Guild Wars 2

CobaltSixty.1542:

Calae.1738:

Demand has not increased in any significant way recently. Supply however; has dropped substantially. We can debate what caused the supply drop but; from data that I am accumulating myself I can tell you for certain that the salvage rates were altered.

This is nothing new by the way. They do this all the time.

Actually, you can’t.

Yes I can.

I salvage hundreds of rares. I trust my own data. I’m not going to believe the arena net weather man to tell me it’s raining outside. I’m going to look out the window.

Demand has not increased in any significant way recently. Supply however; has dropped substantially. We can debate what caused the supply drop but; from data that I am accumulating myself I can tell you for certain that the salvage rates were altered.

This is nothing new by the way. They do this all the time.

The more I play WvW; the more I lose IQ. Knowing I’m being pelted by a skilless noob putting red circles on the ground. I wouldn’t mind a well aimed ballista shot to the face. I’d tip my hat to that guy.

LightningBlaze.4913:

WvW stat buffed with food and missing precision sigils

You have 30 points in air and Valkyrie gear? Where do you get all that toughness?

Very disappointed.

It feels like you guys have a crew of 5 people working on GW2. I have very little reason to buy gems and supporting you.

BlackBeard.2873:

Calae.1738:

I don’t know what you see in the focus.

You are right, it is useless on the whole, but incredibly useful when it does have an application. For instance, go to southsun cove and compare killing a karka with focus (reflect their spit attack and they basically kill themselves) vs. killing one with a dagger offhand. In other situations, where ranged damage management or reflection isn’t as mandatory, the focus performs quite poorly. Still, it does have situational uses in some endgame content where damage mitigation is key.

My damage mitigation investments are in toughness, vitality, mist form, lightning flash and dodge. I need my weapons to deal damage and crowd control.

The damage mitigation on the focus isn’t even that good. If they were better I might select different utilities and make different stat choices to augment my offensive output.

Smfx.2143:

again i dont expect anything from anyone…
I do expect you to take a lesson from me and be careful when buying these things
I am sorry you are to dense to understand that

We already know. Believe me we already know.

Just another fly getting trapped in the spider’s web.

I don’t know what you see in the focus.

The dagger provides insane burst damage: (Blazing Speed + Fire Grab, Lightning Flash + Churning Earth); a fire field, a 1200 range gap closer/escape tool and 3 crowd control abilities: (2 AoE knockdowns and an aura chill).

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Calae.1738:

The feeling is mutual my friend; believe me.

I don’t like playing with people that choose abilities because they look nice or the color of the butterflies matches their dress.

I don’t think I’ve ever run into anyone that picked skills for those particular reasons… Although, in GW1, I did run into an E/R that to this day, I share his skill bar just for the laugh.

But, in regards to GW2, for those that are going to fail that spectacularly, no build or armor could possible help them…ever. They could be speced exactly as desired, and still be nothing more than minion fodder (figuratively speaking, since we don’t actually need bodies for minions anymore -scowl-).

Yet, at the same time you could have taken someone in say…all rare armor of appropriate level, had a blast because they are a cool person, and still get through the content.

An inspect command isn’t going to give you that information. All an inspect command is going to do is make you more inclined to take person A over person B because they are geared/speced appropriately to your narrow view of ‘correctness’

Disclaimer – ‘you’ is used in the general sense. Not specifically aimed at individual poster.

We all play for different reasons. Some of these reasons change on the same day. Sometimes I want to play to win; other times I want to laugh with friends. When I play to win I expect the best. I don’t expect to carry dead weight on my shoulders.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Calae.1738:

Too many casuals will probably disagree with this.

It’s much better to remain hidden and not talk; not contribute. Especially when you’re wearing terrible equipment; specced into the worst traits and using the worst utilities.

lol yup

Because the ‘elitists’ know exactly how we should play. What class we should roll, what traits to take, what weapon (down to the specific skin even) that we should be using, what gear should be worn – down to the insignia and runes.

Oh yeah, I love having someone else dictate how I play my character.

No thanks.

The feeling is mutual my friend; believe me.

I don’t like playing with people that choose abilities because they look nice or the color of the butterflies matches their dress.

Windows 7 has a snipping tool.
Click start, in the search field type…. snipping tool.
You can snip out a portion of a GW2 screenshot.

Show us your stats you casuals!
What are you people running around with?

Too many casuals will probably disagree with this.

It’s much better to remain hidden and not talk; not contribute. Especially when you’re wearing terrible equipment; specced into the worst traits and using the worst utilities.

Lopez.7369:

You’re supposed to fail guild missions the first time and without guides. That’s the whole point. You don’t go into a WOW raid and expect to down every boss on the first try; you shouldn’t expect that for guild missions, either.

The fact the challenge is so easily negated by zergs and guides means scaling and difficulty need serious work. Guild missions are too easy right now.

I don’t think arena net knows how to make content difficult.

NTDK.4897:

The animation that is. You slam it into the ground like a hoe, and water come out.

It’s not a sickle animation.

It’s like they got lazy and re-skin the molten pick.

video from dulfy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZslBb43ySw

They have like 1 person working on this and he did it during his lunch break.

dronzer.8392:

I think it’s more what players are use to, this genre has evolved so much and players today are far less forgiving as they were in the past, when the expectations of things common, like in this example an advance release on patch notes aren’t done in the same timely manner as one is come to expect from titles of similiar genres one tends to think why? and their answer was something like things can change until the last minute? that to me is just saying the content isn’t in a readily released state, it’s not really a good way to work in my opinion though.
They should finalise the release, send out the notes and spend the remaining time polishing.

You talking about a genre that rewards players with candy every time they hit a pinata. You’re talking about a genre where the game calls you “my hero”.

This genre is breeding these types of people.

Has anyone tried this food buff?

Bowl of Saffron-scented Poultry Soup
100% chance to remove 2 condition when you use a heal skill.
+70 Healing
+10 Experience from kills.

Does it remove 2 conditions when you use healing skills on your weapons?

Could we not find a way for small groups to be equally effective? Do you think people just want bags and wxp?

What if a small group can cause as much damage as a zerg with 400 supply?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Amun Ra.6435:

A one-shot mechanic is not the answer. But it should be punishing.

I agree, difficulty should have a tension which is built up. So that you slowly experience the feeling of losing control – and then have the chance to prove yourself by fighting back with all your heart so that you turn the table.

Too slow and it’s too easy. The more time you give people to solve a problem the easier it is to solve it.

A jumping puzzle with time limits is a very basic and very good example. The player has to practice. Practice to perfection. That’s the extreme difficult scenario. You can always tweak things a little to allow for a certain number of player mistakes.

The best rewards should demand near flawless perfection.

It’s not how often you can use dodge that makes you more skilled; it’s how well you use it.

If dodge has a 10 second recharge and the NPC swings his 1 shot kill attack every 2 seconds; that developer needs to get a clue and go back to school.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Calae.1738:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Calae.1738:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

do you guys think?

You cannot create truly difficult and interesting content around invulnerability frames.

I disagree.

I’m sure they can create an NPC that one shots you with his club. The timing of your dodge has to be perfect. Too soon or too late and your dead. Add in a fake swing ability to fool the player into dodging early and you can create difficult content that demands precision, timing and awareness.

I had two conditions: difficult and interesting. This is interesting? This sounds as fun as scripted ambushes in FPS games with checkpoints, minus the checkpoints.

Unless I am missing your sarcasm…in which case, good show!

If you want to have an argument over what is interesting and what isn’t then we’re going to go around in circles forever.

What makes someone more skilled than another is his quick reflexes, reaction time and decision making. Making the right decision in a split second. The more time you give someone to make a decision the easier the problem is to solve.

I doubt what MMORPG players have in mind for meaningful, challenging content is a set of tests centered around “split second” decisions, the outcome of which depends on your innate reflexes. The FPS scene is that way ->->->

If ArenaNet implements your suggestion, do you think any significant portion of the population desiring harder content will be satisfied?

I’m taking about putting the dodge mechanic to good use. How many MMO’s have you played that has a dodge feature?

The less forgiving you make NPC’s and the more emphasis you place on the dodge mechanic; the greater the difference you’ll see in player skill. This will allow developers to create content that is tuned for players that have to react very quickly. It’s like keeping your head cool and maneuvering correctly to avoid a car crash.

This scheme may be successful in the short run but I predict that it will backfire in an epic way. I have less reasons to log in everyday and most people I play with feel the same. If Arena net has nothing substantial other than ascended weapons/armor come this November; they’re going to be in serious trouble.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Calae.1738:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

do you guys think?

You cannot create truly difficult and interesting content around invulnerability frames.

I disagree.

I’m sure they can create an NPC that one shots you with his club. The timing of your dodge has to be perfect. Too soon or too late and your dead. Add in a fake swing ability to fool the player into dodging early and you can create difficult content that demands precision, timing and awareness.

I had two conditions: difficult and interesting. This is interesting? This sounds as fun as scripted ambushes in FPS games with checkpoints, minus the checkpoints.

Unless I am missing your sarcasm…in which case, good show!

If you want to have an argument over what is interesting and what isn’t then we’re going to go around in circles forever.

What makes someone more skilled than another is his quick reflexes, reaction time and decision making. Making the right decision in a split second. The more time you give someone to make a decision the easier the problem is to solve.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

do you guys think?

You cannot create truly difficult and interesting content around invulnerability frames.

I disagree.

I’m sure they can create an NPC that one shots you with his club. The timing of your dodge has to be perfect. Too soon or too late and your dead. Add in a fake swing ability to fool the player into dodging early and you can create difficult content that demands precision, timing and awareness.

Vayne.8563:

That’s why hard mode should be added to dungeons. Unfortunately, Anet tried this and found out that now that they’ve made AC harder, all the people in favor of harder content seem to have vanished.

People say they want challenging content, but by percentage, most people want challenging content that gives them better loot than any other area of the game. Take away the loot and you take away the drive to do the content.

Risk versus reward.

Anything that you do that is easy can be repeated without failure. This is why the reward must be much lower than something that is difficult. The higher the difficulty the more likely you are to fail; even on repeated attempts. Failure rewards you with nothing; that is the risk you take.

More risk more profit; less risk less profit.

I’m quite sure that this is speculation.

Curo.2483:

Someone please teach me how to invest. I am terrible.

I foresaw Rosemary going up in price, so I bought a stack at 1s each. Over the next week, the price began to plummet, so I bailed and sold them at 80c each. Now they are ~4s each, a few weeks later.

I invested in Super Skins when they were rapidly increasing in price. Bought a Super Shield at 28g. It then did nothing but drop, and now it’s worth 11g.

Another 2 items which I will not mention have dropped by about 20% in the week or 2 since I invested in them. I’m hoping that this is going to be similar to what happened with Rosemary, and I will see a 300% increase, but I can’t be sure.

I opted not to invest in Sentintel’s Intricate Gossamer Insignias when they were 1.5g, and here they are over 6g now.

I am consistently making the wrong decisions. How do you guys do it? I’m just losing money. I made money flipping items in GW1, but not in GW2.

Rosemary Sprigs are at 12 silver now.

Buttercup.5871:

Yeah I dumped mine. Bought them for 70 copper each last week I think.

I used all my rosemary and made thousands of Herbed Poultry Stock. Thousands.

14 silver?

Picking weeds might be a good alternative to farming me thinks.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Calae.1738:

Astralporing.1957:

Calae.1738:

Anything that is easy is not worth doing.
Anything that is difficult is worth doing.

Both statements are blatantly false. There are a lot of easy things that are worth doing and/or need doing. There are a lot of things that are difficult, and yet completely without any value. Those two things are often completely disconnected from each other.

I don’t want to derail this thread but; I’d like to use a real world example.

Any easy task you can think of will one day be replaced by machines. There will be no human labor required. We use our ingenuity to overcome cumbersome obstacles and tasks that we don’t want to do.

If we continue to condition our brains by feeling rewarded after completing easy tasks; we risk developing a behavior that will automatically make us choose the path of least resistance.

Your example does not apply to games. Games are not tasks. If you turn a computer game into into a task and create routines to completely automate it, you are no longer playing the game.

Yes it does.

Research has shown that video games stimulate our brains far more than any other form of digital entertainment. The social nature of video games produce collaboration skills. Video games teach us problem solving and decision making skills. They teach us how to think critically and most importantly; they teach us how to fail. How to not be afraid of failure and how each failure brings us closer to success.

Some games can do this well. Others don’t.

Astralporing.1957:

Calae.1738:

Anything that is easy is not worth doing.
Anything that is difficult is worth doing.

Both statements are blatantly false. There are a lot of easy things that are worth doing and/or need doing. There are a lot of things that are difficult, and yet completely without any value. Those two things are often completely disconnected from each other.

I don’t want to derail this thread but; I’d like to use a real world example.

Any easy task you can think of will one day be replaced by machines. There will be no human labor required. We use our ingenuity to overcome cumbersome obstacles and tasks that we don’t want to do.

If we continue to condition our brains by feeling rewarded after completing easy tasks; we risk developing a behavior that will automatically make us choose the path of least resistance.

Vol.5241:

I really don’t recommend selling karma. Karma is actually pretty hard to get. It just doesn’t seem that way because you often don’t spend it and it accumulates rather slowly.

Imagine you spend 1.5 million karma and then Arenanet releases a bunch of new karma items that are valuable? It’s gonna be hard to get that karma in a reasonable time frame (especially since Plinx farm was nerfed a long time ago)

On a side note, it’s very efficient to save the karma from the jugs. Karma itself is not transferrable between characters but the jugs are. They are pretty cheap solutions for armor if you decide to craft-level a new character to 80 and want lvl 80 exotic gear.

You can gain karma effortlessly by doing almost anything. The currency itself is too easy to acquire therefore I think there will never be an item that Arennet will release in the future that can be bought with Karma.

The only thing that can make Karma more valuable is if they reduce the rate at which people can acquire it. They have tried to do that in the past and you remember what happened?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Calae.1738:

Anything that is easy is not worth doing.
Anything that is difficult is worth doing.

Difficulty should not be the stick by which you measure worth, as this is a game. FUN should be.

As such, easy things can be fun, and hard things may not be, thus making the easy things ‘worth’ doing and the hard things ‘not’ worth doing. It’s all personal perception.

If your statements were ‘always true’ no parent would ever play with their child. No person would ever buy games like Epic Mickey or Skylanders, which are easy (rather cheesy) and yet …wait for it…. still enjoyable.

Just doing something for the sake of difficulty is boring, and uninspiring.

I have a 5 year old nephew who got bored of Skylanders in less than a month.

I’ve installed an SNES emulator and downloaded the hardest SNES games I could find. Today I play with him from time to time and we solve puzzles together. Hard puzzles. Puzzles that even I have a hard time with. He thinks the games are too hard but I’m teaching him the value of hard work and effort. “Keep trying and you’ll eventually find the solution” I tell him.

I’ve already made the mistake of buying him easy games. I can already see behavioral trends steering him towards instant gratification. I’m working on reversing that.

He’s too young to fully understand the benefits of what I’m teaching him; one day when he gets older he will.

False.

Anything that is easy is not worth doing.
Anything that is difficult is worth doing.

There is nothing difficult enough to be worth doing in GW2. Even if there was difficult content; the reward isn’t enough to keep these players playing.

It’s completely normal to be bored with easy content. Eventually your brain shuts off and you’re on autopilot.

It’s still legal for them to do this. It will probably always be legal. The cost of ignorance is quite steep I agree. Although I wished we lived in a world where all humans weren’t ignorant; keep in mind that most people are willfully ignorant.

Taking advantage of that is way too easy.

That thing looks like it can swallow you whole. I’d still hit it though.

Svarty.8019:

John Smith.4610:

I always recommend to people when getting into investing of any kind to define your outs before you invest. Pick numbers for profit and loss and time early and stick to them.

Funny story. I once bought a bunch of Consortium Clipper skins because they were never going to drop anymore. Then I was happy that the price didn’t deflate and I kept hold of them as a long-term investment/hedge.

Then Arenanet made them drop from new content and my investment was ruined. Great job guys.

My advice is to never invest in anything ever. Someone will change the rules and leave you with nothing.

That’s another reason why I don’t invest in high risk low volume assets. Game developers with the flip of a switch can make an item go from rare to abundant.

BlackWolf.8605:

Calae.1738:

everything has no value; including your own time. Think about it.

isnt that the reason we play games?

That’s not what I meant.

Time is the only thing that has value in games. The reason it has value is because there are other things in the real world that are competing for that time. I’d like to think that those other things are more important than playing video games.

Therefore; if you found a way to buy everything you want in the game; you have found a way to be more flexible with your time. You can do the things that you want instead of doing the things that you need.

I cannot even begin to imagine how some people can repeat the same task for multiple consecutive hours without going completely insane.

If you can make over 100 gold per day without risk; there is nothing in this game that you cannot buy. In the end; everything has no value; including your own time. Think about it.

What you’re doing is very risky.

The reason there is little demand for these items is because the price is so high. If these items go up in price; you’re pricing more people out of that market reducing demand even farther.

You could make a lot of money assuming you find buyers at the price you’re selling. Now try to calculate how likely that scenario will occur.

John Smith.4610:

I always recommend to people when getting into investing of any kind to define your outs before you invest. Pick numbers for profit and loss and time early and stick to them.

This is good advice but I’d like to add a bit more.

High value assets with large profit margins generally have low demand due to their price; thus the risk of holding these assets are much greater than high volume trade assets.

High risk, high profit; low risk, low profit.

If you’re holding high risk assets; timing is everything. You can be also lucky and find a buyer at your price.

In a video game; I tend to invest in high volume consumable assets. Why? Even though their prices fluctuate greatly and profit margins are generally low; you can study the market trends in order to buy when demand is low and sell when demand is high.

It’s not very difficult to anticipate demand in a video game especially if you follow the trends. This enables me to calculate risk a lot easier.

Vol.5241:

It’s not hard to get wealthy in this game. 10g is impressive but no where near the richest people in the game.

I like how you use the term wealthy.

A millionaire in the real world can’t afford a nuclear submarine if it was legal for him to buy one.

Having 10,000 gold in GW2 is just a high score. It’s useless. You can’t even mail 20 gold to a random person without getting flagged.

When ecto prices drop, a lot of other items will drop as well and there will be many profit opportunities to be had.

DarkSider.1079:

I haven’t gone for karma gear since start of the game, been slowly but surely saving it up. I finally have enough to buy all the pieces of PVT, but can’t seem to find a group that can complete grenth or most of the others for that matter. There are too many high level spawns that don’t add to an events ambience, they detract from it by kicking mud in your face when you’re already trying a challenging event.

You can farm Malchor’s Leap like most of us are doing now; if that’s your thing.

You can buy Sentinel gear off the trading post Vitality, Power, Toughness.

What they need to do is improve their existing assets. Creating more zones and higher level caps would be foolish. That’s a steep investment that will occupy the player base for a very short amount of time.

There needs to be content that is challenging and rewarding.

Or else just keep making easy content that takes months to complete. yawn

-Dunegons with time limits and leaderboards.
-Unforgiving mechanics that MUST be evaded by dodging or jumping.
-Encounters require interruption of devastating abilities.
-Use of “Light of Sight” cover to prevent death from environment dynamics.

It’s an algorithm that hasn’t been coded properly. It’s obviously bugged.

My post was not intended to be insulting. It’s an observation from experience of playing online games since 1995. I have a hard time playing with casual players. Probably because casual play bores me too much.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Calae.1738:

Casual gamers can spend 8 hours a day playing a game. It’s what they do in the game that makes them casual. Playing the game on the easiest setting and never failing at any obstacle is a pretty good example.

I like being casual, in my opinion of the term, because I don’t always have to play the hardest content to the point that I’m getting frustrated and banging my head against the monitor. When my frustration grows I just log and and go for a walk or spend time with my girlfriend. I like the later best.

People respond to problems in different ways.

Some people are challenged by problems and motivated to find a solution. These are extremely valuable traits that you can bring with you in the real world.

Or you can run away from problems and give up. That’s the biggest difference between a casual and a hardcore. A casual gamer just wants to relax in the sun. No strategy development and thought process required.

I’m just going to sit down on this chair, press this button and get tickled.

MMORPG.com LOL

You’re not the only one who dislikes it.

I would be quite curious to see how the community would respond to a custom game type where you can modify and disable certain features.

I bet we could make an sPVP more fun than Arenanet can.