Guild Wars 2

mtpelion.4562:

I think the main reason that some people here are suggesting that ArenaNet is doing it “wrong” believe that because they are only looking at the system based on how they themselves currently use it, not on how the rest of the playerbase is using it.

For example, a few people challenged my post above and claimed that sales would increase by switching to a pay once system, however, there is only one scenario in which that would be the case and that would be if all players picked out a look a single time and never really changed it. That’s the way I play, and that’s probably the way they play as well, but it is not the way EVERYONE plays, and that is why they are wrong. The system proposed by ArenaNet will maximize profits because while there are players who pick a skin and stick with it, ArenaNet does not make money from those players, they make money from the players who change their looks ALL THE TIME. If those players get to pay once and have unlimited changes, or even pay once per skin, the volume of transactions will decline significantly (I don’t have any figures, but I would estimate in the range of an 80%+ decrease in revenue from transmutations).

To make up for that lost revenue, they would have to significantly increase the price of transmutations.

ArenaNet is making the business decision that maximizes sales, because by doing it on an individual transmutation basis, they can get money from both the one and done crowd (me) and the fashionistas who just have to have the new thing.

There’s also only one scenario in which you’re assumptions work as well. That at the majority of money coming into the gem store is from players willing to spend for every time they want to change their look.

None of us know the internal figures at Anet, in fact, Anet probably can’t know themselves if their current transmutation sales are for either type of customer, or even if there are customers not willing to pay for the old system.

So, two assumptions, you just claim you’re right, so do we. But on our side is the fact what we propose gives a lot of incentive and satisfaction to customers.

Nor is it as “easy come” system that will lack satifaction in the long term. Getting the skins is the same as always. All Anet is adding is a barrier to want to expand your skins collection, which is the whole point of the wardrobe. If it still costs me the same gems as the old system, Anet isn’t really going to get many more sales out of that. The high spenders probably already made multiple transmuted sets and why spend money to just shuffle those around?

mtpelion.4562:

The biggest problem with going to a one time pay unlimited use skin system is that the sales volume would be many times smaller, so the cost per transaction would have to go up, which would then lead to a further decrease in sales volume. You’d wind up having to pay $50+ for each unlimited skin unlock in order to make up for the lost sales that ArenaNet would have made on individual charges.

That said, I think they may want to consider adding a premium Transmutation service, in which an account can pay a one time $200-300 fee and would then have unlimited unlocks, to satisfy the people who don’t want to use the system as is.

No, sales would likely increase.

Why, because one time charge fee is a much better value proposition to the customer. Instead of buying just enough charges to get one look and change it rarely (because each change costs money), customers will want to get a broad collection of unlimited unlocks.

If for $10 I get 25 item skins, I will get a taste for changing up each gear slot as I like. I will be inclined to buy more gems to increase my collection. With a charge for every change, I will not want to change very often.

Anet,

The new wardrobe is cool.

However, you’ve got the wrong profit model. I do not want to spend money for every transmutation. With the proposed system, I will use the minimal number of transmutations possible, mostly from in game sources.

If, however, I could spent a charge to permanently unlock free changes for that piece, I would gladly buy gems to unlock the free changes on a range of pieces.

Sure, there are the big spenders who probably always buy gems for most anything Anet wants to sell. But I think you’d make more money overall by incentivizing the modest spenders.

I’d feel I was getting value for my money with permanent free unlocks for a transmutation charge. Having to spend a charge everytime, even to go back to a former look – that’s not value for my money, imo.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger is designed to have a pet. If the pet was taken away or didn’t do damage, then it wouldn’t be a Ranger anymore. Does that make sense?

I dunno, check a 1st ed AD&D rulebook, perhaps one of the earliest incarnations of the modern RPG ranger.

No pets.

There’s followers, but all classes in 1st edition got followers at a certain level, the ranger ones were just more nature oriented – but not necessarily animals (elves, brownies, halfings, etc).

Rangers as a dedicated pet class are a rather recent invention. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but don’t make it out like no pets means its not a ranger.

Like a lot of others have said, either the Pet is a real benefit to the class, not a hinderance that must be overcome, or remove it. Even just improving the pet’s stats, its movement, its attack range don’t add much in terms of enjoyment of playing – because the player themselves have little to do except occasionally mash F2 and hit the swap button. If Anet is going to keep pets, make them useful and make them fun to use – engaging to use, something you can rightly call skillful play rather than a buffed up AI.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

You say as long as the pet AI gets no major overhaul, the pet will be unreliable. I go even further saying no AI will ever be that good that you can truly rely on it.
Therefore I have suggested that the pet shouldn’t offer core-mechanics but only additional mechanics, so you wont be on a disadvantage if your pet is unreliable.

I can understand your point of having a “working” AI as classmechanic, but that should be the only classmechanic. Yet the ranger defines himself not only through his pet but through many different aspects, such as trapper, archer or whatever this spiritsummonig theme is. I think the pet as damage component doesn’t work well with the listed playstyles. Concretely, the pet offers no advantage to the listed playstyle, yet we still have to manage the disadvantages the pet has.

I am not talking about the AI. I do agree with you, the very fact of pet AI is a big issue.

But that is not the issue my post is addressing.

I am talking about the basic functionality the player has with regards to the pet. A good pet class has to be built from the ground up around pets. It has to offer a great deal of customization of each pet. It has to offer a lot of control over the pet (this partly relieves some issues with AI, but not all).

The point of my post is the pet mechanics have to be more than attack, retreat, F2, swap if you want a good pet class. This is the thing Anet needs to overhaul massively if it wants the pet mechanic to benefit the profession, instead of something you have to compensate for.

There are other pet classes – Mesmer, Necro, Engineer. But they all have disposable, high turnover type pets. They don’t need much more control than they have. But rangers have just slightly more control over their pets than those other professions.

So, I suggest, the paths forward are:

• Make the pet mechanic truly interesting, customizable, and something that can have a high skill cap.
• Remove the pet entirely.
• Make the pet(s) more high turnover like those other three classes. This could be something as simple as quick “summons”. Say like F1-F4 each causes a different pet to come out, attack with its special attacks for 20 seconds, then goes away. Doesn’t have to be that specifically, its just an example of a more disposable/rapid turnover pet.

I am actually not a huge fan of pets. But if Anet is going to continue to insist rangers are the big cool pet class, well, then pets better be cool. They should have a lot of functionality, there should be a lot of player skill involved, there should be a dynamic that engages the player, not hinders them.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Joiry.2504:

When Rangers were revealed as the Pet Class, Anet basically said they’d make the profession the premiere pet class. Unlike GW1 were pets were optional but also weak. But what has really changed since GW1 – in terms of functionality. I don’t think tweaking numbers on pets is really going to help the fundamental problems.

Comparison between GW1 and GW2

• attack/return, passive/active – basically the same
• pet skills – removed from ranger skillbar in GW2. No longer takes skill slots, but no more choice in skill, no control except F2.
• two pets can be swapped in GW2 (the real difference between the two games)

That does not seem like a premiere pet class to me. Again, numbers can be tweaked and buffed, but the class mechanic is weak functionally. In all the pro-pet posts, its all about pet management – but there’s so little to manage. The class mechanic is something you need to compensate for, not something that enhances your gameplay like other professions. Plus, most other professions can have great builds with no or minimal investment in their class mechanic traitline. Rangers, in order to get acceptable performance out of their pet, need to invest a lot in Beast Mastery.

In short, if Rangers are going to be a Pet Class, then make them a real pet class. A class whose mechanic requires skill to excel with, not skill to merely compensate for. Either the pet mechanic has to go or it needs a major overall. There’s lots of things that can be done, many touched in various ways in this thread. But no single one will help, pets need a revamp.
[…]

If they do so, they should separate the “pet” type and the “archer” type of the class in two different classes. Right now the ranger serves both functions.

A split would not help in the argument I make. Whatever Pet Class was split off would continue to have the same problems unless a major overhaul to the pet system occurred. My argument is, the pet system should shine, it should truly be the class mechanic. The thing you get skilled at in order to excel.

If Anet doesn’t have the resources to truly do this with a ranger pet, then it doesn’t have the resources to do it with a whole new class. Maybe long term they could work on a Druid/Shaman or something, but such a thing I bet would take at least a year given there are other aspects to the game that also need attention.

When Rangers were revealed as the Pet Class, Anet basically said they’d make the profession the premiere pet class. Unlike GW1 were pets were optional but also weak. But what has really changed since GW1 – in terms of functionality. I don’t think tweaking numbers on pets is really going to help the fundamental problems.

Comparison between GW1 and GW2

• attack/return, passive/active – basically the same
• pet skills – removed from ranger skillbar in GW2. No longer takes skill slots, but no more choice in skill, no control except F2.
• two pets can be swapped in GW2 (the real difference between the two games)

That does not seem like a premiere pet class to me. Again, numbers can be tweaked and buffed, but the class mechanic is weak functionally. In all the pro-pet posts, its all about pet management – but there’s so little to manage. The class mechanic is something you need to compensate for, not something that enhances your gameplay like other professions. Plus, most other professions can have great builds with no or minimal investment in their class mechanic traitline. Rangers, in order to get acceptable performance out of their pet, need to invest a lot in Beast Mastery.

In short, if Rangers are going to be a Pet Class, then make them a real pet class. A class whose mechanic requires skill to excel with, not skill to merely compensate for. Either the pet mechanic has to go or it needs a major overall. There’s lots of things that can be done, many touched in various ways in this thread. But no single one will help, pets need a revamp.

• More customability. Give a full skill bar to pets. Maybe some fixed by family/species, but others selectable from special ranger pet skills (that don’t require ranger skill bar space or investment in only 1 traitline). Give more control of these skills. Maybe go full Hero from GW1, or something inbetween that and current functionality. I wouldn’t mind an alternate set of skills from the by hitting Shift-1,2,3,etc

• Effectiveness in large combat. Yeah, rangers can get along. Usually the less opponents, the less problems with the pet. Whether this is some passive, toggle-able, or just more control over the pet. But in the large world boss events, or high level instanced content, to med to large battles in WvW, rangers pets are near useless, and sometimes a liability

• Get rid of the Beast Mastery traitline as necessary. Every trait in all trait lines should have a small side function which enhances the pet.

• etc, etc

The point is, again, this is not just a number tweaking, buff this or that issue. Rangers as a Pet Class are just weak functionally. If Anet wants a premiere pet class, then invest in some real re-design of said pet, make it fun to use. Make it engaging to use. Make the pet mechanic something that has a high skill cap. Not something that requires a lot of player management just so its not a liability.

And if the people and time resources aren’t there to do that, then get rid of the pet.

Everything seems to be pointed towards tweaking some skills and abilities to “fix” rangers. Its like throwing sand in the wind. A profession doesn’t get 90% voted as the most needing help, is a class often refused into various PvE groups, is outright banned in some wuv guilds, etc, just because it needs some tweaks.

The class needs a ground up rework. And a recognition that the Pet is 80% of the problem. Anything less means all this CDI effort will result in rangers being a slightly more tolerated, but still generally unwanted member of a group in most activities versus any other class.

Specific Game Mode
WvW – but could apply to all

Proposal Overview
Beast Aspect – set of passive traits determined by active pet

Goal of the Proposal
Questionable usefulness of pets in WvW is one of rangers key weaknesses. This is a hybrid solution to the pet/no pet debate. It provides for both current pet gameplay (and any updates to it) but also allows a toggle into “Beast Aspect” for a no pet mode.

Proposal Functionality

• In Beast Aspect mode, pet becomes non-damaging, non-targetable. The pet could still be visible, possibly mirroring the ranger’s action. (also see last point)
• A small set of passive traits on par with typical major and minor traits boosts the ranger’s abilities. Some of these may be generic to all pets, others more pet specific (see next).
• Trait sets dependent on pet family. Eg, bear traits may be more defense oriented, wolf more offensive, bird mobility, etc. Ideally a unique set of traits per pet species instead of family, but would require much more dev time. Attribute boosts could be based on the pets natural relative attribute distribution.
• Traits could be rigidly set by pet/family, or possibly add a trait line that has some effect on the Beast Aspect passives. Possibly piggy backed on existing traits.
• In Beast Aspect, swapping “active” pet switches the ranger between the Beast Aspect trait sets of each respective pet. Usual pet swap cooldowns apply.
• Similar to how Maul or Swoop has a spirit animal animal effect, Beast Aspect could be graphically represented by a spirit animal effect around the ranger during weapon skill use.

Associated Risks

• Balancing the trait sets per pet family/species will likely require several iterations on live server environment
• Possibly longer term commitment to adding graphical eye candy for different pet families – may need to be phased in over time to spread out art workload.

These are covered in some other posts, but just to lend support:

• Appearance as dyes. Pretty simple, in fact an idea floated by Evan Lesh long ago about improving the sPvP lockers (but could apply to the whole game):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-most-important-change-for-sPvP/first#post741502

Evan Lesh.3295:

Joiry.2504:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Reworking the locker is on our list, and reorganizing the layout is something we could certainly do.

Any elaboration on this? I for one would like to see the locker become something that “eats” a piece of PvP gear and unlocks it for multiple removals (but obviously not salvageable at that point).

It should indeed be an unlock system. We haven’t designed how the new locker would work, but I would imagine it would be similar to dyes, and would be right inside your hero panel. i.e. Click slot, click skin. No reapplying upgrades.

• Switchable stats on ascended. GW2 was promoted that a class could fulfill multiple roles, especially by switching out to a new equipment set. The super grind of ascended basically negates this, since having multiple armor/weapon sets for just one character is insane.

• Player Housing. You want a visual way to show off what players have done – houses with trophies and hard to get furniture and such.

• Weapon skill bundles. Probably get shot down for being incompatible with Anet’s Esport dreams, but add new sets of skills for weapons (instead of adding new weapons). Possibly just as a complete bundle, or even individual skills if you guys would ever give us a nearly fully customizable skill bar.

• Possibly even class switching. Yeah, I know, that one little part of the personal story is class based. But it’d be foolish not to consider unlocking the ability to swap classes because of a tiny part of the game that isn’t terribly popular and is non-repeatable.

What’s the rationale behind soul bound WXP boosters? Using the 15 minutes on another character is going to unbalance things how? You think players are going to spend time making throwaway characters just to get a quarter hour boost?

Of course, you guys could just make WXP account wide, which would make the most sense.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Joiry.2504:

the pace of the story needs slowing, etc.

To this, I disagree. At the current pace of the story, it feels like we’re going to be stuck with Scarlet for two years if not far more. And with how linear the “living world story” is thus far, this is far from enjoyable.

That is to say, I would like the content updates to slow down, but not the plot itself. Because it feels like it’s being paced a little too slowly. Which, to me, just makes it relatively boring after a while.

I’m not sure how the two can be separated. The content reflects the events of the story.

Instead of “too slow” I’d say the story is “too lite”, as in lite beer. It lacks depth or any real characterization. The pace of the story, in terms of timeline, could be a bit slower. Doesn’t mean it can’t seem more meaningful and in depth if Anet spent more time fleshing it out instead of giving us these one and two dimensional characters with simplistic motivations.

I think the story feels slow because there’s not much too it, one wants more. But more can be achieved in other ways.

BobbyStein.2315:

I’m happy to say that these comments haven’t fallen on deaf ears. I’ve been in many meetings about these very concerns. We have some solutions planned, but they will take time to build. I can’t be more specific than that.

If you don’t have the technical solutions available now, you should look at other methods of addressing these concerns.

If the 2 week cycle is too much, then lengthen it to 3-4 weeks. At this point, it just seems like needless pride for Anet to keep bragging about its 2 week cycle when its just a mess. The content could use more polish, the players could use more time (on average, obviously some just rush through everything), the pace of the story needs slowing, etc.

Just hiding behind the excuse the technology is not ready is terrible. You, Anet, have to adapt to the limitations of what you have to work with. Instead, you expect the players to shoulder the burden of content that’s pushed out too fast and for too short a period of a time.

Don’t have time to read the whole thread, but if Anet is reading this like they claim they do.

You guys got it back in GW1. Max stat gear was pretty easy to get. It wasn’t necessarily pretty, it couldn’t always accept all upgrades, but it was easily available. You never really had issues wondering if everyone had it (you might complain about their build, of course).

You want to make long term, grindy goals for the progression players. Fine. Just don’t make it game stat intertwined. Call me super casual if you like – but I got 8 mouths to feed. That is, 8 level 80s, who aren’t even all in exotics. And now, karma is super nerfed (24k total karma a month from 30 dailies and monthly). Do you even want new players gearing up at all? Temple exotics became just that much harder. Prices on the TP, while they will likely settle, will still remain pretty high.

You’re making a less and less “different” kind of MMO. You already rejected a lot of the more innovative ideas of GW1 (no, it wasn’t perfect, but you guys threw out the baby with the bathwater), and now you’re cleaning up the last remnants of offering something different.

I give Anet props for going through the effort to roll this back and even refund those who used their consumables since the patch (I didn’t, but I’m all for fairness).

P One Gore.2304:

And you consider your points valid. I don’t. You’ve yet to put up any valid point that can’t be refuted.

Proof by assertion! Classic. Yes, my points are not valid because you consider them not to be.

There was nothing to show karma boosts had a major inflation impact to the economy. The biggest changes happened with all the new farms with the latest monthly content.

Having said that, I’m not opposed to limiting the karma boosts. However, a warning was completely necessary. Anet has created 2 sets of players, those who benefited, and those who did not. The amount of potential karma added with a heads up would not have effected the economy noticeably compared to the larger impact of the champion and other new farms.

Its just that, a matter of fairness. That everyone gets to benefit from a minor source of extra wealth. Hotfixes are like weather, they aren’t just some random “oh well, that’s life thing” – you can’t just explain them away. They are decisions by Anet.

Plus, Anet had not given any indication this might be a problem. They have talked about the economy having issues due to the new farms, but, oh, wait, they have’t done anything about that yet.

You fail to address any valid point I had. It is unfair, by timing rewards one group over another. Solves a minor issue at best (compared with other economic issues) in its unfairness. Anet’s standard sledgehammer for a minor issue appraoch, regardless of its consequences.

Its just like the soulbound gauntelt tickets. A minor issue, easily solved maybe by limiting the 5 free tickets to level 10 or higher characters. But instead, they make it extremely hard to use alts in an arena that Anet specifcally says you may need to use alts in different parts of the fight. But no, sledgehammer approach.

I think the division of opinions is this. If you used all your consumables, you’re okay with the change.

If you didn’t, you’re not.

However, it does not change the fact its fundamentally unfair to let one group, by sheer luck of timing, to gain the benefit and another not to. If they retroactively changed all (which would be impossible) previous karma gains to the new gain, sure, it’d be fair.

If farming of the boxes was the issue*, giving a heads up would not have been that bad. Because the amount of karma consumables laying around is finite and their impact would be limited. And then going forward make this change.

Did the jewel box farming effect the economy that much? Because the major shift in prices occurred with the current content and its massive new gold farms? Have these been addressed? From the patch notes, I’d say not. Jewel box/karma was a drop in the bucket. A simple week heads up would not have introduced that much more karma into the system then already existed, and would have been fair.

Anet, however, is not into fair. Based on how they handle player “wealth”, they love giving one group an advantage randomly over others.

pswendel.8179:

Y u hoarde so much?

I see no issues here. You were given the opportunity to use them and did not presumably because you had nothing worth investing it in. Nothing has changed in the investments available and now you’re angry at yourself, not ArenaNet.

If, if Anet had given us a heads up, you’d have a point.

This is classic Anet – nerf something without warning, after some set of people profit off it, and screw the rest. There’s no way to justify group A got ~9000 of something, and group B gets 6500.

Anet always fixes minor “issues” (was it really that big of a deal) with a sledgehammer approach.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Joiry.2504:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Pretty much this… They’ve added 4 ways to get them. This is better than we could of ever hoped for. Anyone complaining now is just complaining for the sake of wanting to hear their own voice.

We got RNG boxes + TP + Build up to buy + Loot Drop

They pretty much listened to every suggestion on the forums yet people still complain.

Except just allowing people to directly buy them.

Btw, there are only 2 ways to get them, you magically tried to make it seem like 4. There are only 2 source of the skins:

BL Ticket (whether it is a 10 scraps or a lucky draw)
random drop in event (and random which one you get)

TP – this isn’t a “source”, its a place to sell the skin once you have it from the above 2 methods.

So you are saying that I have to buy BLK’s in order to purchase the skins off the TP?

No? Didn’t think so… Guess that is a separate way of getting them then.

No, it isn’t. Your grasp of logic is tenuous.

There are 2 ways these skins enter the world. One is by the claim ticket, the other is by random drop in the candidate even. In terms of market supply, these are the “generators” of the items. That defines the supply.

That you can sell them on the TP doesn’t make it a source. The amount and pricing of the skins on the TP is entirely determined by the two sources. The TP is only where you can buy skins from someone who got them from the 2 sources and wishes to sell.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Pretty much this… They’ve added 4 ways to get them. This is better than we could of ever hoped for. Anyone complaining now is just complaining for the sake of wanting to hear their own voice.

We got RNG boxes + TP + Build up to buy + Loot Drop

They pretty much listened to every suggestion on the forums yet people still complain.

Except just allowing people to directly buy them.

Btw, there are only 2 ways to get them, you magically tried to make it seem like 4. There are only 2 source of the skins:

BL Ticket (whether it is a 10 scraps or a lucky draw)
random drop in event (and random which one you get)

TP – this isn’t a “source”, its a place to sell the skin once you have it from the above 2 methods.

Iason Evan.3806:

Grimwolf.7163:

Even if ticket scraps were a 100% drop chance, that would still be 900 gems for a single weapon skin. This is disgusting.
And what is it really, 30%? 20%? Do the math.

People don’t just want weapons outright. They want the rarity associated with them. You don’t see many Wintersday weapon skins on players (I’m referring to the ones sold on the cash shop during Wintersday). You don’t see Rox’s stuff on many players either. ArenaNet is doing this stuff better now too. We can get these new skins many ways:

1.) Do the Aetherblade Horde Mode thing and hope you get one like everyone else and have fun with the NEW content

2.) Get the ticket scraps after buying a lot of BL Keys.

3.) Get lucky and get a ticket outright

4.) Buy one off the BL Market that players post their because they aren’t soulbound til use

IDK what the issue is here. We are getting new skins almost 2 times a month now if not 2 times a month now forever. At what point is it good enough? If you could outright buy the skins you wouldn’t want them because people would all be running around with them except that nobody wants that really. We secretly want them to be rare so that others gawk at them when we run by and that doesn’t happen to skins that can outright be purchased.

Not everyone has the same point of view. I want a cool “normal” sword skin that looks good. By normal I mean not flaming, or with a weird fantasy blade, etc, etc.

The rapier fits that bill nicely. I don’t care if every other player in the game has the rapier, its the sort of sword I want. If you want rare “prestige” skins then shouldn’t they be for actual effort? Not random chance drops.

You want prestige skins that mean nothing more than “I was lucky” or “I had a ton of gold to waste”

Me, I’d plunk down some gems in the store to just outright buy the rapier. Not sure if I’m going to waste an open-ended amount of cash for one though.

Look, I’m fine with Anet having a revenue stream through gems purchases.

However, not everyone likes lotteries. The Black Lion scraps are not an answer to this. Just let us buy the Aetherized weapon skins directly for gems or at least buy the Claim Tickets for gems. I’m not interested in all the “extras” that are priced into opening chests – I care for practically nothing else in them.

I have no issue giving money to Anet, I just want to give it for a direct, knowable purchase. Not a lottery.

Beldin.5498:

Hmm .. personally i only see a damage decrease compared to now where i often directly start with 20 stacks of vulnerability.

Yeah, I was wondering about this. Used to be, Hunter’s Shot, 10 stacks of vuln right away, so every hit of Rapid Fire got the full 10 vuln from that. If the new Rapid just adds 1 stack per hit, the 10 stacks only apply to the last hit, for a net loss in total damage?

Maybe there are other factors? Or is it more than 1 vuln per hit with the new Rapid Fire (notes don’t say and I’m at work).

One Beeeeellion doolars?

What couldn’t I do with that?

Guild Wars: Beyond the Mists

An alternate world version of Tyria, without all this silly elder dragon stuff. A nearly total sandbox game set in a very similar Tyria, pre-searing Ascalon lives. A sandbox world were players have housing, furniture and player founded cities, and every item in game could be crafted. All crafting materials would be useful.

• A dye like appearance system, where item skins are unlocked and can be applied to any item of the same type as many times as the player wants.

• Truly dynamic events, not merely slightly branching scripted events. Much more of a Living World than monthly theme park updates of kill 250 of the Bad Guys of the Month.

• Dynamic dungeons than are composed of building blocks and rotating sets of puzzles/mechanisms.

• Completely equal clothing options for both genders. Want that male great coat on a female, done. Want that miniskirt on a guy, done.

• A Pony. No, a Unicorn Pony. Wait, Pegasus Unicorn Pony. With Sparkles.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

no new armor models in the southsun shore story stuff.

Then what shoulder pieces is the lion guard wearing? I don’t recognize it from any armor set??

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/a5800Southsun-Screen-4.jpg

LinseyMurdock.4165:

OutspokenAardvark.9781:

Could we please get an official response if this is an intended nerf or an overlooked mistake?

It is neither. It just takes time to build these items and there is a huge amount of stuff on our list of things to do. We aren’t done adding stat combos. We will continue to add them as we have time to do so. With this batch, we wanted to even out the spread of primary stats and we already had a lot of stats with Power or Condition Damage as primary (more than any other, in fact), but I’ll be sure to get Valkyrie and Carrion into the next batch.

I hope Anet is beginning to realize how unsustainable this fixed stat gear is becoming, and will continue to become. One of the few good things about Nightfall was adding in the insignia/inscriptions so both prefix and suffix of gear could be changed. GW2 took a step backwards by reverting to just 1 modifiable slot, and now ascended gear goes further back with all stats fixed, except for the token bit in the infusion slot.

I know it would take more programming time to actually make it so we could slot all upgrades – but long term, its vastly more modular and sustainable, plus gives players more choices and options. Otherwise, the combinatorial set of upgrades will just keep dragging out longer and longer to introduce new equipment.

BobbyStein.2315:

Narrative Designer Scott McGough and I talked about this very topic some time ago. In short, Trahearne was intended to fill a very specific role that, in terms of both gameplay and story, the PC could not fill—an order-neutral character with extensive knowledge about Orr and the magic of undeath who could coordinate a global war effort and make the necessary plans, thus leaving the actual gameplay up to the player. Further, Trahearne’s character design was intentional in that he would be a reluctant hero who, through interacting with the player, evolved into someone who could step up to lead the Pact.

That’s exactly his problem – he is the perfect piece, designed to exactly fit in the missing part of the puzzle (ie story). He’s overdesigned, in some sense, and being the perfect fit, is just completely bland. I think a lot of this comes from design by committee (even if just 2 people).

Most of the NPCs that have more than token dialog have the same personality – slightly snarky, slighty laid back, slighty overconfident, slightly this and slightly that. They’re about as interesting as the typical later afternoon cartoons for 8-12 year olds. They fit in exactly were they go and its all fairly boring. Add on top mediocre voice acting for many, and the personal story is just a painful slog.

Someone like Tybalt stands out because he’s a two-dimensional character in a world of one dimensional characters (or whatever low N and N-1 you happen to parse things out to). He’s actually not all that deep, just is well voiced for his role and has a few good lines.

An individual (good) author makes good characters because they’re pretty much in charge and can develop the plot, characters and setting fairly tightly. When it becomes a group exercise, things (usually) go bad. You can even see this in author collaborations – unless one of the two (or more) is the main driver/writer and the others just throwing in high level ideas, most author collaborations don’t go well, imo at least.

Also, I think it was alluded to in one of these threads that, in order to appeal to the broadest group, any significant NPC has to be more vaguely characterized. I think the real way around this is not to have deeply interwoven NPCs. Trahearne and the iconics just get in the way of the story. I can’t stand Logan, beyond just weak characterization, what characterization there is I really can’t stand. My vote for future plot developments with him involve me being able to repeatedly punch him in the face.

Here’s a list of names:

Dodonna
Willard
Rieekan
Madine
Mothma
Ackbar

Only one is generally well known I’d say (Akbar, of course). These are all the Rebel commanders you meet in the original trilogy. None of them get in the way of the story of the main characters. But the rebellion is clearly staffed with leaders and has plans – thus the heroes can go on their way in their roles within the struggle against the Empire.

Perfect information – All consumers and producers are assumed to have perfect knowledge of price, utility, quality and production methods of products. (wikipedia)

So, players pretty much have perfect knowledge of quality, production and utility. We don’t have perfect information on price, even though the information exists, just not visible to players.

Whenever there is a cry of market manipulation, Anet may respond that either its not happening with a particular item, or that the overall manipulation of the market is small relative to the size of the market. This may very well be true – we have to take it on faith, but it may well be true.

Anet’s standard reply is that buy and sell orders are not the actual transactions occurring. This is true. But I have to ask, why don’t we have access to the real transaction information. Many games’ bazaar/market/whatever provide some form of price history – something real and tangible players can base buying and selling decisions .

Obviously, Anet can’t snap their fingers and instantly have features added to the game, but it seems like this would be a critically important feature if Anet is going to claim their TP is a good market for players to use.

For example, why not list the quantities of a item sold over the past, say, 1, 3 and 7 days, along with some kind of price summary (perhaps mean, median and mode values – if you don’t know what those are, google will tell you). With that sort of information (or something similar), wouldn’t most of the supposed market manipulation be more obviously there or not there? Wouldn’t it benefit the players to know how many and for how much the goods they want to sell or buy are actually going for?

If the buy/sell orders are not good indicators for players, why is it the only information we’re really given? The only reason I can think of is to benefit the flippers and others that see the TP as a game in and of itself, at the expense of the rest of the player base that just want fair pricing.

ColinJohanson.2394:

That being said, we’re trying to offset some of that random chance by implementing systems like our new laurel system (and other additions down the road) to help give players more opportunities to earn specific rewards as well over time. This gives the capacity for those exciting “jackpot” moments of getting a big reward, while also helping provide a more clear long term timeline when you can earn the same reward for those who don’t hit the moment-to-moment jackpot since for those who are extremely unlucky, it can be very frustrating.

Wait, so you’re offsetting the randomness by giving definite rewards, laurels, which you can trade in for a box of random equipment?

I’d much rather pay 4-8 laurels for a definite level 80 exotic than more lottery style thing you’ve given us. As it stands, might as well keep saving the laurels for ascended gear (either the current or when the new stuff is introduced).

John Smith.4610:

I wouldn’t even know where to begin pointing out the massive amount of examples that show that this isn’t true, but for the context I’d start with the Daedalus Project.

Also, holding on to Jugs of Karma for any reason is an economic reason. Economics isn’t about money, it’s about scarcity, the reason you hold those jugs is because you’re mitigating risk on a scarce resource.

Um, massive amount showing what isn’t true? I bring up a lot of points and, as is your MO, you cryptically refer to supposed counter examples without ever being specific. However, all that still avoids the central question of what sorts of data mining techniques and behavior econ models you are using to infer why people are engaging in different activities.

Second, no, I’m not holding on to them due to scarcity. There’s a few reasons. One, karma jugs, once consumed, go to a specific character. I am not yet sure which characters should get the karma armors and which armors I should buy. Second, I may be waiting for the right boosts to be available (ie all 4). There’s also the case there’s no reason to consume them until I have a pressing need.

If you’re trying to define all that as economic activity, you are applying such a broad definition of economic activity that it almost covers all activities. Heck, you could define all of biology as an economic activity due to scarcity of resources. Might make for an interesting bar discussion – but you’re not going to answer many biological questions.

(que Darwin used free market examples to explain evolution counter in 3,2,1…)

Rouven.7409:

The only qualifier for this would be people already having more gold over then needed for “anything” – but haven’t bought/equipped/used “anything”. Thus you could deduct that their sole “fun” is the gold itself (/getting more of it).

Of course, if I already expect this kind of answer I can look at numbers and interpret them the way I like to see them. It requires a certain faith to believe that the right questions are being asked.

I doubt 15% of the population falls into such a clear cut pigeon hole. Even if they did, I don’t think you can deduce anything from it.

Take me. I’m not rich in game, but I do have more gold than my “needs.” I have around 30g between 4 level 80s (mainly just from levelling). They are all equiped with rares, with 2 of them having 1 exotic weapon each, that I looted myself. A few even have some greens, because I haven’t figured out exactly what builds (ie stat armors) I want to have. I’m also sitting on over 100 jugs of karma…also, because I’m not sure which exotic armor stat combos I want to spend them on.

I have a set of resources, but I’m not spending them for a variety of non-economic reasons. Some are stat/build reasons. There’s other dealing with what armor skins I want, the clunkiness of the transmutation system, and the question if its even worth it because of the murky timeline on ascended gear.

You can use models and statistics to tell you a lot of things about a data set. You can’t use it to infer motivations, intents and other things going on in people’s heads – not with anything that could be reasonably called scientific in its reproducibility.

Novalight.7568:

Sarcasmic.6741:

John Smith.4610:

Actually about 15% of the population finds making money very fun, irrelevant of the uses of that money.

And roughly 78% of stated statistics are made up on the spot.

If he says 15% it’s 15% (I mean, he’s the dude that has pretty much every transaction in database…). The only problem is, what is the criteria by which he defined who finds money making fun.

Based on a number of dev comments about how they have “more advanced” methods of figuring out what the player base wants instead of the forums, surveys, etc – My assumption has been they are using a variety of data mining techniques to infer what players “really” want.

Coupled with whichever behavioral economics papers are John’s favorites, he’s got some funky model for this stuff. However, at least from the perspective of a fairly quantitative biologist, a lot of this (the data mining, the econ behavior models) are borderline pseudo-science.

Some vets counted for me, others didn’t. One that didn’t, that I solo’d, was the veteran arctodus in the cave below the ice imps in the middle section of Wayfarer Foothills.

On a slight tangent, I had 2 events not count toward my daily as well, but I had gotten only bronze and silver in them…those used to count.

Kyuzo.4675:

I missed the part where anet said that they will give each server 1500 points. And I have no idea what kind of math and adjustments they are making the their system to arrange the next match-ups though they have said that there will be weeks of adjustment.

It may not be 1500 points, its whatever the system was originally started out. That’s what reset means. I don’t recall the exact value, but several posters have used it.

The exact value doesn’t matter, 1000, a billion, just that everyone’s rating will be the same, but the matchups will be based on the last ratings before they are reset. There will be at least 1 server in each tier that will have less than N rating (N being whatever the reset value is) and at least 1 that will have more. So in the week 2 bottom tiers, there will be at least one current tier 1 server, at least one tier 2, etc. And vice versa for the top tiers in week two.

You’ll have upper tier servers not advancing out of the lowe tiers for a while because they are facing other upper tier servers down their. Like I said, it’ll be roughest on the mid tier servers who lose the first week matchup, because they have to wait for the upper tier servers to advance and enough low tier servers to fall back down.

Maybe Anet’s new adjustments will make this all go very quickly. But I remain skeptical. I do dislike the stagnation that’s happened with the current system, but just up and shaking the snowglobe isn’t the answer.

I think what may be needed is like 3 leagues. First league with the top 6 servers, second the “mid” 9 servers, and the third with the bottom 9 servers (ideally an even split, but would need 27 servers). Then within the league the matchups are more fluid, and if you’re doing especially good, you can promote out and the worst server in the higher league gets demoted.

Edit – hmmm, or 4 leagues of 6 servers each. The weekly matchups determined both by how well each server did plus a factor that makes sure each of the six servers faces each of the others a few times. Then each month, check to see if some servers need to be promoted or demoted to a league above or below them.

Kyuzo.4675:

Why does everyone assume that the “reset” for the new ratings system will mean that ANET just randomly assigns servers to tiers?

Mike Ferguson said “….If it helps, think of the last few months as the preseason games that determined the initial seedings for the season opener (to use a really generic sports metaphor that is in no way indicative of future plans)……”

Which in the first sentence sounds like they will use current predictive match-ups for the reset (which makes perfect sense) but then he covers his bases by parenthetically sayings it was just a metaphor that is not indicative of future plans. (sigh) I guess we will just have to wait and see though I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just explain the first match-ups and remove all the guess work.

Its not the first (reset) week matchup people are concerned about. I think everyone understands the first matchups will be the same as if the rating points remained, just they will be set to 1500 each.

Ie, JQ, SoR and SoS will be in the rank 1 matchup after the point reset (assuming current scores hold). That first week will be fine. Its the next several weeks which will be ridiculously unbalanced. The loser(s) of the first week T1 match may find itself in T6, T7 or even T8, against servers which they will steamroll. And a low tier/pop server may find itself in the top tiers. Mid tier servers that happen to lose will be down in the lower tiers, probably getting steamrolled in the second week by the artificially fallen high tier servers, forcing them in low tiers for extra weeks until they can finally climb back to their deserved position.

Who the reset really benefits is servers in too low of a tier (cough, Kaineng), rocket them to first place, where they will get a few weeks to build up a ratings buffer facing servers that shouldn’t be up there until their real competition climbs back up.

If Anet’s wish is merely to have several weeks of “fresh” server matchups, sure, this is a good idea (and I’m not entirely against that).

However, the claim this will “stablize” the ranking much faster is completely wrong. I’m not going to go into all the details and possible cases that will cause the volatility to remain for 1 to 2 months, rather than the 1-2 weeks it’ll probably take to stabilize without the reset.

Instead, I propose a gentleman’s bet with Anet. After the first post-reset week’s matchup, calculate offline what the rankings would have been without the reset in ratings. Post it in a sticky. In one or two months when the volatility of the reset settles, let’s take a look at the current rankings and compare them to what would have happened without a reset next week. Barring a significant loss of WvW population due to getting stuck in incorrect tiers for several weeks, I bet they’re nearly the same. I bet most servers are at their correct rank, barring a few exceptions(1), of where it would have been a month or two earlier without the reset.

(1) – by this, I mean, if you moved just a few server’s ranks a few places, they’d all be more or less correct. Something that likely would have happened in the second week without reset.

marnick.4305:

And yet iPhone is considered superior because of the price point alone. If there were other flaming weapons in the game, they’d just be considered “cheap” volcanic swords.

Not to mention there ARE alternatives to volcanic swords. They may not flame, but they have other effects that are just as cool. The only difference being … they are easy to get. And that’s the only reason you don’t want a ghastly sword instead of a volcanic. Making volcanic easier to get would just mean you won’t go for it.

Herein lies one of the divisions of the community. No everyone wants something because of its rarity. It may be true that a lot of iPhone buyers are drawn in by it being perceived as the luxury/status top end smart phone. But not everyone. Disclaimer, I don’t have a smartphone.

The same is true of skins. Not everyone is looking for the current rarest status symbol. Some are, some aren’t. Some are just looking for a theme. Its just because of Anet’s (essentially) arbitrary decision about what should be rare/hard to get that makes some people unlucky (in the sense, Anet designated their preferred style as rare). Another disclaimer – I don’t care for the flaming look, and even if I did, I could use the dragon sword from my HoM.

This is a core issue of Anet trying to satisfy too many types of gamers at once – trying for both the hardcore grinder extreme and the most casual of casuals. Anet can claim there’s only optional grind, but those that do the super grind are still skewing the market in various ways, which may or may not be compounded by some level of others trying to profit due to that skewing.

John Smith.4610:

In the last 24 hours 2193 Lodestones have been traded. The amount of sell orders on the TP doesn’t necessarily represent supply.

Is there any chance this sort of information will get integrated into the TP window? This is the sort of market data on items that would dispel theories about massive market manipulation, as well as letting players understand demand for items better.

John Smith.4610:

You could try, but you’d be wrong 99.9% of the time. You also most certainly cannot measure elasticity through spidy because 1. It updates slower than trading. 2. It doesn’t show actual trades.

Yes, you keep mentioning how none of us has access to the actual trade data. And I agree, but also keep bringing up why don’t we? Several other MMOs I’ve played actually show a price history, sometimes even a crude way to measure volume of activity.

It’d be far more useful for the TP to show price history/volume than the current buy/sell offers – to know for how much stuff is actually selling and how often. That would create a more open and fairer market, and dispel a lot of these so called conspiracy theories.

Well, I don’t really worry about the game economy either. Afterall, its not really an economy, rather more a hunter/gatherer society living in a near garden of eden. Fruit (eg mobs, nodes) blossoms eternally, no one will starve or lack for shelter, there’s no infrastructure to maintain, no R&D, etc, etc.

John Smith.4610:

2. Profit and Loss: There is nothing in our game that doesn’t consistently have places where good profit margins exist, including crafting.

3. Drops and Loot: People mistake the sell and buy orders of drops as static, but don’t see the velocity of those items. It often seems like there aren’t new items, when the supply might cycle 4-5 times in a day.

2 – I don’t doubt there’s a few crafting recipes than can make a bit of profit. But do these actually exist across all crafting disciplines? (no, I don’t need to know the specific ones or recipes) And are they really profit makers? There are some crafted weapons and armors that players are trying to sell at what appears to be a profit over the cost of materials…but the looted versions undercut them all the time. And is it really healthy that nearly all the recipes are basically worthless, other than to level with?

3 – lack of market information is one of my biggest beefs, I believe I even mentioned it in an earlier post in this thread. To the (probably small) extent market manipulation exists, it exists due to a lack of information. I don’t want to see the current buy/sell orders – which really put an artificial constraint on trade in ways. I want to see the last X actual purchases. Or for very high volume goods, say the 1, 4, and 8 day averages (maybe not quite those intervals), maybe even some useful stats like median and mode.

Anyway, most of it probably doesn’t matter that much. Most players I don’t think care enough, just want a place to sell and buy. However, those that do, well, probably the next MMO to offer a better (er, more interesting) economic experience than a mainly loot based economy won’t stick around. There’s a t least one upcoming direct competitor to GW2 that seems like it will have a more sandboxy economy if it stays true to its franchises roots (which, of course, is not guaranteed).

John Smith.4610:

I can’t answer questions about my specific feelings about individual item prices here.

How about the economy in general?

I’m a scientist. I deal with lots of data – I make a lot graphs or other representations to gain insight – most of which will never be published, and in general, are too crude or otherwise misleading to all but a few colleagues. So, I can understand your general reluctance. But it’d almost be better for you not to be posting than to leave such cryptic and otherwise unuseful posts.

I assume you’ve been doing some of what I describe I do. You must have some ideas about how the economy is going. Can’t you even say, give a list of your top concerns about what needs addressing? It doesn’t have to be super specific, but at least not super generalized (I am concerned with certain unnamed items prices values).

Colin – got any examples of what the new variable dailies might be? Is there going to be much of a time gap between the variable versions and the subsetting (eg 4/6)? Feels like you’re going to push players into daily achievements in parts of the game they don’t necessarily like if there’s much of a time gap between the two.

The different daily achievements need to come at the same time as the subset functionality. Otherwise you’ll just being annoying players when they get a daily that includes activities they don’t like. The current dailies aren’t exciting, but they at least are common enough that you complete most of them with “regular” play.

But if Fractals shows up in the daily’s, I’ll be really annoyed. I know Anet wants to push us all into the super infinite grindfest of those mini-dungeons, but no thanks.

John Smith.4610:

I really wanted to get a new blog post out for the first quarter of the game’s release, but I haven’t had the time, and issues in the game have to come first. It’s on my list of things to publish though.

Basically, he can’t/won’t post because the economy is in the crapper, Anet knows its in the crapper, and showing anything would both acknowledge this and waste time as they desperately band aid things. That’s why he’s so evasive in this thread.

Most everything sells for vendor price, or in the case of crafting, far less than the cost of materials. Materials below T5 are worth only something for the purpose of levelling crafting. Some T5s are valuable because they can be used to get higher tier materials. And Tier 6 materials have value because the greatest (and crudest) economic hack in any game, the gaping maw of the Mystic Forge, is endlessly hungry to suck up whatever it can, skewing the economy for all the non-super-grinders.

John Smith.4610:

I don’t mean that the wealth of the country grows. I mean that individuals with wealth will create more wealth an a significantly higher rate than those without wealth. It takes money to make money essentially.

You’ve pulled a clever word swap here. Going from “wealth” to “money”. Players using money to increase their money (ie playing the TP) aren’t increasing the wealth of the game – they’re only welath shifting to their own benefit.

The wealth of the game only increases through the production of materials, coin and items (ie farming – be it mobs, events, etc). There are relatively low fixed costs associated with this production (some equipment, weapons, armor, gathering tools). Perhaps the only real way to “improve” production is magic find. Otherwise it all comes down to time spent farming – because that is the only source of actual new wealth production. After an initial investment of the equipment (gathering tools being a negligible cost), extra wealth doesn’t lead you to having a higher wealth creation.

Your argument really only works for the TP players – who aren’t actually generating new wealth. Just shifting wealth to themselves by taking advantage of how poor economic information is in the game. Ie, they’d do a lot worse if proper tools were made available (eg a real price history of sales, rather than what the current buy/sell orders are – with some meaningful statisitcs beyond the mean value).

I’m not sure he’s complaining about frame rate. He means all the effects on screen make it hard to figure out what’s going on because they visually block your view. I don’t think there is a way. A good number of players complained about this at release, when players were much more densely clumped in the initial levelling wave, and Anet never responded.

Magni.2835:

Classically meta-gaming would refer to creating rules on top of what exists in the game. Examples of this in the context of GW2 would be things like “no fighting in JPs” or “location X on the maps are designated for 1v1 fighting”.

For some reason it appears that players here in GW2 are using the term in an extremely broad sense to mean strategies and tactics that are common.

It comes from GW1 usage of the term. “The Meta” was basically the current set of builds that was dominating the game, especially in Guild vs Guild matches. GW1 had a much more flexible system, in which you could pick any 8 skills in your 2 professions, with just a few restrictions (such as only 1 elite). For GvG, the team builds most often used were considered the current meta (the builds pretty much determining your strategy and tactics).

I’d say just get rid of the concept of elites entirely. They are actually poor and sloppy game design. By which is mean, not that they are underpowered or unuseful in their current form, but the very idea is bad for gameplay. After the release of GW1, I recall a very well reasoned post on GW1guru forums(?) discussing why the very concept of an elite was bad for truly skillful gameplay.

To forestall the obvious answers, I’ve already checked the armor gallery stickied above, the wiki, and gone through the PvP locker in game twice. I took the attched screenshot ~2 weeks ago, and am pretty sure it was a player (I was in a hurry at the time, so maybe I was mistaken).

The boots are crafted Feathered armor, the gloves Seer. The legs are very similar to Acolyte, but clearly not based on the skirt/panel fringe and the front flap. The buckles on the chest are pretty distinctive, so I feel I haven’t overlooked the piece by mistake. Oddly, I got a graphic glitch with one of the shoulder pieces going white (is it a shoulder piece, or part of the chest?).

I know I’ve seen it before, and, I had, its one of the original Elementalist reveal screenshots (tho on a Charr).

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gw182.jpg