Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.

What could be simpler than?

I want _ Gems. I must pay _ Gold.
I want _ Gems. I must pay _ Dollars/Pounds/Euro.
I want _ Gold. I must pay _ Gems.

The user can change the value in the first blank to match whatever amount the user wants. The other “blank” updates automatically.

Restricting the amounts one can purchase to certain set values does nothing to reduce confusion. In fact, it creates confusion over, “Why the bleep do I have to buy 400 if I want 100?” What it does do is force people to buy gems they do not want or need right now. It also fosters resentment over what might appear to be money-grubbing on the part of the business — whether that’s actually the intent or not.

Here’s how you make money Anet: Put things in the game people want to buy, release an expansion that people want to buy.

Here’s how you lose money and players: Keep trying to kitten people over so that they spend money by making the alternatives massively inconvenient.

You want to repeatedly give the finger to your customers? That’s fine, don’t expect me to be one of them.

And drop the “new player” bullkitten, no one is falling for it. Keep making updated of this quality and you won’t have any new players.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

New players don’t have enough gold to convert at the lowest increment. How can this be for new players?

This answer doesn’t make sense…

Ah but it does.

New, mad-keen player wants some gem store thing. Maybe just one foil wrapped candy (another thing I hate to see in games). Has nowhere near 75g. Now has to ask mum to get her credit card out.

It’s a dark pattern, plain and simple, to “encourage” additional real money spending.

It’s well known that the first real money transaction is the hardest to get. See numerous offers in just about every smart phone game, for that first RMT.

I just have to thank. With this new UI in gem store I’m free of temptation of buying gems.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

How about the suggestion that I have seen posted around for FOREVER? Let us enter the number of gems we WANT TO PURCHASE, which will then tell us how much gold it will cost. It’s a really simple and straightforward interface change, and will prevent outrage like this from you forcing “locked” amounts.

I’ve seen other games do it in the past that had gem-to-gamecurrency conversions. You pick what you want to “buy”, you pick a quantity, and it tells you your purchase total. It functions pretty much exactly how the trade post works, so unless you’re going to start telling us the trade post is “too complicated” for new players (and yes, I"m getting EXTREMELY tired of being told the player base is stupid, in not so many words), then I think there are larger problems at work here.

(This being said, I’m not upset at you directly Gaile. I know you’re great with the community, and I know you’re taking the brunt for all the poor choices lately. But, there have been a LOT of poor choices lately, and I think this is the most blatant of them.)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the playerbase (Of course I don’t represent everyone from the playerbase duh, but I’m one of the rather quiet players, only saying something if even I as a quiet and well “rather” satisfied player and money spender gets kittened of from some things you pull off) :

• I’m really sorry to hear that, but at the same time, with the change to NPE the last time and this change now, what kind of audience are you honestly reaching / targeting for? I don’t want to offend anyone, seriously, but it seems like you want toddlers or mentaly disabled people be able to play your game, if they didn’t “get” the previous system, then I’d honestly just say screw it, if those peoples logical thinking or IQ is that limited, they’re just not supposed to play this game, leave them behind, seriously, please. I was always a big supporter of GW2, looked over many flaws of it and kept an blind eye over other stuff, just like yeah, that happens, it’s not good or perfect but ok, yeah they’re busy, yeah they’re not that big of an company so they’re not that fast and stuff with things than others, i’ll let it slide, GW2 is my little “boy” so it’s ok, in the future it will grow up and surely surprise me with something big that will make the wait and endurence worthwile up until now, so I cna laugh at all the other haters always complaining about Anet and how they don’t listen to their customers.

- But nope, instead you keep kicking me in my private parts, at least it feels / seems that way. No matter how much I try to believe any further in this game and the direction it is going, I just can’t ignore the simple fact anymore that it doesn’t seem that way, there’s only a few options or well possibilities why that is so, which are in my mind are either one of the following:

a) You are absolutly under the control of NCSoft and you can’t do all the things you’d really like todo for the game because of NCSoft’s “greediness”, which would really just be a huge shame for the GW Series and Anet themselfes since they’re doing nothing but hurting their image, the fanbase and the franchise, so you maybe just stop making anything GW2 related anymore and just move on to another game and leave GW2 R.I.P., leaving it to NCSoft to turn it into an full korean / chinese money grabbing gemshop game .

b) You really try your best, but somehow we say A and you understand B all the time.

c) Quote from Youtube error: "Sorry, something went wrong. A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation. If you run across on of them please tell them the following error code: “abcdblahblahblah1234”.

• No it’s not, absolutly not, or please tell me when did you ever enter an store on an online shop, where they limit your ways of purchasing or trading something in a way you have to buy or trade bulks of one currency for the other, and if you don’t have enough yet, you can’t buy or get enough to precisly match the price they’re selling it for, but no, you have to buy or well pay 200-300 more of what they actually need, just to get it, so you can get it but have an left overflow of the curreny you have absolutly no need for right now. It just makes no sense, it’s sorry, nothing but stupid.

• So, just because there weren’t as many, but as you said there still were people, who did that, you just think: “Yeah, screw them folks, there’s not that many of them, won’t make a big deal will it, right?”. So you just made an group of players buying at least some gems or trading at least some gold to gems or vise versa, completly obsolete, just screwing Anet because in the end because they of course now decide to not give a kitten anymore and to not purchase anymore at all, good job.

• Just revert it, end of story.

The main issue is that we have to purchase gems in bulk of 400 gems. That’s too much.

1) 400 gems doesn’t match Gem Store prices. Of the 12 feature items on the gem store, only one could be purchased for gold without any gems left over.

2) 400 gems is expensive in gold. If I have enough gold for 200 gems but not enough for 400 gems, I can’t get 200 gems. But there are items on the Gem Store for 200 gems.

3) 400 gems is more expensive than “new players” could afford. It took me a year to have 75g. I wouldn’t still consider myself a “new player” after a year. If this is geared towards new players, 400 gems is a hefty price.

4) Conversion History let us know when to buy. Transparency helps the customer. We’ve lost the transparency. We have no idea when is a good time to buy or sell, now. We liked knowing.

I came here wanting to make some suggestions, as the new gem exchange system looks to me like it had no thought put into it (I’m not saying that was the case of course). Someone said it already way better than I could… This system was made to help new players not get confused with the exchange rate, correct? a new player cannot afford 400 gems, so making it default the min. amount you can buy was not the greatest idea! I’ve read that players don’t generally buy less than that, but generally those who do tend to be… Guess who? New players! Because they can’t afford the higher prices! This is why you mustn’t fully trust metrics and think a bit about what you’re doing. Metrics are great, but they are just numbers, they tell you what, but not why. They tell you how many people are buying and how much, but not why they do so. I think the idea of adding a min of 50/100 gems as a choice would fix most of what’s wrong with the new system, but I still would have some few problems with it…
A few of the options someone else mentioned would be great, putting back the graphic means I know when it’s the best of times to buy or sell gems, though I could live without that; what almost needs to happen, and I’m not sure why it wasn’t like this from the very beginning, is having a custom amount for buying gems. It should have been “Buy X amount of gems” from the start, instead of “Spend x amount of gold for gems”, THAT’S what I found confusing from the system from the start.

Gaile Gray.6029:

WindFall.1479:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Errant Venture.9371:

Add an option buy gems in 100 gem increments instead of making 400 gems the smallest denomination possible. Problem solved.

THERE! Thank you, Errant Venture — that’s a solid suggestion with a reasonable tone. Thank you.

Regardless of the increments (though I also wish for smaller increments if this new system is here to stay), please keep in mind the pricing of current, new, and on-sale items. The system you have right now is inconvenient with anything priced at 500 gems, 900 gems, etc. This goes especially for items priced anything in between those 100 gem intervals (125 gems, 275 gems).

Hey everyone, whatever your opinion is on this new currency exchange, hyperbole doesn’t help. It wastes everyone’s time trying to read them and filter out the BS.

I understand what you’re saying, WindFall, and thanks for providing the team with a clearly expressed suggestion.

Here are a few suggestions everyone will love.

1.) Allow us players to choose the amount of gems converted from gold.
2.) Allow us players to choose the amount of gems bought using real money. (Meaning if say I only wanted to buy 1 black lion chest key for 125 gems, I wouldn’t have to pay for 800 gems to get 1 key).

Suggestions – ok.

Assuming that we’re not being trolled, the most obvious one is to simply revert it to what it had been. That should also be the least technically challenging.

Failing that, the next most obvious choice would be to have a field where you manually enter how many gems you wish to purchase, and it tells you the cost in real money (or, in my case, American money, which is nearly the same thing) or gold, depending on how you’re purchasing. If you believe that all your users have been ingesting glue, you can even include a verification box (“This will complete your purchase – are you sure?”)

The preset intervals is flat out unacceptable. One doesn’t go into a commercial establishment, exchange real world money for tokens, and then find themselves with options that will unfailingly leave them with excess, non-refundable tokens. If any other business attempted this, they would rapidly find themselves out of business, and rightly so.

Gaile, I’m trying, I really am, but I can see no way that the new system isn’t either a) attempting to milk us for more than we want to spend, or b) designed to be as insulting as possible.

Also, regarding the ranting. It’s not just this – it’s this plus everything else as it were. The ranting is a side effect of the cumulative errors that your bosses (I’m well aware this isn’t directly your fault) flatly refuse to either learn from or rectify. The proverbial straw on that well worn camel.

Hope you have some excellent wine or industrial strength painkillers. You don’t deserve the bull (juvenile cat) that you’ll be taking over this.

Love ya lady – not impressed with the one’s you represent, it all.

This is a huge indication of the mindset that Anet currently has towards its playerbase, the fact that this change even happened at all is a big red flag. There was nothing wrong with the previous system, and it was one that had respect towards the players- a simple thing that said “we don’t view you as a means to take advantage of to gain revenue.” That’s changed.

The only reason tiered currency systems like the one they implemented exist is to rip people off. This change, along with some of the more recent changes and admittance that things like dungeons are not something they care about, means I won’t be playing much anymore, and that means me not spending any more money in their gem store either- gold or actual cash.

This change is awful and deserves the ranting…not to mention pages of actual suggestions already in place before Gaile’s post…

I’ve put many years into the GuildWars universe…my husband and I pre-ordered the first game and bought two copies of every add-on and exapc. We pre-ordered GW2 and purchased two more copies for our older sons.

But in the past year I’ve gotten very jaded with these changes. It feels like one tiny inch forward and three steps back. Trickling of content and more cash shop pushing. I understand needing money. But if you give us things to spend money on…we will. Things like content. I’ve counted 9 areas on Tyria currently not opened. Open only one per year and that’s many years of content. So why the trickle. I have patience and consumer loyalty.

But it only goes so far.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.

So only the new players have to benefit? And we have to just sit back and see our whole system thrown away? This proves the point that you do not care about veterans at all. You’re only saying: " Veterans won’t benefit from this system, deal with it. We’re only thinking about the new players" With other words, new players will roll into this system and will not ever know how it was before so they have nothing to complain about. You veterans however, will eventually stop playing so we really don’t care what you think as long as we have new players.

Oh and btw: With new players we mean monkeys who are not able to put in a number to see how many gems they are able to buy’. Also, we are now aiming for a new target audience, 9 year olds and 88+…

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.

All the people commenting in this topic already thought about it.. and no.. just no.. kitten argument.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.

“That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so” if people did buy less than 400 gems, there was a desire to do so. There were no options to be selected before and they don’t need to be here now. The fact that people decided to buy 400 gems in one order does NOT mean everyone wants to do that. You’re putting a label, wich we did not ask for, on every singel player in this game because you think it;s what we want. Wel surprise!! we don’t!!

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

The only thing people in this topic seem to desire is the old system, put that in your kitten notebook.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

I’m very disappointed in the team right now.

Easy solution? put the custom purchases back in as well as the set denominations. Not rocket science. Or toss on a 50 denomination and be done.

Is this a particularly rude way of feedback, perhaps, but I’m really really disappointed. I’m sitting here wanting to get the 700 gem outfit, it’s not a possible denomination. I want the demon horns as well, 200 gems, again not a denomination. Together 900, oops, still not a denomination. In all I’d have to get the 1200 gems at minimum to get the 2 items, leaving me with 300 extra.

I don’t feel this change was not well thought out, on the contrary, as businessmen ya’ll are very smart, you know what to do. You set tiers so people are forced to overpay, it’s the same idea as gift cards, there’s going to be leftover that you still get the payment for.

It’s sound business, but when coming from a system that allowed custom options… huge disappointment and feels like a kick in the groin.

And yeah, you may change it in the future, but in time for the current set of goodies? I doubt it. You all are smart people I have no doubt you knew exactly what you were doing, bravo on the business sense, boo on the PR nonsense. Gaile I’ve loved your activity on the forum but this really disappointed me. Sorry to be rude but simply had to say this, me and my friends were having fun tonight, when we found this out, we simply logged out.

You guys know how you can tell the simplification excuse is bull? Literally nothing in the gem store that was added today matches 400 gem increments. Nothing. It’s all 200, 500, or 700. There’s a reason for that.

OK answering said statements….

*A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.

BS…..We were all new players once but we learned quickly. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. If someone has a question what is the community for? It’s not hard to ask in any major city. Also NEW players don’t have that much gold to buy 400gems worth! since the going rate is 70+ gold lol what a crock.

*The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.

What a crock, this is not like other shopping experiences! If that is your concern then people will be shopping around for a new game to play since you clearly do not care what the people think about your customer base (which ARE your veterans)!

*You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.

Once again BS. I know more people have converted gold to gems in increments of 10, 20, 30 gold, etc not 73.25 gold or whatever the cost is at the time. In the other case maybe 5 gold to get that 1 gem they needed for something rather than buy tons of extra gems.

*The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

Maybe the team should have asked the player base first instead of assuming this is what was best, because everyone knows what happens when you assume things. If this statement is actually a true statement then if you want to keep the change you have made also give us the option to type in our own amount of gold we want to spend to buy gems as well as your system!

This way the new player and the veterans are happy!!!!!!!!!
Otherwise we will know that your really don’t give a kitten of what we think.

Well I was about to go exchange my gold for 200 gems to buy the devil horns, but then noticed you could only exchange in larger quantities now. No I don’t want 400. I want 200. You want to force me to buy more? You won’t get my business. Simple.

This change to the gem conversion has only finalised my decision to no longer support Anet.

Actions speak louder than words.
Was planning on dropping a nice chunk in 3 weeks for legendaries for all 3 of my gaming family members for Christmas this year.
Whelp,it is what it is……..

Thank You Anet for letting me know this ship is sinking without so much a word.
That is what you do when things get tight you squeeze hard.
This is just a ploy to bilk every last dime while sticking it to us say whatever you like I SEE what is going on here actions always speak louder than words.

When are these kids gonna ever learn,you want a successful bushiness that will never die?
Concentrate on quality and they will stay and play……

I will now refrain from spending on a dieing horse.
I will still play but spend I think not.
At least until I have the freedom to spend every last gem without reserve any way I choose.
You can keep your lousy leftovers,I aint buying any of it!

PS
Kitten you for killing my love for this game ><!

Put an option for us to write down the amount of gems we want, so the system can calculate how much gold we need to expend, if we don’t have enought show a message and don’t let us buy. So we can still buy the amount of gems we want without change the amount of coppers, silvers and gold to get the right amount of gems. Also keep the custom buttoms as 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000 that would be nice

Schtizzel.5497:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

Put in an option to manually exchange gold for X amount of gems and vice versa

Done.

No more putting in X gold to get the amount of gems you want and so it won’t confuse players. I want to exchang my 100 gems for gold, fine, just type it in and when you wanna get gems for your gold, fine, just type in how much gems you want. Profit.

This makes sense.

Frankly, the way it worked before didn’t make much sense. Almost no one went into the gem store and said, “I’m going to spend 40 gold today.” They went to the gem store and said, “I want to buy 400 gems.” Then they would fiddle with the gold count until they got the right amount.

With that said, I prefer the old system to this one. Destroying all flexibility is completely uncalled for.

Well, the solution is pretty easy. In a lot of the new changes to “help new players”, may it be in terms of interface or whatever, there’s never a middle. It’s always: ERASE this and IMPLEMENT that. In this instance, the problem would be that you are forcing players to buy at pre-defined quantities instead of buying the amount they want. I find it silly how such change went through without keeping an option, maybe not as flashy as the big board there, but just an option as the bottom of the board where you simply say the number of gems that you want to buy and the system tells you how much it will cost. The way the old system worked made it quite silly to be the other way around: putting gold and then having to subtract until you got to let’s say 799 and adding a bit to get to an even number.

So yeah, there as a suggestion about 100gems increments, but why don’t you just put a box at the bottom where we just put in the number of gems we want and it generates the price according to the current market and then we can click “buy” just like before, but the other way around.

Simplification

Say we want 700 gems (buying with gold) because we know that’s how much we need for the specific purchases, including the Gems on our account already.

Old system: Convert gold to get 700 gems in one transaction. Simple.

New system: Buy too many gems, in several transactions. Less simple.

The new system’s attempt at simplification introduces different complexity.

Ok – but we want to improve the old system based on tickets/feedback.

In the old system, you put in Gold, Silver and Copper until you got the specific number of gems you wanted. Yes, I can see how some people might find this finicky or cumbersome.

Suggestion

Add an second bar for the player to specify desired gems, and the Gold/Silver/Copper required is calculated. Whichever bar the player opts for greys out the undesired one.

This appears in a UI screen that presents itself when the player selects the button “I want to convert a specific number of gold or gems.”

Gaile Gray.6029:

Errant Venture.9371:

Add an option buy gems in 100 gem increments instead of making 400 gems the smallest denomination possible. Problem solved.

THERE! Thank you, Errant Venture — that’s a solid suggestion with a reasonable tone. Thank you.

I mean why make 99 gems worthless? Rework the UI for clarity if needed but let us make our own decisions as to the exact number of gems we wish to purchase.

No cash registers round up to the nearest 100 when giving change.

No seriously Arena Net, you can’t keep hiding under this “but it helps new players” excuse, we can see right through it, this is outrageous! this is like going to the store to buy something that costs 5$, but the cashier accepts ONLY 20$ bills AND keeps the change until you buy something worth 20$…oh and all its items cost variable numbers that no matter what the costumer buys, he/she will end up with change he/she can’t use! Fix…this….mess…..already! it is unacceptable!

Like many have said, at LEAST add other denominations for 1…5…10…50…100…. etc.!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

Firstly, the anger is justified because it was a bad change that only a little thought on the part of the devs would have prevented.

Secondly, suggestions have been made that do make sense:

1: add smaller increments (say, the ability to get 5, 25, 100) gems

or 2: give us the ability to specify how many gems we want and see how much gold that will cost (admittedly the old way of having to play around with the gold amount to get to the specific number of gems required was clumsy)

both of these have been made multiple times. Since you wish us to give feedback and the feed back has been given, please address these suggestions.

In the meantime I will submit a support ticket to exchange my 7 useless gems for silver and will do this any time i have left overs. i will also submit tickets anytime i want to purchase just 5 or 10 gems. And i will resubmit the tickets until I get a satisfactory result.

Gaile Gray.6029:

fellyn.5083:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

And yet in the history of this forum there has never been a post saying “the gem exchange interface is confusing me as a new player” or anything similar.

Really? You’re 100% certain there’s never been such a post? Good for you, then!

Concerns of this nature come in via tickets, when someone takes the wrong step, buys too many times, isn’t able to process the acquistion or exchange, etc. By the time someone’s on the forums, they’re usually comfortable with the systems.

Well, if only the forum search worked (you know, after more than 2 years..) we could look and see, but it doesn’t, so there is that.

It’s often said and I agree with this, that forum posters in no way make up for the majority of players in the game.

If we use that logic and apply it here it would mean that not only are these people that are filing these complaints (ahem, suggestions) in tickets have to outnumber forum posters. But they would without a doubt be in the majority to have any sort of impact on what is being changed.

So one of 2 things is happening,

1) These people are omitting from posting on the forums altogether in preference to filling a support ticket and consist of a considerable number

Or

2) These people don’t actually exist

And given that you just claimed all these so called players are not smart enough to figure out how to exchange gold for gems it’s doubly doubtful that they’d be able to figure out how to file a support ticket which is far more complicated.

P.S. I appreciate the sarcasm you’re showing me in your post. It’s cute.

Zaklex.6308:

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are always getting your Gems from Gold, you as a player are not contributing a dime to A.net except with your initial purchase of the game. Only those that buy Gems with real money are providing income.

Thing is, I for instance, would pay real money from time to time for something I want right away and have no patience or time to farm gold for (see: the count outfit right now). But I don’t like being taken for an idiot, and if Anet forces things like this down my throat, that’s exactly what they are doing to me and I won’t even consider paying them just out of sheer principle, I don’t care if they bring in dragon mounts or what the heckever. It’s 2014, not 1914. The market is huge, and the way you treat customers is equally as important as the goods you provide. If you don’t see this, your customers will turn away and the competition will eat you. It’s that simple.

If a player wants to spend $10 on gems to convert to gold, they no longer have the ability to do so.

Stranding some rounding errors on an account has some psychological advantages when it’s implemented from the start, but since it wasn’t you’ve more or less just stolen money from everyone who had an odd denomination of gems on their account.

This may make the interface more accessible to new players, but it’s much less functional and that has a good chance of kittening off your whales; I know GW2 isn’t a burn and churn game, but if there’s one rule of monetizing it’s to not kittening off your whales.

Offering only very large increments on the gold to gem conversion is a substantial loss of functionality that feels a lot like a cash grab, regardless of what you put in the kool-aid. You might make a bit more from squeezing some players a bit harder but you’ll lose some customers in the process as well; hopefully you know the metrics well enough to tell the difference.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

Here’s my suggestion:

Keep the Current one first as a tab, for quick buys. If people know how many gems they need right away and dont want to fudge around, they can just click and buy.

A second tab can be implemented for lower amounts, because sadly, if you have 100 gems, and only need like 100 more for the horns, you dont want to spend 74 gold for 400, you just bought too many! So the second tab can have the custom amount, where you decide how many gems you want.

Add a third tab to see the graph rate.

Celestina.2894:

I’m sorry, but I really can’t believe you guys anymore till we see proof. Your charts, your metrics, whatever.

There’s a thing about metrics. They show you what you measure. Which doesn’t go to show they measure the correct things. They can never measure WHY.

As a for instance, see the Amazon and eBay habit of suggesting you buy another microwave, because you just added a microwave to basket.

ANet may have metrics a-plenty, but I am increasingly convinced they don’t have GOOD metrics.