Guild Wars 2

I believe Anet gave an explanation when they announced ascended crafting.

From the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting_material

“The purpose of the time gate and availability on the Trading Post is to create a demand in the economy.”

THuGaNoMiX.5036:

Still don’t get it. I would like to hear from a Moderator or Admin on the explanation of why they would do something so stupid.

I think there is an unspoken rule of Anet: if a player asks for a Gm to reply, it ensures they will not reply.

The best way to encourage a response from Anet is to tell a funny joke, or a nice compliment. Also discussing feedback and suggestions without being insulting & rude is good too.

Currently I feel they are pretty over powered. I like them, and I use them a lot, but here is my suggestion on how to improve their function.

I think the siege that got disabled should get an immunity to siege disablers buff for 20 seconds afterword. So at least you can get a brief window to use your siege, before they get spammed over and over, and eventually are destroyed.

That still makes them very effective to stall time for reinforcements, while not getting totally blocked from siege disabler spamming.

We already have +5 stat infusions with dmg/def to guard stats from the laurel vender in WvW.

xivor.8754:

20 players is not a zerg. It does not even cause orange swords. I wouldn’t consider anything smaller than 35-40 to be a zerg. Really, a zerg in top tiers is 60+.

I never see 35+ ppl online together anymore, so i too consider 20 a zerg. It just depends on what tier of WvW you’re used to.

The cooldown is stopping me from sinking tons of candy corn. I’d love to click through 20 stacks, but it’s just too boring.

Op the most boring part for me was the leveling, because i’ve always felt the game doesn’t really get started till you’ve reached max level.

For many the end game is WvW, Eotm, & pvp. Once you have hit max level, gotten all your ascended armor & weapons, and perfected your perfect look. What better way to prove your a badazz then testing your mad skillz against the other players. Trying different builds, different weapons, getting more ascended gear like hammer or whatever you want to try next. The game never really ends, there is always more to try, more loot you want, new skins are always being released too. Ofcourse you need to max all your WvW skills too, and you may want to join GvG guild to develope team fighting stratagy, and prove your an awesome commander and can wipe most other guilds. The game is what you make of it.

Don’t tell me there isn’t an end game because it’s everywhere, & you’re just to blind to see it.

Just for fun, i thought i’d do a little math from a few sources to get an idea of how low the odds of getting a skin is .

The average amount of tickets per trick-or-treat bag: 0.021
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trick-or-Treat_Bag/research

Farmoween results so far: “137,944,233 ToT bags gathered by players” .
https://www.facebook.com/BlackLionDailyHerald?hc_location=timeline

137,944,233 bags x 0.021 tickets per bag = 2,896,828 estimated tickets found from trick-or-treat bags.

2,896,828 tickets / 1000 skins = about 1/2897 chance of getting a random skin per ticket exchanged.

(These results are way off, because these tickets wrappers are for sale in the cash shop, and we have no idea how many of those were sold. These are just figured from trick-or-treat bags.)

Good luck everyone!

Why does it matter? All your characters are on the same account. What ever character recieves the mail you can just transfer the item to the character you want to use it, or you can sell it on the trading post. I’m sure you can mix candy wrapper exchanged between different characters without any problems.

Spending rl money on keys was the only way you could gain some of these buffs on a regular basis before, because the price of keys through gems to gold was too high. This item does the opposite, and makes the gem store buffs more affordable to players without spending rl money.

300 gems is about 45 gold.
A stack of candy corn is about 0.6 gold, close to the cost of some foods i use.

I really dont think that is out of reach of most players.

I have never spent rl money and i’m running the buffs. I’d say this item has actually removed the pay to win advantage the gemstore buffs brought, and made them more affordable to regular players.

MithranArkanere.8957:

And Scrooge McDuck enjoyed swimming in coins. That doesn’t mean it’ right of fair for others… neither physically possible.

That does sound like fun!

If gw2 gets housing, i want to fill mine with gold and go swimming too

I’d be worried about people accusing me of scamming if it were me, and i’d want a good way for everyone to see the contest isn’t rigged. So i’d recommend making a youtube video of how the contest works, and then you mailing it to the winner.

luuh.1805:

Etien.4601:

Great, a 300 and 600 gem items and nothing for 400 or 800. Awesome.

Yes I totally agree! The Gobbler should cost 400 gems and the Haunted Gramophone should cost 800 gems!

So we are complaining that gem store items are too cheap now? lol.

The issue i have is this gobbler doesn’t eat fast enough, the 5 sec cool down is a little annoying when you want to click through 100 candy corn quickly. Other than that it’s a cool way to sink some candy corn out of the economy.

Since i’m always preaching constructive criticism, here’s a suggestion on how to improve it’s implementation.

I think a good forge recipe to turn the jewel into an infusion could be:

Any color poly reflector,
Any infusion (utility included),
Some ecto &
Stack of candy corn

Which outputs an infusion of the type input, and has the picture of the poly reflector input, and the infusion funtions the same way as the jewel. This would be a good way to improve the jewel, and make it usuable for the majority players who already have ascended amulets.

I like these, they’re really cool. I’ve been looking at the pictures and it seems like using celestail dye and these reflectors makes a decent glow. The orange makes fire glow better, the black makes abyss dye into pitch blackness. These will allow more custom options in building that special look.

I just wish they were implemented a little better. Most players who can afford these have ascended gear. Unless you can put these into a rebreather, we will have to sacrifice stats for looks. Which one one piece of accessory it’s not a big loss. But if this is true:

Palador.2170:

They seem to work like regular upgrades, though the color effect only happens if it’s in an amulet.

Out of all the places these could of been implemented you chose the amulet, making us loose our utility infusion in our amulets. I happen to like my +20% magic find.

They are still cool, but a change needs to be made on how these work. Either they need to be placable in rebreather, or made into a universal upgrade, or allow a forge recipe to turn them into an infusion. Anet let your players have it all, and not have to choose between looks and stats.

Yep. I agree, It’s an exceptional game!

Players complain about every game, even the most perfect games will have some players who feel something could be improved. Most complainers love the game too, but want a change somewhere.

Complaining constructively is good for the game. Look at the new gem conversion, without complaints Anet would of known nothing was wrong, but 30+ pages of complaints lead Anet improving it. Anet does a great job listening to everyones feedback, and trying to implement the things they feel is best for the game.

Thanks Anet, you’re awesome!

I wonder who approves the final changes for the game. There’s been so many times rediculously stupid changes are made that make your players go WTF is Anet thinking. Just when you take a step in the right direction, you make a change somewhere that’s not needed in the wrong direction.

It’s pretty common sense that many players have some odd amount of gems on thier account. Ofcourse these players will be upset thier 172 gems, will have a remainder left, no matter what they buy, that remainder of gems will never get used.

It’s common sense that the new chosen amounts are not low enough for the prices of items in your gem store charge. Some items are 100gems, 200gems, but you make the minimum purchase 400gems. Really?

I hate to be insulting because i love your game, and try to support you guys, but when you guys constanly make the most stupid changes, it just blows my mind how some of these changes get approved. Are you really so blind to what your players want and need?

If you are looking for a server in desperate need of help, i’d suggest Kaineng (NA). Many are players currently leaving, due to lack of numbers. We have lost 3 WvW guilds this month. It will not be easy here, & i hope you are up for a challange.

[Bana] is the biggest WvW guild left on Kaineng & we would love your help, and anyone else who isn’t afraid of being outnumbered.

DeWolfe.2174:

Curse Drew.8679:

Some low population server can only rally 5-8 people on non-primtime hours. Our keeps will get stolen so easily now. There’s no need to upgrade anything anymore.

Correct and I think that’s what they want. The more I think about it, the only conclusion I can come up with is they want greater turnover. Greater turnover is economically more rewarding. Maybe they are hoping WvW would attract a wider player base is stuff flip’s more like EotM does? Maybe they have a new reward system they are keeping quiet to surprise us with? I don’t know, I’m just trying to make sense of it.

Flipping objectives may provide more champ bags, but it’s also more boring.

I constantly look for swords because defending gives our group an advantage in a fight. If our group catches the enemy group off gaurd on the rams, we can usually always wipe them, even when they have more players. If we are really outnumbered then we go inside tower/keep to seige up, use disabler, and try to scare them off.

With 5-8 people we don’t have eyes everywhere. Defending is a matter of stategy, and in my opinion defending is more exciting then flipping boring towers over and over.
WvW is about the fights, if players want champ bags they can go to PvE.

John Corpening.9847:

Removing white swords from objectives to give defenders a stronger role in alerting their team as well as giving attackers more of a chance to get through having their siege disabled.

Facepalm!

Some low population server can only rally 5-8 people on non-primtime hours. Our keeps will get stolen so easily now. There’s no need to upgrade anything anymore.

oscuro.9720:

Kaineng will take you
We have close match ups, all we do is roam because there is only 2 guilds that are large enough to zerg. We have a decent 10-20 man zerg in EB if there is a commander (NOT Ajax Blue) and if you roam in the good guilds, 5v10-15s aren’t all that uncommon

IDK why everyone wants to stack on the same few servers, sure there is more action, and loot bags, but your efforts as an individual can go alot further on a smaller server.

On the lesser populated server like Kaineng, one man can make the difference in a 8-10 person zerg vs zerg fight. If you are a commander you can make a huge difference, because at times no one is tagged up. No one cares if you aren’t the best commander either, because a tag is better then no tag. A roamer can go to the enemy borderlands and take out all the camps, spot zergs, tag keeps to waist enemies time, and defend off small zergs with arrow carts and siege disablers from towers and keeps. There is alot of objectives that one man can do, that needs to be done, but often doesn’t get done.

I’m a newish commander on Kaineng. Still in my 1st 50 commands, and i’m getting much better (almost good i’d say), but my server is falling apart too fast for it to matter. I’m hearing we will have another wvw guild leave our server in the following weeks. I really hope Anet can fix the server population soon, because something really needs to be done for low population servers.

I try to play about 2-5 hours each day around the same time, to get players familiar with my name. I’d say this is good advise for players wanting to command, not too long of hours so you don’t get burned out. Also get in a WvW guild with voice chat, so you can learn from other commanders and talk to them, and watch a lot of youtube.

What’s irritating is when there isn’t enough players online to cap objectives, and we are extreamly outnumbered. No one likes commanding to get wiped over and over, so many players are leaving our server, and commanders aren’t tagging up. I keep on trucking though

Awesome guide

Thanks!

eleshazar.6902:

Belzebu.3912:

One of those thread again … oh well, I’ll bite anyway.
~2800 hours, played since betas, saved gold enough to buy my precursor, no drops so far.

Well, in all fairness, the reason that these keep popping up is that they aren’t addressed. They are ignored, and then a new one comes up because people still seek an answer to the problem.

Well here is your answer.

When you gamble you are not guaranteed to receive a prize. Some people are luckier then others. 1% of players can gamble and get on the 1st try, others can spend thousands and not get a precursor.

Is it fair? No!

In the end, you made the choice to gamble. It’s your fault you waisted your gold gambling instead of taking the guaranteed method of purchasing it.

Dayra.7405:

Curse Drew.8679:

Suggested Gold League:
BG+IOJ vs. JQ+DR vs. TC+SI
SOS+DB vs. FA+CD vs. YB+MAG

Lol T1 does not need a merge, T1 need a fence
Suggested Gold League:
BG vs. JQ vs. TC

Everything else into 6 (unlikly 9) server of Silver with mergers for man-power balance (only ANet can get the numbers for a good grouping)

I agree! I was just did quick balancing by server rating. Honestly i play bronze league and know nothing of t1. Maybe the top 3 rated servers should be excluded, since they already have long waits to enter wvw, adding more ppl would only make it worse for them.

It’s a touchy topic. I think keeping server identities are important for many players, but some servers could be paired together for some matches to give more coverage and balance during the tounament season.

The current matches are pretty obvious who will win baised on higher rated server paired with the lower rated ones. We can all see who we expect to win each tier, but i think adding some type of server pairing could make some matches more balanced, and add some unpredictable outcomes, which could be fun.

The pairing would only be temporary, maybe have tournament seasons be shorter, but mix up servers so they are partners thoughout the season, but next season servers could be paired with a different ones. This way each server and community is kept together, yet the matchups will atleast be a suprise, and the top rated server for each tier doesn’t win, as expected.

Might be cool thing to try for 1 season and see how people react

Suggested Gold League:
BG+IOJ vs. JQ+DR vs. TC+SI
SOS+DB vs. FA+CD vs. YB+MAG

Suggested Silver League:
NSP+ET vs. HOD+AR vs. BP+SF
GOM+FC vs. KAIN+DH vs. SOR+EB

If you use melee and the enemy player is almost dead and running away, you can teleport to them to get back in melee range. With a 9 sec cool down to swap weapon back to ranged, it’s good way to finnish them before they heal.

Or the opposite is true also. If you are almost dead, you can get out of range and buy time to heal yourself.

It’s more useful in pvp or wvw.

Thanks for discussing the problem with us, and asking for our opinions and concerns, and taking them into consideration. I hope to see more threads like this, for pondering future game mechanics.

These players are cheating by waisting the opposing sides supplies. I agree with the reporting option. After a player has been reported by 10 players, he is flagged for a GMs review. If he is found guilty, then it’s treated like all other forms of cheating, hacking, & botting. Lets face it just suspending someones extra account doesn’t hurt them at all, but loosing it does. You will also have to consider that some people will be WvW noobs, and waist supplies not knowing they are hurting thier server. So maybe 1st offense should be suspension from WvW for a week, but 2nd offence should be perma ban.

I know this would take the GMs time, but i really feel its the best solution, without creating limitations to legitimate players. Once the players who are cheating without punishment, realize Anet will no longer tolerate these actions, it will stop! Especially when the punishment is so harsh. Also you will want to prevent any free trail accounts from entering WvW, since cheaters will use those.

Also, I like the idea to change “Build” to “Build Ballista” or “Build Superior Arrow Cart.” Sometimes even good commanders can drop the wrong blueprint, and it’s just nice to know what you’re building before waisting supplies.

Everytime a player does something amazing, there are tons of jelious players who insult and nitpick thier accomplishments.

Congratulations you deserve it.

I think the permanent contracts have gained more profit potential lately. The mass opening of keys (w/ hair contract) dropped the value of these a few weeks back and shed some light on the odds. The odds of a contract seem to be about 1:1000 (rarer then many thought). When you take the rising gem exchange rate to purchase a permanent gathering tool, it’s over a hundred gold. With the rarity of these contracts, i dont think 300-600 gold for a permanent contract outside of what people are willing to spend for convenience. I could see these going prices going up more, eventhough they have been pretty steady for a year.

I’d wait till the holloween update though before buying any contracts, because it looks like there will be another mass buying of the chests since this years holloween skins do not appear to be for sale with tickets. So as tons of people attempt to get the holloween skins, some will get contracts & sell them adding more supply and lowering price.

Palador.2170:

Eat 50 of them, and an hour later you “produce” a bloodstone brick?

+1
lol, that sounds like it would hurt.

I’m sure those who can’t understand your stance on the future plans policy are unaware how an angry mob can form when future plans are mentioned (like precursor crafting), but then don’t get implimented as planned. Most of us do understand how emotional gamers can be about thier game.

Thanks Anet, for communicating what you can. We love the world you have created for us.

They’ve learned they cannot announce future plans, because if things don’t go as planned the community is in an uproar, and they take everything that’s said as a promise. Precursor crafting is the best example of this.

On the other hand, i wish i would see more post from Anet. I know they’re reading most threads on the forums, gathering ideas, and listening to feedback. I think showing more post, and cracking some jokes, is healthy for the comminity to see. Even if they are’nt adding much to the thread, it’s just good for players to see thier presence.

I know many topics and players are toxic (especially WvW comminity), but just ignore the haters. Some people will never be happy, and some players are uneducated and don’t understand simple logic. WvW does need some attention though, i’ve never seen a mob so angry. I can understand why Anet is not lining up to post in those threads, but too long without seeing anyone, just looks like you don’t care or you’ve given up.

I like seeing the question thread that John Smith replies to. I admire his courage to post without being ridiculed, and wish more of Anet would follow his lead. After all, the economy is probably the most sensitive topic in the game.

I don’t see how you can control a market when you are forging precursors, all you can control is what price you sell your precursors for. Everyone else who sells precursors will undercut you when they list theirs, so you have no control over precursors price. The more precursors you make, the more supply you’re adding to the market. This doesn’t drive prices higher, if anything it lowers them, because you’re competing with the other sellers.

You really can’t flip precursors either, because most have no profit margin. You could hold a precursors for 6 months, and if the price continues up more then 15% higher then then where you bought it, then you can make a profit, but there are way better markets to make money.

Neodhoc.9178:

I think the picture is great. I’d be awesome if you could make another one with the mats needed to craft the legendary staff.

You must be awesome now! Congratz.

http://www.gencon.com/

Gotcha. Different gaming convention.

Was it in Indianapolis? We are having Gencon this weekend. If Anet will be there maybe i’ll go.

@phys

Orr was nerfed to bring it into balance with the rest of the game. For those of us who were’nt farming Orr all day, we had a rougher start. Atleast you got to take advantage of it before it was nerfed, which gave you a better start then most players. Just because it would of been easier for you to buy a precursor before Anet nerfed your farming spot, to me it seems like precursors are about the same amount of gold/effort. I played some the penn/shelter, but was more focused on other things.

Game came out Aug 28, and Dusk was upto 336g on Oct 8th, that’s less then a month and a half of time. Your’re right, I looked at the value wrong where dusk started to stabilize. But still using a value of 80g when dusk 1st hit the market, is a bad way to compare it’s affordability today.

phys.7689:

my friend bought it then, and my other frend opted out in order to farm for human teir 3. ( big mistake) so yeah 100 gold wasnt unattainable. even at 370 G a month in, at 4 gold an hour, thats 92.5 hours. 1500/92.5= 16 gold an hour, who makes that from regular farming?right before karka event i was gonna get zap for 200ish gold, and now its 1400.

fact is precursors have gone up greater than inflation and earning potential (non tp) Because precursor price is dependent on how much the richest people who want the item are willing to pay, due its supply, and that segment of the population earns/buys gold faster than other segments.

interestingly enough, buying dusk with real money is almost twice as cheap as it was nov 12.

the buying power of those who buy gold from anet has drastically improved, way beyond earning potential(from farming) and inflation.

essentialy wealth disparity between the aristocrats and the middle/lower classes has grown which means precursors will be expensive, and this is AFTER two years of the richest/most desiring people haven buying them. Imagine their prices if non of the richest/most desiring people had them yet?

even at 1 entering the tp per hour, i would put its value at 2.5k-3k initially.

Money is way easier to earn now, drops are worth a lot more. Making 4 gold an hour after the 1st month is equal to making 16g an hour today. Both are unlikely.

You were playing then, so you know gold was much harder to get. I made my 1st gold as i reached lvl 80, i remember reading a recent thread where a new player had 28g when he reached lvl 80. I really do feel gold was 4 times harder to earn back then. I don’t see how you could of played then, and not feel the same way.

I’m not saying it was impossible, not any more impossible then it is today. You’re just exaggerating how easy it was to get while the precursor market just started, and people didn’t know the rarity.

phys.7689:

Desired precursors prices are not going up at the dame rate as inflation, or earning.

Dusk used to be 80 gold. farmer could make that in 30 hours just npcing crap (if not less) haven’t heard of farming that can make 1500 gold in 30 hours.

lol, Dusk was that price when the game 1st came out. You really can’t use it for comparison considering at the time no one knew the rarity and the value hadn’t stabilized yet. 1 month after it came out it was at 370g, no one had any gold the day the game came out either. Everything was very low priced then, so your drops were worth way less, vastly lowing your money making potential. The only thing that’s been constant is the merchant’s sell value, good luck making 80g selling your greens and blues in 30 hours.

Another advantage of blc that haven’t been mentioned is many of the booster can’t be bought directly with gems. I like maxing stats, & having speed, strength, & armor boosters, are good for extra performance.

Players like Smooth Penguin (started a thread suggesting P2W) who have the extra money to spend, and want an ingame advantage, can already have one. The keys are better value then they used to be a year ago. I think they are worth buying if you got extra money and don’t need anything else from the gem store.

You farmed 535 keys in 10 days, which is amazing. Judging from the stack of unid dyes, all you bl tickets, the minis, and the permanent contract you got, it was a valuable haul of loot. Congratz!

The spectrum of luck (RGN) is a funny thing. The luckiest 1% could see a precursor on 1st attempt, and 0.1% could probably get a few precursors within several attempts. However the other side of the specrum the unlucky 0.1%-1% could spend 5k+ gold and probably never see a precursor, no matter how hard they try. Most players fall in the middle somewhere, you never know your place untill you try. Once you’ve made the choice to gamble instead of buying it, you shouldn’t blame anyone or the rgn when you don’t win. It can be frustrating though.

Riss.1536:

Curse Drew.8679:

They are supposed to take legendary effort to aquire, not something everyone gets after playing 2000 hours.

Sure, it’s more legendary if you get it after a few try at the Mystic Toilet while you played less than 100 hours.

Curse Drew.8679:

Those people who get multiple precursors are usually the ones spending tons on forging them.

Or people who get multiple precursors while killing mobs. Everybody knows at least one guy like that in their friendlist.

Curse Drew.8679:

I do support taking the rgn out of forging it, but not to make it cheaper and more accessible.

You do realize that getting a precursor is not equals to having a legendary ? People tend to forget that there are 3 gifts of grinding.

Many players are just jealous of the 1% of lucky players this happens to. Then they blow it out of proportion, and make a big deal about it. Rgn will always bless a few quickly, that’s why they call it random. Like i said i’d support making a system that takes rgn out of precursers.

fellyn.5083:

Spoken like someone who has something to lose if precursor crafting were ever put into the game.

That’s spoken like someone who believes in conspiracy theories about precursor market being manipulated. Every flipper can immediately look at the profit margin of precursors and come to the conclusion that there’s no money to be made there without holding them for 6 months.

I loose nothing if precursors plummit. It will only disgust me seeing everyone with them, having mass particle effects & auras everywhere, and them loosing any prestige they’ve had.

I think the biggest problem is people expect it to just drop after killing enough, or enough time investment. The truth is, it’s really really rare. You can’t expect it to just drop for you. They are supposed to take legendary effort to aquire, not something everyone gets after playing 2000 hours.

Those people who get multiple precursors are usually the ones spending tons on forging them. If you haven’t dropped 1k gold worth of exotics/rares in the forge, then i really don’t feel sorry for you. If you have gone through this process, then you chose to gamble and take that route, when you could of just bought it. I used to forge a lot, and i know the forges rgn is a real gamble. I do support taking the rgn out of forging it, but not to make it cheaper and more accessible.

I’ve got The Chosen & Storm from the mystic forge, broke even pretty much on those. I found The Collosus in WvW, a drop from vet Hylek (or whatever those frog ppl are called). And Dusk & Spark i bought from the TP.

3000+ hours played.

True they could replace some of the demand for rare/exotic, by making the crafting take a ton of ecto or crystalline dust. Since it’s all hypothetical, only Anet can decide whats in the best interest of the game. I just figured i’d give my opinion on how to implement it and retain balance. Thanks for reading.

Labjax.2465:

something tells me people would just complain about the number of tokens you need.

People complain about everything.

Labjax.2465:

When people don’t know how much currency they need to spend (e.g. it’s a random system) it seems they are willing to go to great lengths into the void to get what they want; one of the more apparent examples of this is the people getting lots of keys for the chance at the permanent stylist kit. If the average number of keys they needed was translated into a concrete number, most would probably never try.

But that slim chance – the chance of “this next time” being the time you get lucky – is infinitely appealing.

They can still gamble.

Labjax.2465:

I think a strong system for acquiring a precursor without RNG has to utilize a lot of hidden costs that are difficult to add up (not unlike the crafting of ascended gear). Otherwise, you have them being either 1) Too easy to obtain or 2) Too overwhelming for most people to bother.

If precurser crafting system is similar to ascended crafting it will effect many markets, such as increasing crafting supplies prices. Another problem is that yellow and exotics will tank as soon as you can get a precurser by other means. The forge is a great item sink for yellows/exotics which gives them value. Also ectos/crystalline are associated with yellows/exotics and they will also be affected.

I don’t think there is a perfect answer that will satisfy everyone.