Guild Wars 2

Khisanth.2948:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Khisanth.2948:

daimasei.4091:

Good thing I only have 1 main and 1 alt. Free mules FTW!

Did that in GW1 and it was very inconvenient especially when searching for something.

Spreadsheet FTW!

That makes it even more inconvenient. Bad enough that I have to do this for dungeon story mode completion.

Not really, spreadsheet loads faster than the game itself and comes with search command too. I can also analyze the data in many different ways and view it on any web browser on any device.

Khisanth.2948:

daimasei.4091:

Good thing I only have 1 main and 1 alt. Free mules FTW!

Did that in GW1 and it was very inconvenient especially when searching for something.

Spreadsheet FTW!

aeneq.1760:

Again there is NO official TP API (and ANet has been working on oAuth support not for 2++++ years, pun intended).

The TP API is not official because it is not meant to be officially released as it is. But that does not mean that ANet is against legit apps using their TP api. If they are, they would have shut down gw2spidy, Zicore’s TP Notifier, and many other apps down by now. Yes, they can detect them and ban them if they really choose to. That api was reverse engineered and is just too hacky to be officially released.

Furthermore, they have to support the mobile scenarios and they can’t directly support the mobile scenarios, for trading, as the unofficial TP api is right now, without jumping through hacky hoops. Thus, the need for OAuth2 before they can officially release a TP api.

aeneq.1760:

Thats the motivation behind the APIs provided and supported however as DarkSpirit knows the TP api is not part of that API group officially.

Which was why I said “check TP prices” instead of performing trades on your mobile device. To perform trades, you need authentication so the server knows who you are. You can easily check TP prices today, on your mobile device, using either of these methods:

1) Use the publicized gw2spidy api. Doesn’t even require login credentials to work.

or

2) Use the unofficial TP api. Requires your GW2 login credentials to work. Risky for users because they have to trust the app.

However, ArenaNet is working on enabling OAuth2 with their official api. Once they have that up and running, they can then enable trading on mobile devices if they choose to. I suppose that answers your question.

It is not so much that ArenaNet is against legit apps hitting their TP server for trading but they just need a non-hacky way of acquiring login credentials outside of their game.

Dahkeus.8243:

If it weren’t for Bloodstone Dust, I wouldn’t give this a second thought…

Which is why some of the new recipes are 250 Bloodstone Dust instead of 2 Bloodstone bricks. This way, you have to retain some of your Bloodstone Dust as dust if you think that you may want to use those recipes in the future. Which means you would have to use more inventory space.

Smart don’t you think, especially considering the timing when this Collection Expander was released right after those new recipes?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

To be honest, the collections expansion was data mined ages ago and we knew it would be a gemstore item. At the time we were ok with that.

Really? I didn’t know about that so I guess that means I didn’t ok it. You guys knew it is going to cost $30?

Swagger.1459:

My question was not about botting, that is a separate issue. it was about why the use of 3rd party tools to monitor, access and use the tp while not actually logged into to the game is allowed and encouraged. A developer response to clarify would be great.

Because it allows 3rd party developers to provide convenience tools for the players, without using ArenaNet’s dev resources. Well they still need to maintain their api, but once that is stable, that maintenance work should be minimal.

Believe it or not, there are people who want to check TP prices, view events, view the maps, chat with their friends/guildies, etc. on their mobile devices.

glory to pristine toxic spore sample?

Fortus.6175:

You people are overexaggerating,

In every pvp match, in order to be enjoyable, it has to be fair. How would you like it if both you and your opponent know that the match is skewed before it even started? This is especially more so in 1:1 situations.

Even if you have full ascended and your opponent doesn’t, if you win, he would say that it is because of your gear advantage, not skill that won it for you. On the other hand, if you lose because of a gear disadvantage, you won’t feel good either. Even if the guy who beats you really have more skills than you, you would wonder how much of it is due to gear and how much is due to the player’s skills that have beaten you.

The guy who lost with the inferior gear may even say that you won because you have fewer real life responsibilities than he has, therefore you have more time to grind in this game, not because your skills are superior to his.

I know I won’t have the time to grind for ascended armor any time soon because of my busy life and I roam in WvW. If someone in WvW beats me with the obvious ascended armor skin, I would be tempted to think that way.

Fortus.6175:

, the stats it offers are minimal.

Sure it is….lol

Healix.5819:

Personally, I don’t see ascended gear as a grind, because rather than obtaining it as quickly as possible, I just build up the materials required. So what if I’m a month or two, or thee late. They are meant to be medium term goals after all. Any materials I don’t naturally obtain, I just buy with the other resources I do.

Unfortunately, you can’t buy vision crystals or its account-bound ingredients. These have to be obtained specifically. If your typical playing routine grants you empyreal, dragonite, and bloodstone then more power to you. Otherwise, you would have to change your routine to grind for them somehow.

Healix.5819:

WvWers have a little reason to complain about it, but WvW was designed to be unfair and who is really going to come into a situation where random group vs random group, ascended made the difference.

I agree that WvW is designed to be unfair, but adding more grind-based elements to widen the disparity further between “those who have more time to grind” vs “those who have more real life responsibilities and lesser time to grind” is still upsetting.

They have plans of adding progression through infusion slots, so although ascended gear might only be x% better now, expect it to be y% better next year and even more the year after that. Ascended runes and sigils will probably come at some point also.

Agreed.

They are never pointless as long as they give an advantage for someone in pvp/pve. Don’t believe those who say otherwise. These are usually the people who are going ascended themselves and just want to gain an advantage over you.

Phy.2913:

Enokitake.1742:

Ursan.7846:

You are absolutely correct.

This does not change the application of this concept on the PvE side of things.

If you think GW1’s grind was “better” because it doesn’t apply to PvP, go ahead.

Doesn’t change the fact that grind for more power on the PvE side does exist.

That’s true. It did affect it. But it was not crucial unless you chose to hardcore PVE, which is my argument. I’m not saying it did not exist, i’m saying it was not required unless you wanted to be in the Elite Zones super club.

GW2’s grind affects PVP via WvW, PVE both elite and casual, and SPVP’s new skin system if they decided to add ascended skins to the new SPVP skin locker carryover from PVE.

Which is the big difference between the two.

Then you should be crying in the WvW/PVP forums about stat increases instead of crying about grind.

Since WvW/PvP are a part of the game and this also affects PvE, I don’t see why he should discuss it there instead.

Ursan.7846:

stof.9341:

Ursan.7846:

42,000 from vanquishing (7 maps, around 300 creatures each, 20 factions per kill.)

Actually, it’s around 21000 faction points for vanquishing a 300 creature map. You get 20 faction per kill, and a vanquish bonus equal to 50 faction per kill.

21,000 * 7 = 147,000.

Thank you for your correction. There are still 800,000 more title points to go for.

I have 9 characters.

Furthermore, you get double title points by donating to guild or buying their pve skills with factions.

Enokitake made a good point. You are really compelled to get max stat ascended/legendary gear if you play WvW. Nobody wants to pvp at a disadvantage from the very start because of sub-par gear.

The way to enjoy pvp is in the condition of fairness before a match. If one player has ascended gear because he has more time grinding in the game and no real life responsibility while the other player holds a full time job, then it is not a fair match from the start. It is not a matter of skill anymore, and that kind of pvp design would suck!

Phy.2913:

GW1 had grind, rose tinted glasses make you believe it didn’t. The discussion is over perceived grind vs real grind. Do you have anything to add that isn’t opinion based? Just because YOU didn’t feel like something was a grind doesn’t mean it’s not grindy.

That is not what the discussion is about. Any of the two games have grind if you choose to grind. Of course you can grind in GW1, for example going for GWAMM, which is a purely cosmetic title, if you really want to. But in GW1, you do not need to grind for max stat gear after completing the game which is not the case for GW2.

Ursan.7846:

“Completing the game” gave you nowhere NEAR the faction required for the statistical max. Using Kurzick again for example, (1,200,000)

Turning in Shiro’s Return gave you 40,000 in normal mode, 120,000 in hard mode. The quests individually gave around ~500 faction, and there were around maybe ~20 to 30 quests (~10,000-15,000). Alliance battles average around 5000 factions per game. JQ/FA averages around 2000-3000 factions per game. Urgoz’s gives 5000 in normal, 10,000 in hard mode.

Do all that, and you are still nowhere NEAR the 1,200,000 required for the maximum statistical rank (r6).

You will end up having to repeat some content in order to get to the statistical maximum. And repeating content is something I define as a grind. A grind to earn statistical power increases.

Your estimate of 500 factions/quest is way too low. Many quests give an average of 750 and some even more than 1000. I suggest you look into the wiki to get more accurate numbers for your estimates:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kurzick_Faction

You are also forgetting that Faction spent in kurzick bureaucrat or its luxon equivalent grants you double title points for each faction when donating to your guild or buying their PvE skills.

Furthermore, almost all players have more than one character and since kurz/luxon titles are account-wide, you can perform the same quests/missions etc. all over again. This is not a grind either because you need to complete the game for each character in either case, even in GW2.

In essence, after you have completed the game you have, or at least be able to afford, all required pieces of max stat gear. If you love grinding, you always have that option of grinding for cosmetic gear and titles but you don’t have to. This has always been the case for GW1.

For GW2, after completing the game, you are no where near affording max stat ascended or legendary gear. That, is the big difference between the two!

OrianZeta.1537:

But don’t flat-out state that GW 1 contained “zero” grind. If you need to perform tasks to reach the same goal (pushing titles), even if there are different paths to do so, you’re still grinding away to raise a number on a bar.

There are always opportunities to grind if you want to grind. But just because someone decides to go for GWAMM and takes the route of maximum grind for the cosmetic title, doesn’t necessarily imply the entire game is all grindy. And that’s the problem with people who are effectively claiming oh I decide to go for GWAMM so I have to max 30 titles, therefore the entire game must be grindy for everyone since they all need GWAMM to complete this game, which is totally untrue.

There are many people who can complete the game and all its expansions without needing to max a single title. I am one of them since I completed the game long before maxing a single title on my characters.

Sylv.5324:

This does not include faction skills, which are acquired via grinding Factions PvP (Kurzick/Luxon skills), or PvE (GWEN skills and Kurzick/Luxon skills). Higher points in those titles resulted in more powerful skills. You keep ignoring them, but several of them are essential to various PvE hero and player builds. That absolutely was grind = more power, but what GW1 did was tie it to skills instead of equipment.

In practice, it meant a lot of doing FA or JQ over and over for Factions ones, and killing lots of stuff for bounties for that and the others.

It is not a grind if it can be acquired through normal game play and those can be acquired through normal game play. It only takes 3,000 factions to acquire a Kurz/Luxon skill and you can’t possibly proceed through the campaign without at least 10,000 factions, so how can it be a grind? Furthermore, purchasing such skills increases your allegiance title even further.

Sylv.5324:

Also, it was not possible to ever get rank 10 luxon or kurzick or deldrimor or norn or asura or ebon vanguard or lightbringer, etc, etc, through casual play, let alone quickly.

And why do you need rank 10 luxon or kurzick or deldrimor? For the stupid cosmetic titles? You only need rank 5 (6 for kurz/luxons, 4 for LB) to get max stat versions of those skills.

Sylv.5324:

To get max level GW:EN and Factions skills, you absolutely had to grind them. To unlock a skill via a tome, you had to have the skill unlocked already via PvP or on an alt.

Edit: You also had to grind out those title skills on each alt.

Ok, that is because I have unlocked all the skills in GW1 already, if it is so difficult how did I unlock all of them on both my accounts?

A skill can be learned by
- Completing certain quests which reward the player with a skill.
- Purchasing a skill from a skill trainer (except for PvE-only skills).
- Purchasing a skill from a Hero skill trainer (except for non-Sunspear PvE-only skills).
- Capturing a skill from a boss.
- Switching secondary profession, which adds the set of default basic skills for each profession.

You just need to look at all your options.

Sylv.5324:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Sylv.5324:

Zoid.2568:

No it didn’t feel like a grind at all. It felt like you were a hunter or a traveler exploring the world looking for rare items or something, it didn’t feel like a grind. You were on a journey.

That’s what happened when you played through it. Endgame was a grind. You ground for skills, titles (that gave skills and whose power increased as it went on), zkeys, faction, mats for tormented weapons, ectos and such for obby armors, orrian thingies for booze, holidays for sweet points, vaettir and raptors for faction and wisdom title, etc.

I don’t think most of us minded this.

But these end games grind in GW1 are merely for more gold and cosmetic items. And the desirability of cosmetic items are always subjective. Some people like obsidian armor on their characters while others consider them ugly. At least you don’t have to suck during gameplay for not having max stat gear since you can get those so much more easily in GW1 by playing normally.

In GW2, however, you grind for more effective gameplay powers (e.g. max stat ascended/legendary weapons/armors/trinkets) which is the big difference here!

No, you also ground (grinded?) for more, and more powerful skills. In PvP, it was to unlock skills; in PvE it was to unlock more powerful tiers of PvE-only skills.

Like I have already said, you can easily gain max stat PvE-only skills by playing the game normally because you already gain max stat PvE-only skills in mid rank. You don’t have to max your rank to gain max stat PvE-only skills.

As for unlocking PvP skills, it is so easy. You can unlock PvP skills through Balthazar Factions that you gained by PvPing, or you can gain it through PvE normal game play or buying it from a skill vendor or just get a skill tome.

Ursan.7846:

Rank 6 Kurzick took 1,200,000 faction to earn.

The most optimal Kurzick farm earned you like 40,000 an hour.

That’s approximately 30 horus STRAIGHT of doing a repetitive task over, and over, and over again. For one title track. How is this NOT a grind?

And these PvE skills are the bread and butter of PvE, especially in high-level content. IMBAgons were a huge staple, and completely relied on 2 PvE skills (Sunspear and Kurzick) which you had to grind out. Look at PvXwiki, skills such as Asuran Scan and the Ebon Vanguard battle standards are pretty common.

GW1 definitely had a grind.

You forgot that farming is not the only way to gain allegiance title points? You can also get lots of allegiance title points by simply playing the game.

You can get also get allegiance title points by playing:

- PvP like Allegiance Battle, Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood
- Performing all the quests and missions in the Luxon/Kurzick areas (both normal and hard mode)
- Completing Shiro’s Return book by completing missions (both normal and hard modes)
- Completing Young Heros of Tyria book by completing starter missions (hard mode)
- Completing Competitive Missions
- Playing in the faction’s challenge/elite missions.
- Killing monsters while under the respective faction priest blessing (both normal and hard mode)
- Vanquishing in the Luxon/Kurzick areas (hard mode)
- Exchanging faction points for kurzick/luxon skills
- Exchanging faction points for passage scrolls to Urgoz/deep
- Exchanging faction points for amber/jadeite
- Donating faction points to your guild
etc.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Allegiance_rank

With all these, it should easily get you to rank 6 for max stat skills just by playing the game.

aspirine.6852:

The luxon and kurzick max title was a grind indeed. But doing the deep or urgoz, or vanquising the areas are by no means a grind for me. I did those for fun, long after I got both tiltes maxed.

Sure but like I have said, you can already max your allegiance skills at mid rank (rank 6 in this case) and maxing the title itself is only for cosmetic purpose and for working towards GWAMM, which is also a cosmetic title.

GW2 grind, on the other hand, gates your max stat gear (ascended/legendary) which directly impacts your gameplay effectiveness.

Valanga.5942:

Shockwave.1230:

I’ve got lots of posts about the title progression impact on skills from Guild Wars 1 in conversations I’ve had with Vayne.8563.

You could grind out the titles if you wanted to, but very early in the title progression the title rank grind stops impacting the power of most skills.

Additionally many of the skills are great as soon as you get them without having title ranked at all.

Yeah, but you know, since Vayne first came up with that story about GW1 grind, it has become the first line of defense for GW2’s grind…

Then it is misleading. Also GW2 grind affects how much you “suck” in gameplay by gating max stat ascended/legendary gear while GW1 grind only applies to cosmetic effects.

Vorch.2985:

As a GWAMM, I am shocked at the ability of people to forget the crazy amount of farming required to get max level in titles to increase the effectiveness of PvE skills and resistances to certain effects.

Hero (Fast) Faction Farming (HFF or HFFF), Lightbringer and Sunspear point farming, EotN title farming…all of which gave a statistical advantage for endgame content…all of which (besides faction farming) was CHARACTER bound.

Nostalgia through rose-tinted glasses.

I am a GWAMM too, on both my accounts. Like I have already proven, you only need mid rank to get max stat PvE skills, you don’t have to max your title.

GWAMM and maxing titles are only cosmetic, it doesn’t grant you more power in gameplay.

Vorch.2985:

Look at the effects under the lightbringer title.

Your build is more important than that title. Furthermore lightbringer is probably the easiest PvE title to max (only max rank of

8)

Sylv.5324:

Zoid.2568:

No it didn’t feel like a grind at all. It felt like you were a hunter or a traveler exploring the world looking for rare items or something, it didn’t feel like a grind. You were on a journey.

That’s what happened when you played through it. Endgame was a grind. You ground for skills, titles (that gave skills and whose power increased as it went on), zkeys, faction, mats for tormented weapons, ectos and such for obby armors, orrian thingies for booze, holidays for sweet points, vaettir and raptors for faction and wisdom title, etc.

I don’t think most of us minded this.

But these end games grind in GW1 are merely for more gold and cosmetic items. And the desirability of cosmetic items are always subjective. Some people like obsidian armor on their characters while others consider them ugly. At least you don’t have to suck during gameplay for not having max stat gear since you can get those so much more easily in GW1 by playing normally.

In GW2, however, you grind for more effective gameplay powers (e.g. max stat ascended/legendary weapons/armors/trinkets) which is the big difference here!

OP is a common attack on GW1 based on ignorance to mislead people who are not familiar with the latest state of the game in GW1 long before GW2 was even released.

You can already get max stat on your skills at rank 5 out of a max of 10 for ALL PvE-only skills (rank 6 out of max 12 for Cathan PvE skills). Furthermore, they purposefully made the power increases per rank to be very gradual until you hit max stat at mid rank, so you hardly even feel it while leveling up.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_PvE-only_skills

It is easy to get mid rank just by playing normally so it doesn’t feel like a grind to max out your PvE-only skills. And every new expansion you buy, you would play it normally, otherwise why buy the expansion if you don’t intend to play it right?

So it is easy to get mid rank and thus, max out your PvE-only skills for that expansion, by playing normally.

Which is why for crafting materials like these, only store the refined version if you have to use actual slots (i.e. outside of your collectibles pane) to store them. For example, store cured coarse leather squares instead of coarse leather squares. This would help you to store more.

Arrelaine.5692:

I’m just amused that the people who flew all the way out there aren’t complaining as much as human t3. It certainly cost them more to get it, and it’s an exclusive!!

Not everyone needed to fly there, I know I certainly didn’t since I live near the area. If you did fly there just for a mini, then too bad for you, you have too much cash to waste anyway. But most reasonable people would fly there for the con instead of just for the mini.

It is a mini that doesn’t affect the game and doesn’t affect the economy, so I don’t see what the big deal is. Crying over something purely cosmetic is just….sorry but it is….pathetic.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

You can buy all the ascended leather squares you will ever need at cost off the TP. People buying up leather must be ignorant of this fact.

At an expensive cost that is.

It is still well worth crafting Elonian Leather Squares and has been so for quite a while now.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/7307

But hey if you need more Elonian Leather Squares and you can’t craft more than 1 Spool of Thick Elonian Cord (one of its ingredients) per day, feel free to buy it off the TP for a premium. That’s how I make my gold.

I don’t know what is the big deal, it is not like mini Mr. Sparkles is going to transform to a giant robot to help you in PvE/WvW anyway. Furthermore, he is not trade-able so he is not going to make you rich either.

All people did was just to show up and attend the con. I don’t see why that is such a super feat of skill that it deserves to be rewarded with a mini that is exclusive to that event. It is not a must-have and I don’t collect minis myself because I think it is a waste of gold to buy something that would not help me in the game whatsoever.

You guys complain just for the sake of complaining something. I support AreaNet’s action on this promotion since it helps bring in income for them and thus, helps the game development.

BlazingZero.9702:

hello everyone, firstly thank you The Talcmaster for creating this awesome post. This really helps a lot for people like me who want to write a bit of program to access the TP outside of the game.

As I’m pretty new to using JSON, I would like to know how can I authenticate myself when accessing the TP? I’m using C# on Unity.

The purpose of authenticating is to obtain a session key which you can then set in your cookie (i.e. s=<your session key guid>) to accompany further transactions with the TP server. 2 ways of authenticating:

1. Obtain a higher privileged session key that has access to your account transactions, etc. :- You need to login with your GW2 client then obtain this session key either through fiddler or through other means (e.g. reading it off the GW2 client process memory or reading it off the GW2 browser cache).

2. Obtain a lower privileged session key by doing a HTTPS POST to https://account.guildwars2.com/login?redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftradingpost-live.ncplatform.net%2Fauthenticate%3Fsource%3D%252F&game_code=gw2 with the following parameters:

email = <your email address that you use to login to GW2>
password = <your password that you use to login to GW2>

Note that method 2 doesn’t require your GW2 client to be running and is useful for querying most of the data that you may need from the TP. I recommend using method 2 as your default means of authentication and only fall back to method 1 when you need to perform privileged transactions (e.g. create buy orders, cancel transactions, query current or past transactions, etc.) on your account.

My app doesn’t have a problem using the same TP api as the game, seems like it maybe a client-side issue.

Khisanth.2948:

API servers within hours before a new patch hitting is unreliable.

I wasn’t aware that an update was coming. It is fixed now. Thanks.

Ah…I wasn’t aware that an update was coming, I have been out of touch with the recent news lol!

Thank you very much for looking into it Stefan!

Today’s update:

Additional recipes for ascended back-item pieces have been added to the Mystic Forge for players who don’t play the fractals.
All of the ascended back-item pieces that required 1 vial of Condensed Mists Essence can now be forged with Bloodstone Dust instead.
A total of eight recipes have been added.

In response to my previous posts on this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Relics-of-Orr-interview-with-John-Smith/first#post3242729

Thank you very much, ArenaNet!

https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/events.json?world_id=1009

returns

{"events":[]}

Not sure if it is related but querying for world names: https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/world_names.json

only returns:

[{"id":“1011”,“name”:“Stormbluff Isle”},
{"id":“1018”,“name”:“Northern Shiverpeaks”},
{"id":“1017”,“name”:“Tarnished Coast”},
{"id":“1001”,“name”:“Anvil Rock”},
{"id":“2010”,“name”:“Seafarer’s Rest”},
{"id":“1008”,“name”:“Jade Quarry”},
{"id":“1015”,“name”:“Isle of Janthir”},
{"id":“1013”,“name”:“Sanctum of Rall”},
{"id":“1020”,“name”:“Ferguson’s Crossing”},
{"id":“1003”,“name”:“Yak’s Bend”},
{"id":“1007”,“name”:“Gate of Madness”},
{"id":“1019”,“name”:"Blackgate"},
{"id":“1010”,“name”:“Ehmry Bay”}]

No Fort Aspenwood.

Stefan Larimore.6872:

I’m taking a look. Thanks for the heads up.

I don’t know what you did but it seems to be working now. Thanks Stefan.

However, events.json is broken now. Ok, it is because I was querying for “Fort Aspenwood” (world_id = 1009) which has since disappeared from world_names.json.

Details here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/api/BUG-Fort-Aspenwood-events-have-disappeared/first#post3263759

Aberrant.6749:

DarkSpirit.7046:

TooBz.3065:

Who said there is no difference or that gear doesn’t matter at all?

You can get “good enough” gear for PvE in the game easily enough. WvW is a different beast, but people constantly claim that you don’t need BiS gear there either (zerg). So the ability to buy ascended gear with cash probably wouldn’t affect things too much, outside of the obvious outrage.

However, I would pit any class I have at 80 in white gear against a brand new, never played the game, anyone who bought a level 80 and a legendary. And I am far far far (FAR) from the best player.

So obviously gear does make a difference. Try clearing the same dungeon in all white gear if anyone disagrees.

And of course WvW, especially if you fight 1-v-1 in there.

Tbh… even in a 1v1 it would have to be a very close fight for the gear to matter between exotic (very easy to obtain, using whites is a sraw man argument) and ascended. It can make up for a slight amount of skill, but it’s not an I win button by any means.

Seriously if you feel gw2 is a p2w game, you should go play some korean f2p games to gain some perspective.

Nah…I never claim that gw2 is a p2w game, at least not yet.

Gear does matter, but the best gear in the game right now requires spending time in certain locations to acquire, not gems or gold.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Ursan.7846:

There are games in which paying for gear/guns/tanks pretty much guarantees a win over other players in a competition.

In GW2, due to the nature of the combat, max gear is no guarantee of a victory.

Even so, it does help. Especially in sPvP/WvW, every single bit of stat helps you to win against your opponent.

Not true. Skill has greater weight than stats.

Let’s just imagine you wearing all white gear and me on ascended. Even though I have not pvp much, I would be very confident to win against you. If you don’t believe me, we can try that out.

Ursan.7846:

There are games in which paying for gear/guns/tanks pretty much guarantees a win over other players in a competition.

In GW2, due to the nature of the combat, max gear is no guarantee of a victory.

Even so, it does help. Especially in sPvP/WvW, every single bit of stat helps you to win against your opponent.

Qaelyn.7612:

It doesn’t raise the cost by 1c. It raises it by a lot more — or it makes the purchase much slower.

I decide I want to buy an item. The lowest offer is 27g. I put in a bid for 20g. A few minutes later someone using some cheesy software tool notices the price and puts in a new bid for 20.0001g. I don’t get my item. Next day I notice a pile more cheesy bids, so I put in a new bid for say 21g. Same thing happens again.

My only choices are to wait for days and days, sit at the TP all day and hope I get lucky, increase my bid to the point where the flippers can’t make a profit, or just cough up the 27g to buy the item listed. Regardless, the flippers have made the item cost a LOT more by their presence.

Spending more time on the TP equates to saving you more gold. It is the old gold vs time trade-off that has been there for centuries. There is nothing unfamiliar about this.

I would agree that flippers bring in more competition but competition is suppose to be good for the market as a whole. It is bad for you personally if you are trying to buy the item, but you are not seeing both sides of the coin. As a seller, I would be happy seeing competition on the buy side reducing the spread between max offer and min sale prices.

And of course, the higher-cost item I buy will likely be one that some flipper bought for 20.0004g or something.

It has to be this way, because all of the profit on any item flip comes indirectly from whoever initially found/made the item and whoever ends up actually using it. Flippers add no value whatsoever to this market. They are economic leeches.

That is not true. Flippers make money from people who go for convenience or they need the gold fast. Some people just want instant sales regardless of whether they are buying or selling. That is where their gold come from. Flippers earn by trading their time to do their TP activity.

Essentially flippers are both buyers as well as sellers. Sure they jack up demand initially but having more demand is good for the sellers. By discouraging people to flip, it would effect the entire market in a negative way.

All those items that you got from your champ farming? Good luck trying to earn a profit when everyone is doing the same champ farm and flippers are now discouraged from spuring demand on the market.

TooBz.3065:

DarkSpirit.7046:

TooBz.3065:

Who said there is no difference or that gear doesn’t matter at all?

You can get “good enough” gear for PvE in the game easily enough. WvW is a different beast, but people constantly claim that you don’t need BiS gear there either (zerg). So the ability to buy ascended gear with cash probably wouldn’t affect things too much, outside of the obvious outrage.

However, I would pit any class I have at 80 in white gear against a brand new, never played the game, anyone who bought a level 80 and a legendary. And I am far far far (FAR) from the best player.

So obviously gear does make a difference. Try clearing the same dungeon in all white gear if anyone disagrees.

And of course WvW, especially if you fight 1-v-1 in there.

Conceded. But wasn’t the question how the game would change if you could buy gear for cash?

It would depend on the type of gear for sale. If ArenaNet comes up with another gear tier that is more powerful than ascended, and the only way to get it is to buy it from the gem store, then I believe many people would protest but many more would flock to buy them.

The game would change for the worse then. WvW and this game in general would be considered to be only for the gem-rich.

Qaelyn.7612:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Do not underestimate the number of speculators who use the TP, I wont be surprised if speculators make up as much as half or more of the players who use the TP regularly.

And if Arenanet intends the TP to be for that purpose, great. I thought it was to facilitate player trade, not to encourage electronic Carl Icahns.

Are you saying that ArenaNet never expected that we would ever use the TP to speculate and earn gold? You’re kidding right?

It is part of the design of the TP to enable that.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Also remember that for EACH order it may only look like a negligible increment of 1c to you, but for a flipper who buys 250 orders, it is an increment of 2s50c each time he tries to outbid you, which is hardly negligible. Many of those who claim that the 1c increment is too negligible simply forgot about the Quantity field.

To quote a famous bandit: you’re kidding, right?

It’s about percentages. If the base item is 100g and your increment is 1c, yes, it is negligible, no matter what the quantity.

Like I have said many times, using your 5% increment is doomed to fail. 5% of 20c is exactly 1c, <sarcasm>big change here.</sarcasm>

DarkSpirit.7046:

And furthermore, keeping the bids of flippers out of the TP buy orders is just going to raise inflation at the detriment of the economy. Instead of having their gold locked up in TP buy orders, they are now free to use them on something else.

That’s pretty hilarious.

What flippers actually do is raise costs for people who just want items to use.

Sure they raise unit cost by 1c, is that suppose to be a big deal? So now you want to raise the same cost by 5% increment instead?

Buttercup.5871:

Better? Heck yea, as those programs scan the entire TP for you, spotting, calculating and alerting you to opportunities on the fly. You couldn’t even do that yourself in game if you tried, especially not at that speed.

First of all, you really don’t know what you are talking about. Scanning the entire TP? What makes you think that our apps scan the entire TP? Flood control would have a field day.

Second of all, it is only a cheat because you PERSONALLY say it is, not ArenaNet. So when are you going to quit deceiving others in this forum by pretending to represent ArenaNet without an ArenaNet tag? But no matter, only the gullible would think that you represent ArenaNet’s views on this. Especially when ArenaNet has officially released even more API into their game giving even more advantages to third party apps and websites! Explain that.

Kaon.7192:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Kaon.7192:

Before you start saying you can choose to bid in more than 1c increments, it is completely irrational to do so in the current market climate

Your idea of increasing the bids increments for high prices would just put expensive items even more out of reach of most players other than the super rich.

It would make each competitive bid tangibly drive prices toward equilibrium. Whether it be higher or lower than the status quo is up to the current level of demand. It is impossible to judge where the actual equilibrium lies for certain items precisely because of the lack of agility in current market prices.

This will reduce spread and reduce (but not remove) the opportunity for profit in flipping for high priced, low volume items. That is the whole point of this change.

A lower spread benefits everyone except traders that depend on spreads to flip items and turn a profit, because actual buyers can buy immediately at lower prices and actual sellers can sell immediately to higher buy orders. And everyone will be getting closer to what the market deems to be a fair price i.e. the equilibrium price point.

Of course I don’t expect flippers to agree with this change due to conflicts of interest, but I’m sure most reasonable people can understand that having more items closer to equilibrium pricing is healthier for the game economy as a whole.

Do not underestimate the number of speculators who use the TP, I wont be surprised if speculators make up as much as half or more of the players who use the TP regularly.

Also remember that for EACH order it may only look like a negligible increment of 1c to you, but for a flipper who buys 250 orders, it is an increment of 2s50c each time he tries to outbid you, which is hardly negligible. Many of those who claim that the 1c increment is too negligible simply forgot about the Quantity field.

And furthermore, keeping the bids of flippers out of the TP buy orders is just going to raise inflation at the detriment of the economy. Instead of having their gold locked up in TP buy orders, they are now free to use them on something else.

Kaon.7192:

Before you start saying you can choose to bid in more than 1c increments, it is completely irrational to do so in the current market climate

It is not completely irrational to do so. I do that sometimes if I want to discourage competitors. There are also many times I prefer to buy instantly than to spend time in a bidding war. It is the old time vs gold trade-off.

Your idea of increasing the bids increments for high prices would just put expensive items even more out of reach of most players other than the super rich. Furthermore, it would destroy flipping markets at the higher price items. If the item with 10g selling price has a buy order of 8g40s, then there is really point in flipping anymore because you would have to bid 8g50s which would break even. So instead of the bids being able to go as high as 8g45s in the current system, flippers would have to stop at 8g40s and the sellers would also earn less in your proposal. Fewer people being able to bid or flip would just throw more money out of the TP buy orders and increase inflation on other items.

TooBz.3065:

Who said there is no difference or that gear doesn’t matter at all?

You can get “good enough” gear for PvE in the game easily enough. WvW is a different beast, but people constantly claim that you don’t need BiS gear there either (zerg). So the ability to buy ascended gear with cash probably wouldn’t affect things too much, outside of the obvious outrage.

However, I would pit any class I have at 80 in white gear against a brand new, never played the game, anyone who bought a level 80 and a legendary. And I am far far far (FAR) from the best player.

So obviously gear does make a difference. Try clearing the same dungeon in all white gear if anyone disagrees.

And of course WvW, especially if you fight 1-v-1 in there.

TooBz.3065:

People would complain a lot. Other than that it wouldn’t make much difference.

Gear =/= skill.

Try white/fine/masterwork gear, then try ascended/legendary gear, then come back and tell us there is absolutely no difference.

If there is absolutely no difference then everyone would be wearing white gear because they are the cheapest.