I like having a new background, but I find this one a bit too dark. I think it’ll get annoying if we’re stuck with it until the next expansion…
Relatedly, I wish we could choose what to display by default. I miss the original rewards screen with the order banners and world completion icons etc. It would also be cool to choose how many character icons to display (and put them in a grid etc.).
These aren’t things I’d want a lot of resources dedicated to, but it would be nice.
Yeah… I’m not “angry” or “feeling entitled” about the prices. ANet can charge what they want for gem store stuff.
I just think it’s a shame that this is the approach they went with. Obviously I don’t have the statistical information ANet have, but I’d have spent way more money in the gem store if the prices had been cheaper. Selling a lot for a little gets you the same as selling a little for a lot. But the former has the advantage of having customers feel like they’re getting value for money.
I don’t think it’s right to say this is “unfair”. It isn’t. People with the toy didn’t have a glider a few days ago, they don’t have one now. They aren’t obliged to give one to them.
I do, however, think it would have been nice for ANet to offer a discount. It was done before with the wings, and it would have been a nice and easy way to reward customer loyalty (and in particular, customer loyalty for those who’ve bought gem store items).
ANet is under no obligation to do nice things for their customers. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea.
It’s possibly my favourite map in the game (with Tangled Depths second). Much more interesting to explore, and rewards learning the map.
Yeah, I hadn’t seen the notice either. Went to spend my shards tonight, and was confused that I couldn’t. Came on here to see what the deal was.
Disappointed that the change was made before the next season, and with the way it was “communicated”.
I don’t understand why so many players are so quick to attack others.
I didn’t wait around yesterday. I logged in around usual patch time, saw it wasn’t up, checked forums, and went out. So I am not in any way bothered by this.
However, it’s easy to see why people who had went to the trouble of organising a ten person raid team for that day would wait around. Or why people who had rearranged plans in order to play the patch might (and seriously, isn’t people actually being hyped enough for a patch to do that supposed to be a good thing?). The communication received was vague, and I can understand why many players interpreted it as “It might be worth waiting around”.
In short, the communication was vague, and it put some players out. It’s reasonable for them to be upset, and there’s no need to attack them for expressing it.
I agree that they need to be adjusted. If we’re supposed to build cool things with them (which seems to be the case given their similarity to SAB) they’re way overpriced.
I could understand them being a little harder than SAB, due to the constant availability, but this is nuts. Given how people were about the SAB decs, I am surprised to see them go in this direction.
Okay, I didn’t like the old system, and I was really excited for legendary crafting (and actually liked the way it was implemented for the most part). However, as we aren’t getting that any more, why not go back to the old style?
The new storm bow skin is a reminder of how exciting epic skins can be. If that had just used a precursor which dropped out of the forge (or in the world), then that would have been something a lot people would have worked for (maybe stick Bolt/Meteorlogicus aura/footfalls on it).
I don’t really care whether the storm bow itself is a legendary, but flawed as it was, the old system was literally better than nothing.
I preferred the original system, but after the utter mess of the first overhaul and the year or so it took to fix it, I hope they just leave it alone.
It’s a balancing act between number of sales and profit-per-sale. That concept is true for pretty much all businesses, that you have to figure out where the sweet spot is.
I’m guessing Anet is pretty confident that they’ve got it, or else they’d lower prices. Whatever I think of their prices, I can’t imagine they’re making those decisions totally blind to their sales metrics.
The price of the upgrade extractor makes that seem suspicious. Unless it has some bizarre psychological motivation in encouraging people to spend on other things.
As I’ve said in other threads though, it isn’t just a matter of balancing sales and profit-per-sale. They also need to encourage customer loyalty and, by extension, word-of-mouth sales. I don’t see the gem store doing that very well.
Depressed that people like to support their MMOs? Ultimately that’s why I buy gems, the tools are a useful sink for those gems. I’ve still spent less on GW2 in the past 4 years than I have on MMO subscriptions in the past.
I’m not sure that this supports the game as much as I used to think.
Yes, obviously giving ANet money helps them. But what about the effect it has on retention and new players? Happy players stay longer, and recommend the game more. If people felt the gem store was good value, maybe they’d be happier. If ANet think they’re trying to exploit their players, maybe they’ll be unhappier.
Maybe high spenders outweigh the money lost from low spenders and lost players. Maybe they don’t.
All I can say is, if the tools had been account unlocks from the start, then I would definitely have bought a set of three, and probably bought multiple reskins. As it is, I’ve bought zero, and won’t buy any in future. Whether that loss is offset by whales, I have no idea.
What’s another issue is that these tools lose value the longer they’re left in their current state because their usefulness is determined by how much longevity the game has left. A year ago, I’d have bought all three, a year from now I probably wouldn’t buy any. If the change came tomorrow, I’d be on the fence.
All I can say is that if they were account bound I would have bought a full set, and probably a few alternative skins, years ago. As it is, I haven’t bought a single one because they’re far too inconvenient.
In addition, even if this approach would only make ANet break even (or even a slight loss), it would have done a lot to make them look less money-grubbing, which would encourage more people to be generous in their gem purchases (as well as to keep playing, and recommend the game to others). It’s weird how little monetary value ANet seem to give to word of mouth and player retention (even assuming they give zero value to customer satisfaction, which they don’t).
Yeah, it looks particularly bad on Revenant if you switch from hammer to staff while wielding. The staff just gets a head at one end.
TD is probably my second favourite map in the entire game. It’s really interesting to explore, rather than just a straight line from point to point. The sense of “Oh wow!” when you find entire caverns (or the water underneath) that you had no idea were there is amazing. Only a few hidden JPs and mini-dungeons really come close to having that kind of impact.
I hope each expansion comes with one map like TD (more than that would annoy too many people).
I’m 100% against limited skins, all they do is add to ones “special snowflake” status, which isn’t a good thing.
I don’t agree with the special snowflake thing. Partly because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but also because having goals is important to the game.
If everything is easily gettable, then what are players supposed to do to entertain themselves during content droughts. The mechanics of the game are good, and the world is fun to explore, but after three and a half years things can get a bit repetitive. That’s why having targets to work towards is a good thing.
If people can just get everything really easily (SAB trib skins) or really cheaply (Halloween skins), then what is there to keep people coming back year after year? If you see something you like, you just get it, wear it and then… what?
I’m starting this thread as a discussion because ANet seem to be genuinely listening to the community and trying to give players what they’ve been asking for. They have made two decisions lately that I consider controversial, and I thought it would be useful to provide community feedback:
1) Okaying the SAB tribulation exploit, which devalued the tribulation skins (in terms of exclusiveness, but not gold value).
2) Added old skins to the mystic forge, which devalued them (in terms of exclusiveness and in terms of gold value).
I’d also say that this goes back to previous skins which were exclusive such as the Fervid Censer and the Wizard Hat.
I just thought that, as ANet are listening, it might be a good idea to talk. This seems to be an issue where there is division among players, but both sides can’t be made perfectly happy.
For me, I think that the trib skins and the Fervid Censer should have remained exclusive, for the sole reason that there were alternative palette swaps available, which seemed a good compromise. Things like the Wizard Hat and Halloween skins, I’m less sure.
The changes made duplicate tags completely worthless and duplicate legendaries rather pointless in most cases. Neither one got any easier to obtain from the outset. Tags are 3x the price they were before the change.
Look at Nuggi’s post above yours. We are talking about a loss of gold much bigger than with commander tags, and in some cases more than legendaries.
I can understand people objecting to compensation (sort of, I actually have no idea why people are so invested in not letting other players get something), but I do think the amount of gold that has been taken off scribing has heavily been played down.
Just no to compensation for this stuff. Things change, prices change. If they compensate for this then they should compensate for all sorts of other stuff and suddenly we are playing Compensation Wars, and the devs become reluctant to change anything because of all the “virtual paperwork” it will cause.
Those pixels are not real and are subject to change (and are, actually, worthless…).
They do compensate for things like this. See: Commander Tags and Twice Told Legend.
This isn’t some everyday change that doesn’t make a huge difference. They changed the cost of scribing in terms of hundreds or thousands of gold.
Again, I think doubling (actually for higher tier stuff tripling) the decorations made before the patch would be fair. It isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s one that is simple and covers a significant number of people.
Otherwise, give titles or something for each achievement tier of scribing unlocked before the patch. But that rewards individuals when it’s really a guild thing.
Yeah, I think the “Twice Told Legend” set a reasonable precedent for this. Either give titles for the tiers of scribing unlocked before the patch, or do something like double up the decorations crafted (if you want to benefit guild over player).
I don’t think this is unreasonable given the costs were reduced by hundreds if not thousands of gold.
I’d also repeat that not compensating such a big drop seriously disincentives players investing in things. We’ve already had the SAB trib skins lose their value thanks to ANet, so that’s hours of effort devalued. Now scribing (which, to be clear, I think is a good thing in itself).
Why should anyone put effort (and more importantly money for gems) into the game if the rules can be changed at any time?
The rewards were badly designed. Finishing every zone once gives you AP but not much more. The rewards is geared towards those who do it 16×6 times, while discouraging group play and encourage solo play.
This is a mmorpg. Having people helping each other is a good thing. If you want players to grind, let them help each other. It would have been much better if the 16 skins were buy-able as it is now, but then have a separate reward like a mini, a back piece, or title be exclusively for those who finish all the tribulation achievements.
Running 2-2 and 2-3 16 times each is more a statement about time than skills. In the context of SAB, that is just SAD.
What? How can you say that finishing each zone gives you AP and not much more? Each run gave you a token for a unique skin that was prestigious because it was only available for doing that run.
You’ve completely omitted the exact rewards that people are upset have been devalued from your analysis of the reward structure.
If you seek out MO’s post about suspending development of legendaries you’ll see him refer to the content pipeline being empty. A pipeline takes time to fill so I’m not expecting too much in this update. We need to look towards the next one for that.
The important thing is that he has recognised the problem and acted to address it but it will not be an instant fix. It requires that most elusive of all masteries: patience.
He also said this:
I strongly believe that we will in fact entertain you. We’re a team of people who love the game that you love, and are working on things we’re confident you’ll love. But I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.
Mo
I think they will save the new colors for new worlds, if they ever add them. I’ve got my fingers crossed for next year.
Purple and Red were the ones for W3 and W4. But that leaves at least black, white, pink and brown. Then there’s darker and lighter variants, or flashing colours. They could definitely do something to make the W1 and W2 trib modes have value again.
Devs, if you’re reading, please consider adding a title or some other reward for completing all the tribulation mode achievements.
This is what I’m hoping too, I hadn’t bothered with the achievements previously but I unlocked them all when this happened just in-case.
They should wait till after SAB ends to do it though so that players don’t figure out a way to cheat on those too.
I think the best case scenario would be adding new recolours next year (or this year and just don’t turn SAB off) for W1 and W2 trib modes. It sucks for people who’ve already done the content, but at least they’ve learned the routes. The current skins have been totally devalued and its the only way to salvage the system.
They could have just not said anything. Or said it was an exploit and then fixed it later.
Obviously saying that it was an exploit, then admitting they couldn’t stop it isn’t a good idea, but they could have done something like:
Dev: “We consider this to be an exploit, and it is not in line with the terms an conditions.”
Dev (after SAB has finished): “To those concerned that we have not punished exploiters. We apologise, but we do not have the resources to do this at this time. As we hope you understand, we also have other priorities in game right now. We will however fix this exploit before the next release of SAB. We do continue to take exploiting seriously, and it is unfortunate that due to the specific nature of this exploit we are unable to take further action.”
That would have minimised the damage done by the exploit, appeased the people wanting transparency, and not involved any kind of dishonesty.
Of course, staying silent would also have achieved most of that. Basically the only thing they could do to entirely devalue the skins was exactly what they did.
People lose value for things all the time because rules change, paths change, and efficient ways of farming/proving skill change over time. You don’t hear people going “Oh god, my Mario 64 experience was ruined because someone managed to speed run the game in 16 minutes!” Why? Because it was a good game, and the experience they received from the game, including the effort they put into it, is still legitimate.
My point is the effort you put in is the value you receive out of it, but that doesn’t mean you should enforce your own ideals of what you consider value upon other people — if people want to buy their way through a game, that is their choice, but it does nothing to diminish the time, effort, and journey you put into it because it should be about your own experiences, not about other people who you never even met and will never care about. Your educational experience is not diminished simply because someone bought their way through school — if anything, it makes you a better student than them.
The reason the value is diminished is not because of what Anet allowed. It’s because you -chose- to feel your value is diminished, despite the fact you got the experience and result you desired.
Belier, this will be my last post in response to you.
Stop telling other people what they should or shouldn’t value.
We’re done here.
Go check the AH right now. There are Kaiser skins of every kind for sale on the TP. They can be directly bought off the TP for gold, as non-bind-on-account orange kaiser skins drop from chests.
Seriously, open your TP up, and just type in “Kaiser”.
Yes, the blue and orange ones are on the TP. Which I’ve already said is a good thing.
We’re talking about the yellow and green skins…
Honestly though, this conversation is just derailing the thread. I have no interest in convincing someone who doesn’t value the trib skins to value them. If you don’t care about them, fine, this issue doesn’t affect you.
I’d prefer to discuss the fact that people lost the value of dozens of hours of work because ANet decided it was a good to approve an exploit rather than either condemn it or stay silent.
It is a small deal because it does not change the course of the game, its economy, nor even really the gameplay. This isn’t as much a white rhino as it is a red herring, and really, people shouldn’t care about whether or not a red herring is killed because it matters little. While I don’t want to belittle people’s efforts, the fact is that the time they put in and the knowledge they made the effort should be reward enough to them, as the recolor skin makes 0 difference, especially since you can already -buy- them off the TP for gold.
The recolours weren’t available on the TP for gold. You can only get them with gold thanks to an exploit, and ANet’s endorsement of it.
Anyway, this is going nowhere. You don’t value the trib skins, fine. Others did.
Also, I don’t know why people are saying this is a small deal. People spent dozens of hours getting those skins. It isn’t a small deal at all.
Moreover, this was one of the last areas in the game where this kind of content existed. Saying it is only a small part of the game is like saying it isn’t a big deal to kill the last white rhino because “It’s only one.”
Here’s the other thing: I’m not in disagreement about some things being locked behind skill, and requiring effort to get them over just buying them — in fact, that’s honestly my preference. I’m one of the people who did Light Up The Darkness of Liadri when it first game out, so I really do enjoy doing things that take challenge. :P But that being said, if you’re going to ask for something to be unique and skill based, I believe you should be asking for more than a recolor for your basis of what you want.
Okay I really don’t know why you feel comfortable telling me what I should want, especially as I’ve already explained what I want and why.
I do not want more extravagant rewards for skill or effort. I do not want players to miss out on skins because they simply can’t do the content (there are many players of GW2 with disabilities for example, who simply wouldn’t be able to complete trib mode). There are also many players who just don’t have time in the (unnecessary) three week window to learn and complete trib mode. These people should be able to get the skins too.
That’s why a recolour was a perfect compromise. Everyone can get blue and orange skins, but the yellow and green skins could still be a badge of honour.
I honestly believe that if you think that recolors is/are your greatest choice for prestige, you need to rethink your wants for this game, because you’re low balling your expectations hard. In a game where stats are normalized and literally skins are the only thing that make a difference at end game, you should be asking for more, not less. Complaining about these particular skins instead of something larger is by far a mistake in my opinion, and we as a community (and as customers) should have higher expectations of what we pay for.
I’m going to say these things in response to this, though:
1. There is no perfect system. In your system, people are discluded for the sake of “prestige”, which could be a means of saying “look how hard I worked to get this” while at the same time being just as much “I’m better then you because I have something you can’t get”. Because of this, there is no system which can be all-inclusive and yet individualized at the same time.
2. The system is literally one small bit of code away from being the same as nearly every other system in the game in terms of what can and cannot be sold as a service by other players. Anet decides what their preferred system is, and while the players have influence, the almighty $ speaks louder than words to a business.
3. Reflect upon what you just said — you said you have no intent to stop people from getting skins, but then you explicitly stated that you want to have prestige skins that aren’t available to everyone (as so many people see the color as being equivalent to status and a unique skin in its own right). Is this not contradictory?
Your opening paragraph seems to contradict your last point. I don’t want more, nor do I want to deny anyone things. I want equivalent quality skins, but with some versions locked behind skill/effort. That way everyone gets the same quality/type of skin, but there is still room for prestige. This is what SAB offered, and I stand by it being the perfect system.
I don’t think having yellow or green skins made someone “better”, it just gave people goals, and a reward to be proud of. Lots of people could run a marathon, but that doesn’t mean that the people who actually do it shouldn’t be proud. Nor does it mean that they should get a certificate or something for their effort.
The SAB trib skins offered a type of value other than gold. That was something the game is sorely lacking. It has now gone, and I think that is a bad thing.
-Aside from skin color, there is nothing unique about items — not shape, not size, not stats, not agony infusion. All these items are able to be gained through other means.
-The skins are recolors of skins that are already in game. If you’re asking for prestige items, why would you think and/or want the most prestigious thing in game to be a simple recolor of an item you can get? Wouldn’t you want something more than that?
No I wouldn’t. The fact that these are recolours is the reason these were great prestige items.
I have no desire to stop other players from getting cool skins, which is why it was great that everyone could get the blue and orange ones. The green and yellow skins weren’t “better” than the ones that casual players could get, they just had more prestige. Everybody won.
This was the perfect system, and ANet just killed it for no apparent reason.
I don’t know how exactly this phobia works, but the heights might become a lot less intimidating once you unlock gliding. It’s like a permanent safety net.
It’s a freaking skin, how is that P2W? If I could buy a weapon with 1500 strength then that’s P2W. We’re talking about skins and cosmetics.
For the continued conversation of rewards, why shouldn’t a skilled player be able to earn income beyond a simple skin? Being able to sell a run IS rewarding a players skill! Having the capacity to sell multiple copies of a difficult to acquire item IS rewarding a players skill.
1) Because its an exploit, and many players don’t agree with using them even if ANet have decided to just abandon principles entirely.
2) Because gold is basically meaningless. That’s the point. The trib skins had value that almost no other items did because they couldn’t be bought with gold. That’s why they were prestigious. Taking that prestige away and replacing it with gold is to misunderstand what made them have value in the first place.
I feel really sorry for everyone who gets so frustrated just because other people can get things. If you care about prestige, you have chosen wrong game, my friend.
This is true, but the tribulation skins were introduced in September 2013, and have maintained their prestige all the way up until that dev post on page one of this thread.
That set was one tiny part of the game that catered to people who wanted prestige items. It even had colour variants for casual players, so no one was missing out. Now it has been devalued to the level of everything else because for some reason ANet decided that they were going to give the okay to an exploit rather than either stay quiet or officially denounce it.
That announcement actually made me quite upset.
There should be no method in which Tribulation can be handed to a player with no effort. That defeats the exact purpose of the mode…
Oh don’t worry, I was being sarcastic. I’m stunned ANet have managed to devalue one of the only sets/auras in the game that had any prestige with a single forum post.
My point was that the aura being hard to see is a problem, but the aura itself is no longer a prestige item anyway.
I’m not a (storm) wizard, but an aura I can purchase on the AH for little to no effort shouldn’t outshine something that took days of playing, timing and fighting glitchy coding (I’m looking at you W2Z2..) to get.
Don’t worry, ANet have made it so you can get these auras for gold and little to no effort too.
So that’s a fix, right?
Never played a single video game for that. I’d bet most play an MMO for entertaining content and social interactions. I’d also bet most play with each other for mutually beneficial reasons. That we’d, by our nature, work together to achieve our goals. Not work against each other and not try to deny each other. We wouldn’t berate the game developers and selfishly ask for content to be made just for ourselves. Nor, even have such an attitude of being better than anyone else.
100% of the games content should be available from multiple avenues. Those avenues should include the Trading Post. Because if someone is “good”, their skills should be able to earn them more than one single item. That’s where trading items has further value.
Even if “most” play the game for the reasons you describe (which I really question), why would you then make 100% of the rewards cater to them? Why not make most of the skins cater to them, but still have a small fraction that caters to the rest.
Again, by having colour swaps, SAB allowed for the perfect balance here. All players could get the skins in blue and orange, but the yellow and green sets were there for people who wanted to earn something.
Also, there is no implication that wanting exclusive rewards means unwillingness to help others. I will happily help guildies through trib mode, or give advice in chat. But that doesn’t mean that the skins should be available for basically no effort and a few gold.
1. This is a game that people play as escapism from their actual lives. I’m disfigured and I have a hard time walking because of it. I love playing GW2 because I can run and jump and move in ways I can’t in real life. Erecting ability barriers around everything would render much of that enjoyment moot because I’d constantly be reminded of all the things in actual life I don’t have access to because of barriers of ability.
2. Even with rewards and trophies and professional leagues, tons of people do things just for the fun of it. I’m comfortable saying that, in fact, a significant portion of the populace is more likely to do stuff for the fun of it than they are because they’re going to be ranked and given exclusive rewards.
3. Most every high level achievement in any given thing is the product of more than just skill- it requires the time to practice (a luxury), it requires tangible resources (access to training/money to pay for training/independent wealth so that training can be a priority), it requires access to knowledge. There are very few sports/sporting events that are truly representative of the actual most skilled in the world- almost all of them come to that point because somebody threw money (lots and lots of it) at the situation.
4. There’s a fairly significant gap between thinking people should get whatever they want when they want it, and for free, and approving of there being more than a single way to acquire a skin or item.
99% of the skins in the game are extremely easy to get, or can just be bought off the trading post.
No one is suggesting that everything should be locked behind skill gates, but this was one tiny area of the game where the people who care about rewards actually could have a prestige item.
They even made them palette swaps. If you couldn’t or didn’t want to work for the green and yellow skins you could buy the blue skins on the TP. Even the orange skins are easy to get at least one of.
If you want to play your way, no one is stopping you. But for the (I’m sorry, I maintain its a big proportion) people who want some kind of goal or skill based reward system, this was basically all we had.
Don’t feel sorry for me. I had fun learning how to tribulation, and every checkpoint cleared was a pretty solid high (or a collapse into relief, depending on how many times I fell into lava). The fun, and getting a shiny green greatsword skin for my reaper, was totally worth the time I spent. I don’t give a good godkitten if other people with those skins paid for them and I sure as heck don’t think it diminishes what I accomplished. Only I can take that away from myself, most efficiently by obsessing over ~prestige~ that doesn’t actually matter to anyone outside of a tiny fraction of elitists.
This just isn’t true. I’m glad that you’re happy with your skin, I really am. But the idea that prestige items and rewards only matter to a tiny fraction of elitists is just obviously wrong. Look at sports, look at achievement systems, look at competitions, look at… pretty much look at every area of life, and you’ll see people competing to earn trophies or titles or jobs or possessions they had to work to get and couldn’t get elsewhere.
Imagine if the World Cup just gave participation badges to every team (and anyone else who showed up with some money), with no trophies or anything for winning? Society is built on this kind of thing. Yes, there are people like yourself who are completely happy with their own personal knowledge, but suggesting that this is reflective of the vast majority just doesn’t make sense.
Heck, if what you say was true then they should just implement a “Press X to unlock all legendaries” button in the wardrobe. People would have the option to earn it “properly” or they could just press the button and get the exact same thing.
But I’m not arguing that the legendary acquisition system is good. The SAB system was, and ANet just helped ruin it.
They will fix it. If not this week, then next year.
Sure, but it’s too late now. If they’d stayed quiet then there’d have been some exploits, but nowhere near as many. LFG is filled with trib sellers. The skins are completely devalued, thanks to that single unnecessary ANet post.
Getting a legendary never really required that much skill (only money and gold), so those skins aren’t prestige either?
But then, I never understood that “prestige” stuff. I get a skin because I like it, not because somebody else likes it or would look at that skin and thinks I’m such-and-such player…
There really isn’t much prestige to legendaries in terms of skill, but there is in terms of effort/time.
But I’m not arguing that the legendary acquisition system is good. The SAB system was, and ANet just helped ruin it.
How is this different from my situation?
I have done all dungeons story mode. I don’t sPvP. Yet I have all dungeon skins.
I never “earned” those skins, I just moved my character forward/backwards/forwards/backwards. It only took me time. Time where I read books, fora, worked a bit on my API, just making sure I moved my character once in a while.
1) Dungeon skins never really required that much skill, so the skins weren’t prestige items.
2) Dungeon selling requires people to carry you.
3) I’m not really sure “I can also get rewards without earning them elsewhere” is a defence.
Bizarrely, ANet actually seem to have used the reasoning in (3), even while acknowledging that it’s something they should fix. They’ve encouraged their best reward system to be completely devalued just because another system (which they’ve actively abandoned) was also a mess.
Maybe a dev will come in and explain how to do it. They apparently want to encourage this.
I wonder what other exploits they could come in and explain. Maybe there are ones people haven’t found yet in other areas. We know this and ranger botting are cool, but what else could we be doing?
On the bright side, the LFG advertisements didn’t increase until after ArenaNet said it was OK to do it. This means most players aren’t willing to risk their accounts for taking advantage of something that isn’t working as intended. Since it’s officially OK to do it now, nobody has to worry about getting banned for it.
And if we didn’t get official word on where ArenaNet stands until later, or not at all, the complaints would be a whole lot worse. People don’t like it when they’re silent about an issue. So Chris’ response is appreciated, at least by me.
To be honest, I think we may be making a big deal out of nothing. It really isn’t hurting anything for people to pay for tribulation runs.
It’s hurting people who worked to get the tribulation rewards through effort and skill and have had their work devalued. Heck, what about the people who bought an Infinite Continue Coin so they could do it?
I simply disagree that silence would have been worse than opening the floodgates. They clearly consider something bad to be happening, which is why they are going to fix it. That means they had five options:
1) Say they’re going to ban people (whether they will or they won’t).
2) Say they consider it an exploit and don’t mention bans.
3) Say nothing.
4) Say they consider it an exploit but admit they can’t ban people.
5) Say they’re fine with it.
Those are actually listed in order of effectiveness in combating the exploit. The best choice was probably option (2). If they don’t care about lying, they could have gone to (1). If they don’t care about silence, they could have gone to (3). At an absolute maximum trade off of effectiveness for transparency, they could have gone to (4). What they actually chose was option (5), which was the worst thing they could have possibly done.
Not enough lilypads in the world.
Honestly though, the REAL prestige items now are the backpacks and titles you get from the achievements. You could always buy the skins, but you can’t buy the titles.
Guess we’ll see those in the gemstore tomorrow…
Maybe it coulda been prevented if they focused more on SAB from the beginning instead of weird things like raids~
It could have been prevented (minimised) if they hadn’t just came in and greenlighted exploiting.
I can’t believe they took the effort to actually encourage devaluing the skins when they could have literally done nothing and the situation would have been better. This was the best reward system in the game (no RNG, rewarded skill, had a similar set for people to buy on the TP, had another similar set tied to dailies) and they ruined it with a single post.
Again, I’m really glad ANet are communicating, but this was just about the only situation where talking to us would do more harm than good and they took it :S
I mean really, how do you look at an exploit, realise you need time to fix it, and decide the best thing to do is to publicly announce that its fine to use it? They can’t even go back on it now because anyone doing the exploit can just say they never saw the retraction.
The thing that seems strange to me is how player to player trading is vehemently discouraged for protection of the buyer/seller, except when it comes down to selling runs the discouragement is dropped.
Glad to see some comms on this though. I don’t agree with the stance, but it doesn’t really affect me since I don’t pay for runs and I don’t really put much thought into how other people got their “shinies”.
I do care about where other people get their “shinies”, because I think it’s nice to reward effort/skill. However, I wasn’t really bothered by this particular issue because it was a bug and it wasn’t like ANet had intentionally reduced the value by sticking the skins in PvP chests or something.
But now ANet have actually made the situation worse. It’s gone from “Huh, it’s an annoying bug but whatever” to “Wait, what? Why the heck did ANet just intentionally help devalue these?”
I’m all for ANet communicating more, but surely that doesn’t mean we praise them whenever they say anything, including when what they say actually encourages exploits…
I’m happy to see the decision from Anet, feels like it’s moving in the right direction.
(I personally didn’t abuse this being scared they would take actions.)
But this is exactly why it’s the wrong direction. This is an exploit, and its something ANet doesn’t want to be done (which is why they’re fixing it). By giving the okay they’ve opened the floodgates to people like you who were scared to do the exploit.
I am baffled that ANet would give an okay on something they know is an exploit that they are going to fix. This is one of the few times where silence was actually useful.