxury items and the materials required to create those items.
3.) Changes in player behavior – More people running the most profitable dungeon paths which contributes to only certain items loosing value as they flood into the market, while other areas see a reduction in supply, increasing the value.
4.) Changes in population – increases or decreases in population affect the supply chain. This especially so with new players coming in that don’t even have a scope on the big ticket items. You can see a pretty drastic reduction in t5 and below costs as those new players might be pumping up supply in those areas.

I totally agree with you and I don’t mean to exclude that the factors you mentioned have a huge impact on the prices of items. However these factors are usually of a fluctuating nature, they come and they go cause prices to rise and fall in cycles.. perfect, no problem with that. The issue I’m concerned with is one of purchasing power. With the current rate of difficulty for earning gold, the person that makes use of gem->gold conversions and flipping items at the TP has far greater purchasing power than someone just running fractals/dungeons etc for example for effectively little to no effort (in game effort ofc, don’t want to suggest that people don’t work hard for their money).

The result of this on me for example, is that I have the distinct feeling that now that I’m getting closer to end game phase of play in gw2, flipping items on the TP trumps any other activity that I can possibly do in the game with regards to earning a legendary item. I do concede however that my assertions regarding gems->gold conversions resulting in a glut of gold in the market, resulting in higher prices are largely speculative, or guesses (albeit an educated guess). I also concede that in the case of legendary items and associated materials, increase in demand is playing a much bigger role than I initially gave it credit for. Either way, given that I to date have earned at most 200g over the 8 months I’ve been playing, I just can’t see that I could be bothered to raise the 700g required for a precursor even though I’ve already met or am relatively close to meeting a number of the other requirement.

Please bear in mind that legendary items are not the only thing I’m after. I would also love to be able to decently equip alts. Last I checked it would cost me in the region of 30-40g per armour set to craft. Then still need to craft accessories and weapons.

marnick.4305:

Aurisai.3416:

I think I’d rather stick to a less biased perspective, also from the same textbook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics

Relating Austrian economics to communism is just silly as it enshrines a free market based economy free of all intervention. It has received noticeable recognition including a Nobel prize and is used as a counter balance to mainstream economic theory by many successful fund managers around the world.

Out of the wikipedia textbook, I read the methodology and criticism sections thoroughly, for your convenience.

Methodology: The method at the basis for Austrian school is flimsy at best.

You’re missing the entire point of the conversation here. I don’t think you actually read the wikipedia page properly since the word “flimsy” is not used once in the entire page. Flimsy research does not win Nobel prizes. Yes there is criticism, but there always will be between opposing schools of thought. Not to be funny, but economics as a whole is not a science and therefore is offered through faculties of commerce as it is a system of man made laws governed by human perception and willingness to trade rather than fixed laws governed by nature.

So in an attempt to bring this conversation back on track, the crux of my argument is that while the in-game ability to to earn gold in gw2 has remained flat, or slightly increased, the total gold supply in the game has drastically increased thanks mostly to gem→gold conversions. As a result, price is pressured upwards and scarce items become more difficult to attain by people not willing to make gem→gold conversions or spend their game time flipping items on the TP.

marnick.4305:

The example John is hinting at is Japan. They’ve been printing money like crazy for 20 years, yet the only result is more deflation. It is the prime example that merely printing money doesn’t necessarily lead to inflation.

This is completely inaccurate. To quote recent news:

“The big surprise last week, though, was the action by the Japanese central bank, whose governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, announced a commitment to meet its 2 per cent inflation target in two years by at long last joining the quantitative easing party. It represents a U-turn from its stance over the last couple of decades, and is now about to follow the strategy of monetary loosening being followed in Washington and London. Lack of growth will do that. Better late to the game than never.”

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/japan-has-finally-joined-the-quantitative-easing-party--and-better-late-than-never-8563280.html

For reference: quantitative easing = money printing

marnick.4305:

Aurisai.3416:

John Smith.4610:

“In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time”

Time for new textbooks; change in money supply is not a change in price level, they are not interchangeable.

It depends on your school of economic thought – you really should get to know me better before implying I don’t know what I’m talking about. Keynesian economics has your definition as outlined above, although in general economist do agree that expansion of money supply in excess of output rate does result in inflation, so the 2 are inextricably linked. Austrian economics explicitly defines expansion of money supply as inflation, with inflation being the root cause of rising prices.

Sorry to burst your bubble but Austrian school isn’t considered a viable economic theory. It’s on the shelves with communism as something that doesn’t work.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Austrian_school_of_economics

I think I’d rather stick to a less biased perspective, also from the same textbook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics

Relating Austrian economics to communism is just silly as it enshrines a free market based economy free of all intervention. It has received noticeable recognition including a Nobel prize and is used as a counter balance to mainstream economic theory by many successful fund managers around the world.

John Smith.4610:

Aurisai.3416:

If this increase in the gold supply is not counteracted strongly enough with gold sinks, we have a textbook economic definition of inflation.

“In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time”

Time for new textbooks; change in money supply is not a change in price level, they are not interchangeable.

It depends on your school of economic thought – you really should get to know me better before implying I don’t know what I’m talking about. Keynesian economics has your definition as outlined above, although in general economist do agree that expansion of money supply in excess of output rate does result in inflation, so the 2 are inextricably linked. Austrian economics explicitly defines expansion of money supply as inflation, with inflation being the root cause of rising prices.

Either way, it is all semantics. Now our politicians all favour Keynesian economics because they benefit hugely from doing so. They can essentially print money all they like and make claims about how inflation is only x%. Yet when we all go to the store to buy groceries, we know it is more like 10%+x%.

Now you can tell me all you like that there isn’t inflation (using your “textbook” definition) in gw2, but the proof is in the pudding. The goalposts for legendary item for example have shifted massively. 5 months ago the precursors sold for around ~300g or less. Last time I checked they were around 700g. I remember someone from Anet actually making a post about how they saw someone snatch up a completed legendary for a price (can’t remember exact amount but it was around 700-1000) and just turn around and sell it for double that price. I can’t see that anyone has earned that kind of gold just through dungeons etc. Another example is exotics, when I started playing a crafted lvl 80 exotic weapon was typically in the region of 1-1.5g. Now they sell for more than double that price.

Kruhljak.2705:

Where’d you get that impression? What else did you think it would be? It’s the method ANet uses to generate revenue to keep the game moving along, and there was nothing hidden about it. They can’t do it with in-game gold, after all. There was no chicanery involved in the way it was described, if that’s what you mean. It’s a place to buy conveniences and basic options such as character slots…with gems(=cash). There’s no pay to win in there, since there is no WoWist infinite gear treadmill carrot in the game to “win.”

Just so happens there’s also an option to trade in-game gold for those gems. Which, one would think, should put a nice clamp on any F2P whiners out there; though no doubt, nothing short of an industrial vise could hope to shut them up.

You’re right, to a point. Fair enough, you can get full exotics, and 2/3 pieces of ascended gear without having to have too much gold. Currently to my knowledge, it is not possible to acquire ascended gear in all slots without a very significant amount of ectos (350 iirc) amongst other things. At 22s each, which was the last TP price I saw, that is 77g. Given that it would take me well over a month to grind that amount of gold, the person that just buys gold with gems has a very very clear advantage as they can just buy the items outright and have a stat advantage (ascended items are more powerful than exotics) over me until such time as I’m able to grind to get the gear.

Now I’m going to really drive our Anet friend crazy with my next statement (please don’t take offence) The very fact that it is possible to buy gold with rl money, albeit through indirect trade of gems, introduces a large amount of gold into the in-game economy that wasn’t “earned” through farming. If this increase in the gold supply is not counteracted strongly enough with gold sinks, we have a textbook economic definition of inflation (an expansion of the money supply, which cannot but eventually lead to higher prices).

Even with strong enough gold sinks, and imo the current gold sinks are pretty strong, these sinks are biased against those that merely play the game as opposed to those who buy their gold. Those who trade or flip for profit do have some form of gold sink levied against them in trade levies, but I would argue that since they indeed make a profit from the trade, once again the tax is just being redirected to the consumer of those goods, i.e. the people just playing the game for the pure enjoyment of it.

In short, I believe it is alright to turn gold into gems. It is not alright for gems to be translated into gold. The simple reason is this, someone who earns the gold in-game cannot hope to compete with someone that simply buys the gold. Therefore it follows logically that the person selling the item in demand will obviously ask for the higher price, thereby inflating the value of the item beyond the point which one could reasonably expect to earn the item by doing in-game activities.

Don’t get me wrong, it is completely reasonable for Anet to be compensated via the cash shop. The typical MMO that I’ve played in the past has been in the range of $10-$15 per month and I’m more than happy to spend that, and I have bought expansion slots and bank slots and bag slots etc etc. I just fundamentally don’t like the idea of buying in-game currency directly. Why go through the process of earning a legendary if I can just buy it?

Geotherma.2395:

Kraggy.4169:

Geotherma.2395:

Lol people shouldn’t “need” to convert gems to gold. It isn’t that hard to earn

Well, since most people seem to make gold in-game by ‘flipping’ items on TP and price-gouging, rather than actually doing something positive then I’ll pass on that, thanks.

I don’t I work for mine, no TP flipping here :P

I for one would love to know how you do this. I’ve been playing since before halloween last year, and I regularly do dungeons/fractals (at lvl 20 atm) and wvw. I haven’t done any “flipping” and I would say that I probably have around 30g floating between my characters. My main mesmer is fairly decently equipped in full exotics and ascended items(no legendaries or custom made armour) and I have master crafting completed. I would estimate that I’ve lost at least 100g to gold sinks in the game, holding runes (not even the 20 slot ones) and siege equipment etc. So far the best return I’ve found in the game is to run lvl 18+ fractals, probably netting around 1.5g per run. I don’t see how this is a good return for time spent by any measure considering the price of just 1 berserker insignia let alone a legendary precursor for example. So lets be generous and say that all in all, over the ~8 months I’ve been playing the game, I’ve netted 180g, of which at least 50g has been lost in essential taxes (WPs and repairs).

I like the idea of crafting, and imo it should be possible to make a decent in-game “living” off of it. unfortunately atm margin for actually crafting items is 0% when compared to the raw materials, and while I am financially inclined irl, I’m not really interested in wasting a lot of time playing an in-game market.

I should be also able to earn decent cash by gearing up well and going to kill stuff that is otherwise difficult/impossible to kill. Atm it is all so randomized and littered with junk that forces me to eventually fill up inventory and go sink maybe 6 silver into waypoint travel to sell. Kind of reminds me of the Karka event where 1/200 people opened the chest and got precursors worth many 100s of gold (they were minimum of 300g on TP at the time IIRC), while everyone else makes do with drops barely worth 1g if that, even though we all fought our behinds off.

I know this post sounds a bit sour, but I’m certainly not feeling like my effort in-game has been suitably rewarded.

Cradorell.3941:

Hey, that was me! Yes i got frustrated, and yes i got annoyed! But i didnt intentionally lead pugs to the death! Im sorry for the trash talk, and i have learned now to remain calm in all situations and my change in person has been significant. But people still need to listen to what i say if they want to survive, its simple!

The PUGs that i did lead were to be honest, under equipped and not very good in their performance, but i had to do my best with what i had. I have learned!

Nope not you, you turned off your Commander symbol because you didn’t want anyone not in TS to be able to follow you. Your other guild mate then went on his death mission.

But at any rate, glad to hear you’re a changed man. I’ve been on SFR quite a long time now and I purposely decided not to join the bigger guilds since I don’t like bureaucracy. So TS, and maybe some organised raids if my guild ever gets bigger is as much part of the community as I’m going to get. That doesn’t mean I’m not good at what I do in wvw or unable to follow instructions from commanders patient enough to give it. I’ve rolled with the best of the SFR commanders and in my opinion it is never so much about skill so much as willingness on both sides.

So for crying out loud, please could this bickering between PUGs and you guys cease? You’re never going to win respect (or willingness) from PUGs by alienating them.

Sird.4536:

Oxxymoron.9864:

Sird.4536:

Skoti.3195:

SFR it is time to learn how to command PuG. VS and Deso do it from the very begining of the GW2 release.

Do people not read anything. We have been commanding pugs, that listen and join us. If you know of a way to command pugs that flame you and reject any hand of invitation then pls do share.

just a thought: i was on SFR for a bit more than a week back when it was in t3, and i was looking for a home server. I play almost every day, i upgrade and siege up a tower 4-5 times a week on my own budget, spending 5-10g on upgrades weekly, and 50% of the time i play morning, when every server needs every person they can get. I know how to play the game. Im a PUG. After that week on SFR, i was like : me helping THESE???? no kitten way!!!! And it probably only got worse, after all you’ve admited trying to chase players off the server. So i dont really get the surprise, they are reacting to the way you act. Honestly, who in their right mind would want to work with a bunch like you.

Other thought:
Dear SFR posters! you truly believed that your server will be the one exception that wont be overrun with serverhoppers, if it keeps winning? I mean srsly – “those i didnt negotiate and invited personally should get out, because their presence disturbs me” – you really thought that would fly in T1? Theres a limit to how naive someone can be….

What are you talking about, i said people like you are what we need more of and that we appreciate it. And the guys that do upgrade etc we thank. Seriously do people read?

I have to be honest, I share Oxxy’s sentiment here. I was on SFR bl on Monday night (and in TS) when RIOT, SiN and 1 or 2 other “recognized guilds” were on the map and everyone else told to “f… off”. I saw the whole affair where a RiOT member turned on his commander symbol to deliberately lead PUGs to their deaths. I saw the insults getting swapped between PUGs and “recognized guild members”. So don’t any of you try to claim that you just asked nicely to get PUGs off the field so guild members could join in. I then witnessed (after there was no longer even a queue), the RiOT commander still telling PUGs to f off, both in TS and in chat.

It seems quite clear that on SFR atm there are 2 definitions for PUGs, the first being anyone that isn’t a member of the “recognised guilds”, the second being anyone that isn’t a member of the community, i.e not listening in on TS etc. If I had to select RiOT’s definition by their display on that evening. It was clearly the former.

Oeps Rolls Necro.2594:

Xispeo.1706:

Yes the match is getting more & more balanced. SFR progressively going down, still strong atm, Deso progressively going up, VZ progressively recovering with some nice guilds entries. The best thing for T1 is that now the match is not done on tuesdays, which was to me the worst for WvW. And being a challenger is more exciting than getting double focused, SFR gonna face it as Deso will just go to T2 is they keep playing the SFR game.

I agree about its getting (a little ) balanced. Deso is still nr 3 in T1.
We are start working more together and its nice to see some results from it.

But Deso going to T2? I dont see that happen in a while tbh. Elona is ticking 495 point atm and still isnt close to us.

And deso is playing the SFR game? Lol ask the people in Sfr bl last evening.

IRON policy: red=dead (Offski likes loot way to much )

Wow that is rich. I’d say your blob was losing 3/4 of the engagements that I saw. Only reason you managed to keep us out of possession so long was because as soon as we wiped you lot we had to run to the other side of the map to wipe the VZ blob and then back again because you wanted more beating. That went on for ages since you weren’t so interested in fighting each other.

@Danielle: Firstly, to keep this in context, lots of respect to RG. I’ve run alongside your guild a number of times and have been most impressed with your tactics and use of abilities. I remember when you guys transferred to SFR, I’d heard so much about you that when I found you guys I was determined to stick to you like glue to figure out what made you so special, even though you told all us “PUGgers” to go away. Needless to say I learned a lot, and even though I probably didn’t get all your commands since you were all in a different TS most likely, I was able to keep up by staying close to Sacrx.

My point in all of this is that while your abilities as a guild are exceptional, no doubt, the ability for “randomers” to join in and assist do not require exceptional talent. All it requires is good leadership, which certainly isn’t lacking, and some basic acceptance of the randomers. Just this weekend I was ikittenerg(edit: in a group lol) lead by Wemil consisting mostly of randomers and we took apart deso zergs at least 3 times bigger than our own, repeatedly, just by sticking close and following the lead.