Guild Wars 2

But it’s a discussion among ourselves while they are watching behind the proverbial one way mirror. Nowhere did they say it was a discussion with them.

Zefar.4278:

I feared as much with the quest. They can name them whatever they want but they will still be quest to me.

I grew up with Ragnarok Online where Quests where hidden and cryptic which made them neigh impossible without a guide most of the time. I liked it. So it was all about killing monsters and now it seems I’m forced to do these quests no matter what.

That might just be a deal breaker for me. Because Questing only just drags the fun out a game.

I will check up that bloodlust sigil.

But you DON’T NEED TO QUEST. You get XP from just about every activity you can do in PvE. Kill critters off the beaten path to earn even more XP since critters gain XP the longer they’ve been around. When an orange “quest” comes up on the right side of your screen when you got in proximity to one, you DON’T HAVE TO DO IT. There are some pluses. The Renown Hearts, which you only do once, will unlock an NPC vendor who will buy your drops and may have items unique to them to sell. Then there’s the XP bonus.

But gathering mats in the zone, will give you XP. Unblur a portion of your map by wandering into it will give you XP. Visiting a Point of Interest or Vista will give you XP. Clearing a Skill Challenge or activating a Way Point will give you XP. Rezzing fallen NPCs will give you XP. Crafting will give you XP. While not a pure sandbox this MMO most certainly doesn’t lead you from quest giver to quest giver. It doesn’t push you out of a map since the game will adjust your level down so all areas remain playable but you earn XP and some rewards based on your true level. You can get to 80 never leaving the starting zone.

But why? There’s a big world out there. 6 major cities, 7 if you count the one you can reach from the Human home city. Some 28 maps to explore full of critters to kill and mat nodes to gather from. And once you do get to 80 and you now decide to do some of the Dynamic Events or Renown Hearts, you can because of the auto level mechanic in the game.

If Soloing is your thing then great, with the exception of Dungeons, which there aren’t a lot of, and fractals there is no reason to form a formal party unless you want to. There is no kill stealing, no splitting of XP and loot as long as you do some fairly small amount of total damage you get full shares.

Honestly, this is the least linear MMO you are likely to find short of EVE.

They are looking at our want/don’t want list. They want to see if any align or diametrically oppose with what they may be doing to judge our temperature. With that they may be able to spin the changes in the best light.

Someone pointed out that by having all the traits available up front allows experimentation. Another suggested only having only the GrandMaster traits acquired via quests. Another suggested account wide unlocks.

Personally I think the Traits 3.0 is due to the reduction/elimination of Skill Points as a currency since they’ve said once level 80 it’ll no longer award a Skill Point. Without being flushed in skill points you can’t really use them as an option to buy ALL the traits.

Since HoT isn’t out yet and I’m betting won’t be for another 6 months at least we can’t really say if it’ll change how the game plays. We do know that the current trait system which is quite unpopular will change but that will be game wide and we don’t even know if it’ll hit the same time as HoT or before or after. Just that it’s changing.

The question is if you can start new characters in HoT or if HoT is true level 80 only so characters will still need to level up in the current set of maps. WvW and PvP should remain unchanged for those who prefer those play modes rather than PvE.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Man if you guys spent as much time playing the game as you did telling people silk is too expensive you could have finished getting all the silk you needed weeks ago.

It reminds me of those wall street protesters. If they spent as much time studying as they did sitting in tents protesting then they would have all the money they need from their high paying job.

There are plenty of ways to get cloth, and plenty of ways to earn gold. Combine the two and you’ll be able to easily get a damask a day. This thread will last longer than the amount of time it takes you to finish your ascended armor.

Right now the discussion is more on how the material market has reacted to the introduction of ascended armor.

The price for silk is right as dictated by new supply, current realistic demand (a 10c bid isn’t realistic), the wealth of players looking to buy it, etc. That’s the miracle of “the market”. “The market” matches true demand with true supply by adjusting the price until demand at a particular price equals supply. It’s going up simply because the influx of silk from Wintersday is now over. So the price is rising to lower the effective demand to match the supply coming in.

The use of cloth as padding in medium and heavy armor does make sense from a practical and historical sense. Yes this is a fantasy game but wood swords don’t cut down your enemies and you aren’t going to pad your armor with leather either.

Best idea I’ve seen is altering the insignia recipe to use less damask and add elonian leather. Two birds with one stone.

Still not going to happen. Maybe they’ll add a whip in HoT that needs leather to craft and so the ascended version will need ascended leather. Maybe glider wings but I’m expecting cloth for those.

True, it’s a poor analogy until you realize it’s always been a wishing well with ANet. We toss in our “wishes” on how something should go and what we currently don’t like and a year passes and we get something new. They may run it by a few trusted players under NDA but that’s it. We aren’t going to get an EVE style council of players much less full disclosure early enough to alter design if the vocal majority rejects it.

You need to check the value of what you’ll get on average from salvaging to know if it’s worth it or not. This is on rares level 68 and above.

Look at the low sell price of ectos. Assume you’ll get 0.825 per master/mystic/silver-fed salvage kit. If you are salvaging rares with runes/sigils, you’ll get 80% of those with the same kit (roughly 2s for a sigil, 3s for a rune). Add those two numbers together and use that as the salvage/no salvage price cutoff.

I use these three links from GW2TP to get the vibe on current prices.

https://www.gw2tp.com/item/19721-glob-of-ectoplasm
https://www.gw2tp.com/search?name=rune&sort=sell_price&order=1&category=UpgradeComponent&rarity=4
https://www.gw2tp.com/search?name=sigil&sort=sell_price&order=1&category=UpgradeComponent&rarity=4

Note 1: About the last two links, the GW2 forum redirect messes up the rarity and sort order filters so you get all qualities, not just rares and sorted what ever the default order is instead of ascending sell price. You’ll need to set these and select upgrade component as the category.

Note 2: About ectos from rare salvage. I bothered to track the ectos from each salvage a while back and I found that 40% of the time you’ll get 0, 45% of the time you will get 1 and it’s an even split for the remaining 15% between 2 and 3 ectos. That’s how I get my 0.825 ectos per. Others have seen higher returns. But in the end it’s still RNG and we all know that RNG is a harsh mistress. There are times I had barely 0.65 per and other times nearly twice that.

Well they did see what we didn’t like about it. Specific things were listed as oppose to just hate mail because it was different. If most of your family hate a particular color for the new family car, such as “anything that’s green”, then you don’t really need to engage with them as they made their feelings quite clear.

This isn’t an MMO that will lead you from one quest giver to another. It’s all about wandering about and coming across things you can do popping up on the right side of the screen and on the map. And because you will be leveled down in an area you would be too high of a level for in other games, you won’t even be pushed out of the starter map looking for a tougher challenge or better XP. It’s more like visiting a Disney resort (do anything in the order you choose that sounds like fun to you) than an IKEA (walk linearly through the whole store simply to get to the area that has that item because they want you to see their highest margin items).

Plus you get XP from just about any activity. Gathering, rezzing other players or fallen NPCs, activating a new way point, finding a point of interest, uncovering a new fragment of the map, crafting, finding a vista, etc. Bonking critters on the head is still a significant source of XP, more if the critter has lived a long life since it spawned but you shouldn’t overlook any of these other sources during your travels.

Then there are “Renown Hearts” and “Dynamic Events”. Renowned Hearts can only be done once per character and it will unlock an NPC vendor who you buy your loot and may carry unique (in this context only available here) items, mats or recipes. And surprise, the look like a heart. And in this game you don’t need to visit the NPC to start (usually, some may have special equipment you need to complete it) or again after it’s over for your reward. Think of it as drive by quest giving.

Dynamic Events are events that may be directly or run on a times. You can do these as many times as you want as oppose to the Hearts which won’t pester you anymore once completed on that character.

I haven’t done Fractals 1 yet after 2+ years.

vpchelko.4261:

Turamarth.3248:

Yes.

What part of the game you are playing?

I am interested how people can miss the dungeons.

We didn’t miss the dungeons. We simply aren’t that driven to do them.

Primarily because we are often forced to team up with players like you and who with their buddy kicks us off the “open to all” party that we started because we state upfront that we don’t know every path backwards and forwards.

From the wiki

Skins are automatically unlocked by any action that binds the item or otherwise removes it from the economy:

• Binding: equipping or right-clicking to choose Unlock Skin. Skins that are bound-on-acquire are automatically unlocked, e.g. purchasing skins with karma or badges of honor.
• Removing from the economy: selling to a vendor, salvaging, right-clicking to choose Store in Wardrobe, deleting, or using in the Mystic Forge.

What, you think the expansion is dropping soon? I’m still betting the third year anniversary. If you play a few hours a night you’ll hit 80 within a month if not sooner.

You don’t need to be that good at PvE, just persistent. All you need to know is how not to get killed, often. You don’t need to know how to play in a coordinated team. You don’t need to have a meta-build.

All AP shows is that they did a lot of daily and monthlies, cleared a bunch of critters, used all there weapons, explored the world and did the LS to it’s fullest. Time consuming but doesn’t really require a lot of skill.

How many players got upset over losing the original light flamekiss skin? ANet went ahead simply because it had more blowback from cribbing Human T3 than taking it away from those quick enough to buy it.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Wanze.8410:

Basically any solution, that enables the average player to obtain his daily silk demand on his own, without having to buy from the tp, will most certainly crash the silk prices because the silk that people get who dont need it (as a byproduct of playing), wont have a demand anymore.
Thats the status quo of leather right now.

Probably a silly question, but why is it important for silk not to crash, but okay for leather? What is the economic or game design purpose of the inflated demand of silk compared to leather?

Leather didn’t crash, it didn’t take off when silk and other cloth prices did simply because the demand that ascended crafting created simply wasn’t enough in affect the supply rate in any meaningful way.

Aomine.5012:

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

No it’s not, it’s Anet way of price manipulation way back 1.5 year ago.
They looked at the price of the silks back then and decide to make silk consumption way more than other ascended material. They manipulated the demand so much to try to “balance” the market. (Because silk was like 7 copper back then)

However they didn’t do enough research and overdid the effort to make silk’s price broken. If they broke the market, they should fix it by lowering down the material requirement to the level of other materials because there’s no longer any excess supply.
The market is already balanced, so they should revert this intentional consumption of silk.

My suggestion is make silk thread cost 50 silks to make. Also make Ascended Insignia cost one bolt of damask and one elonian leather to balance out the consumption of both silk and leather. (I know you’re going to say how about armorsmith? Easy, just make armorsmith able to craft elonian leather.)

It should not be a problem for Anet to manipulate the market because THEY ALREADY DID IT BACK THEN.

But they did that before Damask or ascended mats hit. You are suggesting altering a known recipe that’s been crafted a lot by a lot of players who will now be … upset, that the price has dropped. Before when silk bolts were changed from 2 to 3, the impact was non-existent. Ooo, we went from needing 12 silk scraps to craft a rare light chest to 18. As you said silk was at vendor +1c so literally the difference in price was less than 1s on an item that required three T5 fine mats in the insignia creation. It affected nothing.

Seera.5916:

I personally don’t think there is a problem with silk scrap prices. I don’t have a problem with the ascended recipes. I do have a problem with how much scrap is needed for 1 bolt when the other bolts and ingots and whatever the secondary tier is for leather only require 2 scraps/ore/etc.

Except they don’t. T5 leather, Cured Thick Leather Square requires 3 Sections. Steel and Iron Ingots need 3 Iron Ore. So it’s not just silk that need 3 to refine.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

…

Behellagh.1468:

There is nothing wrong carving out a unique experience in the MMO space. They don’t all have to be virtually identical in terms of mechanics, only differing in story. It’s not for everybody.

And I don’t disagree with that. But that doesn’t mean Anet shouldn’t try to add more interesting stuff to their endgame and give players more stuff to do. I know you really want GW2 to be an open-ended sandbox game but that’s not what GW2 is. But GW2 isn’t a traditional themepark MMO (e.g. EverQuest and WoW) either. GW2 is an attempt at trying to bring both together in a new mix. In some aspects GW2 is really successful in bringing both worlds together and in other aspects it completely fails. The lack of any real tangible endgame content is one of GW2’s failings in my opinion.

There is nothing wrong with requesting Anet to take a look at games like WoW and see if they can bring some of the good stuff of that game over to GW2.

Here I disagree with you, vehemently. There is little to gain in feeding the traditional MMO player wishes who are coming from other MMOs. It will cause GW2 to lose it’s uniqueness in a world where planting and face tanking while another just heals while a third does the bulk of damage is considered the “right way” to do MMO combat with raids for BIS being to sole end game. 10 years of exposing players new to MMOs (after all why not try the biggest, the one that RLF may be already playing), WoW has created a generation of MMO players who know no other mechanic and are far too easy in rejecting anything different, or in our case ask repeatedly for similar mechanics to be inserted into a game that actively tried to break out of the WoW mold.

Edit: Found the article I wanted to link to, it’s on Engadget now.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/14/working-as-intended-endgame-is-the-worst-thing-that-ever-happen/

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

schneiw.4896:

Zenguy.6421:

John Smith.4610:

Sounds to me like two independent issues being discussed.
1. Aggregate price for silk and market velocity
2. Farming for individual mats is hard

John,
You’ve twice asserted that there are two issues being discussed here.

Is there a reason why your list doesn’t include the issue that *it takes twice as much silk as the other Tier 5 mats to make ascended materials, even though this issue is a) clearly being discussed here and b) at the heart of the changes in the silk price?

This question is continuously avoided, even though it has been asked repeatedly. IMO, they know they screwed the pooch on this, but refuse to take ownership.

From October through January the price of silk went down and its supply up. During all that time, it was 300 scraps for 1 bolt of damask. So it cant really be at the heart of the changes of silk going back up now.

i think the poster is saying ascended is at the heart of the value/cost of silk in general.

He is basically saying, its hard to divorce these issues, disparity in effort for vertical progression and price of silk, because they are connected.

The main reason that this disparity exists is to make silk valuable. Thats it.

I dont think its a good idea to introduce disparity into vertical progression, just to give one item more value when you loot it.

Except that ascended armor crafting followed the same pattern as all other quality levels, just with a higher quantity. On the surface the only fault it doubling the amount of refined T5 for light vs refined T5 for medium or heavy. Underneath the problem, as it is at all qualities, you need twice as much cloth with light as oppose to medium and heavy as well as cloth is needed at all weights where it isn’t reciprocal with leather and metal. But it wasn’t a problem until ascended armor came out.

You only needed 18 silk scraps for a rare chest piece. You need 2400 silk scraps for an ascended chest piece. So we went from 3 for the insignia, 3 for the lining and 12 for the panel (1:1:4 ratio) to 900 for the insignia, 300 for the lining and 1200 for the panel (3:1:4 ratio). And here’s another “problem”. The lining and panel are 100x the rare but the insignia, which is needed on all armor weights, is 300x the rare. Hmmm, didn’t realize that until now. Interesting.

So we have altering the bolt recipe from 2 to 3 scraps. Not a problem since the T5 leather which was also under a glut needs 3 for the refined version. Then we have the boost in the ascended mat recipe from 50 to 100. That seems a bit excessive. Lastly we have the insignia mat requirement scaled by 300 vs 100 times for panels and linings.

It may be the insignia’s overscaling that’s the root of the demand problem. But exotic was 10/2/8 T6 cloth scraps for insignia/panel/insignia (5:1:4 ratio) so maybe we should feel fortunate that they didn’t make insignia need 1500 silk.

There are MMOs before WoW and those that tried to model themselves after WoW. They play very differently and their players have two very different mindsets. First group play for fun, comradery with friends. It was an extension of pen and pencil RPG from around a single table or student lounge.

After WoW players were all about “winning” which means max level with BIS gear. Period. It didn’t matter to them what they were fighting, the genre of the MMO, the story, nothing other than the mechanics needed to “win”. It’s not about the journey to them but the destination.

Why do you think there are so many threads trying to fit GW2 round peg into WoW’s square hole? How do I tank? Where’s the trinity? Mounts? Dueling? Why do you think there are so many threads asking how to level to max quickly and what to do when you are 80 and how to get the best gear? Way too many MMO players have been conditioned to think that way. It’s about beating the game and having better stuff than those around you.

Maybe WoW isn’t the sole culprit. Maybe it’s all those years of multiplayer FPS games ignited hyper competitiveness and that’s how it just translates to MMOs. But the world, the story, the environment has become lost to them. Just like switching between Call of Duty, Battlefield and Halo; they enjoy the mechanic, the ability to display their skill to others. Setting means nothing. And they judge the success or failure of a game by how closely it matches the mechanic that they are accustom to.

There is nothing wrong carving out a unique experience in the MMO space. They don’t all have to be virtually identical in terms of mechanics, only differing in story. It’s not for everybody.

There is no solution as long as real demand outstrips the rate of supply. Price is the equalizer in that situation as demand, players willing to pay that price, matches up with the rate of supply.

As long as ANet believes the rate of supply daily/weekly/monthly is “enough” and they aren’t willing to provide more, the price will remain.

The other method is of course reducing demand but that would take a recipe change that will not go over well with all those who have already crafted using that recipe for personal use, as crafters that sell in theory make a profit and aren’t directly harmed over previously crafted items.

This is economics at it’s most basic. Stuff you are taught week one in any economics class that discusses theory.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

We do not disagree. Like I said, if collecting vanity items or PvP/WvW is your thing then GW2 is definitely an enjoyable game. But you have to understand that not having any true meaningful character progression beyond collecting skins is very off-putting for a lot of players and it’s the reason why so many people stopped playing GW2 after hitting lvl 80.

Only off-putting to those players conditioned by MMOs like WoW that you rush to max level and then do raids to get BIS gear. That’s not character progression. That’s the Cliffsnotes version of RPG play. That’s boiling the game down to it’s base mechanics, caring little about the story because an entire generation was brought up believing that MMOs are only about max level and BIS gear. The belief that everything between Level 1 and max level is merely filler until you get to the “real” content. Only to do it again when the next expansion comes out.

GW2 is NOT the game for them. And they shouldn’t be the kind of players that ANet is targeting. Those players will bolt as soon as content they approve of stops coming and if the attempts to draw these players to GW2 drive out those who like GW2 for what it is, ANet will end up with less players in the long run, not more.

I found GW2 very easy to learn. The biggest difference for me is the quick pace of combat. Self buffs, debuffs and control generally last for only a few seconds. Healing is up to you normally. The best way to survive combat is not to get hit in the first place which is why dodge is so important. Major attacks are telegraphed through animation, major AoE attacks with a red circle on the ground. Don’t be in the red circle when the attack goes off in a second or two. Attacks from the side and behind does do more damage. This makes combat a lot more tactical than the old school MMO tank and spank approach.

The PvE world is a VERY co-op friendly place. There is no competition to get to a resource node first, everyone gets a copy. Do enough damage, a rather low threashold, you get a full share of loot and XP. Everyone can rez. Everyone can heal themselves. There are no factions. With a few exceptions, the game if very solo friendly.

I’ve describe the game to others, when there is a major fight, as a flash mob with swords. “Hey XX is up” is shouted in map chat and within a minute a dozen or two other players wander by to help dispatch it and then they all go on their merry way.

So explore the world, take part in any event you wander into, or not it’s entirely up to you. Nearly every activity will reward you with XP. Buy bags and bigger bags as soon as you can. Buy salvage kits and gather tools (and equip the tools). The Trading Post usually pays better than an NPC vendor and you can sell to the TP from anywhere, but you need to visit a representative to put up any items you buy or cash from sales.

Wanze.8410:

schneiw.4896:

Zenguy.6421:

John Smith.4610:

Sounds to me like two independent issues being discussed.
1. Aggregate price for silk and market velocity
2. Farming for individual mats is hard

John,
You’ve twice asserted that there are two issues being discussed here.

Is there a reason why your list doesn’t include the issue that *it takes twice as much silk as the other Tier 5 mats to make ascended materials, even though this issue is a) clearly being discussed here and b) at the heart of the changes in the silk price?

This question is continuously avoided, even though it has been asked repeatedly. IMO, they know they screwed the pooch on this, but refuse to take ownership.

From October through January the price of silk went down and its supply up. During all that time, it was 300 scraps for 1 bolt of damask. So it cant really be at the heart of the changes of silk going back up now.

No it’s entirely a rate of supply issue. During Wintersday there was a new, easily obtainable source of supply for everyone. The actual drop rate may have been relatively low but it was made up in shear volume of the pre-salvage items that could produce it. As soon as that was over, the rate of supply dropped below the rate of consumption again and the price rebounds.

The TP has a kind of “memory”. Players list items for sale and don’t necessarily remove them and list at a lower price if they don’t sell in a reasonable time frame. At those items at their price are just waiting for the supply to be drawn back down until they are exposed as the “low” sell price.

Didn’t we talk about this last night or was it the night before.

First, depending on your settings and your definition of “perfect”, there really isn’t a PC made that won’t bog down at some point with this game.

As I said time, doesn’t come with the OS, the video card is pitiful and the PSU is so-so. If I remember from last time they have a $63 upgrade to a R9 270 (not the 270x) and a $6 upgrade to the Corsair CX430 PSU. Windows is around $100.

Capitalism doesn’t necessarily lead to wealth disparity.

Not only have they been removed from the game but they are now useless. There are some weapon skins that have been removed from the game from an acquisition PoV but they aren’t useless (depending on your opinion of ticket skins).

Much better CPU, much much worse GPU. Upgrade to the R9 270 (free upgrade from R7 250x) for $63 more and the Corsair CX430 for $6 more.

Also note that unlike the first system you listed, this one does NOT come with Windows installed. That’s an extra $104 for Win 8.1.

Shiyo.3578:

None of that matters, why does damask STILL take 100 bolts of silk and the other ascended mats take 50 of their material? It made sense when silk scraps were worth nothing, it doesn’t anymore. Damask is over 4x the price of every other ascended mat.

As explained because Damask is required at all armor weights, double for light. That amplifies the amount of raw material needed to craft it versus the other ascended crafted mats. If Elonian Leather was needed in quantity on all armor weights, double for medium, leather prices would also be much higher. But it’s not so it’s a lot less expensive.

So, not why Vern?

I buy gems Monday and Thursday nights in the off chance something good comes out on Tuesday or Friday and the mad rush spikes the price.

muslumgurseks.4951:

krixis.9538:

pro tip

do not bother asking for dx11 its not gonna happen.

but do ask for 64bit client.

Yea but i dont get how the 64bit client would help increase the performance^^

It increases the amount of memory it can use which means less things needing to be reloaded from disk. Helpful if you are always in crowds with your texture and character quantity settings maxed out.

Aidan Savage.2078:

All exotic equipment: +1002 power, +698 precision, +698 ferocity

• Basic damage, 527/527/678

All exotic armor, weapon, ascended trinkets: 1064 power (62 over all exotic, 6%), 728 precision (30 over all exotic, 4.3%), 728 ferocity (30 over all exotic, 4.3%) (4.86% average boost)

• Basic damage, 544/544/700 (17/17/22 over all exotic, 3%/3%/3%)

All Ascended trinkets, armor, exotic weapon: 1078 (76 over all exotic, 7.6%), 739 precision (41 over all exotic, 6%), 739 ferocity (41 over all exotic, 6%)(6.53% average boost)

• Basic damage, 547/547/705 (20/20/27 over all exotic, 3.8%/3.8%/4%)

All ascended equipment: 1087 power (89 over all exotic, 9%), 745 precision (47 over all exotic, 6.7%), 745 ferocity (47 over all exotic, 6.7%)(7.46% average boost)

• Basic damage, 577/577/743 (50/50/65 over all exotic, 9.5%/9.5%/9.6%)

All exotic equipment, ascended weapon: 1011 power (9 over all exotic, ~1%), 704 precision/ferocity (6 over all exotic, ~1%)(~1% average boost)

• Basic damage 556/556/715 (29/29/37 over all exotic, 5.5%/5.5%/5.5%)

Cost of ascended warrior weapon: ~50g
Cost of Ascended trinkets: 24 guild commendations, 20 laurels, 250 badges of honor, 20 pristine fractal relics, whatever the cost is for the cheapest mystic forge backpiece
Cost of ascended heavy armor: 63g,63g,63g,69g,73g,74g
Cost of offensive mighty infusions: >50g each, >300g for all 6 potential slots, each infusion giving less than half a percent of a boost compared to exotic armor. Complete junk for the cost.

Conclusion: Ascended armor overall is expensive for the boosts given, regardless of weight. Ascended weapons are more effective in increasing damage for a “budget” concerned player. Concerns over ascended armor being a requirement for anything other than high tier fractals for agony resistance are, again, complete bullkitten and players attempting to find an argument where none exists. Now, as a group, lets move on from the offtopic discussion of whether ascended armor is a necessity. If you desire to, make a thread for us to continue the discussion about that.

Furthermore, if possible, I’d like JS to contribute some information if he’s allowed to, in order to help provide some immutable points for the discussion:

• the average number of silk scraps moved through the TP, average demand, average supply, for the timeframe of 0000UTC 02/21/2015 through 0000UTC 02/28/2015, rounded down to the nearest 100,000
• the average number of bolts of silk moved through the TP, average demand, average supply, for the same timeframe of 0000UTC 02/21/2015 through 0000UTC 02/28/2015, rounded down to the nearest 100,000
• the average number of bolts of damask moved through the TP, average demand, average supply, for the same timeframe of 0000UTC 02/21/2015 through 0000UTC 02/28/2015, rounded down to the nearest 100,000*

*nearest 10,000 is acceptable if the TP information does not allow 100,000 points to accurately portray numbers, also, if timeframe is too recent, an older timeframe of same duration will work

If this information gets provided, we’ll be able to more accurately debate why silk is going up in price, and whether the perceived problems really are problems.

But I spared no expense.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

JAGUAR CORE – CONSOLES
Look at consoles – jaguar, 8 core, 1.6Ghz will run it. Quad module is fast as haswell core at 3.5-3.8Ghz. Jaguar core die size = 3.1mm^2(28nm), Haswell core die size 14.1^mm2 (22nm). Jaguar quad core is clearly more efficient and produce more power per die size than haswell.

Tell me how will jaguar core run MMOs?

No. Very, very wrong.

A Jaguar core has about 45% the performance of a Haswell core at the same clock speed. So a 1.6GHz Jaguar core has about 20% of the performance of a 3.5GHz Haswell core.

Feature size has more to do with lower power use and potential top clock speed and zero to do with IPC.

T6 mats are always difficult to get while T5 isn’t. That’s why all crafted ascended mats require T2-T5 mats in their creation.

Now pre-ascended armor Gossamer was more expensive than Silk. Ascended Armor hit with the Dec 10, 2013 patch. On the 3rd Gossamer was 4.95s while Silk was 9c. This was when Exotic was the highest quality to craft. Those wanting BiS was crafting Exotic and using Gossamer to do it. By the time a month passed, 1/10/14, Gossamer was already down to 1.61s and Silk was 2.36s.

Gossamer supply jumped by 360k, tripling supply from 12/9 to 1/10 while Silk supply plummeted by 2.6 million to just 6% of it’s supply from a month before. Obviously a shift from crafting Exotic to Ascended.

To clarify.

You will need to get Windows 10. Dx12 is NOT being back ported but Win 10 is suppose to be a free upgrade from Win 7 through Win 8.1. 64-bit is NOT required but is silly not to go 64-bit in this day and age.

Current generation GPUs will take advantage of most of the features of Dx12, just not all of them.

Dx12 like Dx11 really shines when a game’s render engine is multithreaded. Sadly GW2 is not and until it is, it’s kind of pointless to talk about Dx11 or Dx12 until that happens.

A 64-bit client may be helpful for players with more than 4GB of memory if frame rate gets choppy due to crowds of fully rendered players since it’s in crowds where the game’s memory use shoots up. But it’s not necessarily as easy as flipping a compiler switch and squirting out a 64-bit client.

I wouldn’t say random. There’s a method, just not one that yields predictable results from a player’s point of view.

Some say it’s an anti-market bot counter-measure, I say it’s a load control measure since the TP is server and NA/EU region wide.

A market bot’s advantage isn’t it’s speed but it’s Terminator like relentlessness, it’s ability to always be watching the entire market when a human can’t. This isn’t about high frequency trading, it’s about jumping on deals before the humans can recognize them.

But others disagree.

Aidenwolf.5964:

fireflyry.7023:

This mechanic pays for the game your playing.

Odd since I paid for the game. Try to remember this isn’t FTP.

GW1 had box sales and no cash to gold.

GW2 was to survive on gems and have no expansions now however we’re getting box sales plus gems.

Never tell me someone else’s money is paying for my playtime as I’ve paid my own way.

You paid for the game’s development and maybe 6 months of post launch development, assuming you paid full price for the game and you started at launch.

Olaf Soul Can Haz.4689:

Your processor mainly, but it also depends on what 78xx you have as well. AMD processors don’t work so well with GW2 due to how GW2 is coded as compared to the new i5s and i7s.

That can be read that the game wasn’t coded to work well with AMD. In truth the game is coded, from an aggregate point of view, not to need more than a few cores to run. That means AMD’s approach of many slower cores in their CPU is just as effective as a few slower cores found in much older AMD and Intel CPUs. Unfortunately today’s CPU benchmarks for the most part rate CPUs based on maximum performance with all cores being used to their fullest. A fair comparison for overall performance but not when comparing applications that are limited by the maximum performance of a single core, not that GW2 is written for a single core but in practical terms.

The problem comes when one or more of the players want to split the account or change the display name. It’s easier to simply say no up front than deal with fallout between players that share. Also it streamlines the “but I wasn’t the one that said all those terrible things, it was my roommate/SO/sibling/etc.” excuse.

Some players feel it’s unfair to be able to buy gold with real world currency. They ignore the fact that this type of business has existed since MMOs first came into being. Even subscription based ones. The fact that ANet, like several other MMO companies, offer an official way to do this helps fulfill the need and force 3rd party sites to sell at a lower price hopefully discouraging them.

In fact ANet offering this service in turns creates the counter service of buying of gems with gold. This way it can reward players who earn large quantity of gold to be about to use the “cash shop” without needing to spend actual cash.

You can’t remove one with out the other. The exchange is money supply neutral, it’s not adding to the pool of gold in the game. What it could do is to increase disparity between the wealthy and not so wealthy. But the disparity isn’t any different if wealth is a factor of just playing time and style.

Silk was at vendor +1c before ascended came along. It was begging to be used.

I think if the number of bolts of silk were get from 100 to 50 like the refined T5 amount in the other two ascended crafted mats, the halving of demand would likely drop the price as more of that demand gets filled. Overall it would still be in greater demand that the T5 leather so it’s unlikely that the supply would become a glut that would gut the price.

But JS knows better than us the actual amount of silk scrap flowing into the TP if not the world Vs real demand. Halving the number of bolts may be too much and silk scraps would return to a glut condition. We don’t have the data.

Aidenwolf.5964:

cerisebarradin.5639:

I think disabling gems > gold would enable real money traders further if I’m being honest.

If you take away the players ability to get easy money through ways that don’t violate the games terms of service it can cause some problematic issues.

If you’re sick of gold sellers sending you messages now you’d be in for it a lot more. I’ve played MMOs where there was no premium currency you could trade for in game currency and the RMT harass you constantly.

Not to mention, if Anet removed this some would succumb to the temptation of buying from gold sellers and it could result in their accounts getting compromised. (Be it stolen or banned.)

I’d much rather Arena Net have this option than it not to exist at all. Every person in my Guild converts gems > gold for quick money and there’s nothing wrong with it!

I’ve always hated that they allowed it and tradable precursors and legendary weapons. I consider in-game gold something you only acquire in game and I’ve never converted my gems to gold. The in-game “economy” is designed to foster gem sales and the game’s worse for it.

/Rant

That won’t prevent players from buying gold. It’ll just mean they will go outside channels to do it. Also without the game’s cash→gem→gold system the price of gold from those third parties will increase.

I can understand why precursors are tradeable simply due to their low drop rate, RNG and questionable usefulness for the character it drops on. A thief has no use for a staff precursor. As for legendary weapons, well the thief could craft that staff precursor into a staff legendary and sell that instead of just selling the precursor.

As others have pointed out, it’s two sides of the same coin. Eliminating the Gems→Gold will eliminate the Gold→Gems because the items being bought on one side, supplies the items being sold on the other.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vision_Crystal

It looks as if you should be able to craft it as a level 500 tailor.

The problem with silk is that they didn’t fix it once, they fixed it three times and each person fixing it didn’t realize someone else was fixing it as well. So what we get is as Astral says, overkill that not only fixed the glut but swung the pendulum all the way to the other side and then some.

They never promised, they said they would look into it. In a Facebook post around the time the game launched.

Without gems to gold, the price for gold to gems would keep rising. It’s the selling of gems for gold that helps keep that rate in partial check. And since the exchange doesn’t create gold but actually sink gold like the TP, it’s not inflationary either.

Also, Pay to Win? It’s not like it would stop people from buying gold, just buying gold from a legitimate and safe source. Yes having a lot of gold could help you toward ascended armor creation and acquiring a legendary or precursor but that’s not “winning”.

1st of all, ANet doesn’t say anything until they are ready to tell the world. The new camera modes announced today would likely have been seen at the two upcoming gamer cons so it was the time to start up the hype train on that feature.

Now if they have improvements in the client such as 64-bit support and better multi-core scaling, they would keep it under wraps until the time is right to stoke the boiler of the hype train again.