Guild Wars 2

Vol.5241:

So are you trying to concoct some massive conspiracy theory that ascended gear is only introduced to make money for Anet?

Everything in this game is designed to make money. Nothing on the game’s path thus far has been a coincidence, including the massive influx of coin + materials from the last patch, or the insane precursor prices in the months following launch until now (for the latter, see my thread regarding RNG weapon skins and legendaries – which I don’t want to repeat here).

In fact, I’m specifically not saying it’s a conspiracy theory, I’m saying it’s intended design, which is pretty thoroughly designed to make piles of money. Did I say that was a bad thing? No. But I am interested in hearing people’s opinions about it, which is why I’m sharing this here. I have 120 crystals in my bank from playing and opening stuff since launch; the purpose of this thread is not to complain, it’s to hear your views.

On that thought, I like the whopper analogy. It made me smile.

It just dawned on me: the new ascended tier is a huge cashcow for the gemstore.

Take the following example. One of my eight characters has 5 exotic sets, all of them with the skins I like. That’s 30 transmutation stones if I want my ascended armor to have the same appearance as the exotic version, with the same runes.

Then there’s my weapons. Same story. Need about 16 stones for one character.
We’re at 46 rare transmutation stones now for one character.

Now, I’ll probably be grinding a year to make those armor sets and weapons. But of course, I want to get my lvl 500 ascended materials faster! Have no fear, I can use the black lion mining pick (gemstore)! From experience, I know BL mining picks work better than my ori/fused pick on the home instance quartz node, giving me a higher chance of receiving charged quartz.

Then there will of course be the datamined (see reddit) new stones to separate appearance items from the transmuted original items. This also allows you to salvage the runes/sigils from the original exotic set [you’d be foolish not to use the 100% success rate black lion kit (gemstore)!], and separately transmute the appearance set onto the ascended set using rare transmutation stones (gemstore).

You gotta admit: it’s pretty brilliant design to increase revenue.

I approve of this topic.

Many people have several exotic sets. For example, one of my 8 characters has a whisperer’s armor transmuted set (which includes the gemstore krytan coat), an aetherblade set, a duellist transmuted set (my settler stat set) a vatlaaw’s set, and a tier 2 transmuted norn set.

A set for every occasion (zerker set, knight’s set, settler set, karma set, condition set)

Should I now want the skins of these armors in the ascended version, I’d have to use 30 rare transmutation stones. And that’s just for just one of my 8 characters. That ain’t right.

It’s not profitable to transmute. It wasn’t then, and It isn’t now. On average you get 17 ore/ingots in return for every 250 mithril ore/ingot. You’re better of selling your mithril ore/ingots instead, even if you disregard the dust cost and skill point cost. Because you make a loss if you include the cost of 5 pieces of crystalline dust.

While you’re at it, google “fused rifle”.

(C’mon people, start listing that rifle already!)

Orichalcum stabilized at about 5 to 5.5 silver per ore. Previously, Anet was not happy with such prices, as it raises the price of nearly every craftable end game item in the game.

I’m really crossing my fingers here. It won’t hurt me (rather, the other way around), but it will sure hurt players that recently joined the game following the trial period. It’s one of those items that can widen the gap between the have’s and the have’s not.

I agree with the concerns expressed above. I saw the MF as stat points, roughly between 13 to 20 points of any stat for every percentage of MF. I saw this benefiting me like any other stat points.

Just removing stat points from celestial gear and not replacing them with anything is 1) lazy, and 2) created false buyer expectations. I am not ok with this.

Sanctus.8350:

You all realize rich orichalcum veins already exist, right?

Vein*s* (plural) even! No, I did not. Where is this? I’m a lazy miner myself, so I didn’t know they added rich veins subsequent to the removal of the southsun rich node.

@Ilr: You don’t need chocolate for crafting weapons, armor, jewelry, sharpening stones, sigils and runes. You need it for about 3 optional food buffs. Try running around naked though, let’s see how far that takes you.

Look at the ori prices now. Combine that with hordes of people being locked up in a new instance that will not give ori or anything that can be broken down into ori; just…. baubles. These prices are here to stay, I can assure you, if nothing is done about it.

He means the fact that as an engineer, you can’t see your legendary most of the time given that engineer kits replace your weapons. For example, let’s say you’re wielding a legendary pistol and shield. You’re da man! However, when you use the utility skill “flamethrower”, it will replace your 2 legendary weapons with a flamethrower, and give you 5 new skills on your skillbar. While using this flamethrower, the stats of your pistol and shield are used, but your two legendary weapons are no longer visible. Instead, you’re wielding the same flamethrower that a lvl 10 engineer is using. While this is cool at lvl 10, it no longer is that cool when you’re lvl 80 for months.

Not gonna happen anytime soon. Dev response from 27 days ago, quoted below:

JonPeters.5630:

Redscope.6215:

In an effort to stay on topic, the only reason I can see why they haven’t made two upgrade slots for two-handed weapons is because all gear has only one upgrade slot period.

It will be interesting to see what they do with ascended weaponry and armor. Maybe they will finally alleviate this situation. Or at least give an equal stat bonus from two-handed weapons when compared to using two weapons.

You are correct. This was a technical drawback from the initial implementation of the system that we did not have the bandwidth undo. In order to do I now would require a significant rework of many other things. Not something I would rule out but something we would weigh considerably which means don’t expect it soon.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/2h-weapons-need-2-upgrade-slots/first#post2526897

The answer is a mix of both:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-legendary-armor-coming-out/first

ColinJohanson.2394:

You won’t see legendary armor any time soon, you will see Ascended Armor in 2013 for sure though, yes.

Also this:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

“Legendary Gear and Precursors
We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013.”

Now on the website:

“Legendary Weapon Updates. Legendary weapons are getting a stat boost and an Offensive Infusion slot to align with the new Ascended weapons! Legendaries are also receiving additional functionality: When out of combat, Legendary weapon bearers will be able to choose between different stat combinations for your weapon. And to top it all off, many Legendaries are getting some aesthetic upgrades!”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/

Footsteps (in the form of a trail of new krytan words) to the shield please. Or pages flying around while running.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/news/page/1/read/28445/Guild-Wars-2-The-Super-Adventure-Box-Returns-September-3rd.html

“Craft Ascended Weapons: New recipes and materials will be hidden around the world, and a new skill cap of 500 will be introduced for the Weaponsmith, Artificer and Huntsman crafting disciplines. Players crafting their way to 500 will become Grandmaster Crafters and can learn the secrets of crafting Ascended weapons.”

With the current orichalcum price high and ready to explode, I really hope Arenanet thought of implementing a rich orichalcum node – temporarily – to ease through the first months of adding a new weapon tier. With scores of people that will want to craft ascended weapons, and even more levelling up these 3 professions, a temporary rich node would make a lot of sense to me.

PMilkos.9103:

Trying to control the precursor market is unbelievably stupid. With craftable precursors coming in the near future, and new precursors dropping each day from the constant zergs anyway, it’s basically asking to lose all your money.

Not entirely. If the new precursors to new legendaries cannot be acquired through mystic forging, the “old series” precursors might actually go up in price as less people will try to forge them (leading to a smaller supply, leading to increased prices). And since zerging will likely come to a moderate halt September 3rd, this will drain another supply line for “old series” precursors.

Vol, haven’t you noticed that on the TP, the watchwork sprocket is often displayed with the icon of a fused greatsword?

:)

Evans.6347:

That’s a bit of a stretch imo. It more likely has a day and night cycle now with the picture being the night animation.

That would be awesome.

Runescape. Isn’t that the game where two kids forced another kid, on threat of extreme violence and death, to hand over his virtual items to them?

Found it, it is:

http://www.virtualpolicy.net/runescape-theft-dutch-supreme-court-decision.html

I just went out and read something about the runescape economy. Min/maxing 1) puts Anet in control of the price of items; 2) some items are not sold on the TP because people are not willing to pay the price minimum; 3) will drive players to mail buying for max items that can be sold above the max (because players are willing to pay more than the max price). Which leads to abuse, as the superrare items are now in the banks of the rich few, rather than on the TP for all to see and to buy.

No thanks.

The hover-over name calls it “king toad wizard weapon”. It also has the same shape as the super skin, just yellow. So I doubt this can be crafted. Probably a hard mode SAB drop?

They have said a lot of things will come. The question, as always, is “when”. It’s key to trading or, to be more precise, price speculation.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/media/screenshots/

It’s not so much the pictures, but the names of the pictures that are interesting.
One is called “ascended weapons”, and has a picture of a new rifle, and the other is called “account magic find”.

They jumped the gun a bit, I think.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteorlogicus

“Unlike most other legendary weapons, this one does not have any footstep, aura, or spell effects.”

The information is out there. I feel for you though.\

Edit: you’ll be extremely happy to read the following, which someone just posted:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Meteorlogicus-Change-Unconfirmed

Some precursors are overpriced right now. It’s OK, it’s solely because there’s too much coin in the economy right now. Let people blow all their turbogrind earnings on precursors for a few weeks to make the economy healthy again.

The turnover of fused skins is quite fast, this wouldn’t worry me in the least if I had a ticket.

Just this morning, someone filled my buy order for a fused staff of 156g.
I would consider buying a rifle for 200g straight off the TP without a buy order. Just saying.

(And no, I’m not buying to resell. I’m buying for me me me)

Articluna.4509:

Legendaries are someting you can obtain slowly – about 1 per month pace.

Ehm, I don’t know if this is what you wanted to say. But if you have acquired 12 legendaries since launch, I applaud your merchandary efforts.

No there is. For a second, you had me doubting there.
I just went to the merchant and took a screenshot. Rifle indicated with a red arrow.

Could it be that it’s not on the TP due to the same bug as the Zodiac sword (these cannot be sold currently)?

I suspect it’s because people follow others – “it’s not been listed on the TP yet, so it must not be in demand”, or “people probably think it doesn’t look good”. And since it’s a big gamble, people won’t use their precious ticket on a rifle.

Yet somehow, I don’t think that’s the case.
Does anyone know, or has anyone tried?

Fused skins and Flame and Frost dyes are coming. That’s all.

I suspect that when this info was leaked (on the official website, but it was quickly removed), gem prices went poof. All the additional coin that has been pumped in the economy through Gauntlet farming only made it a bit worse, but probably not much.

The problem is, the person responding had no clue what he/she was talking about. I’ll break the response down for you

Josh Davis.6015:

Only newly obtained skins…

The weapon skins on the TP are not “newly obtained”. They came from tickets rotting in a someone’s bank. They are no different than a skin rotting in someone’s bank.

Josh Davis.6015:

… in select sets are tradable.

This is incorrect. It’s not “select sets”. It’s all sets. Sclerite, fused, jade, winter’s. This gave away Josh was used as a fall guy, he really didn’t know what he was talking about. He just communicated what someone emailed him.

Josh Davis.6015:

In the past, we intended those skins to be account-bound and not tradable. After the change, these skins will remain account-bound and not tradable.

If that was indeed their intention, to keep fused/sclerite/jade/winter’s skins account bound, why are these skins on the TP in the first place? This message contradicts itself, and makes no sense to anyone reading it. It’s a cheap way of not fixing a clear mistake.

The whole thing makes no sense, a skin is a skin, this is probably the only time in my history of 10 years of MMO’ing I’d encourage people to do it. And I am strict on following the rules, more than anyone probably.

Moreover, I have not seen anyone from Anet stating this is an exploit, and I cannot imagine they will as there is no way to enforce it (benefit < manpower). Never issue a warning you can’t enforce. The lawyers at Anet will know this adagium all too well.

For the record, I haven’t done this myself, but I may consider doing it in the future. An unused skin is an unused skin. The artificial distinction being created is beyond absurd.

I actually think they will go up because people want matching stuff. That said, I wouldn’t bet my money on it, just as I didn’t do it back then.

I’m sorry, i’m a bit a nobody concerning API’s and programs outside the game. So there’s an approved API that people use to communicate with the TP? And if so, did that API come with some kind of do’s and don’ts so that I can check if the program I would use, based on the approved interface, is not going beyond the gray area? Or something similar? Forgive me for my ignorance in this respect, my specialty is very different (law).

OP, It would be a kinky twist. I like it. China, however, won’t. So it’d be a no-go, which is a bitter disappointment.

Because at an average of 40 dollars a ticket, you’ll be forking out 280 bucks for a fused skin. If they priced the skins at 280 dollars in their store, you wouldn’t buy it.
Most will give up halfway, which means big $$$ for Anet.

azurrei.5691:

Avatara.1042:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well 50 scraps… that will certainly keep the price high… $400 USD for a weapon skin…

Absolutely insane pricing from Anet…

You think 50 is bad (it is)?? Oh are you in for a treat in the next few days…

He’s referring to reddit info that fused skins will eat seven (7) tickets. Yes. Seven. At 40 dollars a ticket on average you’ll pay 280 bucks for a fused skin. Many (“lucky”) will pay less, and many (“bad luck”) will pay a lot more.
So four hundred (400) dollars for a fused skin was not a fantasy number.

Yes, I agree PVE is too easy. I would like to see more solo encounters like Liadri. I know a lot of people don’t (your voices are known), but it was the first time I didn’t care about the value of gold or items anymore.

It’s refreshing when the difficulty levels are pulled to ‘insane’ once in a while.

Thanks Aeneq and Darkspirit. Your combined thorough knowledge on this sheds light on some of the darkest stuff I’ve read since release.

I did not know it had already gone this far. If it’s indeed possible, and you guys know it can be done, TP botting is very real.

Have you guys talked to John about solutions? You guys need to put your minds together and figure this out. Seems to me the current TP road will lead to a dead end in the long run.

It makes no sense in that forum either. The person from Anet that posted it had no clue about this issue.

People that naturally redeemed tickets – as there was no info that they could be used after the (winter’s day/fused) event – got punished twice for doing so. First for having to choose a skin then as opposed to later, and second for not being able to sell that skin now. Meanwhile people can bug the system by buying a skin on the TP, stacking it with their account bound skin and…. voila, both can be sold.

Ps. the winter’s day event had rare weapon tickets too, but you could also buy the skins directly in the store.

Many thanks Aeneq for your clear information on the issue. I learned a lot more reading through the responses.

So, could I summarize the real concern, the elephant in the room that only you went out to clarify in more detail, as follows:

Third part TP programs using a session key can be programmed to become buy order bots.

You said it clearest, in the post quoted below:

aeneq.1760:

They can be modified to be automated tools yes, that said its limited to putting in buy orders (i.e. overbidding and cancelling buy orders if they want to put in lower bids).

However I also stated that there is no easy way to block this behavior at present, the functionality is a core component of the in game Trading Post and I don’t believe ANet will modify this API anytime soon.

The only quick solution is behavioral analysis on identified traders who has a high/constant/changing buy listings. But even then it becomes a bit tricky and bots can be programmed to be more human like (with lower profit, but if you spread this over multiple accounts they would still be able to accrue the same profit as before).

Let me know if I adequately reformulated the concern above, in bold.

To be clear, I still think that notifiers cross the line by a mile (Aeneq understood; use of the session key by a 3rd party program is why), but that ship has sailed due to Anet’s irresponsible behavior (ie. doing nothing in this respect for far too long).

This makes no sense whatsoever. It’s wrong wrong wrong. There is no difference between an account bound skin purchased with a ticket now (after the patch), or purchased with a ticket in the past (before the patch). None. Yet you punish the last group, while you reward the first?

Josh, this makes no sense.

TooBz.3065:

DarkSpirit.7046:

aeneq.1760:

DarkSpirit.7046:

aeneq.1760:

Think you are missing the point…

Lets say as an example that we have two competing parties for one item, one of them have access to an automated tool that alerts him when he is overbid and the other has not.

You forgot that all the outside automated tools so far that we mentioned are free and available to everyone. It is no excuse to claim that they have no access to it because that is not true!

If the other party chooses not to use them then that is his loss, and shouldn’t be forcing his choice onto others. In others words, if I am too lazy to even look up the wiki or gw2spidy, I shouldn’t be forcing others not to look it up as well.

If you want a more specific example, download Zicore’s TP notifier app http://notifier.zicore.de/

It is free and open source but don’t say that you have no access to it because you know that is simply not true.

Not sure what you are responding too, the example I wrote was a specific one to show the benefit of using a third party tool it had nothing todo with whether that tool is available to both parties or not (which wasn’t an disussion point in the post I made my reply to).

edit: and why should I use a program someone else wrote, its more fun writing it yourself

The point is if everyone has access to the same programs/tools then nobody can claim that it is unfair that they do not have access to them.

There is no unfair advantage going on here. The only thing that is unfair would be that some people are more lazy than others. People who are too lazy to install/learn to use these tools themselves. They prefer to come in the forums just to complain about others, who have gained an advantage over them through due diligence.

If I can learn how to use Zicore’s tool, why can’t someone else? It is not as if only I have the special privileges to download it from his website because anyone can do the same.

You could say exactly the same thing about a botting program.

Exactly!

Off topic: Darkspirit, why would you use Zicore when you created your own TP program, which you earlier stated has more functionalities and works better than Zicore?

Again people arguing that it’s allowed. I’ll copy and paste my answer from before. I’ll give you the TL; DR in advance: it’s not.

Use of these programs is governed by several instruments. I’ll include relevant sections from two of them, below, namely the User Agreement and the Third Party Program Policy.

User Agreement

1. Definitions
p) Service — Any online service provided by NCSOFT for the Game.
q) Software — Any software provided by NCSOFT related to the Game, including but not limited to software installed on a computer owned by You or someone else, along with any subsequent versions, enhancements, modifications, upgrades or patches to such software.
8. PROHIBITED AND IRREPARABLY HARMFUL ACTIVITIES CONCERNING NCSOFT
You acknowledge that You may not, without signed written consent from a legally authorized representative of NCSOFT, do any of the following:
(h) Use, or provide others with, any service related to the Game, including but not limited to:
- any service that interacts with the Software; or
[…]
(i) You acknowledge that You may not, without signed written consent from a legally authorized representative of NCSOFT, do any of the following:
- Use, obtain or provide data related to operation of the Game, including but not limited to:
- software that reads areas of computer memory or storage devices related to the Game;
- software that intercepts or otherwise collects data from or through the Game;
- software that redirects communications from any Software or Service; or
- software not provided by NCSOFT which creates or maintains any communication to the Software or Service, including but not limited to any software that emulates the Software or any part thereof as well as any server that emulates the Service or any part thereof;

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

Third Party Program policy

“Our general policy is that anything that gives advantage is forbidden; anything that imbalances the game in favor of one player over another is strictly disallowed.”
“Does this program allow someone to play faster, better, longer, or more accurately than someone who doesn’t use it?”
“Does this program allow someone to ‘play’ when he/she is not at the computer?”
“Does this program allow the user to gain undeserved rewards?”

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros

Trade post notifier

From Zicore’s website, although this service is not exclusively offered by Zicore, the notifier is described as follows:
It now also notifies, when you have sold or bought stuff. You also can enable notifications of transactions, when someone is over/under-cutting you.

Source: http://notifier.zicore.de/

You can be notified of being undercut in 2 ways: with, or without using your “session key”. If you use the session key, the notification is based on “live” information. If you don’t use the session key, you’ll be notified based on information from GW2 Spidy, which is “old”, cached information. People that download this program obviously want an edge over other traders, so one can safely presume they will use the session key to get live notifications.

Conclusion:

I believe the User Agreement and the Third Party Policy are crystal clear on this issue. Using the “session key” for live notifications of undercutting is a direct violation of User Agreement Rules 8 (h) and (i), as well as the Third Party Policy.

People that use a notifier create a huge advantage over players that don’t use a third party program. This a no-brainer any way you look at it.
The only possible reason I can think of why nothing is done to combat these clear violations, is that there is no way to enforce them.
Never issue a warning you can’t enforce. And since it can’t be enforced, no warning can be issued, either.

Nonetheless, unless and until the user agreement and third policy will be adjusted on this issue, and in the absence of Anet’s explicit approval, I’m staying away from these programs.

Nice news. Not so nice that I just popped all my karma. I’m a sad panda now. 200k karma down the drain.

Edit: I now read Colin’s second post. I’ll hold my breath then.

Ok. Now the pro-text notifiers are showing their cards en masse. They want to “play the game instead”, while making sure they have the highest bid out there on any and all products on which they are bidding. What. The. Kitten. This is kittening me off again, and I promised myself to stay away from this toxic mess. You know who use that argument as well, each and every time? Botters. They’d rather create a program for the not-so-fun stuff. So that they can “enjoy the game instead”. Well guess what, you’re not the only ones.

And it’s always the same programmers that enter these threads, too. The persons that created the notifiers.

You, mister programmer/notifier user, have a MAJOR advantage over normal players who (1) presume a notifier is against the TOS + code of conduct (which it is, don’t make me show you again) or (2) don’t know about these programs because, and here is the real deal they shouldn’t have to.

Don’t deny your in-game advantage while stating it in the same thread. Just don’t go there.

I take my hat off to the OP, who beat Liadri being colorblind and not seeing the red stuff on the floor. I am impressed. I mean that.
I beat Liadri in the very last second, downed, throwing dirt at her (ranger, downed skill 1).

Whether or not it is illegal is not a matter of opinion. It’s defined in the contract you sign before entering the game. But I’ve made this point before without results, so I won’t repeat the four or so clauses which are violated the moment you start using a notifier.

Dragonz.6953:

What the text message program can accomplish can also be accomplished by having TP up ingame and just hitting refresh over and over again.

This is false and misses the point – and you know it. The “refresher guy”, who has buy orders on 30 different items, can’t compete with a guy that gets notified on his buy orders on 30 different items automatically.

TP notifiers from programs such as Zicore and gold wars 2 have been around for a long time. I have raged against them on this forum, pointed out exactly which TOS + code of conduct rules these notifiers explicitly violated, but nothing happened. I fear that most traders use it though. I still refuse, at my own detriment.

F&F dyes.

And uhm, shekels? I…. like it. We should adopt this term on the BLT forum.
Does it have to be “golden shekels” though, or just “shekels”?