Guild Wars 2

Annathesa, unless you can provide details, then I’m going to have to remain sceptical as to just how much profit you really ARE making when you claim that you are buying all the mats from the TP, and use them to craft items and then sell them again.

I’m curious, to those claiming that crafting is a viable source of player income I would like to ask:

1) Do you have examples of decent quantities of items in each crafting profession that can be gathered and produced and return a decent profit?

2) What amount of profit do you consider to be a decent return over, let’s say, 4 hours?

3) How does the amount of profit gained from such an activity compared to, let’s say, “flipping” on the TP?

Or are you specifically referring to some items that can be made by specific crafting professions and therefore advocating that all crafters should be of those professions if they wish to make a profit?

Regardless of the discussion, I personally think that the crafting system in place is NOT a very good one for a number of reasons:

1) No Niches: There is no actual way for crafters to create a “niche” for themselves because everyone can (with very little effort involved) “discover” every variant of a recipe. Thus everyone can essentially make everything that is allowed.

2) No interdependancy: There is very little / no dependancy between the crafting professions, making each largely (but not totally) self-sufficient. Assuming that the crafter “farms” their own materials.

3) Self-sufficiency: The ability for players to dye their own armour how they like, means that crafters cannot make a niche for themselves based on particular aesthetic combinations. And the fact that all armour of a particular “potency” effectively has the same stats, means that crafters cannot find a “niche” based on stats either.

I suspect that the above points result in very little demand for items crafted by other people. I also suspect that the demand that DOES exist is mainly created by those who take part in “flipping” on the TP.

4) One giant economy = lots of the same available + very volatile economy: The “monolithic” economy in the game creates a higher supply of crafted goods on the TP than what would be observed had the games economy been designed around smaller sets of server-cluster based economies. And because of the existence of “flipping”, this creates a very volatile economy which further discourages any sustainable profitability in crafting.

5) Anti-farm code: The situation with the “anti-farm” code discourages players from trying to “farm” specific materials and instead encourages players to just buy the materials from the TP. Which, in theory is a good concept. HOWEVER, it isn’t good when the next point also exists….

6) The game rewards players with very little income whilst adventuring, whilst imposing heavy costs on them when travelling via the WP’s and incurring armour repairs. Both this and the above point does nothing but encourage players to buy gold. Either via legitimate, or illegitimate, means. And whilst buying gold via the BLTC is good for the devs, the price is perhaps a little high.

7) The cost of trying to obtain enough materials in an acceptable time frame is high. By this I mean either buying them from the TP, or spending considerable time to obtain enough to even make a singular item (due to the anti-farm code that attempts to somewhat prevent this, along with the quantities required of each ingredient). This “cost” helps to push up the price of goods that a player can sell on the TP. The price of which is in many cases probably far higher than what a lot of players are prepared to pay. But crafters cannot drop their prices because they’d lose all profits and maybe even run into losses.

8) RNG isn’t good to base MMO systems on: On paper, reliance on RNG (random number generation) systems may look to work fine because samples are taken over a long period prove to show that the percentages work. HOWEVER, players often don’t like to try forever to achieve success with no guarantee of reaching a goal. And neither do they enjoy having to spend what they consider to be an unreasonable amount of time to achieve that goal. Now, whilst in theory a 5% success rate may imply that a player only needs to do something 20 times in order to achieve success. Unfortunately, that is not what happens in reality. Because each “try” resets the chance again, resulting in some people being extremely “lucky” and achieving a goal within a VERY short time, whilst others are “unlucky” to the point whereby they never achieve success and become disheartened at the fact that they have spent considerable effort with little / no reward. Many of the issues regarding the Mystic Forge, are prime examples of this in action.

Mind you, too much reliance on “non-weighted” RNG systems is not unique to GW2. It’s happened many, many times in countless MMO’s. But such a situation is partly why quite a few MMO’s began to use “token based” systems in order to give players a tangible goal to reach in an amount of time that is based on the amount of effort they put in, not just on how lucky they are.

In short:
Stranglehold on the economy +
Lack of niches +
Too heavy reliance on RNG systems +
Lack of viability of crafting as a worthwhile activity to obtain money via legitimate means
= A recipe for disaster.

Side note: With all of these points in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising when we hear of players buying gold via illegitimate means.

I haven’t and never will buy gold from gold sellers. However, given the price at which the BLTC is selling gems, I think the price is way too high.

The fact is that the game has been deliberately engineered to maintain a strangle hold on the economy. And it does so by ensuring that obtaining gold via “traditional” legitimate methods (e.g. farming mobs with the anti-farming code in place) in the game is so very hard work that it cannot be deemed as very rewarding.

Thus forcing people to either consider obtaining gold either by “flipping” or obtaining it via illegitimate (via gold sellers) or legitimate (via the BLTC) means. Thus in theory it might sound like a good idea to strangle the economy to the point whereby people (in theory) would start buying gold via the BLTC, however that doesn’t seem to be working very well in practice. This is one of those “it looked better on paper” concepts.

In the end, Anet you have a measure of responsibility for driving people to consider the illegitimate option. You cannot deny that fact. It is therefore YOUR responsibility to discourage people from using gold sellers by any means necessary. Ranging from “finger wagging” blogs, to ensuring that the price of gold on the BLTC is considered “reasonable” by the playerbase.

Personally speaking, I would like to be able to have multiple UI windows open (inventory, etc), as well as being able to see the world map at the same time. But the current UI setup doesn’t allow that. Not only that but the current UI setup for the worldmap has certain issues that could do with addressing:

TRANSITION FROM MAP VIEW TO CHARACTER VIEW
When the world map is closed by the player two things occur:

1) The map “recentres” itself on the players location.
2) When the map is opened, this is when the camera angle is altered to being near vertical. Consequently, when it’s closed, the camera angle is altered again, back to the angle it was originally at.

So this makes me wonder as to the purpose of these “transition effects”. Are they purely cosmetic? Or is there a technical reason for them:

1) Why does the map NEED to recentre itself on the player, if its actually being closed down.
2) Why has the camera angle changed at all just to open the map?

It just seems like the majority of this is unnecessary and sometimes causes “juddering” graphics problems when transitioning from “map view” to “character view” as the system is trying “redraw” things in the correct perspective.

NOTIFICATION OF ATTACK WHEN VIEWING THE MAP
Currently there is no visual indication that your character is being attacked whilst you view the map.

SUGGESTION:

Perhaps Anet should give players the option to choose in the settings from :

1) “Full Screen Map Mode”: Keeping with what we have now, as well as the option to disable the “transition effects” detailed above. Allowing players to disable this could help to slightly improve performance of the game on certain system configurations.

2) “Windowed Map Mode”: The map would be in its own UI “window” (like in other games). Looking like a flat map with perhaps “artistic” edges purely for cosmetic reasons. More importantly though, the map “window” would have the following attributes:

a) By default it would be smaller than the “full screen” resolution size (perhaps 75% of the screen resolution).
b) It would be adjustable in size (just like other UI elements are).
c) It would be movable around the screen (just like the other UI window elements in the game).
d) It would have a “zoom” facility, just like the “full screen” map version does now.
e) Maybe it’s “transparency” level could be altered, so players could keep it open and still see where they are going (just like in other games). Maybe such a “transparency” setting could be given to other UI elements too later on (such as the inventory window).
f) Because the map is in a window, no “transition effects” are required.
g) All of the above window settings (the position and size of the window in the game screen, the “zoom” level, the location which was last being looked at, should all be “remembered” by the UI system.

In both cases, I think that there should be some form of visual indicator (e.g. red border around the screen) which tells the player they are being attacked.

DROP DOWN LIST OF VISITED AREAS ON THE MAP
Sometimes you know of a place, but can’t remember exactly where it is. Perhaps there could be a drop down list of all locations that the player has visited shown on the map UI (both fullscreen and “Windowed Map” modes, that are primarily sorted by zone. And selecting a location from that list causes the map to show that surrounding (depending on the zoom level).

Bananasmile.4126:

I’m from Asia and the event will happen here at 3am Monday. I’m a working person, I have a family and mouths to feed as well. So if we’re talking about being busy and real life pressures, I got them. Yet, I can confidently say I’ll still make it to this event. Do I think it’s the best time? No, but I’m not complaining…why would I complain if I like the game? Events like these are just bonuses. I will attend the event to show my appreciation for the game even if it means going of my way…that’s my mentality. It’s like attending someone’s birthday party, if that person is important to you, you will attend his party regardless of your busy schedule, you’ll make time. If I like a game enough, I’ll make time for it. I don’t see why people complain and complain…these are very manageable tasks. Act first then talk later.

What is considerable “manageable” and reasonable is completely subjective. But with that said, there are trends which suggest the varying degrees of what is generally considered reasonable. So one cannot really pass judgement on what others should / should not be complaining about.

Besides, if they were given the option, I doubt that a great many would consider 3am to be reasonable by any stretch.

Perhaps in the end it may turn out that, in order to prevent people from “being spoilt by youtube vids” they host the event globally at noon PT, but because people cannot attend at that time in their respective timezones, they end up checking it out on youtube style websites.

The irony would be amusing to say the least.

igneous.8153:

Didn’t they say it was not about primetime, but rather about peak worldwide concurrency, which is precisely at 1900GMT?

I’ve heard that excuse used before in other games. And it didn’t wash then either.

Sunday at noon PT will mean that potentially there is a lot of the US playerbase in the game. Therefore it is possible that the US population in the game could possibly offsetting any shortfall in European playerbase at that particular moment in time (due to the fact that the same time in the EU is the beginning of Sunday night, which is often taken up with “family time”).

Now, had they decided to have the event at noon GMT instead, then the opposite could possibly occur (assuming the same number of EU players are playing the game in comparison to US players).

But from what they are saying that isn’t the case. They seem to be essentially admitting that US players + all other zones at noon PT > EU players + all other zones at noon GMT.

In short: they ARE in fact catering more for US players than any other part of their playerbase, purely because the US population is “weighting” the figures. The fact that doing so at that time inconveniences a large portion of players who AREN’T in the “majority”, appears to be irrelevant to them.

In my opinion, this whole “official response” is just smoke and mirrors. Just as it is when other MMO devs play the “worldwide concurrency” card. The real reason is probably much more simplistic: they can’t be assed getting up during the night (4am) to host the event so that EU players get to see it at noon GMT. Of course, they cannot admit that directly because players would REALLY be annoyed.

Shostie.6435:

Clearly some people don’t know what “primetime” means. 12:00 PM PST is not primetime in the US. It is primetime in Europe.

Thing is, whilst 7pm GMT is indeed considered “primetime” that doesn’t make it the most convenient time. People often end up spending a lot of time during Sunday evening / night getting their family ready for the coming working / school week.

But rather than host the event at a more convenient time, Anet think that just because Sunday night is considered “primetime” then everything is fine and dandy.

Frotee.2634:

Ah, on a side note: I think I remember someone stating that this “one time only” event merely marked the beginning of Act 3 – under the assumption that it might just be something like the fountain in LA finally bursting open to reveal the Mad King Thorn (finally freed after several centuries), it would kind of make sense to only have this once
…

From the official post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Special-Event-Timing/first#post545536

This is why each act is a phase, or a period of time, rather than a moment in time.

The one major exception is the beginning of Act 3, which is something that I think most people will want to be around to see.

This infers that 7pm GMT isn’t just the start of Act 3, but there is something happening at the start of Act 3 which is a one-time only thing for this event this year.

Now, whilst it may make sense for each player to see it once, that doesn’t mean that it MUST occur at the same time for everyone. There are ways and means to have this “event” occur at a more convenient time for all.

Anet, I find your official response to the decision to not split events up on a per timezone basis, to be completely weak. Other companies tried to argue this case, and it bit them in the kitten

You make it sound like any decision to split the timing of an event based on actual real world timezones would effectively force every other player who isn’t in that timezone to watch a youtube vid. Which is completely and utterly false. IF a player decides to do that, then that is like them choosing to watch a video of a boss fight prior to taking part in it. That’s THEIR decision to make. No one is forcing them to do it. And therefore that is not something that you need to concern yourselves with.

The fact is that the Americans are getting to see the event on a SUNDAY at NOON, whereas Europeans are required to be online at 8pm on a Sunday night. Now for a lot of people Sunday night is a busy time of the weekend. It is often a time of the weekend when a lot of people are settling their families down for bed / putting their feet up to relax prior to the working week beginning. Then there’s the Oceanic players, I feel for them.

Now, whilst it could be argued that players don’t HAVE to see the event “live” because it’s essentially their choice to make, that’s beside the point. It is in YOUR best interest for players to WANT to be online without feeling inconvenienced too much. You shouldn’t be aiming to make players feel like they have to go out of their way to be online (due to bad choice in timing on your behalf) just to experience a once-in-a-year event at a time that may not be very convenient for a lot of players.

Face it Anet, you screwed up. Now please stop acting like Bioware with their Bumper Fun Book of Excuses, and take this issue into consideration for future events.

Remember: you are making your game for your customers throughout the world, NOT just for yourselves and your “local” customers.

Agreed.

There could be a “Barbershop” option on the BLTC which allows access to not only the character customisation features we have now when creating new characters but also any new (perhaps “unlockable” additions such as hairstyles, jewelry, tatoos etc.

And because its on the BLTC, there’s no need to an actual npc / barbershop as a location in the game, the character customisation screen that we use when creating a character could be re-used and the changes applied immediately to our characters no matter where we are in the world. Just like how we can change the dye colours in use “on the fly”.

pdg.8462:

Cinder.4865:

I was going to report this post, seeing as it’s not a suggestion. You’re unnecessarily angry, and this makes your post come across like you’re a petulant child.

However, maybe you’d like to reconsider the title (I believe you meant to use “vulnerable”) and offer up a real suggestion to the proposed problem? In that case, we’ll see if anyone else has held off reporting.

Well, in Rift, if your character is standing on something above the target monster, the monster can easily climb up to you. So there is no advantage gained from being on something high and no need to make the monster invulnerable.

Sometimes it’s not just a height difference that causes invulnerability problems, sometimes its just a bug perhaps in the pathing calculations or the terrain design which cause the issues. I’ve seen mobs go invuln under water just off the shore when there’s no obstructions about.

I DO like the skritt in the game. To me, they have been designed very well. Their voice over dialogue is amusing and sometimes thought provoking.

But with that said, would I think that they would make a good playable race? I’m not sure being a “singular” skitt is a good idea, let alone a pack of the stealing little tykes.

All time favourite dialogue in the game:

“Next time we steal manual….oh shiny….shiny manual!!!” <runs off>

Mijinion.7168:

Prophet.6954:

What if they just take away the chests period, and it is strictly for achievement sake? Would you prefer no reward vs one you feel is measly outside of your account getting the achievement?

personally, as a person who dont do acheivments anyway, unless by coincedence

i would not mind if they got rid of the reward totaly
cause its only there to fool people into believing they didnt just wast thier time

if your at the appropiate lvl for the “event”, you rarely get anything usefull

high lvl exploring, or grinding out missed content, what ever you get is most likely
a waste of space, and not even worth vending

my belief is, if you do content, set for your lvl, you should get something you can use

if your at or near max lvl (80), you should get alternative reward

hey they can add 3 titles right there
one for content compleated while under lvled
one for content compleated at an appropiate lvl
one for content compleated at a high lvl

I gotta admit, I’m somewhat curious as to why obtainable “titles” are so few and far between in this game.

You’d think that at least the world boss fights would yield one or more titles (based on the amount of times you’ve taken that boss down). And that’s before you start looking at “<insert mob type here> slayer” type titles.

Some may think that a plethora of titles would somewhat diminish the “prestige” of owning one, I don’t think so. After all, if I saw another player with the title “Dragon Slayer” I wouldn’t mind.

My point here is that titles can be used as yet another way to “reward” players for accomplishing activities, tasks and goals without upsetting other parts of the game such as the economy, progression of equipment, etc, etc.

Prophet.6954:

What if they just take away the chests period, and it is strictly for achievement sake? Would you prefer no reward vs one you feel is measly outside of your account getting the achievement?

What is the point of such a question?

There is no reason to believe that there is any form of “ceiling limit” exists on what rewards that can be obtained from such encounters whereby players must either like what they have now, or have nothing at all.

Or are you simply just trying to imply that (in your opinion) people should just be happy with what (little) they got? Whilst the definition of “Fun” may be somewhat subjective, in general people often like to be rewarded for the effort they put into an MMO activity.

In short: if effort + time + risk vs reward isn’t balanced correctly, MMO players often won’t do it.

Yep, I gotta agree too. After fighting the “Claw” for what seems like a long time, only to find 2 blues and a green (approx) in the chest, it’s a little bit disappointing.

the sarcasm is strong with this one….

Gotta admit, i found the title a bit confusing.

Short term fix: Move the specific mobs start locations away from the areas in the game which cause them to become invulnerable. Or just remove those mobs altogether. Just until the reasons why those locations make mobs invulnerable are found.

Players could randomly find a “drop” on a random mob, such as a message in a bottle, or crudely written note.

“Using” that note puts the player on an event.

Basically, this is like the “book” Halloween treasure hunt, but isn’t seasonal dependant.

It’s random is to whether the player finds the initial bit to set them going. And until they get that, they cannot proceed to the next bit. And just like the Halloween activity, the tooltip for the item gives a hint.

If there were multiple “treasure hunts”, which all can pick from a bunch of different locations to form an event chain, then this would ensure a measure of dynamic feeling is maintained with the activity.

Of course, there could be a decent reward when it has been completed (such as karma, money and/or loot).

Perhaps some could only have their final stages completed in dungeons? Thus there could be objects inside the dungeons that are only interactable if a player just happens to be at the stage where they need to find it.

To be honest, if an 11 year old game like Anarchy Online could do it, then surely GW2 can.

Here’s a few things to bear in mind:

We already know that mini dungeons are coming in the game. So Anet appear to be in favour of the concept of mini-dungeons. The difference being that I’m assuming that these mini-dungeons will be in “fixed” locations in the world and their content will be fixed too.

Now, when you think about it, there’s already lots of non-interactable doors of different types throughout the world (especially the human areas, for now they are just part of the environment at the moment). More could even be added where necessary in other places (set into sides of cliff faces, underwater grates, etc, etc).

This Halloween event already has “doors” appearing wherever the devs want them to appear, and they are also interactable too.

Lastly, unlike the DE system (which relies on players just being in the right location), the personal story system requires players to speak to an npc or enter an instance in order to initiate the proceedings. That system somewhat follows the “traditional” quest systems whereby the player must interact with an npc or the environment in order to “pick up” the quest. The mission terminal system in AO, and the “quest board” that I mentioned in my OP follows the same design.

So essentially, this suggestion just meshes those concepts together a bit.
Making instance doors interactable only if the player has a key (which could be sent to them via the mail if necessary once the mission has been accepted).
And if necessary, a time limit could be put on completing the quest (and thus the availability of the instance entrance). Failure to do it in the time limit, and the instance is no longer available. A new quest must therefore be “requested” via whatever means the devs see to use in the game (e.g. a quest board or npc).

This is an old concept used in games like Anarchy Online. For those unfamiliar with the game, this is how it worked in AO:

The player interacts with the mission terminal. The player sets specific criteria to setup the mission such as Difficulty level (whether soloable, duo, or group) and type of loot priority (e.g. whether mostly money, or loot or a mixture) and type of quest (kill the boss, find the person, retrieve information etc, etc).

The player then receives co-ordinates (a waypoint) for the instance entrance and a key to enter the instance. Without that key, they cannot enter. If players join the player who setup the instance, then each member recieves a key to use on that instance. The instance can entered so long as either the quest hasn’t been deleted or completed by the original creator of the instance, or the player hasn’t left the group.

So, the player (and their group if applicable) finds the instance entrance, and enter (because they each have a key). The instance consists of a number of underground / interior rooms filled with mobs + boss mob at end with some loot dropping. Of course, as the main reason for entering the instance was the quest, naturally completion of the quest yields the best reward. Though the loot drops from kills also help.

Naturally, some minor adjustments would have to be made to the concept (using “quest boards” in the cities instead of mission terminals etc etc). But the basic concept can still be applied.

The benefit is (seemingly) randomly generated content inside the instance means different types of encounters. Players can use them as an alternative to doing other types of activities which the player would otherwise partake in.

The fact that the instance entrances aren’t permanently located and the relative randomness of the content inside helps to add to the feeling of the world being “dynamic”.

Sick of Orr? Sick of looking for a group?
Players could jump into these relatively small instances for something to do.
It’s basically an optional alternative.
More options are good.

Leiloni……Are you trying to say that just because the US has 4 time zones then that nullifies concerns made by people who aren’t in the US? The fact is that Anet left out some details that are pretty crucial to a particular subset of their playerbase.

The entirety of this playerbase doesn’t just reside in the US. Internationally recognised constant time standards exist for a reason.

@Grim, perhaps obvious to anyone within the same time zone / country. But as we know, the world isn’t just the United States.

To the rest of the world, UTC / GMT / Zulu Time is often quoted because it is a constant time standard, unlike “local time” which can fluctuate depending on the time of year. Therefore, using such a standard avoids unnecessary confusion that can arise when quoting a “Local Time”.

This situation being a classic example of the sort of confusion that can occur.
Anet are providing a service across multiple time zones. Therefore, they should stick with a universally recognised constant time standard. Even better would be to quote the start time using multiple time zone standards to help those who cannot calculate the different between their own local time and the constant.

Well done Anet. That will at least make the system more intuitive in trying to track down those illusive few POI’s, Vistas and Skill points we may have missed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Add-the-preview-function-to-the-trading-post/first#post55812

I do recall a dev previously saying that they are working on this.

edit:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds#post218944

Although the OP of that thread is talking about something else, the dev reply seems to be applicable to this thread.

Obsidian.1328:

I think it’s a valid, well-thought-out point to make. I would certainly try/buy such a game.

However…I don’t see how that could be applied to an already-released game. I would make this argument for games in the future, but how in the heck would you expect a dev team to make these kinds of drastic changes post-launch?? I like the ideas…but just don’t see how it’s relevant to this game at this time.

Such level of drastic changes have been tried in the past, it seemed like such a good idea…on paper. And the fundamental changes ended up back firing.

What the OP is essentially asking for is a fundamental shift in the design of the game, from a level based system, to one whereby:

1) Players hit “max potency” pretty quickly, and thus players will hit a potency “ceiling limit” quicker than they do now. This is due to the intent of ensuring that players are within a similar “potency range”, and thus not end up trivialising content (after all, the proposal doesn’t cater for a the inclusion of a “de-leveling system”). Of course, this also means the entire progression system throughout the game would have to change too in accordance with the changes to the level system.

2) The proposal essentially just substitutes one grading scale (potency gained from stats, which in turn are gained from leveling) with another (potency gained from traits, which in turn are gained from leveling).

So, the game wouldn’t actually gain much from the proposed system, other than no longer being a level based system. So all that hard work into changing the leveling system and the entire progression system, would reap very little reward (and maybe a lot of back lash due to the extent of the changes).

“One of the biggest problems, is constantly outleveling your gear.”

In a game whereby items drop very readily from mobs whilst leveling and skins from “old” items that a player likes the look of can be re-used with any new items they get, one question has to be asked:

What exactly is so evil about out leveling your gear in a game where you can re-use the skins you like?

“Wich means leveling is bad throughout the whole game, until you finally hit 80.”

Why exactly is it so bad?

The only time when a player actually requires full use of all of the “levels” they have obtained is when they are progressing into higher level content (i.e. tougher content). And until that time, the fact that they are perpetually hitting a “ceiling limit” in a particular area is therefore irrelevant. They really don’t have a need for those extra stats (unless ofc they just wish to trivialise the content in lower level zones, which goes against the very design principles of this game).

To me, it just looks like the OP is substituting one grading scale (stats obtained through leveling) for another (stats gained from traits earned via level).

So, let’s say you completely remove the concept of leveling and have a “level playing field”, where the only difference is a players “trait build”. What you are talking about is changing the fundamental design of the game. Because progression through content is dependant on the players “potency” (a.k.a. the stats they gain from leveling and getting better gear). Such a change essentially removes a large portion of the concept of progression. And that is a VERY bad idea for an MMO. No / very little sense of progression means that everyone conceivably can do anything, at any time, without any restriction. And that is bad.

The fact is, the traditional game system of “leveling” works better in GW2 than it did in many MMO’s simply because of the de-leveling process. Theoretically allowing players of ANY level to get together and not actually end up trivialising content.

There has to be a pretty compelling argument to completely rewrite the entire game, and to be honest OP, you haven’t provided one. Whether a player likes the concept of “levels” or not, the system is working. And working pretty well.

TLDR: Progression simply means moving from one state to another. If you don’t want to out-level your gear, don’t progress into higher level zones. Stay wherever you are, and enjoy whatever gear you’re wearing. If you’re staying there, you really have no need for the benefits of higher levels anyhow.

And in doing that, you have your desired level-less system right there.

/facepalm

Another MMO developer fails to understand the concept of timezones. Seriously Anet, you DO realise that saying “for euroean players” is a little vague, don’t you?

Are we talking 0000 GMT/UTC or 0000 CET?

And why advertise that it will be ready on 22nd when in fact it will only be available to part of the world at that time?

Trock Bronze.9625:

Mounts will not happen and Centaurs are one of THE enemies in the game, they will not be on our side without major change and they are far too proud to ever let anything ride them.

again mounts are a no, they just simply will not happen and definitely not like this.

Actually Anet haven’t completely discounted the possibility of land based mounts. All they indicated was that no mounts of any kind would be available at launch.

To my knowledge, since launch no dev has confirmed that there will never, ever be mounts of any kind in the game.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Perhaps, but this is not the kind of thing that any matter of suggestions would increase the chances of being added.

If they had resources to make it, they would have done so by now.
And if they ever consider it and do it, people will almost certainly use it.
User-generated content is the kind of thing that doesn’t need anyone suggesting it for them to consider it, because it’s always welcomed and heavily used.
If you give people tools to make stuff, people WILL make stuff, and people WILL try out that stuff.

The problem with user-generated content is always in management and resources.

I’d say that from a business perspective, the fact that a competitor is doing something similar is a VERY good reason to give it some thought.

And the “if they had the resources it would have been done already” reasoning is weak at best. That’s like saying “well if it’s not done already then it will never be done”. Which would be incorrect as MMO’s begin working on new content all the time after the launch of an MMO.

Yes, resources are finite. But a recent article on the main site highlighted how there are multiple teams working on various parts of GW2. So, do we (the players) really know the full extent to what Anet can achieve given their present resources?

I’d say that speculation on such matters is futile at best, because we have very little factual data on which to base a foundation for a discussion. It would therefore we wiser for players to stick to offering reasonably logical suggestions and leave the issue of resource allocation to the actual devs.

Leowulf, the worlds we inhabit now are huge. Times have changes. Not all persistent housing was done like UO.

1) Some games that came after UO proved that persistent housing can work if done right. SWG and Vanguard both had functioning persistent housing. And whilst SWG’s housing did allow for houses to be put down on spawn areas, Vanguard’s “plots” ensured that players could only place housing down in specific areas. It’s just a matter of the devs deciding how much is allowed and where it is allowed.

2) Lag issues can exist IF the engine isn’t capable of handling totally persistent interiors as well as exteriors. Do we really know the full capabilities of GW2’s engine? Besides, if the interior was instanced, but the exterior remained persistent, that could help to severely reduce potential problems in that area.

3) The issue you raised is based on the concept of being able to put down houses absolutely anywhere. Not all games that had/have persistent housing did it that way. See above.

4) See above. Besides, the WP system has already shrunk the map down to the distance between WP’s.

MithranArkanere.8957:

We know. But as an MMO, managing user generated content is hardly worth it. StarTrek online got it quite fine, but it isn’t still good enough.

They’ll have to provide the tools for users to make content, the systems to filter them and rate them, the support to prevent exploitation…

They simply don’t have the resources for that kind of thing.

Hardly worth it? Really?

Firstly, just recently SOE began making a big thing out of their own version of the Steam Workshop, they are calling it the “Player Studio” (https://player-studio.soe.com/). Even they are beginning to realise that user created content is an untapped resource. Something that can assist in keeping players playing their games.

Like you say, Cryptic have their Forge. And SOE has the Player Studio. So from a business perspective it might not be such a good idea to write off the concept for Anet. From the players perspective, it could perhaps be a nice addition to the game (if done right). Another reason to keep playing. And make no mistake, this game needs as many reasons as it can get. Just like any other MMO.

Lastly, how can you be so sure that they don’t have the resources to challenge SOE’s Player Studio?

Perhaps this is something that Anet could look into as a “sideline” project for use with all of their games (past, present AND future ones).

Huma, in many MMOs that included “persistent housing”, players had very little control (aside from choosing from a limited number of style options) over how the exterior of their house looked. So the reasons you have against persistent housing are pretty weak at best.

I agree. Better and more variable weather effects and more distinguishable day / night cycles would be better i think.

Well, I would like to see housing implemented. Whatever the “flavour”. However I am more keen for persistent housing.

When you look at the sheer size of the world, I’m sure that there is enough room to strategically place “plots” of land for purchase which players can then use to build their houses.

Essentially I’m talking about the sort of housing system used in Vanguard. Unlike SWG which allowed for housing anywhere, Vanguard’s persistent housing system allows for specific plots to be “rented”.

Now, for me, the actual interiors of the houses could be instanced (to save on server / client resources). But the exteriors should be persistent because housing helps to create a greater feeling of a “lived in” and “dynamic” world. Which is something that “true” instanced housing doesn’t assist with.

zbrkesbr.4173:

“Flipping” is more rewarding – maybe, but less fun – definitely. But then again it boils down to personal definition of fun.

p.s. sent you pm to keep offtopic things… off topic.

Agreed

And if players are more inclined to “flip” than do other activities to gain money, then that needs investigating. The DR on farming items, the repair costs, the WP costs, and the limitations on gathering are contributing factors when a player compares the Time+Effort vs Reward.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Tarkaroshe.8370:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Someone else suggested a vault PIN a while back, which seems easier on folks than mobile authentication. Just don’t put the PIN in the MOTD

I like the idea of being able to set the number of items a particular rank can remove from the vault per day.

Problem is that a hacker could in theory just ask for the PIN again in guild chat, and a guildie could give it to them, not knowing that they aren’t actually the real account holder.

The way we handle our TS server password is that you must go to the private area of the forums to find it. We never ever give it out in chat. Now if you have a member that’s silly enough to use the same credentials for everything, and the exploiter goes and finds the guild web site just to break into your vault, well what can be done?

You can also use a number combination that you can infer from something else you already know or look up, so all you have to remember is the question. For example, the month and day of some well known figure’s birthday.

Any security can be overcome, it just depends on whether the reward is worth the effort and time.

Agreed. Which is why I said that no system is foolproof.

However, the “unlock item” system that apparently is in use in Everquest is probably one of the more robust guild vault access systems I’ve heard of to date. Maybe that is the one that Anet should implement because it ultimately puts the responsibility of guild vault security on the shoulders of the guild leadership, who can then implement their own means of “vetting” a players request.

No need for convoluted security systems and pin numbers (which can be easily circumvented for the same reasons that causes an account to get hacked in the first place). Just a request made by a guild member, and that request must be “authorised” by an officer. So if a hacker does access a guild member, the damage is minimised. Unless of course, the person who gets hacked is a player with higher levels of access.

But in the end, Anet can only do so much. The ultimate responsibility is on the player.

Banewrath.5107:

This has always been a problem in every game that has a guild bank system. Best thing for you to do is deny everyone vault access ecept for the leader and a few officers. If someone needs an item from the vault, they can ask for it.

Everquest had a good system where someone could look through the vault and if they saw someone they wanted, they could ask an officer and the officer could tag the item as reserved for that player that asked for it. Then the player could only remove what was reserved for him. Or in the case here since you cannot trade items, Have an option to mail directly from the vault to the person who requested the item.

Also, the vault has a log that records who takes and places what in the bank. If this person cleaned out the vault, it all documented and really shouldn`t have a problem having the items returned. But do yourselves a favor and restrict access to the leader and a few trusted officers who can hand out anything that is requested.

Love the “unlock item” concept. It ensures that ultimate responsibility for granting access to any items lies with the guild, not with Anet. Thus an “officer” can vet a request in their own way.

i agree that where max levelers get the best “rewards” in terms of things like money, items and karma, should be leveled out more, thus encouraging higher level players to “spread out” better across the zones and not just stagnate in the Cursed Shore.

And such rewards should just single out “forced grouping”.

In other words, the activities that a high level player gets involved in a low level area should yield the same level of rewards as if they were getting involved in the same type of events in Cursed Shore (e.g. grouping in CS or Queensdale should yield the same, soloing in either should yield the same).

I agree with the OP, penalising players twice is not good. In my opinion, the closest WP should always be free, no matter the distance between the player and the nearest WayPoint. And if a player chooses a different WayPoint, then a cost could be incurred.

Basically when a player dies, there should be a box that says “Resurrect at <insert Waypoint name here>, or choose a different waypoint (click to show map)”.

Now if a player chooses to show the map, then the “free” WayPoint is marked on the map for them to still choose if they wish.

zbrkesbr.4173:

Tarkaroshe.8370:

If a player is zipping around the world, the cost of travel can severely impede a persons income. So they are forced to look for events. BUT, if there’s no events going on for whatever reason (such as bugged out events) then theres very little way for a player to actually make money. After all, if they try to farm nodes, they won’t get very far. And the DR and anti-farm code discourages farming of items. And that’s before you consider the repairs costs involved when wearing a full set of exotics.

So, no, they aren’t excuses, they are very valid points.

No, they are excuses. Zipping around the world to look for events falls under my definition of “grind” instead of “playing the game”. Roaming around without teleporting is much more fun as you get to participate in numerous small events that are often more profitable than large ones with chests you’re looking for by teleporting. Also trying to maximize income (grind of same location) rarely have anything to do with fun in any game, change locations every now and then and you’ll never hit DR. And if you’re that worried about repairs – maybe its time to rethink your build, strategy and learn mobs’ behavior instead of just dieing to the 1st AoE.

And whilst “roaming” (i.e. running) players can stand a good chance of missing getting to the events that are actually running. Sorry, but the whole “just run everywhere” is impractical in a game that has time limits on events. So you cannot just expect people to not utilise quick travel in order to cross the entire world and get to events in time.

Now, if we had land based mounts, then your argument could potentially hold more weight. But we don’t have them. So you are essentially asking people to forget all other means of travel and run across the entire world “on foot”.

In the end such a discussion on personal definitions of “fun” and “grind” is irrelevant and is not worth getting into. This discussion is actually about why flipping is being done. And that simply comes down to the fact that players need to make money. Whether they like doing it or not is irrelevant. What IS relevant is whether or not the various means to make money are considered as viable when compared to “flipping”.

And the simple fact is that when such players compare Time + Effort vs Reward when taking part in those other means of obtaining in-game money, flipping is winning out.

As for the comments that are basically telling people to “learn to play”. Death is often inevitable in this game, whether it is the fault of the individual, or the entire group / s, or even the mechanics in the game. So such comments are really not very helpful at all. Besides, I’m willing to bet that you are either not wearing full exotics, or have so much money that repair costs are of little concern

My point is that a player who hasn’t made any money via flipping won’t have masses of gold to spend. And so ANY repairs can severely hurt their income. The game economy is harsh on players trying to make any money. That fact is undeniable.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Someone else suggested a vault PIN a while back, which seems easier on folks than mobile authentication. Just don’t put the PIN in the MOTD

I like the idea of being able to set the number of items a particular rank can remove from the vault per day.

Problem is that a hacker could in theory just ask for the PIN again in guild chat, and a guildie could give it to them, not knowing that they aren’t actually the real account holder. And that one move destroys your entire security system. The same would occur if the guild limited “withdraw access”, and then enforced a “secret password” between members and didn’t involved Anet.

Don’t get me wrong, Anet should allow guilds better security measures, but there’s no way of making them foolproof without severely impeding on how useful the GV is.

Limiting the number of items one can remove can be a blessing, and a curse. A curse especially for crafters in a guild who will often require more than just a couple of items per day. Nevertheless, limitations on the number of items that can be removed per day should be an option that Anet should give to guilds. But it shouldn’t be something that is imposed on all guilds by default.

No matter what Anet do, the guild leadership has a measure of responsibility in this matter. For instance, only certain ranks should be allowed “withdraw access”. Whereas lower ranks can see whats in the bank, but not remove anything directly (deposit access)

Plus this problem basically boils down to how secure a players account is. A large part of responsibility on that is down to the player, not just Anet. If a guild doesn’t entirely trust it’s members, then they should reduce the amount of people who have full access.

The prices would adjust yes, they’d come down a bit thus allowing for a greater margin between operating costs and the cost for which crafted items can be sold at a reasonable price. Which would also allow for greater fluctuations in prices on the TP.

The point with the “economic cluters” is that rather than there being one almighty economy with all servers contributing to a central “TP”, instead the number of servers contributing to each “economic cluster” is smaller, allowing for niches to be made and reducing the sheer number of items being sold between the contributing servers in the cluster. The fact that the combination of servers in the cluster could possibly change at some point, is a bonus.

This all comes down to a “supply and demand” situation. When the supply is too great, then prices fall too much. When supply is far too little, prices can rise. In both cases, what can often hapkitten that the items involved are just not economically viable to sell on the TP. Which is good from an item sink perspective, but not good for crafters as their operating costs can be too high to make a decent profit from .

It’s misleading. Let’s assume that I am selling an item for 1 silver. The UI tells me that the “Projected Profit” (which only takes the 10% sales tax into account) is 90 copper. But that is not correct. The profit is actually 85 copper, when you factor in the “Listing Fee” cost.

Plus, it’s not necessarily a “profit” either. Because if I have bought the item at a lower price (let’s say 50 copper), then my “profit” is 35 copper, not 85 copper. But the system has no way of knowing that.

So instead of calling it “Projected Profit”, maybe it should be renamed to “Projected Income”.

zbrkesbr.4173:

Bubbles.1047:

I would be delighted to drop my flipping and go out and play the game instead. However, Anet decided that ridiculous drop rates, asinine DR, and exuberant costs of travel and armor repair were all good ideas to implement. As a result, I can’t play their game. I have to waste my time playing the market in order to make money which will eventually allow me to play the game. If you want me to stop this, please feel free to make Anet see the error of their ways.

Those are all excuses. You make much more money from events and hearts and loot than you’ll ever spend on repairs and teleports unless you’re some kind of tentacle-monster with crab-claws instead of arms… So go and play the game.

If a player is zipping around the world, the cost of travel can severely impede a persons income. So they are forced to look for events. BUT, if there’s no events going on for whatever reason (such as bugged out events) then theres very little way for a player to actually make money. After all, if they try to farm nodes, they won’t get very far. And the DR and anti-farm code discourages farming of items. And that’s before you consider the repairs costs involved when wearing a full set of exotics.

In short: The game is deliberately setup to discourage farming of items and crafting materials (just look at the drop rates of certain crafting mats for example). And until Anet give players better ways to make money that doesn’t involve Flipping, you won’t discourage it.

So, no, they aren’t excuses, they are very valid points.

Flipping will only be reduced WHEN there is actually several good ways to actually make money other than flipping items on the TP.

And until that happens, you will not reduce the amount of flipping being done.

Jamais vu.5284:

People flipping don’t do it primarily for enjoyment but because they find it a much more agreeable way to make gold in this game than grind, and grind some more.

QFT. The grind in this game is even worse than many others to make money simply because of Anet’s “anti-farm” code and the limitations imposed on mining.

The ingredients required to make the exotics mean that by the time a crafter has factored in the costs of trying to sell an item on the TP, there is very little profit to be made IF a crafter attempts to gain all of the ingredients via the TP.

Now, someone might say “well farm the stuff yourself”. And that is possible. Over the course of a few days, a crafter could conceivably farm the orichalcum, rares (for the ectoplasms), gossamer, and whatever else they need for your particular crafting profession.

BUT, the anti-farm code along with the restrictions imposed on gathering metals from nodes prevents crafters from doing this to much extent. Instead such restrictions are encouraging people to buy from the TP. Thus the time and effort to get the ingredients to make the items takes so long as to not make it worthwhile (when comparing the profit made vs the profit that can be made via other means).

Which brings us right back to where we began.

I would therefore suggest reducing the amount of ectoplasms required (even if its only by 1) to allow a little more “leeway” between the costs in making items, and the value for which they can be sold at a reasonable amount.

Also, In a game whereby the economy is truely “global” across all servers, and where everyone have 2 crafting professions, and where EVERY recipe is easily available from a vendor, there is no way for a crafter to create a “niche” for themselves. Everybody just ends up trying to sell the same items as everyone else, whilst competing against drops and “faction” items that are of equal potency and yet cost less to obtain (e.g. crafted gear vs the faction gear).

My suggestion to deal with this is to not actually have a “global” economy, but cluster several server economies together which switch out on a regular basis. Such an “economic” cluster could mimik the WvWvW server cluster and thus change as the WvWvW cluster changes. Thus allowing the “global” economy to remain stable.