Guild Wars 2

Shortage.5427:

Remember back in vanilla were traits were more complex and you had a long variety of playthroughs. There was even gear progression and gold came by harder.

Traits were more complex because they were also more confused. You could put points into, say, Fire Magic and get +power and +crit dmg. There was more choice at each juncture, sure, but that was because most of them were trash. And the “gold came by harder” has a lot to do with player knowledge and inflation. Difficulty of currency acquisition =/= better rewards.

Shortage.5427:

Back then you would kill a mob because you need the mats, right now mobs are just a nuisance to just make you go slower. Right now Traits are simplistic and too linear, even the raids are forcing you to play exact builds or you are worthless.

Again, players got wiser. We realized that farming a mob for a mat was rarely worthwhile, by design. That’s what balances the economy. Farming for gold and buying from the TP is a huge mechanism for balancing inflation. Traits are more linear and simple, but for two reasons: 1) Linearity was necessary for the specialization system, which looks to have much better futureproofing than vanilla, and 2) having fewer options at each point of choice means those traits can be bigger, more important, and less trashy (though the last is dependent on game balance and the meta/content).

Let’s be clear here, nothing, nothing at launch was even close to the difficulty of raids now. Raids need more specific builds because they make the high-end content of vanilla look like peanuts; at launch, things were difficult more because there wasn’t an established corpus of game knowledge. And if you have a very good, speedy group, you can afford to run less optimal builds. Skill does matter.

Egg Shennn.6240:

But can we get a better idea of what it is? Seems just like a city with bank/vendors/BL, so why would I need/want it?
Is this a teleport stone to that place or something?
Can you get there any other way?

Presumably it is a teleport to a little area in the expansion with bank, TP, crafting, etc all close together. Many of these already exist in the game (Royal Terrace, Havoc’s Heir, Mistlock Sanctuary, Lava Lounge, Noble’s Folly).

This is just insane to me. For years these forums have had numerous threads asking about mounts. Now we get them and 50% of what I see is people whining “but muh generic mmo” as if adding a single feature suddenly makes GW2 a WoW clone.
If you’re going to say that “it makes the game a cookie cutter mmo” then you aren’t actually critiquing what Anet is doing. All you have managed to say is that other games successfully implement idea X and that therefore somehow X is bad.

I presume that it will not. This was originally implemented so that you couldn’t move it into your inventory, try out a class, then delete that char (and the boost) because you didn’t like it. This way you can’t make that mistake.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

But i am worried that HoT masteries will have no place in this xpac. No glider sucks:/

There is gliding in PoF.

I really only have 2 main points:

1) Make it three or four items per line, or at the very least make each row the height of an item on the normal TP. Seriously. The scrolling in the gemstore has always been excessive, and this is your chance to reduce it. Another possibility for this problem would be to give the gemstore the “I am Evon Gnashblade” cheat code.

2) Remove the drop-down menu from each tab at the top, or at least reduce it. If the categories are actually well-designed, I don’t need to see 9 of the items in that category, and the little ad on the side is just excessive when we already have the main page.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Nyx.6532:

but it is a hard choice as “what else do you do to make people keep playing for years”. to that my answer would be “make the gameplay Fun!”.
[…]

i personally think that focusing a Lot more on making the existing world feel a lot more alive (put in tons of new events, make it so it rotates the even much more, let the events have creator impact on the area they are in, let enemies build castle’s and defend them, monsters take over town and enslave npc’s etc. generally just polish the world and make it more alive) would be the right way to created more content for GW2.
adding more area’s now is kind of pointless the maps area is already so insanely big that there is absolutely no need for more “space”, there is a need for more reasons to actually be in the maps and do the events and feel like its not all a “repeat” again and again.

They tried that. But here’s the thing: have you played every event in Kessex Hills at least once? Almost certainly not. Why? Because there wasn’t much point in doing so. You quickly outleveled the zone, nor did it take long to explore it. The events simply aren’t rewarding for you. Why cares about 80c, 300 karma, and a few thousand XP? Even if Anet did an update where they added 20 new events per existing map, you’d barely notice it other than, “Oh hey, I’ve never seen this one before.” For that to be worthwhile, there would need to be serious rewards behind them. And now we’re back to the burden of optimal play.

But guys, what if there’s a golem uprising in Rata Sum, and someone turned off the sedition inhibitors? Then we’d all have to bow down to our new golem overlords.

Zaiato.7346:

So from those who have done it what recipe is better in terms of risk do I risk more mats for more reward or just take the slow and t safer way?

For both, they have the same odds of success. The 10 clovers, though, will have higher variance because it requires less tries, and thus a smaller sample size. So 10 is a bit riskier, even though they have the same rates. Personally, I’d do the 1 recipe; I don’t think the fewer tries is worth the higher variance.

Ohoni.6057:

To claim that there is a large population that would care about having couches be denied to them is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that this is a true statement. To claim that a significant population would care if rocking chairs were denied them is an unreasonable assertion, since there is no real reason to believe that this is the case.
You can’t assert one thing makes sense and another doesn’t, give no evidence, and expect it to be accepted.

And yet your own example proves you wrong. “Couches” is a more reasonable assertion than “rocking chairs.”

I’m honestly not even sure what to say. The whole POINT is that both are equally nonsensical in that there’s nothing behind either. The idea that ‘couches’ is a more reasonable assertion than ‘rocking chairs’ is utterly unsupported. I’m pointing out that you’re just asserting that one is more correct, and your answer is to…assert that one is more correct.

I said you can’t assert one thing makes more sense, give no evidence, and expect it to be accepted. Your response was…to assert that one thing makes more sense, give no evidence, and act as if that’s an argument.

Ohoni.6057:

Rewards symbolize progress, if you could buy the wings with 200 gems I don’t think you’d want them since they’d be accessible to everyone with no effort.

Care to test that theory?

Agemnon, you missed the point. Ohoni wants everything to be accessible to everyone with little effort.

Ohoni.6057:

To claim that there is a large player population that would care about having titles be denied to them is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that this is a true statement. To claim that a significant population would care if cosmetic items were denied them for not completing the associated tasks is an unreasonable assertion, since there is no real reason to believe that this is the case.

. . .

I’m sorry, I don’t even understand how someone could miss the entire point so spectacularly. I can’t even formulate a response to this, “it’s turtles all the way down.”

Incredulity is not an argument, and I fail to see how anything here is infinite regression. That said, let’s try it with something completely different:
To claim that there is a large population that would care about having couches be denied to them is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that this is a true statement. To claim that a significant population would care if rocking chairs were denied them is an unreasonable assertion, since there is no real reason to believe that this is the case.
You can’t assert one thing makes sense and another doesn’t, give no evidence, and expect it to be accepted.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s fair, a couple others have agreed with you. That said, I don’t think you’d be singing the same tune if you did have the majority. Either way, do you have anything better to use?

If I did have the majority behind me, on a thread in the PvP forum? Yeah, that would probably have a bit more weight behind it, but lacking that majority where it wasn’t expected in the first place, who cares?

That’s a good question. Who cares, Ohoni?

Ohoni.6057:

If the people at Anet and NCSoft thought they could do better with that, they would have done it.

You mean like with the first time they overhauled how traits work, or the second? They change their mind. Again, nobody disagrees with you that they felt they were doing the right thing when they made their decisions, so I don’t see why you keep arguing that point. All I’m saying is that they can, and it is my belief that they should change their minds in this case.

So we’re back to asserting previous premises and not even quoting half my point.

Ohoni.6057:

So you’re arguing that the Ascension wings are ‘preposterously different’ compared to LS S1 because a group of people probably think that a collection of varying skins and items are worth less than a particular other skin. Even for you that makes no sense.

“and yet it moves.”

And yet it doesn’t answer anything.

Ohoni.6057:

So just ignore all the people that disagree with you and make sure to pander to your particular wants because it’s you.

No.

Then could you explain what this means?

Ohoni.6057:

So nobody would care except those who would care, and your answer to them is lol because you don’t actually have an answer. Got it.

You can’t please everyone.

So this time we hit strawman, double standard, repeating of previous assertions, and maybe half-deflection. 3.5 out of 6

Ohoni.6057:

There’s a reason I put those terms in quotes. All you’ve done is assert that one is somehow less reasonable than the other, when they use the same reasoning.

But again, “reasonable” is ALWAYS context-dependent. “I need food” is a reasonable statement, we need food to live. “I need chocolate” is an unreasonable statement, you can live without chocolate, you might want it, but do not need it. So likewise, to claim that there is a large player population that would care about having cosmetic items be denied to them is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that this is a true statement. To claim that a significant population would care if titles were denied them for not completing the associated tasks is an unreasonable assertion, since there is no real reason to believe that this is the case.

The double standard could not be clearer; just imagine it read like this:
To claim that there is a large player population that would care about having titles be denied to them is reasonable, there is no reason to doubt that this is a true statement. To claim that a significant population would care if cosmetic items were denied them for not completing the associated tasks is an unreasonable assertion, since there is no real reason to believe that this is the case.

Ohoni.6057:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

LOLOL
But all we need is an opinion, right Ohoni? Or do we just need ‘no reason to doubt that this is a true statement?’

Ohoni.6057:

So again, argument to the stone. The least you could do is stop arguing the same fallacy over and over after I’ve pointed it out.

You’re the one that keeps repeating the fallacy, I’m just pointing out how silly you’re being.

I repeat it because you commit it…repeatedly. This isn’t hard to understand. I find it very interesting, though, how you don’t actually address the flaw in your argument, but instead you just make pretty much the same assertion again. So, argument to the stone again.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I’m not saying that it’s the be-all end-all of what people want. But talking about what people want, then disregarding the response you got doesn’t make sense.

So what you’re saying is, if I walked into the party convention for [insert political party here], and I were to express a viewpoint strongly in conflict with that party’s platform, I should collect their response, and consider that data informative as to the response of a general audience? That would be useful information for determining anything? I simply cannot believe that someone who throws around so many big words as you do would actually believe that.

No, you should collect their response, and add it to anything else you can find. If you have something bigger, useful, or representative, post it. If not, then we have nothing better to use. You seem to think that this also means we have to throw all skepticism out the window, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m just pointing out that if you want to argue that, nothing here points in your favor.

Actually, several people here have made statements in general support of one or more of my positions. That I don’t have the favor of the majority of the thread should surprise no one, nor mean anything.

That’s fair, a couple others have agreed with you. That said, I don’t think you’d be singing the same tune if you did have the majority. Either way, do you have anything better to use?

Ohoni.6057:

Your opinion is insufficient reason for Anet to do anything. If it was, they’d also have to do the opposite of what you want, because someone (myself, for example) will hold the opposite opinion.

Again though, tallying up the responses in this thread would be meaningless because it is a biased population. I’m asking for ANet to reevaluate their choices, to find out for themselves how many of their players would be happier having alternative methods of earning these rewards.

If the people at Anet and NCSoft thought they could do better with that, they would have done it. Not that you’ve given any solid reasons for why they should reevaluate besides your personal wants. I said nothing about ‘tallying up the responses in this thread’ here, but you couldn’t resist a strawman, could you?

Ohoni.6057:

Even though I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here…what? How did you even get that?? Are you proposing that you can add up LS S1 rewards like you can add integers? Or that such things even have determinable, addable values?

In a general sense, yeah. Individual tastes and interests vary, of course, but if you take the gestalt consensus of the player population, the Ascension wings would be of more value to them than anything in the s1-exclusive list.

So you’re arguing that the Ascension wings are ‘preposterously different’ compared to LS S1 because a group of people probably think that a collection of varying skins and items are worth less than a particular other skin. Even for you that makes no sense.

Ohoni.6057:

So nobody would care except those who would care, and your answer to them is lol because you don’t actually have an answer. Got it.

You can’t please everyone.

So just ignore all the people that disagree with you and make sure to pander to your particular wants because it’s you.

Ohoni.6057:

Both of you are getting reason to play confused with reward, so I’m just going to say it: the only reason to play is to win.

But my only reason to play PvP is for the reward. If I could get that reward without doing PvP, or even by losing PvP, I would cheerfully take either alternative. I have zero interest in winning PvP matches, except as a means to that end.

It was meant as a joke, but in responding to it, you made my point. lol

Sykper.6583:

Here’s a checklist for you DeShadowWolf, at least 2 will be used as a response to you.

- Ad Hominem
- Restating previous assertions as reality, without proof
- Deflection away or back to you on the subject
- Yet another Argument to the Stone for the triple

Though in an ironic twist if none of these happen due to my post here, well that suits the progression of dialogue in the thread far more than what is going on now.

I’m well aware, but it’s too much fun, taking apart the terrible arguments used and explaining how they fail. So, let’s see how we did:
-Ad Hominem: Not really, no
- Restating previous assertions as reality, without proof: YUP
- Deflection away or back to you on the subject: Tentative yes
- Yet another Argument to the Stone for the triple: YUP, and, on top, it was in response to the argument to the stone
So far batting 2.5-3 for 4. I’m going to add another couple to the list for next time: strawman, and double standard.

Ohoni.6057:

The only difference between your “rational” one and my “irrational” one was the position it was arguing for.

Exactly. Your position was irrational, mine was not. How many times do we have to go back and forth on that?

There’s a reason I put those terms in quotes. All you’ve done is assert that one is somehow less reasonable than the other, when they use the same reasoning.
So again, argument to the stone. The least you could do is stop arguing the same fallacy over and over after I’ve pointed it out.

Ohoni.6057:

Citation needed.

Really isn’t.

Because making claims about objective reality, providing no evidence or reasoning, and then expecting to be taken seriously makes sense…yeah, no.

Ohoni.6057:

scrolls back through thread Yep, that’s definitely working out.

If you’re half as smart as you seem to believe yourself to be, you’d know better than to imply that the response balance of a forum thread is indicative of any sort of mandate.

No, I’m not saying that it’s the be-all end-all of what people want. But talking about what people want, then disregarding the response you got doesn’t make sense. I’m not the one arguing about people’s wants, you are. I’m just pointing out that if you want to argue that, nothing here points in your favor.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I don’t believe that, it’s ludicrous and we both know it. You are arguing for a position though, and all you’ve really said in defense of that position is your opinion. That’s what I’m pointing out; your opinion is insufficient reasoning for this position.

And what I’m pointing out is that it isn’t.

Your opinion is insufficient reason for Anet to do anything. If it was, they’d also have to do the opposite of what you want, because someone (myself, for example) will hold the opposite opinion.

Ohoni.6057:

Except that that’s not what I’m even arguing. I’m not saying that it must be because it is, I’m saying that Anet doesn’t want to make all cosmetic skins available without serious dedication to a game mode.

And my point is, that’s what it is, clearly, but not necessarily what it must always be. That is obviously what ANet intends it to be at the moment, we have always agreed that your analysis of the present on this issue is crystal clear, the point of disagreement is in whether or not that state is incapable of changing. I believe that regardless of what their current intent may be, their future intent can be completely different, and I assert that it would be better for the game and the majority of the players if they did take a different path moving forward.

You made sense until you said ‘I assert.’ Yes, Anet’s future intent could be different, but you haven’t given any solid reasons why Anet’s intent should change, and you have utterly failed to demonstrate your assertion outside of your own self-centered wants. All you have done is assert, assert, assert.

Ohoni.6057:

They did it with every single meta achievement related to living story season 1

Totally different situation, preposterously different. different for several reasons:
1. The rewards for Season 1, even in total, do not add up to the Ascension wings. It’s mostly junk.

Even though I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here…what? How did you even get that?? Are you proposing that you can add up LS S1 rewards like you can add integers? Or that such things even have determinable, addable values?

Ohoni.6057:

The problem with having an alternative way is people might think you earned it that way and not with your PvP skill.

And the problem with that would be. . . nothing. Nothing at all. Nobody would care. And those who would care, lol.

So nobody would care except those who would care, and your answer to them is lol because you don’t actually have an answer. Got it.

Ohoni.6057:

And only reason? I think you’re getting motivation confused with reward. You PvP because you want to outskill another team and win and PvP rewards are a byproduct of that activity.

Nope, couldn’t care less about any of that. I just want to get in and out as fast as I can.

Both of you are getting reason to play confused with reward, so I’m just going to say it: the only reason to play is to win.
The funny thing is, both of you are so wrapped up in yourselves you can’t even see that other people play the same things for different reasons.

Sarrs.4831:

Ohoni.6057:

It’s ALL about the wings, for me, and for a lot of players. If you think that’s a toxic attitude to take, I totally agree with you, but we aren’t the cause of it.

Yes you are lol. Offense is never given, it’s always taken. Similarly, your attitude is nobody’s responsibility other than your own.

Nothing more needs to be added here.

Ohoni.6057:

The sentence structure was mostly to make it very obvious that the same logic was being used.

Yes, I got that, but it was using invalid variables, and thus ceased to make sense. I got what you were trying do do from the very start, I’m just telling you that it failed.

I’m not breaking the sentence. The logic was already broken, and I’m just adjusting the terms so you can see it. Logically speaking, the two paragraphs were the same; they made different claims, yes, but used the exact same defenses of those ideas, and that defense is what I’m showing is broken.

but your claim was an irrational one, while mine was a rational one, what you’re essentially doing is making the climate change denier position, “here’s something crazy, prove me wrong!”

The only difference between your “rational” one and my “irrational” one was the position it was arguing for. Logically the two are the same. But believe what you want to believe about it, nothing I say could possibly change your mind on it.

Ohoni.6057:

Okay, let me clarify: I meant that it doesn’t change the logic used, just the end point the logic is used for. The actual ideas are simply being laid over a logical framework, like I was saying earlier with P and Q.

Look, I don’t know how your writing process works, and I don’t care, my thoughts are not “written over a framework,” they are what they are, say what they say, mean what they mean, and if you change their context then it changes the entire meaning.

It was a metaphor to try to explain how logic, or the lack thereof, underlies any argument. But if you can’t understand actual argumentation and logic, nothing I say could possibly change your mind on it, and frankly, I’m not surprised.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not interested in debating with you about debate, that is not the topic of this discussion. This discussion is about GW2 League PvP and the related achievements/rewards.If you don’t believe that my arguments have merit, and the best you can come up with is to pick apart the structural nature of my arguments, then you’re welcome to continue to disagree with them. There’s really nothing I can do to help you.

Condescending much? If the best you can come up with is to be willfully ignorant of how logic works, then claim irrelevancies and walk away, I can’t help you.

Ohoni.6057:

If you would like to continue discussing the actual merits of what I’ve said, I would be willing to do so, but enough with the trolling nonsense.

We are discussing the merits of what you said. More accurately, we’re discussing how what you said has no merit because the opposite can be drawn from the logic of the original.

Ohoni.6057:

And all this about no factual reason not to….no, my point earlier on was that Anet has no interest in doing so, and that they want exclusive skins for specific game modes.

“No interest in doing so” is not a reason to not do it, that would just be a lazy excuse. A reason to not do it would be something that would make things objectively worse.

Citation needed.

Ohoni.6057:

As there is no such thing, it all comes down to how many people want the change, verses how many people don’t want it, and whether the net balance is enough to justify the work involved in implementing it.

scrolls back through thread Yep, that’s definitely working out.

Ohoni.6057:

You seem to want to believe that everything must come down to a pure, objective question, with no personal opinion involved. Life does not work that way. In life, and especially in a consumer entertainment product, most decisions are determined by a consensus of opinions.

You strawmanned that without even breaking a sweat!

No, I don’t believe that, it’s ludicrous and we both know it. You are arguing for a position though, and all you’ve really said in defense of that position is your opinion. That’s what I’m pointing out; your opinion is insufficient reasoning for this position.

Ohoni.6057:

And as for what ANet wants on the matter, we know what they did. We know that they likely thought it was a good idea, or they wouldn’t have done it. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be convinced to change their mind.

Ironic, considering the rest of the post.

Ohoni.6057:

Saying “it must be that way because it is that way” is a rather pointless argument to make. Anet has made a lot of decisions in the past, and they’ve backtracked on several of those as well, or branched out in a different direction that is more pleasing to both sides. I believe this is a situation in need of such a change, feel free to disagree, but don’t pretend it’s completely out of line with moves they’ve made in the past.

Except that that’s not what I’m even arguing. I’m not saying that it must be because it is, I’m saying that Anet doesn’t want to make all cosmetic skins available without serious dedication to a game mode. But I don’t think anything I say will ever change your mind. Good job strawmanning though.

NeXeD.3042:

Please don’t lump me in with this loon, I understood that I was asserting opinions that was the entire basis for everyone’s counter argument and he just says “oh well that’s irrelevant”

I know, I just didn’t want to be biased against what he said and not what you said.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m showing that by accepting the logic you are using, we can reach the exact opposite conclusion, thus showing the logic to be nonsensical.

That may be what you’re trying to do, and those who already agree with you might agree with this as well, but you actually aren’t doing that, because the original holds up, while the modified one does not, proving nothing in the end.

And you continue to assert that there is some difference between the logic of the two, without ever actually proving it. So, as they say, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Ohoni.6057:

Many people doesn’t make an illogical statement logical. Nevermind the complete lack of evidence of said people.

But it is not an illogical statement, it does not need to be made logical, it always was.

And our next baseless assertion. Do go on…

Ohoni.6057:

It’s based on the greatest good for the greatest number. If you say “it would be good to give everyone all the [food] they want.” you could then “flip that on it’s head” to the new “you should give everyone all the [fishing lures] that they want,” omg, same sentence structure, different words, the latter is ridiculous so the former must also be ridiculous. . . well, no. It doesn’t work that way.

The sentence structure was mostly to make it very obvious that the same logic was being used. And frankly, it kinda does work that way. Both statements were assertions, with no evidence or reasoning provided, so yeah, they both have the same flaws. It’s actually quite common in logic and mathematics, known as the principle of non-contradiction; essentially, if ‘X’ can be used to logically derive the reverse, ‘not X,’ then a false assumption was used.

Ohoni.6057:

The former is something that most people would agree would be a beneficial situation, as many people are known to favor having food available to them. The latter seems rather pointless because relatively few people would actually care about getting fishing lures. Again, you can’t just swap words around until a sentence breaks, and then claim that this makes any revelation on the original sentence.

And again, many people doesn’t make an argument.

I’m not breaking the sentence. The logic was already broken, and I’m just adjusting the terms so you can see it. Logically speaking, the two paragraphs were the same; they made different claims, yes, but used the exact same defenses of those ideas, and that defense is what I’m showing is broken.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, it changes the meaning of the sentence. But it doesn’t change the actual argument, just the position it’s being used for. You can’t seem to grasp this.

The “actual argument” and the sentence go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other.

Okay, let me clarify: I meant that it doesn’t change the logic used, just the end point the logic is used for. The actual ideas are simply being laid over a logical framework, like I was saying earlier with P and Q.

Ohoni.6057:

This is why your position fails. All you can do (and here this applies to you too, NeXeD) is assert your opinion. No evidence, no real logic, just good old assertions.

So? Greatest good for the greatest number. All that matters is opinion. Factually there’s no reason not to, so it all comes down to which side of the opinion argument is stronger.

I’m just going to stand here and laugh, while you both try to defend your broken logic and claim that logic and evidence don’t matter, without even explaining why.
And all this about no factual reason not to….no, my point earlier on was that Anet has no interest in doing so, and that they want exclusive skins for specific game modes.

I can’t wait for you to say that you don’t care what Anet wants, that they have a horrible outlook…

Ohoni.6057:

Let me explain. I’m arguing that your logic makes no sense. Logic can have all the pieces taken out, and someone could still understand how it works. For example, let’s look at this logical fallacy: if P, then Q; not P, therefore not Q. P and Q could be any statement, and the format still works. The only issue with this particular example is that non-P things can cause Q. But the statements in the argument can be substituted.

Sure, but as your own example shows, if you removed an item from my situation and replaced it with another, then it no longer made sense, it did not fit your pattern. You keep trying to create puzzles to obfuscate the fact that you had no actual point to begin with.

lol

If you really want to know what I’m getting at, I’m essentially making a reductio ad absurdum argument. I’m showing that by accepting the logic you are using, we can reach the exact opposite conclusion, thus showing the logic to be nonsensical. Seeing as how you’ve already agreed that the opposite conclusion under the same logic makes no sense, all that remains is for you to gain a little bit of self-awareness.

Ohoni.6057:

Let me make it simple for you. “And I think that in principle this is fine, so long as it does not gate away [cosmetic looks] from players who cannot achieve that level of success.” Is a statement that makes sense, because there is a not insignificant number of players who actually care about cosmetic appearance, and who are disgruntled when cosmetic items are put outside of their reach.

Uh-huh…uh-huh..

Many people doesn’t make an illogical statement logical. Nevermind the complete lack of evidence of said people.

Ohoni.6057:

Changing that term to something that is not equivalently regarded, such as titles or nametag pips, changes the meaning of the sentence, causing it to no longer make sense.

Yes, it changes the meaning of the sentence. But it doesn’t change the actual argument, just the position it’s being used for. You can’t seem to grasp this.

Ohoni.6057:

5 + [X] = 7 does make sense if X = 2, it does not make sense if you just arbitrarily substitute some other value, and saying “5 + 6 = 7 makes no sense” does not invalidate someone saying that 5 +2 does equal 7.

I don’t see what this has to do with any of the rest of this; your argument a) doesn’t really translate into math, and b) has nothing to do with the structure 5 + x = 7. Please clarify what this has to do with the arguments, as I don’t see the analogy actually making any sense.

Ohoni.6057:

They can gateway aesthetics all they want, performance is the only no no

They can gateway performance all they want, aesthetics is the only no no

This is why your position fails. All you can do (and here this applies to you too, NeXeD) is assert your opinion. No evidence, no real logic, just good old assertions.

NeXeD.3042:

There’s no point going on, he is either a brilliant troll or blissfully ignorant.

I enjoy it.

Ohoni.6057:

See, that’s half the point. The logic simply doesn’t make sense. If you see it in another argument, it looks silly.

No, my logic makes sense because I applied it to a reasonable context.

NeXeD.3042:

Reasonable is clearly your opinion here.

Go on.

Your rewording of it did not make sense because it no longer had that context. It’s like how a screen door is a perfectly good door to put on a house, but less appropriate on a submarine. You can’t just take someone’s paragraph, change the words around, and then use that as “proof” that the original paragraph did not make sense, merely because your new version does not make sense.

You still don’t know the difference between a position and logic.

Let me explain. I’m arguing that your logic makes no sense. Logic can have all the pieces taken out, and someone could still understand how it works. For example, let’s look at this logical fallacy: if P, then Q; not P, therefore not Q. P and Q could be any statement, and the format still works. The only issue with this particular example is that non-P things can cause Q. But the statements in the argument can be substituted.

Ohoni.6057:

Maybe you missed the `/s` after? Either way, the logic stands: what you use to defend your position can be used in the exact same way to defend against what you are suggesting.

That might be the point you were trying to make, but you failed to actually make it. You took my words and “turned them around,” but they looked silly when turned around in a way that did not apply to the original version, like putting a perfectly nice suit on backwards.

See, that’s half the point. The logic simply doesn’t make sense. If you see it in another argument, it looks silly.

Ohoni.6057:

Your version was silly, my version was not.

Subjective, much? Again, argument to the stone.

Ohoni.6057:

You presented a situation that rang false because no actual humans supported it. If you want something, argue in favor of what you actually want, don’t argue in favor of imaginary people that don’t actually exist.

ahahahahahaha….good one.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not pretending that it doesn’t make sense. I’m “pretending” that the logic you’re using here is a) nonsensical, and b) counter to Anet’s intentions with the item. Because it is.

“I’m not pretending that it doesn’t make sense, I’m just pretending that it is nonsensical.” Got it.

You don’t understand the difference between your position and the logic you use to defend it. Got it.

Ohoni.6057:

And I think that in principle is fine, so long as it does not gate away any titles, nametag pips, achievements, gear, gathering tools, salvage kits, runes, sigils, infusions, consumables, etc. from players who cannot achieve that level of success.

Really truly? I mean, sigils, tools, etc., those I get, those can make a practical difference, but are you GENUINELY, in your heart upset by the idea that titles might be gated by content hurdles, or are you just saying that for the purposes of trolling?

Maybe you missed the `/s` after? Either way, the logic stands: what you use to defend your position can be used in the exact same way to defend against what you are suggesting.

Ohoni.6057:

That looks to be pretty clearly about exclusivity for game modes.

Please read the comments I wrote later about the topic. It addresses why there is no contradiction there, but the short version is, rewards can be exclusive to content so long as they are easy to get, rewards that are hard to get should allow multiple equivalent paths.

The ‘other comments’ are irrelevant here. You denied that it was about exclusivity for game modes, and that quote proved that denial to be wrong. Maybe you can’t follow your own conversation, but I can.

Ohoni.6057:

And this should be…..why?
Oh wait, I forgot, it’s so Ohoni can get what he wants.

Ohoni and everyone else. The principle should be pretty easy to understand, it’s so that players are never left in the position of choosing to A. Spend a significant amount of their time grinding against content that they genuinely do not enjoy, or B. never getting the thing that they want.

We’ve been over this, it’s what spawned the whole ‘silly’ thing above.

Ohoni.6057:

That is a bad choice, whichever side you go with, and the developers should avoid forcing it on the players as best they can, by providing multiple options towards any long term goals. Disagree if you like, but don’t try to pretend that it does not make sense.

I’m not pretending that it doesn’t make sense. I’m “pretending” that the logic you’re using here is a) nonsensical, and b) counter to Anet’s intentions with the item. Because it is.

Ohoni.6057:

If there are to be truly “exclusive” AND high end rewards for specific content, then they should not come in the form of titles, nametag pips, achievements, gear, gathering tools, salvage kits, runes, sigils, infusions, consumables, etc. They should be things that no reasonable person would want except for the value in conveying that that you’ve accomplished something.

Again, I suspect you’re just trolling with this, but if not please explain where you are coming from.

Again, you missed the `/s`.

Ohoni.6057:

To keep my opinions on this matter short, I think that having important, exclusive rewards is a must in each game mode (PvE, sPvP, WvW). It requires you a certain mastery of the game mode.

And I think that in principle this is fine, so long as it does not gate away cosmetic looks from players who cannot achieve that level of success. Any rewards that require high levels of skill and dedication should be things that are ONLY useful for establishing that you have those experiences, NOT items that players might want whether they want to establish those experiences or not.

And I think that in principle is fine, so long as it does not gate away any titles, nametag pips, achievements, gear, gathering tools, salvage kits, runes, sigils, infusions, consumables, etc. from players who cannot achieve that level of success. Any rewards for high skill or dedication should be ONLY for establishing that you did that, NOT something like titles, nametag pips, achievements, gear, gathering tools, salvage kits, runes, sigils, infusions, consumables, etc., that a player might want whether they want to establish those experiences or not.

/s

Ohoni.6057:

No. I’m disputing your assertion that having exclusive items for each game mode is silly. YOU are the one making an assertion.

I didn’t say that it was silly to have exclusive items to specific game modes, I said it was silly for people to believe that owning these items somehow conveys “prestige.” If people want to do that, then that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to exclude desirable skins from those players who might want them.

Actually, you did, but you can’t tell because you don’t even properly quote in your posts, so I’ll do the legwork and post the original point here:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Ohoni.6057:

Keep in mind, I’m not asking for a path that would be easier for me than the current PvP path is to serious PvPers, I’m just asking for a path that would be of equivalent difficulty to non-PvPers as the existing PvP path is for PvPers.

Keep in mind how I’ve explained how that would defeat the point of the item.

That looks to be pretty clearly about exclusivity for game modes.

Ohoni.6057:

If you dont exclude somebody from getting that reward, its by definition not exclusive anymore.

And again, game modes can have truly exclusive items, they should just be fairly low hanging fruit, only earnable via a single activity, but fairly easy for anyone to earn if they give it a shot. Anything that is higher in the tree should be, at most, “associated” with the given activity.

And this should be…..why?
Oh wait, I forgot, it’s so Ohoni can get what he wants.

Ohoni.6057:

If there are to be truly “exclusive” AND high end rewards for specific content, then they should not come in the form of skins, they should be things like titles or bundles that players can show off without limiting actual character customization options. They should be things that no reasonable person would want except for the value in conveying that you’ve accomplished something.

If there are to be truly “exclusive” AND high end rewards for specific content, then they should not come in the form of titles, nametag pips, achievements, gear, gathering tools, salvage kits, runes, sigils, infusions, consumables, etc. They should be things that no reasonable person would want except for the value in conveying that that you’ve accomplished something.

/s

Ohoni.6057:

You haven’t actually presented any reason it’s silly, you’ve just asserted that, and, as they say, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

And neither have you. We both just asserted our side of it, I don’t know why you keep pointing that out. It’s a bit redundant.

No. I’m disputing your assertion that having exclusive items for each game mode is silly. YOU are the one making an assertion.

Kaijantoo.5796:

Ohoni is my new number 1 source of GW2 related comedy! Thank you, this is almost like trailer park boys-level idiocy but only a real person (hopefully)!

Please don’t stop making these posts, your BS plus the fact that people actually take the time to respond to you is hilarious!

I enjoy taking the time to respond, it’s fun
So I guess this is something of a win-win-win. You get to laugh at it, I get the fun of responding, and he gets the fun of trolling.
bows

Ohoni.6057:

Because things are broken, don’t make sense, bugged beyond use, etc. Not because they think they can get items faster by whining.

Ah, so you just misunderstand the purpose of the forums that aren’t labeled “Support.”

No, I don’t usually ascribe such self-centered reasoning, though maybe that’s just me being naive.

Ohoni.6057:

Keep in mind how I’ve explained how that would defeat the point of the item.

It would defeat the silly point, it would maintain the point of any real value, that it looks cool. Again, if they want to make some other item that just has whatever you’re talking about, that’d be fine.

You haven’t actually presented any reason it’s silly, you’ve just asserted that, and, as they say, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Also, argument to the stone

Tigaseye.2047:

Wolf, there is no onus on me to give “evidence”, as I am merely going by a study that suggests that people become less motivated/disinterested in participating in society, if they are too starved of money.

Especially if this “money starvation” isn’t totally universal and a very few people still make/receive a lot of it.

I am then translating that finding into the game.

There is no evidence (as far as I know) that people don’t think similarly in games of this nature, as they do IRL.

Unless you can provide some (of the totally non-anecdotal kind)?

The point is, you don’t have to provide “evidence” for a theory.

Looking back at what I said, you are right on that point. I stand corrected on that.

Tigaseye.2047:

It happens to make sense to me, as I am a player who mainly does EotM/WvW (less of the latter, especially since HoT struck) and I can confirm that the “rewards” can feel pretty miserly.

cough cough anecdotal evidence cough cough

Bruno.3812:

There once was a man who fell into a river and was swept away. Other people, seeing him in the river rushed to help. One man with a rope stood on a bridge and when the man sent by he threw the rope to him. But the man refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” Another man was in a boat and tried to grab him as he went by, but he refused his help, crying out, “God’s going to save me!” People in a helicopter, seeing him in the water flew to him and lowered a ladder but he refused to grab it, crying out, “God’s going to save me!”

and then he drowned.

He arrived in Heaven, and there is God. And he reproached him saying, “God, I believe in you and you let me die.” And God said, “I sent you a man with a rope. I sent you a man with a boat. I sent you a helicopter. What more did you want from me?”

I haven’t heard that one before, that’s great.

Ohoni.6057:

Well, there we have it. You’re here because you think you can get what you want faster by whining.
/thread

I should have thought that obvious. Why do most people complain on the forums?

Because things are broken, don’t make sense, bugged beyond use, etc. Not because they think they can get items faster by whining.

Ohoni.6057:

Keep in mind, I’m not asking for a path that would be easier for me than the current PvP path is to serious PvPers, I’m just asking for a path that would be of equivalent difficulty to non-PvPers as the existing PvP path is for PvPers.

Keep in mind how I’ve explained how that would defeat the point of the item.

Ohoni.6057:

You haven’t given anyone in this thread any reason to believe it’s a bad point. So, as they say, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

and again, I really don’t care if you remain unconvinced. You are not important.

Then why bother making this thread?

Ohoni.6057:

Consider it clarified to a gladiatorial sword. That aside, no. A sword that is used in arenas isn’t inherently ‘arena-ish.’ Please, just go look up the definition of inherent.

You might want to do the same, you would apparently be surprised.

I have, actually. A couple times, just to make sure I’m using it right.

Ohoni.6057:

He’s drawing conclusions from the available evidence. Yes, it may be skewed, unrepresentative, etc., but it’s what we have right now.

Aw, not you too, that’s so sad. It’s like watching a three legged puppy trying to get around. No, that’s just not how it works. “the best evidence available” does nto automatically have worth just because it’s “the best evidence available.” That’s how all the good irrational biases start.

Do you have anything more to go on? If you do, I’ll happily use that instead. If you don’t I’ll use what we have.

hackks.3687:

Please stop feeding this troll

It’s too fun not to.

Ohoni.6057:

Or you could be spending this time working towards it instead of whining, and actually get somewhere.

I can do both, but realistically, that method would take me over a year and a half, maybe longer, possibly never, while this way may never pan out, but it might, and probably in a significantly shorter amount of time either way.

Well, there we have it. You’re here because you think you can get what you want faster by whining.
/thread

Ohoni.6057:

Unless the point is to give exclusive rewards so that they actually show dedication to one thing. In which case that isn’t a plus, it’s a massive minus, and defeats the point of it.

But that would be a bad point to have in the first place, so defeating it would be a positive thing too.

You haven’t given anyone in this thread any reason to believe it’s a bad point. So, as they say, assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Ohoni.6057:

How so? They’re all aspects of character customization, i.e. how your character looks to other players. You can’t just assert that there’s a difference without actually demonstrating one.

It’s too self-evident to believe that you aren’t merely being difficult for the sake of being difficult. I don’t engage the trolling behavior.

The difference is so self-evident you can’t explain it, but just resort to an ad hominem.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, you can say that X and Y share themes, but that doesn’t make X inherently Yish.

Nooooo, that’s pretty much exactly what it means.

And this is why I thought you didn’t know that it means.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s like claiming that you should be using a sword just because “It isn’t inherently for the arena!” The sword might be used in arenas, but that isn’t a permanent or essential attribute of the sword. Yes, that’s the definition of inherent.

Noooooo, it’s not like that in the least. Now, if you had like gladiator-style swords, you could say that those are inherently “arena-ish,” because they are like things used specifically in an arena, but swords in general are a fairly unspecific category.

Consider it clarified to a gladiatorial sword. That aside, no. A sword that is used in arenas isn’t inherently ‘arena-ish.’ Please, just go look up the definition of inherent.

Ohoni.6057:

This, I suppose, is one core difference between us:
Player is bored.
Ohoni: The boredom is a systemic problem! Anet, fix this, people shouldn’t be capable of doing things that bore them!
DeShadowWolf: Go find an area of the game you enjoy and play it as much as you want.

I would agree with your point there, except that if the part of the game I enjoy does not reward something that I want, and another part that I do not enjoy is the only place to get it, then I would have to choose between doing the thing I find boring, OR never getting the thing that I want to get. That is a sub-optimal choice either way, and it IS a systemic problem that ANet only presents those two options. A player should always have the third option, “Go find an area of the game you enjoy AND get the thing that you want to get from there.”

Or you can reevaluate the feasibility of that item compared to what you are willing to do. Y’know, like a rational human.

Ohoni.6057:

If you can find other threads supporting your cause or something similar, by all means lead me to it. Until then, even this small sample size is better than simple guesses.

Aw, sweetie, nooooo. Don’t say things like that. No, no threads on this or any other forum are a representative sample of any kind. Again, look up how statistics work before talking about the subject again, you’ll thank me.

He’s drawing conclusions from the available evidence. Yes, it may be skewed, unrepresentative, etc., but it’s what we have right now. If you have a far larger, more representative poll/study, then go ahead. It might be more maximalist (i.e. willing to run with what there is) than you think is appropriate, but that is the logical conclusion from the current data.

Ohoni.6057:

If you want the item that badly, you wouldn’t be here whining about it.

I don’t follow. I want the item, which is why I’m here whining about it. That seems the most likely path towards me getting it.

Or you could be spending this time working towards it instead of whining, and actually get somewhere.

Ohoni.6057:

I think this thread has shown quite well how doing this would make a lot of people mad…

Sure, any change would, but it would make more people happy, so it balances out. If you try to develop a game on the principle of never making anyone mad, you’ll never succeed.

Prove that it would make more people happy and is in line with the direction Anet is taking the game.

Ohoni.6057:

Just presenting conflicting opinions doesn’t get anywhere. I can say we should worship invisible elephants, and you can say we should worship flying ponies, and we can both say that all day, and we wouldn’t get anywhere.

True, which is why that isn’t the point.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, we present conflicting opinions and this seems to bother you for. . . reasons.

Yeah…

Ohoni.6057:

Then why not make customization largely titles, anmetag pips, carryable bundles, and that kind of stuff? All the same arguments can be applied.

Not really. . . but if that thought makes you feel better, go with it I guess?

Okay, why can’t the arguments be carried over?

Ohoni.6057:

(1)The only reason you’ve given is so you can have it too. You aren’t saying that it’s a plus, you’re asserting it, (2)and ignoring the pvpers that haven’t had any good rewards, especially ones that actually mean something with regards to pvp.

1. “that I can have it too” is a plus. There doesn’t need to be anything more to it than that (and that other people can also have it too is even more of a plus than that. It’s plusses all around).

Unless the point is to give exclusive rewards so that they actually show dedication to one thing. In which case that isn’t a plus, it’s a massive minus, and defeats the point of it.

Ohoni.6057:

2. I’m not ignoring that PvPers haven’t had any “good rewards” (apparently dungeon armor and map completion rewards are not good enough), and in fact have said repeatedly that they should have more access to other rewards in the game like Legendary weapons and armor and whatever. I’m just saying that they shouldn’t have exclusive access to any rewards, NO element of the game should. PvPers not having access to XYZ so far in no way justifies them having exclusive access to the wings, it only justifies them gaining access to XYZ.

And that’s what you think, it’s fine for you to think that, but you don’t get to force the entire game into your opinion.

Ohoni.6057:

But you also don’t want to detract from wardrobe options. And I assume, since the same logic works for it, you don’t want to detract from dye options, title options, nametag pip options, carryable bundle options…

Nope, apples and oranges.

How so? They’re all aspects of character customization, i.e. how your character looks to other players. You can’t just assert that there’s a difference without actually demonstrating one.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but how is that inherent in the armor? Or do you just not understand the meaning of inherent?

Perhaps you misunderstood the question? The armor and weapons in question were inherently related to the area and content that rewarded them, because the visual language of the gear in question matched up with the visual language of the setting or characters of that region. Verdant Brink, for example, has a “found materials,” and “overloaded on pointy things” aesthetic, and the Bladed armors reflect that style. Ask GW2’s art team. There is no such relationship between the Ascension pack and PvP.

See, this is why I thought you didn’t understand what inherent means. Yes, you can say that X and Y share themes, but that doesn’t make X inherently Yish. It’s like claiming that you should be using a sword just because “It isn’t inherently for the arena!” The sword might be used in arenas, but that isn’t a permanent or essential attribute of the sword. Yes, that’s the definition of inherent.

Ohoni.6057:

The only justification you have made is that you want it.

And that’s all the justification anyone needs in lack of any suitable counterargument.

Lol.

Ohoni.6057:

You’re right, it’s not. A better one would be: “Someone else can get a reward for doing something that I don’t want to do? GIMME GIMME GIMME! I need to get it!”

Yeah, that would be more accurate.

Have at it, folks.

Ohoni.6057:

Funny, because I’ve not heard any PvEers complaining about that. Anywhere.

You haven’t been looking. It’s mostly a settled issue at this point, but there was a lot of disagreement around the time that the PvP reward tracks came out, and you still occasionally hear people complaining about it being easier to earn dungeon armor via the reward tracks than via the actual dungeons. They still need to add equivalent PvE reward tracks.

Yeah, because PvE needs more of its own rewards!…Ohwait…

Ohoni.6057:

Or, if you are bored you made a bad choice of what you’re doing. Maybe, maybe, your problems are your choices, not systemic Anet choices.

Player choices are all the result of systemic Anet choices. If a player has to choose between doing an activity he does not enjoy, or missing out on a reward that he wants, then no matter which he chooses he will be dissatisfied in the result. Only ANet can engineer the circumstances that would allow for a positive outcome, it is entirely out of the player’s control.

This, I suppose, is one core difference between us:
Player is bored.
Ohoni: The boredom is a systemic problem! Anet, fix this, people shouldn’t be capable of doing things that bore them!
DeShadowWolf: Go find an area of the game you enjoy and play it as much as you want.

Ohoni.6057:

If you want the item that badly, you wouldn’t be here whining about it.

I don’t follow. I want the item, which is why I’m here whining about it. That seems the most likely path towards me getting it.

Or you could be spending this time working towards it instead of whining, and actually get somewhere.

Ohoni.6057:

I think this thread has shown quite well how doing this would make a lot of people mad…

Sure, any change would, but it would make more people happy, so it balances out. If you try to develop a game on the principle of never making anyone mad, you’ll never succeed.

Prove that it would make more people happy and is in line with the direction Anet is taking the game.

Ohoni.6057:

Just presenting conflicting opinions doesn’t get anywhere. I can say we should worship invisible elephants, and you can say we should worship flying ponies, and we can both say that all day, and we wouldn’t get anywhere.

True, which is why that isn’t the point.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, we present conflicting opinions and this seems to bother you for. . . reasons.

Yeah…

Ohoni.6057:

Then why not make customization largely titles, anmetag pips, carryable bundles, and that kind of stuff? All the same arguments can be applied.

Not really. . . but if that thought makes you feel better, go with it I guess?

Okay, why can’t the arguments be carried over?

Ohoni.6057:

(1)The only reason you’ve given is so you can have it too. You aren’t saying that it’s a plus, you’re asserting it, (2)and ignoring the pvpers that haven’t had any good rewards, especially ones that actually mean something with regards to pvp.

1. “that I can have it too” is a plus. There doesn’t need to be anything more to it than that (and that other people can also have it too is even more of a plus than that. It’s plusses all around).

Unless the point is to give exclusive rewards so that they actually show dedication to one thing. In which case that isn’t a plus, it’s a massive minus, and defeats the point of it.

Ohoni.6057:

2. I’m not ignoring that PvPers haven’t had any “good rewards” (apparently dungeon armor and map completion rewards are not good enough), and in fact have said repeatedly that they should have more access to other rewards in the game like Legendary weapons and armor and whatever. I’m just saying that they shouldn’t have exclusive access to any rewards, NO element of the game should. PvPers not having access to XYZ so far in no way justifies them having exclusive access to the wings, it only justifies them gaining access to XYZ.

And that’s what you think, it’s fine for you to think that, but you don’t get to force the entire game into your opinion.

Ohoni.6057:

But you also don’t want to detract from wardrobe options. And I assume, since the same logic works for it, you don’t want to detract from dye options, title options, nametag pip options, carryable bundle options…

Nope, apples and oranges.

How so? They’re all aspects of character customization, i.e. how your character looks to other players. You can’t just assert that there’s a difference without actually demonstrating one.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but how is that inherent in the armor? Or do you just not understand the meaning of inherent?

Perhaps you misunderstood the question? The armor and weapons in question were inherently related to the area and content that rewarded them, because the visual language of the gear in question matched up with the visual language of the setting or characters of that region. Verdant Brink, for example, has a “found materials,” and “overloaded on pointy things” aesthetic, and the Bladed armors reflect that style. Ask GW2’s art team. There is no such relationship between the Ascension pack and PvP.

See, this is why I thought you didn’t understand what inherent means. Yes, you can say that X and Y share themes, but that doesn’t make X inherently Yish. It’s like claiming that you should be using a sword just because “It isn’t inherently for the arena!” The sword might be used in arenas, but that isn’t a permanent or essential attribute of the sword. Yes, that’s the definition of inherent.

Ohoni.6057:

The only justification you have made is that you want it.

And that’s all the justification anyone needs in lack of any suitable counterargument.

Lol.

Ohoni.6057:

You’re right, it’s not. A better one would be: “Someone else can get a reward for doing something that I don’t want to do? GIMME GIMME GIMME! I need to get it!”

Yeah, that would be more accurate.

Have at it, folks.

Ohoni.6057:

Funny, because I’ve not heard any PvEers complaining about that. Anywhere.

You haven’t been looking. It’s mostly a settled issue at this point, but there was a lot of disagreement around the time that the PvP reward tracks came out, and you still occasionally hear people complaining about it being easier to earn dungeon armor via the reward tracks than via the actual dungeons. They still need to add equivalent PvE reward tracks.

Yeah, because PvE needs more of its own rewards!…Ohwait…

Ohoni.6057:

Or, if you are bored you made a bad choice of what you’re doing. Maybe, maybe, your problems are your choices, not systemic Anet choices.

Player choices are all the result of systemic Anet choices. If a player has to choose between doing an activity he does not enjoy, or missing out on a reward that he wants, then no matter which he chooses he will be dissatisfied in the result. Only ANet can engineer the circumstances that would allow for a positive outcome, it is entirely out of the player’s control.

This, I suppose, is one core difference between us:
Player is bored.
Ohoni: The boredom is a systemic problem! Anet, fix this, people shouldn’t be capable of doing things that bore them!
DeShadowWolf: Go find an area of the game you enjoy and play it as much as you want.

Tigaseye.2047:

The problem, lest we all forget at this advanced point in the proceedings, is the one described by Ohoni, in his OP.

That people have a tendency to become demotivated and/or disinterested and/or depressed, if the disparity between the rich and the poor is too great, or if one person receives a windfall that makes them disproportionately more wealthy than the average person in their community.

Ignoring the lack of evidence for anything here, a person’s motivation/interest is their own issue. Ohoni is turning that into a systemic problem, which it isn’t.

Tigaseye.2047:

The problem here, is that people might decide to just give up and leave the game, if they feel their only viable option to make a reasonable amount of gold, is to play the TP.

They might. You haven’t given any evidence that this is happening in any relevant numbers, or why this particular thing will fix that player leak. In short, yes, that’s perfectly true and perfectly irrelevant until you can link it to reality. Which you haven’t.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m reading back your own logic to you, just changing the labels a little. Basic algebra.

Ok, I get that this is what you think you’re doing. . . but clearly it isn’t working out that way. . .

Then explain how. Until you do, it stands.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, you don’t understand free markets. Free markets create this cancelling effect; people move to provide supply to the increased demand and they make more money with their time than they otherwise would.

Yeah, but their way generates profits for the fatcats, as they sell of things they bought at low prices for much higher prices. My suggestion would have the same effect, just without the profits for fatcats.

Your way doesn’t accomplish what Anet wants to do, which is shake up markets. But you conveniently forget the fact the traders also make bad investments as well, and you fail to address why this is even an issue outside your own ideology.

Ohoni.6057:

How lazy/incapable do one have to be to be unable to make at least 40 gold per month provided it’s being handed out to you for basically logging in?

Not terribly, considered that even the method you suggest involves knowing and working the TP.

If your definition is that broad, selling loot is working the TP.

Ohoni.6057:

You get barely any “gold” via the log-in rewards, what you get is various tokens and materials that, if you unsderstand their market value, you can parlay into gold, but if you don’t understand the best way to capitalize on them, your “40 gold per month” can rapidly drop to nothing.

Or you can look up prices on the TP with a couple clicks, and ask in map chat the best way to convert, say, laurels, into gold. It’s common knowledge. Not that hard now, is it?

Ohoni.6057:

I imagine that if most players were earning 40 gold per month via that strategy, it would actually drop to 30 or even 20, due to overcrowding those markets.

Even if that does happen (and you have no evidence it will), that also means that those things are less expensive for the average player.

Ohoni.6057:

When ascended armor first came out I had enough money to straight up buy one or two sets flat. Did I do that? No. Why? Because I thought things through.

Sure, but if you had enough gold to buy ten Ascended armors flat, would it really hurt you that much if you just bought one? Would it really so deplete your finances that you could not quickly recover it? At a certain point, even if something is very expensive, if you still have enough to buy it several times over, it starts to just become miserly to penny-pinch it rather than just picking it up in a reasonable period of time.

And that kind of reasoning is part of the reason they have a lot of gold and you don’t.

Ohoni.6057:

So what you’re asking is for a noob-proof mechanic before huge market shifts to protect people from “the economy”. Great but I disagree.
Lack of knowledge, ability and dedication should be punished in some way – directly or indirectly – this is the basis of any game.

But again, the market in this game is too powerful for that sort fo thing to apply. The amount you can stand to win or lose through poor play is out of proportion to other areas of the game.

And you don’t understand risk v reward, and, by your own admission that the amount of gold that can be lost by it is also out of proportion; that’s why the amount of gold that can be got from it is.

Ohoni.6057:

If this game were advertised primarily as a market simulator, like that one game where you play the shop owner that sells things to the adventurers, then sure, base the results on people’s economic savvy, but for a game billed first, foremost, and last of all as an action/adventure RPG,

Well, what makes the game inherently action/adventure?

Ohoni.6057:

knowledge of how economics work should not be at all necessary to maximizing your gameplay experience (including having the money to buy the things you want). What economic understanding you need should be baked into the systems so that even an idiot can’t mess it up.

More ‘should’ this, ‘should’ that. The phrase ‘maximizing your gameplay experience’ is so vague it’s not even funny. Different people want different things, and you can’t generalize them all into one statement of what they should and shouldn’t be.

Ohoni.6057:

I am not leaving out 3 – 3 is not a solution. I said “The solutions” – giving up is not a solution – it is failing.

And yet it’s still a choice that actual humans will make, given only options 1 and 2.

That’s true, and that’s also utterly irrelevant unless you can prove it happens in large numbers.

Ohoni.6057:

Well here’s another issue then – apart from the fact that I fundamentally disagree with your “yes” answer – when my answer would be “definitely no” – why just in this area of the game? Why just this aspect?
Why not give them the Liadri mini too? I mean if they want it let’s hand it over to them – doesn’t matter if they don’t even know what Liardri is.

Because that is an action-adventure aspect of the game.

And that’s all the game should, is, or ever will be…right? Because that only makes sense if that was meant to be the only thing in the game, and everything else was unintended.

That’s what people come for (even though that particular element is not my cup of tea). And at the end of the day, what do you get for it, a single mini? Not a big deal. If you got a Precursor I might take more issue with it.

Except all the same arguments for Liadri can be made for precursors…

Ohoni.6057:

Also this is not an “Adventure game” – I have never seen it marketed as such. This is an MMORPG. MMORPG have economies built into them.

Look at any official marketing material for this game, what do you see? You see people swinging swords and shooting spells, fighting monsters.

Because marketing is the whole entire game and anything not in marketing content should be removed, right?

Ohoni.6057:

That is the primary selling point of this game. Do they show people standing around in LA with their TP UI’s open? No they do not. It is something you can do, but it should be incidental to the game experience.

You think it should be. What you think should be has no place unless you can objectively substantiate it, something which you have utterly failed to do.

Ohoni.6057:

And the TP isnt the best way to make money.
The median player makes 15% loss.

First, where would you get that statistic, and two, it’s not about the median player, it’s about the best players. If the best players of the TP do way better than the best players at any other activity, then it’s still a balance issue, as back to the example of the “god class” that requires a base level of skill to do well with, but if you have that skill then it obliterates any other class, even if they are played with equivalent levels of skill.

I’m also curious, where is that statistic from? I’ve already explained why the ‘god class’ analogy breaks down, I won’t bother repeating myself here.

Ohoni.6057:

We should remove all traders then because it’s Guild Wars 2, not Market Wars 2, and traders clearly aren’t running around killing mobs.

Are you beginning to see why it doesn’t make sense?

I don’t think we have to actually remove them, it just should be balanced against the other activities, no more profitable than the other things you could be doing.

It’s just pointing out how little sense the logic you use to defend your position actually makes.

Ohoni.6057:

The activity that requires the most effort out of me . . .pays me, arguably, the most. What’s wrong with that?

That alone? Nothing. That’s fine. It’s that it pays you, potentially, WAY more than other players can get for doing any other sort of activity in the game. That is the problem. If it paid you more than anything else you could be doing, but still less than most other players could make for PvPing, or dungeon running, or event farming, then that would be fine, the problem comes in when people end up making several times the rates for those activities.

You haven’t demonstrated that this is actually a problem. Substantiate THAT, and then I might start agreeing.

Ohoni.6057:

But most players just admire rare and expensive skins and minis because they are rare and expensive, not because they are particularly cool looking.

Lol, no. Some do that, and they are laughable, but most players wear the gear that they think looks cool on them, even though a great deal of it is common as dirt. I mean, plenty of people run around with elements of dungeon armor, or even starter armor if it suits them.

And they are laughable…why? You can’t just dismiss things because you don’t agree. That said, this is completely irrelevant. People that are wearing dungeon/starter armor and don’t want anything more have nothing to do with this. As to the idea that ‘most players…,’ have you polled the playerbase?

Ohoni.6057:

There are plenty of skins that need account bound mats to acquire. Those skins will be unobtainable by players who only play the tp. So they are more excluded than players who play other content.

Yes, but you’re building a relatively false situation here (again, because it’s easy to shoot down). Yes, a player who NEVER leaves the TP UI will be unable to create certain items. However, the amount of actual adventuring he would need to do would be insignificant compared to the gold that typically goes into creating those items. Earning the gold would take a typical player dozens if not hundreds more hours than earning the account bound elements for most items. Take a new player, start him at zero resources and he can do nothing on the TP except sell items he finds matching lowest sell price, and see how long it would take him to be able to earn all the purely account bound things needed to make all the rarest skins in the game, verses the time it would take him to earn the gold needed to buy anything purchasable involved in making all the rarest items in the game (including Legendary Weapons directly). I think you could perform the former much faster.

Let’s also take a new player, start him at zero resources, and allow him to only use the TP ever to make gold. You don’t seem to realize that the people that make lots from the TP, they have to put a risk of money in doing that. It’s not just 0 to 10,000 in a month with no risk.

Ohoni.6057:

How is this any different from TP players? Is it because you’re only envious of the amount of Gold one can make, and not how many games one wins in PvP?

Yes, because “number of games won in PvP” doesn’t really impact much, while “amount of gold earned” impacts quite a bit.

So if a PvP player wins more matches because he’s skilled, that’s fine. But a trader that wins more gold because he’s skilled is evil and makes everything too expensive for you.
/logicfail

Ohoni.6057:

Fallacy. When you discuss fairness, you need to use examples from the same subject matter. Your arguments are like saying “It’s not fair that Pele is such a good football player, because then the New York Yankees don’t have a chance to win.”

To be fair, I don’t think the Yankees could beat him at football. In his prime, at least. They could probably beat him today.

To be fair, his argument still stands.

Ohoni.6057:

From my personal experience, I don’t see how playing the TP allows you to beat Mordremoth. Unless you’re not judging success on who can complete the Living World storyline, but rather who has the fanciest outfit.

Yes, the latter. Beating Mordremoth rewards you with one piece of armor, and some various other junk.

The point is that you keep saying that the TP makes people more successful, but successful can be at pretty much whatever you want to suit your argument.

Ohoni.6057:

You realize that we’re talking about a game, and not real life implications of a human being’s health and safety, right?

I do. Do you? I’m not sure why you wouldn’t understand how an analogy works.

I’m not sure you understand how analogies work. They only work when comparing two items/situations of the same type/circumstance. A person being homeless and a person not being able to afford a precursor are vastly different things with vastly different results, and are thus incomparable.

Ohoni.6057:

don’t get the wings.

Not on the table.

If you want the item that badly, you wouldn’t be here whining about it.

Ohoni.6057:

And if it really is only conflicting opinions, you haven’t given anyone else a reason to agree.

Nor do I have to. It’s all about pleasing the largest number of players, not convincing anyone in this thread of anything they don’t want to believe.

I think this thread has shown quite well how doing this would make a lot of people mad…

Ohoni.6057:

I think you’re greatly underestimating it.
See how this doesn’t get anywhere?

Yes, we present conflicting opinions and this seems to bother you for. . . reasons.

Just presenting conflicting opinions doesn’t get anywhere. I can say we should worship invisible elephants, and you can say we should worship flying ponies, and we can both say that all day, and we wouldn’t get anywhere.

Ohoni.6057:

Because then no one would ever wear it if they cared what their character looked like.

I’m not saying they should give out ugly wardobe pieces, I’m saying that they should tie “prestige” to wardrobe at all. It should be titles, nametag pips, carryable bundles, things that those so inclined could “show off” so that those around them could, theoretically “be impressed,” but would not detract from the wardrobe options available.

Then why not make customization largely titles, anmetag pips, carryable bundles, and that kind of stuff? All the same arguments can be applied.

Ohoni.6057:

And I’m saying that that would undermine half the point of the wings as a reward specific to pvpers, who frankly haven’t had any good high-end rewards like this.

And I’m saying that is a plus, not the minus you seem to make it out to be. The reward should not be a reward specific to PvPers,

The only reason you’ve given is so you can have it too. You aren’t saying that it’s a plus, you’re asserting it, and ignoring the pvpers that haven’t had any good rewards, especially ones that actually mean something with regards to pvp.

Ohoni.6057:

Speak for yourself, if the only counter you can make is to complain about my choice of words. That said, take it away, Ohoni:

I was responding to a flip, borderline trolling strawman with a flip remark. I believe I’ve made it abundantly clear that I expect to have to work to earn them in some way, and do not personally advocate for “give them to us for nothing” as an ideal solution, although “give them to us for nothing” would at least be better than the current situation.

But you also don’t want to detract from wardrobe options. And I assume, since the same logic works for it, you don’t want to detract from dye options, title options, nametag pip options, carryable bundle options…

Ohoni.6057:

No, I’m saying it’s a meaningless, non-sensical question. How can anything in a game have anything inherent?

There are plenty of rewards in this game with inherent association to them. All dungeon armors are specifically themed to their native dungeon, and yet you can win them in PvP via reward tracks. If you look at a Twilight Arbor armor, you go “oh, that looks Twilight Arboreal.” Likewise, the three Magus Falls armor sets, Bladed, Auris, and Leyline, are all thematically linked to their native zones, and yet also available via PvP. Fractal gearing is also thematically associated to the Fractals, bearing similar floaty distortions. Yet there is absolutely nothing about the Ascension wings that are in any way recognizable as being PvP-related in any form.

Yes, but how is that inherent in the armor? Or do you just not understand the meaning of inherent?

Ohoni.6057:

If they had announced them as being on the gemstore in some $20 bundle, people wouldn’t have gone “those should totally be in PvP instead,” they would have just gone “oh, those are not terribly dissimilar to the other recent gem store offerings, and in fact less thematically tied to any actual content of any variety than the recent River of Souls wings.”

Because asking what makes that item ‘inherently’ gem store is a meaningless question.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s like asking what’s inherently Elementalist about the Arcane trait line, then demanding that all professions get access to Arcane on the basis of that. The whole discussion about ‘inherent this,’ ‘inherent that,’ is a sideshow meant to bog the discussion down to this.

And that can be done. Any time they take a tool from one class and give it to another, they have to justify its role.

The only justification you have made is that you want it.

Ohoni.6057:

A lot of people were upset about the Dragon Hunter fitting poorly into the Guardian’s theme, or Berserker being a bit too “magical” for a Warrior. There are reasonable arguments to be made on all sides. If they gave Warriors a Scepter as their next weapon, they would have to come up with a good reason why to the players.

And that was their subjective opinion. How much sense would it make to ask those people, "What about traps/longbow is inherently not Guardian?’ It’s just a pointless, meaningless question.

Ohoni.6057:

The whole discussion about ‘inherent this,’ ‘inherent that,’ is a sideshow meant to bog the discussion down to this.

Well, it wouldn’t even be necessary if so many people’s comeback wasn’t “but they’re PvP wings, they MUST AND CAN ONLY BE earned through PvP!”

No, the argument is that pvp players have generally lacked good endgame rewards specifically for pvp, and Anet added these pvp wings to cater to the people that want that. Not that I expect you to be able to respond to what people want without strawmanning it.

Ohoni.6057:

In this thread (or well; OP’s posts): “It’s silly of you to care about items in a game! There’s more to life than stuff in a game! But I really really really do want that item, and I do not want to play the content that it’s a reward for! I really care a lot about that item in a game!”

Hmm, I don’t believe that accurately reflects my position.

You’re right, it’s not. A better one would be: “Someone else can get a reward for doing something that I don’t want to do? GIMME GIMME GIMME! I need to get it!”

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t object to caring about the items themselves, clearly my position rests on that point. What I do find a bit ridiculous is caring about the “prestige” of owning a particular item.

You just object to caring about them for particular reasons because they aren’t your reasons for caring, and therefore they’re illegitimate.

Caring about the item is about you, it’s between you and the game. Caring about prestige is about other people, it’s somehow believing that other people will be impressed with you, based on the items you have, which is a bit sad if you really think about it.

First, who are you to dismiss why someone wants an item? Second, you may call it ‘a bit sad;’ I call it normal human behavior. But why is it a bit sad? Because you said so.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s like if an athlete at the olympics would go “I want the olympic gold-medal for swimming, but I hate swimming; I want to get the swimming-medal for competing and winning in table tennis (which I happen to be competing in)! And of course in addition to the medal for table-tennis!”

You want to see an Olympic gold medal for swimming? http://betheredothat.hylands.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/london-olympics-day-4-men-swimming.jpg

You want to see an Olympic gold medal for running (couldn’t find one for table tennis)?
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02308/olympic-mo-medals_2308708b.jpg

Notice the difference? There is none. It’s the same medal, but there are hundreds of different ways to earn it, some slightly more difficult than others, but all representative of a lot of skill and effort. Similarly, if they want to label these the “PvP Wings,” and the only way to earn that specific one is through PvP, but then they have visually identical wings that can be earned via other means, then sure, that’d be fine too.

Except that you entirely missed the point.

Ohoni.6057:

’ve read your posts, OP but haven’t seen you suggest a mechanism to win at PvP without doing PvP. So, here you go Ohoni.

Karma into PvP pips!

Yes, win at PvE by completing events and turn that karma into PvP pips. (Pips available at a merchant selling pips in a PvP lobby near you). Just play PvE to earn enough karma to get those wings without ever setting foot in PvP.

It’s a win win solution. ^^

I’d take that if it were the only option, I have a ton of karma to blow, but honestly that doesn’t seem like an ideal solution because it would devalue the league and pip system and all that stuff that seems to actually matter to PvPers.

But this doesn’t matter to PvPers? At least try to hide your double standard.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Pakkazull.6894:

Why are people bothering to even reply to this again?

‘Cause it’s funny.

Precisely. If I didn’t enjoy dismantling these kinds of bad arguments, I would not have the patience for this.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s the whole reason, it’s a PvP exclusive item in the first place: People are tired of grinding their kitten off to get something, a PvE player basically gets handed out for free.

Funny, because PvEers feel the same is true of PvPers, getting all sorts of rewards like dungeon gear and map-bonus gear with relatively little effort. Grass is always greener, I suppose.

Funny, because I’ve not heard any PvEers complaining about that. Anywhere.

Ohoni.6057:

There is a lot of content that’s locked behind certain types of activities not everyone enjoys. there is also a lot of content that’s exclusive to exactly one type of activity, yet nobody bats an eyebrow that they need to die of boredom while doing fractals in order to finally get their hands on ad infinitum.

You cite this as if this surrender to mediocrity and boredom is somehow virtuous. “They gave up, good for them!” If you are bored, if you are not enjoying your playing experience, that does not benefit anyone. You should not be bored, if you are bored then someone did something wrong.

Or, if you are bored you made a bad choice of what you’re doing. Maybe, maybe, your problems are your choices, not systemic Anet choices.

Ohoni.6057:

At the very least, don’t fight against other people willing to do what you’re too lazy to do yourself.

Absolutely hilarious, considering what you’ve spent so much time arguing against.

xarallei.4279:

Guys you realize he’s just going to run in here accusing you all of strawmans.

No. He ran off so he could make a new thread, with the same arguments in different context. I doubt he’ll come back here.

Ohoni.6057:

The same logic which you use to dismiss people wanting pvp-specific items can be used to dismiss you. All it takes is applying the logic a bit more evenly.

Because there is no logic that can be applied to either side in this discussion, it is entirely a matter of conflicting opinions.

You dismissed people wanting it to show that they’re accomplished by saying, ‘I don’t care about those people, that’s a horrible outlook.’ The exact same line can be used to dismiss you and your position.
And if it really is only conflicting opinions, you haven’t given anyone else a reason to agree.

Ohoni.6057:

Congratulations, you just undermined half the point of prestige.

I think you’re greatly overestimating the value to be had in “prestige” within a video game.

I think you’re greatly underestimating it.
See how this doesn’t get anywhere?

Ohoni.6057:

But that’s just the point, if it’s inherently worthless, why would anyone go for it?

Because you seem to believe that there is value in having people know that you’re special. This would show that you’re a super special person, without denying other players the wardrobe options that they want.

Because then no one would ever wear it if they cared what their character looked like. Anyway, aren’t you the one always touting GW2 as an adventure MMO with special emphasis on skins, not Prestige Wars 2? Or just replace ‘Prestige’ with whatever you don’t like.

Ohoni.6057:

Just imagine, “Achievement Unlocked: 10,000 PvP games. [opens chest] Ragged Worn Shirt Skin.”

Again though, I’m not saying “take the wings away,” the player should still get those wings, and he should still be happy about that. All that would change is that other players could also be happy by getting those wings.

And I’m saying that that would undermine half the point of the wings as a reward specific to pvpers, who frankly haven’t had any good high-end rewards like this.

Ohoni.6057:

Or, maybe, maybe, the person should understand that something that looks cool probably requires a good bit of work, and now if they want to look cool with that thing, they have a motivation to play the game and become accomplished in this specific thing.

Why do you (and many others) keep getting so off topic? You say “probably requires a good bit of work,” as if anyone has suggested otherwise. I have never once suggested reducing the amount of work involved, at least not as my preferred solution.

Speak for yourself, if the only counter you can make is to complain about my choice of words. That said, take it away, Ohoni:

You hated pvp before
They introduce a legendary item
You now go like it is your duty and Anet is forcing pvp down your throat
so you hate it even more, because you should have this legendary
and your solution would be to give it to you without anything?

Yuuup.

Ohoni.6057:

And that’s because it’s a dumb, pointless, meaningless question that just bogs everything down.

So you agree that there IS nothing inherently “PvP” about these wings that would necessitate them ONLY being available via PvP.

No, I’m saying it’s a meaningless, non-sensical question. How can anything in a game have anything inherent?

Ohoni.6057:

Why is ‘For Great Justice’ inherently warrior? Why are kits inherently engineer? Rifle inherently warrior and engineer? Attunement swapping inherently elementalist? Siegemaster Dulfy inherently Urban Battleground Fractal? Supply inherently WvW/Stronghold? Exotics inherently high-level? Rare inherently above Masterwork? There’s nothing inherent about anything, it’s a game. The only sensible answer to those is ‘because Anet made it that way.’ Asking it does nothing to help the conversation.

The thing is though, any of these factors can change if ANet changes their mind. I’m asking them to change their mind. I mean, until just recently, Eles and Necros could not Shout. Eight classes got weapons they didn’t have access to before. What you’re arguing now would be like someone a year ago saying “Mesmers don’t have Wells, Mesmers can NEVER have Wells, because ANet said so!” Well they did, and then they didn’t. I’m asking they do the same here.

Strawman. What I’m saying is that asking a question about ‘inherent’ things is pointless and meaningless here. The idea that you can apply the concept of ‘inherent’ to something in a game makes no sense. It’s like asking what’s inherently Elementalist about the Arcane trait line, then demanding that all professions get access to Arcane on the basis of that. The whole discussion about ‘inherent this,’ ‘inherent that,’ is a sideshow meant to bog the discussion down to this.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

You can’t get the wings without the achievements though. I mean, sure, that would fix all the problems, but it’s not an option on the table at the moment.

You hear that ANet? Just fix that and nobody will care about all this PvP mess again.

don’t get the wings.

But the thing is, he is unwilling to not get them, but he doesn’t want to pvp becaue that’s unfun, he doesn’t want to get gold because he’s unwilling to spend his time that way, and I assume that continues until all we’re left with is what he enjoys.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not upset I believe each game mode should have their own prestigious items.

And I disagree, obviously. I believe players should have access to the looks that they want, through whichever playstyle appeals to them. If you really like the look of the “PvP” wings, but really hate PvP, you should not have to choose between never getting the look that you want, or having to endure countless hours of unpleasant gameplay.

And you have provided no reason for anyone else to agree other than that opinion. Nor do you seem to realize that people want items that show dedication to a particular thing, such as sPvP.

Ohoni.6057:

And I couldn’t care less about those people. That’s a horrible outlook to have.

Do you see how what you say falls flat on it’s face, then gets trampled by itself?

Nope.

The same logic which you use to dismiss people wanting pvp-specific items can be used to dismiss you. All it takes is applying the logic a bit more evenly.

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, do I even need to say anything? ‘Give people that have been really dedicated and have become very good at something items nobody wants. But give me all the cool stuff!’

Look, I’ve said time and again, they can give rewards for significant effort.

Congratulations, you almost outlined what prestige is. That, plus dedication to a specific task, is the point of prestige.

Ohoni.6057:

If you devote a lot of time at becoming great at PvP, then you can earn the wings that way, the only change I’d like to see is that there should be OTHER ways of earning it, requiring equivalent time and effort to other aspects of the game to earn the same reward. You should be able to get the cool reward for your time and effort, but you should not have exclusive rights to that reward.

Congratulations, you just undermined half the point of prestige.

Ohoni.6057:

The only component that should be exclusive would be something that ONLY has value in its exclusivity, something that would be inherently worthless if not for the knowledge that it required devotion to a specific task to earn it, such as a title or a name tag pip or something.

But that’s just the point, if it’s inherently worthless, why would anyone go for it? The point is to reward players who put a lot of dedicated effort into one thing with something cool. Just imagine, “Achievement Unlocked: 10,000 PvP games. [opens chest] Ragged Worn Shirt Skin.”

Ohoni.6057:

That says “I have accomplished this one specific thing,” without locking out cool wardrobe options from players who have no interest in being recognized as having “accomplished this one specific thing.”

Or, maybe, maybe, the person should understand that something that looks cool probably requires a good bit of work, and now if they want to look cool with that thing, they have a motivation to play the game and become accomplished in this specific thing.

Ohoni.6057:

Also, so far nobody has been able to explain what is intrinsically “PvP” about these wings, what would make them “PvP wings” even if they were available through other means, that justifies that they must remain PvP-only.

And that’s because it’s a dumb, pointless, meaningless question that just bogs everything down. Why is ‘For Great Justice’ inherently warrior? Why are kits inherently engineer? Rifle inherently warrior and engineer? Attunement swapping inherently elementalist? Siegemaster Dulfy inherently Urban Battleground Fractal? Supply inherently WvW/Stronghold? Exotics inherently high-level? Rare inherently above Masterwork? There’s nothing inherent about anything, it’s a game. The only sensible answer to those is ‘because Anet made it that way.’ Asking it does nothing to help the conversation.

Ohoni.6057:

While making them non-exclusive to pvp would benefit you, it would take away from the intrinsic value it has for most pvpers who worked to get it.

But they shouldn’t have that value. The value of earning something via PvP should be the value of earning something via PvP, the wings have intrinsic value of their own, independent of having been earned from PvP, and players should be able to earn THAT value without having to do the PvP if doing the PvP would make them hate the game.

Okay…. I’m going to answer that with a quote:

Ohoni.6057:

And I couldn’t care less about those people. That’s a horrible outlook to have.

Do you see how what you say falls flat on it’s face, then gets trampled by itself?

Ohoni.6057:

and that would be great, _if they did not tie cool rewards to them. If the only thing you got for completing the Ascention achievement line is “you completed the line” then I would have no problem with it, but since it’s necessary to get those wings, it’s necessary to complete for people who have absolutely no enjoyment from the associated activities.

Ohoni.6057:

If they want to have something that conveys “prestige,” then it should be something that people wouldn’t want otherwise, something that ONLY serves to show that you have accomplished something, not something that would be cool and desirable whether you accomplished that task or not.

Yeah, do I even need to say anything? ‘Give people that have been really dedicated and have become very good at something items nobody wants. But give me all the cool stuff!’

Opc.4718:

I’m pretty sure this guy is a troll lol.

If he is, he’s been at it for over a year.

Ohoni.6057:

Who are you to decide this?

Ok, I’ll bite. What is “PvP” about the wings themselves? If they had put them on the gem store, or locked them behind some PvE collection quest, what would make you think “OMG, those are totally PvP wings, as a PvPer, i simply MUST have those wings!”

So, who are you to decide this? It’s not like you actually answered the question.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Ohoni.6057:

They are not PvP wings. They are for all wings. The devs just decided to play them behind PvP activities. There’s absolutely nothing “PvP” about the wings themselves, and if PvP didn’t exist you’d be able to earn them through some other means.

Who are you to decide this?

I’ve learned it’s pointless to argue with Ohoni. If possible, he claims that it’s in the name of ‘equality’ or ‘other playstyles’ even if it actively destroys a playstyle. When challenged on it, he defaults to ‘well this is how it should be!’ When you point out that this is just his personal, subjective opinion, he ignores that and continues arguing. If you continue to argue with him, he will just make the same arguments over and over. Then, by the time he loses enough times, he’s made a new thread (here) arguing for the same things in a slightly different context.

Ohoni.6057:

This made me kittening mad. Not only do you fail to provide a way for a reader to easily access the original quote, but you took it out of context and applied it to something so different from what I was originally talking about the two look nothing alike, then argued against that. I can only put this down to intentional dishonesty. That you have to remove the context, strawman my argument, then argue with that shows how weak your position is. In the past, you’ve done smaller versions of this, and I excused that with a little reminder of the context of that argument, but this takes it to the next level. I’m not going to answer what you said here, not because I can’t, but because you can’t even represent what I said fairly.

If you don’t believe that my comment accurately addresses the point you believe you were making, then I can only chalk it up to you failing to make that point well in the first place. You have certainly misunderstood plenty of my comments and run with that misunderstanding in the past, so I think this “outrage” is a bit out of place.

Alright then, let’s make this clear. I am going to quote myself, placing what I originally said above, then me responding to your response:

That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Ohoni.6057:

Traders do neither. Traders do not create demand because they don’t actually use the products. Any demand they personally have is only borrowed from their future customers, it is those eventual customers that create the demand. Any supply they influence, they bought off someone else, so they do not create supply either. All they do with either is shift it in time.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Demand here is just referring to the amount of an item that people want. What the item is used for is irrelevant, what matters is that more of the item is wanted. I don’t know what you mean by borrowing it from future customers. No, they don’t create new supply, but they cycle older supply through again. If they hadn’t added that supply back in, the buyer would have been buying from new supply.

This is pretty clear. I was explaining precisely how I was using the word ‘demand.’ Moreover, this is within the topic of how a trader affects demand. Now let’s look at your response:

But the amount of an item that people want is entirely dependent on how much they need for the uses to which they want to put it. If you increase the amount needed to do a task, or increase the usefulness of that task, then it will increase demand for the product. If you’re arguing that ANet cannot reach into player’s minds and force them to want a product more, than sure, that is outside the scope of their abilities, but they can obviously create conditions that would cause any rational population of games to choose for themselves to want the item more.

You took what I was saying out of context, applied a clarification as if it were an argument, then talked about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the previous discussion. I wasn’t talking about what demand is dependent on, or Anet’s ability to affect demand. I was talking about my usage of the word within the context of traders affecting demand. Do you see what I mean?

Ohoni.6057:

So let’s set up a more thorough pair of examples: there are a total of 11K buy orders, 1K from a trader.

I’ll address the rest in a minute, but I’ll remind you that the context of my example was not talking about a “quick turnaround” flip scenario, which seems to be what you’re talking about, but rather the “maintaining supply” silo scenario, in which a trader buys up stock while the price is low, sits on it for some duration, and reintroduces it when the prices are high again (or just immediately relists it well above the lowest sell prices).

Ah ok. Then let’s set up another hypothetical. There is a base supply/demand of 10k each, with an additional 1k demand from a trader. There are another 6k supply over the waiting period, all sold to buy orders. Over the waiting period, 5k new buy orders will be placed and 5k supply will be bought directly. That brings the values for the start of each scenario at 21k-16k and 20k-16k, the difference being the trader.
The effects with a trader:
Demand: 10k
-1k trader, -5k (from held supply), -5k (bought from sell)
Supply: 6k
+1k trader (before), -6k buy orders, -5k sell orders (buyers)
The effects without a trader:
Demand: 9k
-6k (held supply), -5k (bought from sell)
Supply: 5k
-6k buy orders, -5k sell orders (buyers)
So, with the trader, we end up with an effective 1k more supply and 1k more demand. Same ideas apply here as before.

Ohoni.6057:

The trader then lists his, ending with 11K sell orders, thus 11K + 12K -> 9K +11K, a net loss of 3K. Without the trader, we start with 10K and 12K. The 2K sell to buy orders, all of it leaving the market. Thus we have 10K + 12K -> 8K + 10K, a net loss of 4K. That 1K not lost in scenario 1 is the result of the trader. It isn’t new supply, but it is supply.

It’s “hypothetical supply.” It never actually exists.

The scenario with a trader ends with 1k more supply than the one without in both examples. That isn’t ‘hypothetical supply’ (besides the hypothetical nature of the example), you can’t just wave that difference away.

Ohoni.6057:

The only way the trader would actually add to the net situation is if he bets wrong and buys more than he can actually sell.

So you’re acknowledging that it’s real supply, you just discount it because people buy it. That makes no sense.

Ohoni.6057:

He removes 1k of the supply in the beginning, supply that otherwise would have gone to someone that would have used it, and he relists that 1k supply at a higher price later. The actual supply is not just the number of sell orders available at a given moment, it’s the amount of item in total circulation, for sale or ready to be on sale to fill demand.

That’s the basis of my example above, and you can see what results it had. And yes, the supply is the total amount. That is why, in both examples, I counted items that weren’t on the market but would be sold as supply.

Ohoni.6057:

What I am saying is that it doesn’t really give much illusion to anyone who just has the willingness to do a couple things, starting in-game: /wiki Item (takes you to item wiki page), and clicking the gw2spidy link on that page. It isn’t some obscure, hard-to-locate site with a paywall, anyone can see.

I think you underestimate the average players’ disinterest in economics, and overestimate the level that interest should have to be to play an adventure MMO.

The average player is not the point. The point is that there is no illusion, the data is open and easy to access. This is another example of you failing to provide context, I wasn’t talking about what’s needed to play an MMORPG.

Ohoni.6057:

And if you can’t address what he’s saying, you’ve already lost.

Sorry, too busy laughing. I mean, come on, “there are no losers in voluntary trade, only winners?” Can you say that without a chuckle? I don’t even thing The Donald could say that without breaking.

Still haven’t addressed it.

Ohoni.6057:

So: this isn’t a market simulator, therefore using your understanding of the TP is an invalid playstyle.

If people want to do it, then that’s fine, but it would not be far and away the most effective way at making money in the game. It trivializes all other elements of the game when it comes to accumulating gold, and gold trivializes almost anything else. Again, IF you want to insist that the TP should be considered “just as valid as anything else,” then it MUST be balanced against that other content, so that the best TPers make no more than the best PvEers or PvPers or whatever else. If you insist that the TP shouldn’t be bound by rules of fairness with other types of content, then it must be something that players who enjoy other content can do without exceptional knowledge or attention.

And you still fail to understand ~1/3 of this thread. On the other hand, by your logic, we should give the top TPers $5,000 each. After all, that’s what the best PvPers make.

Ohoni.6057:

It either needs to be something that everyone can feasibly do without taking time away from the rest of the game, or it needs to be something that players can completely ignore without receiving significantly less than those that play it.

And either way, it needs to become pointless to do. Why? Ohoni doesn’t like you doing it.

Ohoni.6057:

Though how you spend so much time on being able to get things via multiple paths, yet want to eliminate one mostly because you don’t like doing it is beyond me. Or why it only ever applies to rewards from other playstyles being brought to yours.

First, when questioned on the matter, I’ve hypothesized plenty of ways for players to earn things they want from playstyles I don’t personally enjoy.

Except the TP, because everyone knows that’s not a playstyle or part of the game.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m generally supportive of ALL playstyles gaining access to all rewards. If I’m more vocal about the ones that particularly interest me, that only makes sense, they are the ones that interest me, but if someone else wants to fight for their area of interest, I wouldn’t fight against them.

Alright, so lets give TPers account bound currencies like the new map-based ones! And map completion Badges of Honor! And the HoT maps Shards of Glory….
Except that defeats the point.

Ohoni.6057:

Second, I do not necessarily want to eliminate the TP as a playstyle entirely, I just want it to be BALANCED against the other playstyles. If they can arrive at a point where time spent on the TP provides equivalent income per hour, day, month, year, as other activities in the game, then that’s fine, but I cannot accept the idea that it should be allowed to provide unchecked income when

The words ‘I cannot accept’ are the end of debate and the start of personal agenda-pushing. But of course that’s by the by for you, so go on.

so much of the game is constrained by daily limits and diminishing returns, and that even without those would still often pay out less than the TP allows. It is not about eliminating a playstyle that I do not like, it’s about insisting that it should follow the same rules as other types of content when it comes to how much a player is allowed to earn in a day.

And killing moas should be just as rewarding as the Vale Guardian! And the money from PvP matches should be tied precisely to the amount of money from a Dragon’s Stand run! And-okay, you get the point, it makes no sense.
But just because something makes no sense doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be added!
/s

Tigaseye.2047:

I knew it would be a HUGE mistake to even try to enter into a dialogue with someone like you, Wolf.

Just a (very) brief skim of your post told me I was absolutely correct.

If you don’t like me or what I say, that’s fine. I don’t care, I have no control or responsibility for how you feel about my words.

Tigaseye.2047:

I’m not prepared to continue this “discussion” with someone like you, or even subject myself to reading any more of your bile.

If you aren’t able to handle a discussion where people can respond to what you say and have differing opinions, you can leave. That’s fine. I see you couldn’t resist an insult on the way out, though.

Ohoni.6057:

We should remove all NPCs then because it’s Guild Wars 2, not PvE Wars 2, and NPCs clearly aren’t in guilds!

No. . . you aren’t really making a lot of sense.

We should remove all traders then because it’s Guild Wars 2, not Market Wars 2, and traders clearly aren’t running around killing mobs.

Are you beginning to see why it doesn’t make sense?

Ohoni.6057:

The amount of gold you have is not your overall success in GW2.

And yet Legendary weapons, acknowledged by most as being one of the highest long term goals in the game, are determined almost entirely by gold.

As Sarrs has already pointed out, weasel words. Nevermind that this ignores world comp, BoH, Bloodstone Shard, Obsidian Shards, dungeon gift, etc.

Ohoni.6057:

The market chaos was not just avoidable, it was intentional. They specifically placed material requirements in the way they did to increase the value of a lot of other materials, particularly t2-t4 materials- a change which significantly benefits newer players who are willing to grind for materials.

One, “grinding for materials” should not be a supported primary goal. It should be a sideshow, something you do when you pass a resource, not something you actively seek out and farm. I mean, people should be free to choose to do that if they really enjoy it, but it shouldn’t be the expected interaction, it should not be balanced around that being the default way to play.

That is your opinion and nothing more. Ironically, ‘grinding for materials’ is a pretty common way to make gold, and can be great if you don’t like the TP. And yet, at the first opportunity, you throw it out because it isn’t a playstyle you like.

Ohoni.6057:

A lot of you guys seem to be enforcing really fringe ways of playing the game as being the way players should be playing the game. It sounds like if you guys had your way, the game would consist entirely of standing around in LA with your UIs up, and running materials farm circuits, avoiding mobs whenever possible.

cough cough projection cough cough
No, I’m not enforcing anything of the type. If you enjoy something, I say play it. This is a game, go have fun if that’s what you want to do. Just don’t do something simple, then expect the rewards that Wanze spends hours each day working out how to get.

But it sounds like if you had your way, players would get exactly 1s for vendoring any item, and the TP would be abolished so you could never buy with that money what you need, and sell items you don’t for more than the token silver.
/s

Ohoni.6057:

Forgive me for finding that a bit out of touch with every marketing material every produced for this game, and a complete waste of about 95% of the time and effort the devs have spent making it.

And forgive me for finding it a total, projecting strawman of what we’ve said here.

Ohoni.6057:

Two, if they want to permanently change the prices of things, by creating new lasting demand and supply shifts, then that’s one thing. But creating short term chaos in the process, when it is avoidable, is something else entirely.

Or, perhaps, perhaps, the two are linked and that short-term chaos is what opens the supply/demand to the lasting change. Eh, what do I know, of course it’s Anet’s fault, regardless.

Ohoni.6057:

My stance in this, whether you agree or not,

And that is where the discussion ends and agenda-pushing begins. Your personal stance is completely irrelevant to the game.

Ohoni.6057:

is that they should always pair supply spikes to demand spikes, resulting in wave-canceling. If they create a ton of new demand, such that anyone can reasonably predict that prices will shoot up 600% and then fall back down to 200% the current prices, then they should design the long term system to be healthy at 200%, the new normal, but also introduce (and well advertise) new temporary supply sources that will allow supply to meet demand, and the price to plateau at 200% and not much higher (after a few hours or days at most of people figuring it out).

But Anet isn’t looking to price-coddle you. They want to change markets, shake things up, increase volatility. The only reason you want this to be done is so you can buy things cheaper, because you aren’t willing to put more effort into getting what you want.

Ohoni.6057:

You seem to have the idea that there are the people with tons of money, the people with no money, and no in-between that makes up the vast majority of the demand for these items. And I can tell you for a fact, the people who do have lots of money didn’t get to that point by spending what they had on the expensive new mats.

And yet once you have a lot, you’re free to spend large chunks of it on nice things and still have plenty left to work with.

And you clearly don’t understand how they got there. Hint: saving without spending.

Ohoni.6057:

I mean, as you point out, many players can invest 150g to learn one trade, but that might use up most or all of their disposable income, while someone with tens of thousands of gold might be able to casually drop 5000g on an item and be able to make it back in a matter of weeks through investing the rest of what they have, so why bother over such small figures?

Because they could make that money faster by investing that 5000g, although it’s really more like a few months, based on previous info in this thread. And here is one difference between that kind of player and the one that just leveled a craft: the latter will go to the forums and whine about costs, while the former will get to work on the gold they want.

Ohoni.6057:

If large numbers of people burn out and move on, Anet will take note and do something. As of now, I have no reason to believe that this is an issue; quite the opposite, leading up to (and I can only assume after) HoT, PvP was experiencing record player numbers.

What does that even have to do with anything we’ve been discussing?

You brought up burning out, and I’m saying that doesn’t appear to be an issue. As for the record player numbers:

Ohoni.6057:

PvP saw an increase because people who actually play GW2 don’t PvP much, but the incoming freebie players could just hop in and do it, so it grew. Always be suspicious of “fastest growing,” statistics, that usually means they started at a very low point.

It’s just an example of why this isn’t an issue. I’ve even dug up the quote (source) for it:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

So yeah.

Ohoni.6057:

The very idea of not knowing you feel outraged is self-defeating. What, then, is the difference between not knowing you’re outraged, and not being outraged?

I didn’t say that they didn’t know they were outraged, I said that they didn’t know that they were outraged at the TP. I then went on to explain what I meant by that, which you apparently missed, which was that these players would feel generally upset, they would feel that the rewards they wanted seemed out of reach, that they were not achieving their desired goals, and that this might lead to burn out.

Can you prove that this group is large enough for Anet to seriously care? Can you demonstrate that this is negatively affecting the game in a serious way? Do you even have any evidence beyond your word that this really exists?

Ohoni.6057:

They know their symptoms, they don’t like their symptoms, they just might not be aware of the cause.

And of course you, being the brilliant doctor you are, are the perfect person to diagnose why other people feel the way they do, and Anet, of course, must defer to you because you know just what the playerbase feels and wants.
/s

Ohoni.6057:

So just because someone isn’t entitled to something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t entitle them to it. Hmm.

Exactly. Just because a homeless person is not entitled to food or housing, it’s still nice to give it to him anyway. There are plenty of things in this world that people are not entitled to, but if you can make them happier then why not do it?

Uh-huh. Yep. And that’s why there are no laws trying to support/reduce homelessness
/s
Simply put, they are entitled to a standard of living, which is why there are places that do their best to help these people, serve them meals, etc. That’s because there is a standard of living, though to be sure, it isn’t always met. There is no equivalent standard of living in GW2.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t know what you mean by borrowing it from future customers. No, they don’t create new supply, but they cycle older supply through again.

Right, and if they didn’t exist to do that, then the older supply never would have left the market in the first place. If the market contains 10K mithril, and a trader buys up 5K of it, and another 3K sells to other players, leaving only 2K behind, and that trader then dumps 5K back onto the market putting it back at 7K, then that scenario would not have been significantly altered had the trader never existed. He would not have taken out the 5K he took, other people would still take out 3K, the market would still contain 7K. It’s like if he were George Bailey, only when he was removed from the timeline, it turns out everyone did the exact same things they would have done without him and nothing had changed.

At least you’re still talking about the same subject. Your example only makes sense if the trader is buying up sell orders. I find it rather ironic that you argue that only the traders know how it works, yet fail to even give them that knowledge. So let’s set up a more thorough pair of examples: there are a total of 11K buy orders, 1K from a trader. There are 12K mithril, 10K in sell orders and 2K in the hands of players about to fill buy orders. With the trader, the buy orders then fall to 9K, with 1K mithril (the non-trader buy orders that got filled) leaving the market. The trader then lists his, ending with 11K sell orders, thus 11K + 12K -> 9K +11K, a net loss of 3K. Without the trader, we start with 10K and 12K. The 2K sell to buy orders, all of it leaving the market. Thus we have 10K + 12K -> 8K + 10K, a net loss of 4K. That 1K not lost in scenario 1 is the result of the trader. It isn’t new supply, but it is supply.

Ohoni.6057:

First of all, mithril is a pretty fast market, so I doubt several traders unloading their stocks would keep it low for very long.

I’m just making a random example using a commonly understood item, don’t go too into the weeds on it. Substitute any other market if it makes you feel better.

If players need it enough that the market gets low on it, the same substitution applies. That new demand makes what might have been an otherwise slow market into something fast and volatile.

Ohoni.6057:

Additionally, sites like gw2spidy track sell and buy order numbers. It’s not like someone could buy up 50,000 mithril and have no one notice.

A further advantage for those that stay on top of the markets, but something to which 99% of players would be completely oblivious.

What I am saying is that it doesn’t really give much illusion to anyone who just has the willingness to do a couple things, starting in-game: /wiki Item (takes you to item wiki page), and clicking the gw2spidy link on that page. It isn’t some obscure, hard-to-locate site with a paywall, anyone can see.

Ohoni.6057:

Keep context. This was on the subject of precursors. Moreover, if you even read what I wrote, you would know that I’m saying they can affect supply, just not demand for this item.

And again, they can effect both. Changing demand can be slightly slower to react, depending on how it’s done, but they can and have managed it plenty of times before. Even if you want to keep the discussion purely on Precursors, they can and have effected demand for them in the past. The wardrobe, for example, reduced demand for them a bit, since players no longer had much reason to ever own two of the same one. Pre-crafting also reduced market demand at least a little, since players had their own methods of acquiring one (however imperfect). If they reduced the costs involved in the final Legendary recipes, that might increase demand for the Pres, since people would find the final product more affordable. Adding new classes that use a weapon, or adding new effects to a weapon can increase demand for it. Even just making a weapon more “meta” for a given class that could always use it can increase demand for that Legendary. There are plenty of ways for them to manipulate demand.

And if you look at the two specific ways you mentioned, wardrobe and precursor crafting, they were pretty kittening huge features. Not exactly subtle adjustments. But that’s all by-the-by, anyway.

Ohoni.6057:

Why the hell should players who want to spend 5 seconds selling their crap on the market get the same amount of profits as someone who spends a lot of time, effort and thought managing their assets?

Because this is Guild Wars 2, not “Stock Market Simulator 2.”

And anyone with less agenda-tinted glasses could see the ridiculousness of both your answer, and that you even agreed with it.

Ohoni.6057:

You don’t understand the voluntary nature of trade. In all voluntary trades, both parties are winners. To call ‘profit’ competitive is a misnomer, because there are no losers in voluntary trade, only winners.

ROTFLMAO.

And if you can’t address what he’s saying, you’ve already lost.

Ohoni.6057:

Saying that the market should be a game of high skill, but simultaneously not rewarding, makes no sense. It’s like removing the points from Pac-Man. The gold is how you measure your success. Secondarily, there’s this bizarre feel of “people can be better than me, but they can never do better than me”.

Because again, this is not a market simulator game. Skill at playing the markets should not determine your overall success at GW2. There is a time and a place for that sort of game, it is not within GW2.

So: this isn’t a market simulator, therefore using your understanding of the TP is an invalid playstyle. Conclusion doesn’t follow premise, and premise is irrelevant. Though how you spend so much time on being able to get things via multiple paths, yet want to eliminate one mostly because you don’t like doing it is beyond me. Or why it only ever applies to rewards from other playstyles being brought to yours.

Double standard, I can only assume.

Ohoni.6057:

It is out of balance by your metrics. This is especially funny considering HoT only just dropped which caused massive changes in prices and price structures across the entire expansion; you’re making a judgment while the market is still settling.

I’ve had these judgements for a very long time,

A very long time indeed, and in the face of many answers and explanations by many people.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Makes me think that this is all about the agenda the OP has been espousing in many threads, which is getting what he wants from the game in whatever he thinks a reasonable time frame is. I find the OP heavy on opinion and light on both backing up assertions and consideration of the overall effects of his proposals — yet he has consistently refused to even respond to such claims.

This. This is what I have been trying to explain to the OP throughout the thread. Well said, thank you.

Cyninja.2954:

Truth be told, I’m amazed people still answer in this thread. It’s about time to start a new thread and start all over from scratch.

I answer mostly because a) it’s fun, and b) maybe I’ll eventually get through. Maybe I’m just being a bit naive there.

Cyninja.2954:

Edit: I’m not even going to comment on him refusing to properly quote. Anyone who enjoyed a college education knows that context and proper quotation is mandatory to be taken seriously (or at all to be fair).

It doesn’t even take a college education, just looking at how easily false statistics are perpetuated by a lack of context and a bad source. The main reason I never brought it up was because I assumed that if I did, the OP would make, well, the accusations they did make to the person who did bring it up, and since I’m a large participant, it would have derailed the thread even more.

On a side note, I looked at Ohoni’s other recent posts. He started a thread about PvP leagues, and someone nailed it in less than 10 posts:

It just sounds like you want the prestigious PvP wings without putting any effort into the PvP part of it then.

It won’t format the quote, so I’ll leave a permalink to this post here.
Of course, the answer is: ‘yes ideally.’

Ohoni.6057:

100 gold is not hard to make in this game – gathering stuff alone can get you a good amount of gold.

Perhaps, but it may surprise you to know that there are many players who don’t even have that.

90% of players with 500-1000h have ~150g. The median for that hour range is ~500g. In the liquid gold category, of your own source. Factually, you are just plain wrong.

Ohoni.6057:

Also what’s the problem with not using the materials for yourself if you plan to sell them? That’s the trade-off.
When damask first released I crafted and sold every day – I postponed my ascended armor by 30 days in order to get the profit I wanted. I didn’t read a specialized book or talked to an expert to tell me to do this. It is common sense.
Something just came out = it is in high demand = sell now for a lot of money and buy it later when the new thing will be done by more people and thus will become cheaper.

And that is a sound strategy, but it’s still a pretty kitteny one, if you think about it. It means that the people who have a lot fo excess gold don’t have to worry about that. They can just buy the mats as needed and have fun with the new options available right away, while everyone else is only in a position to feed the fatcats for a while until it becomes economically feasible for them to have fun too.

You seem to have the idea that there are the people with tons of money, the people with no money, and no in-between that makes up the vast majority of the demand for these items. And I can tell you for a fact, the people who do have lots of money didn’t get to that point by spending what they had on the expensive new mats.

Ohoni.6057:

Doesn’t that make you sad? Wouldn’t it be better if the prices for things didn’t spike when new options became available, and everyone could afford to participate in the new developments right away?

I like dreams too, especially the ones that couldn’t actually be done.

Ohoni.6057:

If they did this the economy would be even more out-of-whack. Imagine the devs saying what items would be required for some super important thing in the future. Then imagine people who already have cash buying them all up then selling them for a lot more.

Well, keep in mind that I’m considering this as part of a big picture, where reselling items is no longer an option, so the worst a rich person could do is buy up what they need for themselves in advance.

And the system becomes pointless, arbitrary, and economically self-destructive for the sake of ideological goals that weren’t even achieved. What reason did we have for this change? Nothing factual, just ideological goals of one person.

Ohoni.6057:

Short of that, I think it might be a good idea if they shut down transactions on the TP for a short period after making such an announcement, but let people continue to place/remove buy and sell orders, such that when the markets reopened, those orders could be filled, but it would allow everyone time to react and make their moves before items actually started changing hands.

What are you on about? How would that make any sense? Why bother going to all these lengths?

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, that might allow traders to make bigger moves than people with less capital, but they would likely be on top of things anyway so what difference would that make?

You can’t even write a paragraph without forgetting what you started it on.

Ohoni.6057:

In both cases it’s a win-win. The player either improves as a player and increases his knowledge of the game – enabling him to be better off in the future or at the very least pays a good sum of money to Anet for them to continue supporting and developing the game.

You’re leaving out 3. Burning out and moving on to some other game. That happens too, you know. I’ve spent a decent amount of money on the game for gem store things, but I can’t even imagine anything that would convince me to buy gems to exchange for gold, that just seems like cheating.

If large numbers of people burn out and move on, Anet will take note and do something. As of now, I have no reason to believe that this is an issue; quite the opposite, leading up to (and I can only assume after) HoT, PvP was experiencing record player numbers.

Ohoni.6057:

So basically let’s give people things they’ve put no effort into obtaining and that they haven’t bothered to learn how to get just because they’re upset that they don’t have them.

In this case, yes. Totally yes. I don’t believe that applies to all aspects of the game, but I simply do not believe, on a fundamental level, that adventure game players should need to understand market economics in order to do well at the adventure game.

collective facepalm Do you understand the fundamental injustice in the statement you just agreed wi-who am I kidding, of course you don’t.

Ohoni.6057:

It just baffles me that this is even a thing people are defending. So long as the TP remains far and away the best way to make money in the game, it needs to be something that anyone can do with their eyes closed. If you want the TP to be something that only a few people can really get and that takes a lot of time and effort to truly master, then it can’t offer the potential of being far more lucrative than other activities. One or the other. Choose.

So either make it impossible because everyone’s doing it, or make it pointless because it doesn’t reward the effort put in. Your logic is nonexistent, and your justification and reasoning less so.

Ohoni.6057:

Would you also agree to give market traders unique skins that can only be obtained through certain types of content?
Should we give Wanze the PvP Legendary backpiece even if he doesn’t pvp just because he wants it and is unhappy? ( no offense, i don’t know if you pvp, just making a point).

I wouldn’t get into that discussion if I were you. I have a long track record of favoring the democratization of “unique” rewards.

Considering that he wants the PvP backpiece without actually PvPing, yes.

Ohoni.6057:

So changes should be made because people feel outrage at something when they don’t even know they feel outrage. I don’t even see any sense in what you’re saying.

It’s called staying on top of things. The most successful companies are the ones that fulfill needs people don’t even realize they have. Just because people can’t describe the reason they are dissatisfied with something does not mean that they are satisfied.

The very idea of not knowing you feel outraged is self-defeating. What, then, is the difference between not knowing you’re outraged, and not being outraged? And how do we know that this group of people that don’t even know they feel something is large enough to be relevant? Why should Anet give a flying kitten about a few people’s feelings?

Ohoni.6057:

You can feel anything, that doesn’t change reality, and that doesn’t make you entitled to anything more.

It does not, but since this is a consumer product, making the customer happy might be a goo idea. I hate when people throw around “entitlement” as a reason to not give people things that would make them happier.

I hate when people throw around ‘happiness’ as a reason to avoid the name for what they’re actually asking for.

Ohoni.6057:

Just because someone is not “entitled” to something doesn’t mean that giving it to them would not be a good idea anyway.

So just because someone isn’t entitled to something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t entitle them to it. Hmm.

Ohoni.6057:

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Demand here is just referring to the amount of an item that people want. What the item is used for is irrelevant, what matters is that more of the item is wanted.

But the amount of an item that people want is entirely dependent on how much they need for the uses to which they want to put it. If you increase the amount needed to do a task, or increase the usefulness of that task, then it will increase demand for the product. If you’re arguing that ANet cannot reach into player’s minds and force them to want a product more, than sure, that is outside the scope of their abilities, but they can obviously create conditions that would cause any rational population of games to choose for themselves to want the item more.

This made me kittening mad. Not only do you fail to provide a way for a reader to easily access the original quote, but you took it out of context and applied it to something so different from what I was originally talking about the two look nothing alike, then argued against that. I can only put this down to intentional dishonesty. That you have to remove the context, strawman my argument, then argue with that shows how weak your position is. In the past, you’ve done smaller versions of this, and I excused that with a little reminder of the context of that argument, but this takes it to the next level. I’m not going to answer what you said here, not because I can’t, but because you can’t even represent what I said fairly.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s meant to not allow people to do that unwittingly, so they don’t accidentally create sell orders like that. Y’know, more control for the player. If you want to list at the former buy order, you can still do that.

It should be based on the option you click on. If the two listings are at 50.1 and 50.2, if you click on 50.2 and then lower the price by a penny and list the number you want to sell, then it will fill the buy orders and do the rest as a sell order, as you indicated you wanted to do. If you start with the buy order then it would only sell the ones that would sell immediately.

That’s a very specific, enigmatic, and frankly pointless addition. I’m sure it could be done, of course, but I don’t think people would understand it and not many would use it. Seems to me to be an addition that would just make the UI harder to understand and confusing to the average player.

Ohoni.6057:

But then you’re fundamentally changing the scenario; we have to apply that to both of them. Let’s assume in both cases that 3 players under or overcut the trader’s orders. In which case we’re back to the original end, except the numbers are 3c higher, no other relevant differences.

I’m just saying, if there is a trader who is willing to undercut the competition at a given price, then there will also be a real player who would do the same. He might not be willing to then undercut the trader’s price further, but he would at least be willing to match him. If there weren’t people willing to at least match the trader’s price then how would the trader hope to turn a profit?

That’s perfectly true, but also irrelevant and not what you were arguing. Not that I can even tell particularly well what this point originally was since you don’t include name links. Well, it was the point of your last argument, not that you even presented anything against my point here, but it has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

Ohoni.6057:

Players A and B want item 1 and have item 2, C and D have 1 and want 2. [ect.] In other words, by being inconsistent just so that it is balanced.

Maybe so, although ideally better UI feedback would make it less likely that players would make bad choices all around.

Sure, give the game better TP UI. But that’s by the by for what I was saying.

Ohoni.6057:

Btu even so, better than the current system, because even if two of the players consistently make good choices, and two of them consistently make bad ones, it’s still actual players of the game that are making the profit margins for those choices, not middlemen who provide no actual value to the equation.

Because everybody knows the TP isn’t part of the game!
/s
I’ve given my hypotheticals in which the middleman, assuming the other players make the same choices, give them better deals than they otherwise would have gotten. Where are yours?

Ohoni.6057:

These other threads are not arguing for what you want. They have not, as far as I have seen, been about the TP traders at all.

No, but correcting some of the issues with the TP would, at least over the long term, greatly lessen a lot of their complaints. They are complaining about their symptoms, I’m complaining about one of the root causes of those symptoms. If someone comes into the doctor’s office talking about chest tightness and shooting pain in their arm, you don’t send them home and say “well good thing he wasn’t complaining about having a heart attack.”

You also wouldn’t look at a bunch of people complaining about chest tightness and shooting pain in the arm and say, “Hmm. We do have a lot of heart attack patients.”

Ohoni.6057:

No, they do this by selling things that otherwise would have left the market in the hands of someone who, say, was crafting a greatsword. No matter when or at what price.

No items should ever be completely gone from the market (unless discontinued), and if items do leave, this is a great thing for people to be going after. Now, there is a value to having temporary items be permanently available, but this value should come from ingame methods, not from traders turning a profit. There should be year-round methods of accumulating just about anything, just less efficiently than temporary or seasonal situations.

When I said ‘left the market,’ I didn’t mean the entirety of that item, I meant that particular set of items. So in my example, a person who buys 500 mithril to make greatswords would have taken that mithril out of the market. But because of the lack of link and the way you cut out my quote, I can’t even tell what I was making this point about.

Ohoni.6057:

Seriously, any trading is a risk. Some risks are higher than others, but they are all cases of risk. They all have the potential to lose money. Stop trying to No True Scotsman your way out of this fact.

Individual trades have a risk factor, but over multiple trades the odds tend to be more in your favor than not, so the risk of individual trade can be high, but if you’re investing wisely then your actual risk of long term failure are very low.

The key word here is wisely. That means that you’ve spent time learning things with the intention of using them specifically to lower risk. Not that you understand how average risks are dependent on the individual risks.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not blaming, I’m stating facts; this is an observed phenomenon. And if Anet had such a problem with those prices, they would have done something. And really, at this point they can only affect supply.

No, they can effect supply to, and have. If they adjust the amount of materials needed in a core recipe, then that will change demand. If they add or remove recipes that need that thing, it will change demand. If they make existing uses for that thing more desirable even, say by taking a low-valued stat combination and providing a vital new use for it in the game, that will change demand. They’ve done all these things and more over the course of the game.

Keep context. This was on the subject of precursors. Moreover, if you even read what I wrote, you would know that I’m saying they can affect supply, just not demand for this item.

Tigaseye.2047:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Source for those stats? Where is this ratio coming from and what is it based on? All I see is hyperbole and apples-to-oranges false comparison.

It’s not a “stat”; it’s an analogy.

And it’s a thoroughly baseless analogy, then.

Tigaseye.2047:

That is, roughly, how it feels to do certain things in this game, relative to doing other things.

oh. Oh. So you feel like you don’t want to do other things because they’re worse? That analogy was even more baseless than I thought.

Tigaseye.2047:

Lol. Cute.

Is that really all you’ve got to say to that?

Don’t have the nerve to try to deny it, I see.

I recognize that for things to happen on the TP, there needs to be a certain ‘critical mass’ of players that are active. This is also true of the Silverwastes, non-organized dungeon/fractal runs, etc. And I found it cute that you wanted to compare it to reality.

Tigaseye.2047:

Amazed you didn’t just tiptoe around that uncomfortable fact, altogether…

Good luck when you and your family, need help from other, kinder, more altruistic people.

They may not be so kind.

Because the only caliber of argument you can come up with are vague threats, analogies based only on your feelings, and irrelevancies. The only reason things like this are being said is because you lack an actual point, when all I bring to the table are real arguments.

Tigaseye.2047:

And yet, aren’t you the people that want to relax, to not be thinking of the game as the real world with all its concerns and needs? I will say this: the real world rewards work with money, not relaxation. That much has carried over.

No, I don’t want to “relax” and still get gold.

No point in even buying my char stuff, if I don’t play the game.

If you don’t play the game, I question your choice of posting in this thread. Seems a bit like beating a dead horse.

Tigaseye.2047:

I also don’t want to work like a dog, for months, to get what you get in a few days; or be forced to do what you do.

Sitting around on the TP isn’t, in any way, hard work.

I’m not saying it’s hard, backbreaking work. But compared to the rest of the game, it is more like work.
No one is forcing you to do anything; neither TP stuff, nor ‘working like a dog’ (whatever you think that means). And if you still, after this far into the thread, think it’s “a few days,” then I doubt anything will convince you out of what you think right now.

Tigaseye.2047:

It’s just distasteful, bordering on immoral (at times) and boring.

What you think of something has nothing to do with this thread. If you find it immoral, you don’t have to do it.

Ohoni.6057:

They are efficient – depends on how you quantify efficiency but for example crafting ascended insignias (among other time gated crafts) can net you quite a bit of profit. And you don’t have to learn any economic tricks or watch the market or whatnot. Just log in – do your daily craft – sell the stuff and move on.

To a point, although it does require you to max out one or more crafting lines, which has a high base expense (more than many accounts have ever acquired).

GW2Efficiency puts the median for all players at 763g. gw2crafts puts the costs of leveling, say, weaponsmith at ~25g for 0-400 and ~120g for 400-500. 763 > 145. Even the 100-500h median is higher.

Ohoni.6057:

It also means that if you want to make something that uses those materials, you won’t have them to use. And even this is largely playing the TP, knowing that there is a market on the TP for these goods, it is not just something you can just do.

Or basic logic. Look at the top gear, ascended and to a lesser extent legendary. They require ascended mats, and those are timegated so the market can never flood too much. Therefore, there is probably a nice profit margin in making them.

Ohoni.6057:

On the other hand accounts created later had the opportunity to purchase HoT and receive the core game that we originally spent 60$ on for free.

Yeah, but that’s been well paid for in the actual gameplay over the time, it doesn’t need to be justified in earning potential.

Earning potential through early-GW2 is gameplay over the time.

Ohoni.6057:

A player making an account today can find SO many resources guiding them in every aspect of the game – from builds to world completion to farming and collections.

True, but. . . the real money to be made is not in the stuff that have already been heavily worked out. I mean, you can make slight margins on some of those, but never as much as if you’d caught onto them earlier.

I assume you’re talking about the TP, because he clearly isn’t.

Ohoni.6057:

I think that if most of their customers were so outraged and upset with the TP thing – they’d be all over the forums – but most of them don’t even know the forums exist.

And I think this argument misses the point. I don’t think that all that many people are outraged at the TP, but more because they don’t realize that they are outraged at the TP.

So changes should be made because people feel outrage at something when they don’t even know they feel outrage. I don’t even see any sense in what you’re saying.

Ohoni.6057:

They have feelings of decentralized enui, from seeing objectives that they want, but that seem well out of their reach, and not understanding how or why that is.

You can feel anything, that doesn’t change reality, and that doesn’t make you entitled to anything more.

Ohoni.6057:

They’re the same thing.

If someone is genuinely interested in how to make the most money for their items, they will go and learn how to make the most money.

But for the purposes of this discussion, it’s an irrelevant distinction, because the goal is to give those “disinterested participants” equivalent profits to market traders.

So, we should give people who aren’t interested enough to actually do anything more because….that’s how you subjectively think it should be.
See IndigoSundown’s post, it answers this far better than I could.

Ohoni.6057:

Okay, so instead of having metabattle, Anet should just tell you what the good builds are in game.

Yes, or more ideally, ALL builds should be good builds. Making a good build shouldn’t be complicated, it should just be about using the abilities that seem fun to you, and that should work out. If abilities are designed to be used in a specific configuration, then that configuration should be made perfectly obvious. One of the few things the constant trait overhauls got right is that the next system does have at least some consistency of a traitline where if you just pick the abilities left to right, they tend to synergize pretty well. They could do a better job of that though in some trait lines, and maybe highlight the intended play style for a given line.

Instead of having the wiki, ANet should smother every tooltip, item and screen with information.

In some cases, they could do more, but there is a balance involved. If it’s important to gameplay, then it should be obvious in the UI. If it’s more about lore or something, then that can be in the wiki. You really shouldn’t need the wiki to know how to play while in game, the wiki should be more about collecting info for when you aren’t logged in and want to check something.

Instead of having the forums, we should be having this discussion ingame.

We could, but that would be a bit inefficient, the client is a bit bulky.

Instead of using Twitch to do their esports and community livestreams, they should develop the software to do it in-client.

Yeah, or not do it at all, whichever.

It’s an MMO. You have to leave the client sometime.

Yes, when you’re done for the night, but aside from that, you should never have to.

That you think you shouldn’t have to leave the client is only relevant if you can give good, objective reasons why this ought to be the case. As to the rest of it:
/missedthepoint
/didn’tevenincludetheactualargument

Ohoni.6057:

Then maybe those people should learn to understand the market and understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Again, marketplay is an element of skill. The tools are available for them to learn what to do. There is no barrier of entry beyond your own time and effort and no reason that they can’t just GIT GUD.

And again, I continue to insist that the average player should not need to do this in order to profit competitively in an adventure MMO.

Therin lies the problem. You think the whole game, including gold count, is a competition. This only exists in your mind. The only ‘profit competitively’ is within the TP and sPvP (i.e. the TP and sPvP is the only competitive profit).

Ohoni.6057:

By that logic, a kid playing on a playground should be making minimum wage.

Your analogy sort of breaks down when you’re comparing play to work.

Precisely, that is exactly what you are doing.

Ohoni.6057:

This is a game, it is ALL play, which is the problem. If there are activities in the game which are like work, and they reward at a much higher level than activities that are pure play, then something has gone horribly wrong.

I’m not sure what to say here. The whiny, opinion-based subjectivity is self-displaying.

Ohoni.6057:

To use your analogy in reverse, it would be if a fortune 500 company based your entire salary on your performance in the intramural ping-pong leagues, rewarding people ostensibly there to work, for playing.

Would you mind explaining how trying to reverse my analogy actually applies anything? The analogy was meant to break down, it’s representing your logic.

Ohoni.6057:

That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market.

Traders do neither. Traders do not create demand because they don’t actually use the products. Any demand they personally have is only borrowed from their future customers, it is those eventual customers that create the demand. Any supply they influence, they bought off someone else, so they do not create supply either. All they do with either is shift it in time.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Demand here is just referring to the amount of an item that people want. What the item is used for is irrelevant, what matters is that more of the item is wanted. I don’t know what you mean by borrowing it from future customers. No, they don’t create new supply, but they cycle older supply through again. If they hadn’t added that supply back in, the buyer would have been buying from new supply.

Ohoni.6057:

This does give the illusion that supply and demand are more stable than they actually are, which is actually detrimental, because it causes the community to be less agile in reacting to actual supply or demand needs. If the market is running low on mithril, and the traders keep topping it off from their stores, then people don’t realize that the actual supply in player hands is decreasing significantly, and don’t start taking steps to correct that trend.

First of all, mithril is a pretty fast market, so I doubt several traders unloading their stocks would keep it low for very long. Additionally, sites like gw2spidy track sell and buy order numbers. It’s not like someone could buy up 50,000 mithril and have no one notice.

Tigaseye.2047:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

No. In this system, there is nothing preventing the poor from going out and doing any number of things to get quite a bit of money. The reason they are poor and will remain there is because they don’t want to do something about it.

No.

The problem is that that “something” they have to do is far too limited to one thing, in terms of gold per hour.

In this case, mainly, the TP.

I find it ironic that the only people who downplay any other way to get gold are the oly people that want it eliminated. Well, less ironic and more agenda-pushing. But at least you have the courtesy to format you’re quotes.

Tigaseye.2047:

It’s the equivalent of making people IRL play the stock market, or only earn $0.30 per hour being a soldier, or a teacher, or a nurse…..or even a doctor.

Source for those stats? Where is this ratio coming from and what is it based on? All I see is hyperbole and apples-to-oranges false comparison.

Tigaseye.2047:

People can do other things than being a stockbroker and still be fairly comfortable.

The GW2 standard of living is ~3g. You don’t have to have tons of money to experience the vast majority of that game.

Tigaseye.2047:

…and thank God that is the case, as you stockbroker types need all those professions (and FAR more) to keep you and your families alive and thriving.

FAR more than they need you, in fact.

Lol. Cute.

Tigaseye.2047:

That is how the real world works and yet, apparently, that wouldn’t be possible in a game?

And yet, aren’t you the people that want to relax, to not be thinking of the game as the real world with all its concerns and needs? I will say this: the real world rewards work with money, not relaxation. That much has carried over.

Ohoni.6057:

This just doesn’t make any sense on a fundamental level. You’re doing things for people who are not interested. Yes, their ignorance affects the market, but there is no barrier to entry for removing that ignorance.

People aren’t disinterested in getting the best bang for their buck, they’re disinterested in going through the hassle of learning how to do that.

Interest spurs action, disinterest, or not enough, spurs inaction. If they had a real interest to do so, they would take actions to do it.

Ohoni.6057:

If you say “do you want 3g or 4g?” None of them will say “3g please!” But if you say “would you like 3g now or 4g at some point in the future, possibly never?”

We both know how it works. So where is this strawman of the system coming from? Or are you saying that when people see a system, they assume it’s dysfunctional?

Ohoni.6057:

It’s absolutely bizarre that this is your point. gw2spidy and the wiki are right there, and they’re free to use. Anyone who is interested in them can very, very easily find them. The rest is economic sense, which frankly, is an element of skill and should be preserved.

Yes, but it requires leaving the game client, and that information is only useful to you if you know what you’re meant to do with it. It helps people who understand the markets to determine a reasonable target point, it does absolutely nothing for players that don’t understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Should this be in the game client? An icon on the top to open Dulfy in-game? A chat channel called ‘Forums?’ The logic just makes no sense here.

Ohoni.6057:

We’ve been over this before. You and I are not competing for who can get Dawn first. Yes, the TP is a competition, but the rest of the game isn’t. You can earn what you need for Dawn at whatever rate you want, dependent on what you’re willing to spend your time doing.

But, the market is still competitive. It’s not about who gets the Dawn first, it’s about who has the gold to buy Dawn first. The faster you accumulate the money you need, the better a deal you’re likely to get. Yes, the price falls from time to time, but if you don’t have the gold in hand to capitalize on those periods then you can’t take advantage of them. It isn’t even a direct competition over the same item, trying to craft The Legend yourself, for example, puts you into competition with people crafting Nevermore, Guild Halls, etc.

Funny how you argue with a strawman after I point out it’s made of straw. I even agreed in the part you quoted with the market being competitive. But I’m not arguing about the market, I’m arguing about the game in general. And you would know that, if you actually read what I’ve said.

Ohoni.6057:

If you just want to relax in GW2, that’s fine. Just don’t relax and then ask for the same things as people who worked.

I don’t believe that treating it as “work” should be a supported playstyle. I mean, people should be able to do it if they want, they just shouldn’t feel entitled to superior rewards for doing so.

Straight from the horse’s mouth.
By that logic, a kid playing on a playground should be making minimum wage. After all, you shouldn’t be entitled to better rewards for working than playing? Nevermind the fact that this is just based on your personal beliefs. All I can say is that your beliefs here make no sense.

Ohoni.6057:

If a player realizes that he can make more money in a reasonable time by just undercutting sell, then he’ll do so. And another realizes he can still get his product fast by just overcutting buys a bit, then he’ll do that, and the two sides will move closer and closer together, one side more than the other if the balance point is not 50/50, but eventually they’ll be close enough that it doesn’t really matter which they pick so they’ll just buy whatever.

Congratulations, sir, you have just outlined one of the most basic principles of flipping that people have been using for years. In the current economy. With item margins as they are…

Right, but my point is that the average player doesn’t realize these things, because the tools are not there to make it easy. It requires making trial sales, checking price histories and volumes on outside sites, things like that.

It requires none of those. All it requires is knowing that the TP is FIFO (first in first out). The rest of it logically follows from there. I can’t think of a good way to express it on the UI, but if Anet can, then by all means, do it.

Ohoni.6057:

So the existing system can cause it, but of course we need this fundamentally different system so that it can happen, right?

Again, the point of the system is not to bring prices closer to equilibrium. That is just a side effect that I believe will result, and you can disagree if you like, I won’t argue it. That’s not the point though, the point of it is to make these tools more available to the disinterested trader, the ones that currently make bad decisions when they could make better ones while still getting all the benefits of their current choices. It’s to democratize the TP.

You claimed it would happen, so I asked why and what would cause it. Still haven’t gotten a good answer. That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market. Those are stabilizing effects, reducing the potential for volatility, and thus getting closer to the equilibrium.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~ You should be able to post your 50 at 31s, it would instantly process the 20 asked for, and then leave the other 30 up as a sell order.

It’s meant to not allow people to do that unwittingly, so they don’t accidentally create sell orders like that. Y’know, more control for the player. If you want to list at the former buy order, you can still do that.

Ohoni.6057:

That made no sense, so let me give you a hypothetical run-down. Players 1-5 sell item A to trader 11, and players 6-10 buy item A from player 11. Let’s say item A has a 2s-4s buy-sell order spread. Players 1-5 sell to buy order, getting 2s per A. Players 6-10 buy from the sell order, paying 4s. Now, same people, same choices, but player 11 no longer exists. The item now has a 1s99c-4s1c spread because 11’s orders no longer exist. 1-5 sell to the buy order for 1s99c each, and 6-10 buy for 4s1c each. Do you see how it doesn’t ‘even out’ the way you think it does?

But the thing is, there are real people who want those items, and will compete to get them. Pure traders are not some invaluable resource. Yes, if the first group clears out the buy orders, the buy price would drop to the next tier available, but some other player would come along who wants that item, and would overcut that order, and we’d be back to the original price or higher. If real people did not want that item, then it wouldn’t be profitable for traders to be involved in that market in the first place.

But then you’re fundamentally changing the scenario; we have to apply that to both of them. Let’s assume in both cases that 3 players under or overcut the trader’s orders. In which case we’re back to the original end, except the numbers are 3c higher, no other relevant differences.

Ohoni.6057:

And again, you say “group A” and “group B,” but real players are neither pure buyers or sellers, they buy what they need and sell what they don’t, so the average player will be buying as often as he sells. So maybe those in group A get an advantage over group B in one trade, but then the opposite would tend to happen in a different trade and it balances out over time. The distinction from the current system is that that “balancing out” factor currently applies mostly to the trader’s profit margins.

You still don’t seem to understand this, so let me run through another scenario. Players A and B want item 1 and have item 2, C and D have 1 and want 2. Player A sells 2 to D’s buy order, and B lists 2, which C buys. Thus B and D have demonstrated an understand of it, and got the ‘better deal.’ So, scoreboard for ‘balance’: A: 0, B: 1, C: 0,1. Now we do item 1, with people using the same understanding; that is, they are being consistent. A buys D’s sell order, and C sells to B’s buy order. Now, the scoreboard is: A: 0, B: 2, C: 0, 0. The only way that this would balance to 1 apiece is if, on item 1 (second example), B buys from C’s sell order (B not using what he knew in item 2, C using new knowledge) and D sells to A’s buy order (A knowing new things and D not using what he knew). In other words, by being inconsistent just so that it is balanced.

Ohoni.6057:

Irrelevant. You might notice that the majority of this thread has been on the topic of demolishing the TP as it stands.

The points surrounding the TP are only relevant in how they interact with the gold economy, and how that gold economy allows players to shortcut various other goals. It’s all interconnected.

These other threads are not arguing for what you want. They have not, as far as I have seen, been about the TP traders at all. I acknowledged that they were broached in our discussion, but prices of high-demand mats =/= traders should not earn money as they do. They are apples and oranges.

Ohoni.6057:

But let’s say that the farmer does make less gold for his mithril, that would occur to the benefit of another actual player who needed that mithril to make things. He would have gotten a better deal, and that’s good. And then later on, the mithril farmer would need to buy something, and he would get a better deal on that. it would balance out, but either way, the “good deal” is going to one of two players that are actually playing the game, not to the trader playing the margins in between them.

See above examples as to why saying it would ‘balance out’ makes no sense. And being a TP trader is playing the game, whether or not you like it.

Ohoni.6057:

Additionally, traders keep supply in the market for longer, so the person who buys 500 mithril from him would have otherwise bought up more expensive mithril.

They only do this by hoarding materials when they are cheap, and reselling them when they are more expensive.

No, they do this by selling things that otherwise would have left the market in the hands of someone who, say, was crafting a greatsword. No matter when or at what price.

Ohoni.6057:

If they could not do this, then the items would just stay on the market at the lower price consistently, and people who needed those materials to craft would get a good deal, until such time as the cheaper mats got depleted, then the prices would climb again and make them more profitable to farm. That’s basically no different than it works now, except that the entirety of the profits/savings goes to the actual players, not to the traders.

Spoken like a person who thinks the TP isn’t part of the game. The whole ‘lower price consistently’ thing makes no sense. Price spikes, like the ones on asc mats recently, occur because of the demand of the general playerbase. Ironically, traders keep the price lower a bit longer by keeping supply in circulation a little more. And yes, when it does rise, the mats go up, and become more farmable. Not that that matters, since the kind of player you’re arguing for is unwilling to do anything for the sake of their gold count.

Ohoni.6057:

No one is forcing you to do it, you don’t have to.

True, but also irrelevant. It’s like saying “Yes, this one class is ten times as powerful as any other, but you don’t have to play it, you can play one of the other ones if you enjoy that more.” It’s just silly. If one choice is seriously unbalanced, then it is unfair to those who prefer other choices. That’s why you need them to be all in balance, and can’t resolve a balance dispute with “well, you can always roll a [Class X] if you want.”

We’ve been over this before. The unbalanced class you argue over is so problematic because of competitive situations. You and I are not competing for gold count.

Ohoni.6057:

Oh, I’m aware of the prevailing view among the TP aficionados that TP profits cannot be compared to content rewards, which is terribly convenient since it absolves their own favorite profit method from having to be balanced against other people’s favorite profit methods, I just fundamentally disagree with them on that.

Ironic, because I’m not even a ‘TP aficionado.’ I have at most dabbled in it.

Ohoni.6057:

Point me to the people that are chasing money from a source that doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist in great enough quantities for it to be possible.

There are plenty of activities in the game that won’t reward even a fraction of the gold that can be earned by abusing the TP.

And the people? Y’know, what I was actually asking about?

Ohoni.6057:

And yet, for you, time isn’t the issue with precursors, it’s money. Oh wait, you just agreed that time is money. Huh.

. . . yes, I just said that. The whole issue is how TP players can make much more money with much less investment of their own time, and then convert that into reduced time in acquiring cool things.

Except that you don’t care how fast other people get things. Oh wait, you said you do. Oh wait, you said it’s a matter of degree. I can’t tell, all three things were said about the exact same items. shrug

Ohoni.6057:

Do you understand basic statistics? Or why their win-loss rate might be higher because they spent time to assure that? Imagine that you make a guess, then roll a 20-sided die 10 times each day. What you are saying is that it is unfair that he doesn’t win very often for the sole reason that someone else is doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times per day after looking into common flaws for this kind of die and manufacturer, and has spent time examining the die to see what imbalances it has.

I’m saying that it’s a system that does not work out to the advantage of the overwhelming majority of players, and any well designed system in the game should be designed to work out for most, if not all players.

Going to actually address what I said? Or even address the same topic as the content you’re quoting? Not, mind you, that I’m surprised.

Ohoni.6057:

No, but that’s common sense. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. Now, would you mind telling me what any of this has to do with any of the discussion? Or at least try to justify why it isn’t a red herring.

Because the point is, taking educated risks that tend to win more often than they lose is not actual risk, it’s only true risk if you’re very likely to lose more over the long term than you are to win. That’s true of most actual gambling, the house usually does win, it is far less true for the TP, for those who know what they’re doing.

Ah, I do love entertaining No True Risk fallacies. Because only true risks have a 99% chance to lose!
/s
Seriously, any trading is a risk. Some risks are higher than others, but they are all cases of risk. They all have the potential to lose money. Stop trying to No True Scotsman your way out of this fact.

Ohoni.6057:

No, they sell for astronomical prices because they are very rare and very useful, so there’s little supply and large demand. Commenting on the economy without understanding supply and demand is rather futile.

So is blaming supply and demand for the price of things, when ANet has total control over both factors and have it within their power to shift the value of either at their whims.

I’m not blaming, I’m stating facts; this is an observed phenomenon. And if Anet had such a problem with those prices, they would have done something. And really, at this point they can only affect supply.

Ohoni.6057:

Your argument that its too hard for the average player to list it at a higher value and expect it to sell at a certain time is completely moot because the trader has to take the same risk.

Yes, but WITH BETTER ODDS. Do you watch John Oliver? He did a piece a couple weeks back on that online sports gambling thing, where they advertise that players make millions of dollars a week at it. And some do. But the ones that do are the ones with massive spreadsheets and algorithms that track player performance, weather, etc., allowing them to lose some, but win many more and come out ahead. Sure, a random guy can just “yolo” it and maybe his picks win and he makes money, but his chances of success are way lower.

Do you understand basic statistics? Or why their win-loss rate might be higher because they spent time to assure that? Imagine that you make a guess, then roll a 20-sided die 10 times each day. What you are saying is that it is unfair that he doesn’t win very often for the sole reason that someone else is doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times per day after looking into common flaws for this kind of die and manufacturer, and has spent time examining the die to see what imbalances it has.

Ohoni.6057:

A player that knows what he’s doing isn’t taking much risk at all, really. Oh, he might take a risk on a few transactions, and lose on them, but he’d win on more than he loses and come out ahead.

And you clearly don’t even know what you’re talking about. Or how much goes into trying to reduce risk. Or why winning on risks makes you come out ahead.

Ohoni.6057:

Would you ever really gamble so much of your wealth on a risky move that it would actually wipe you out? Or do you just make high risk plays with a tiny fraction of your net worth, and mostly make plays that you’re fairly certain will pay out?

No, but that’s common sense. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. Now, would you mind telling me what any of this has to do with any of the discussion? Or at least try to justify why it isn’t a red herring.

Ohoni.6057:

You can claim as much as you want that profits on the tp are basically the same than rewards from Anet. They arent.

I acknowledge the same difference that you acknowledge, that is not the difference between our positions. The difference is that I also understand that you acquiring gold, wherever you acquire it from, is still you acquiring gold, and it’s ANet’s responsibility to keep those systems in balance with all others. If they allow players to earn gold by taking it from other players, then it is their responsibility to make sure that this method is in balance with the other methods of a player acquiring gold.

Correct, you do acknowledge the difference. And then go on to completely ignore it.

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

Its so laughable that you think there is much skill involved in listing your loot for a higher price.

Its basic math, just multiply the current value of your loot on the tp by 2 or 3, list it at that price and wait until it sells. Thats all there is to it.
Boom, you make as much as a trader.

The only issue I have really is…because of all this increasing prices on the TP.. and everyone trying to make the most amount of gold, eventually EVERYTHING is going to be way over priced and out of the hands of the poor and middle class players.

For example: Anton’s Boot Blade is valued (worth) 2s 64c by Anet (wiki) and is currently selling on the TP for more than 34 gold. That is way overpriced and for some players this could be out of reach.

Vendor value is irrelevant, and has been for a long time on almost everything rare or greater. Comparing it to TP prices doesn’t even make sense.

Lynne.8416:

Once you get into precursor and legendary weapons…that are selling at astronomical prices all because people are trying to make money off the TP. Not necessarily to buy something pricey, but because they wish to amass gold in the game.

No, they sell for astronomical prices because they are very rare and very useful, so there’s little supply and large demand. Commenting on the economy without understanding supply and demand is rather futile.

Lynne.8416:

So basically the “poor” will never acquire anything pricey, because by the time they make 100g, the price will have moved up to be 300g. Which I find rather sad.

No. In this system, there is nothing preventing the poor from going out and doing any number of things to get quite a bit of money. The reason they are poor and will remain there is because they don’t want to do something about it.

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

The vendor value Anet sets has very little to do with the value the players set for the item.
The increased prices on the tp are due to additional demand, as the player base as a whole is destroying alot of mats atm to craft stuff or upgrade guild halls, etc.
Its actually positive for poor and middle class players, if basic mats rise in price becasue they can easily farm them and therefore get more value for their loot.
In addition to that, most valuable items that have been traded for over 100g before hot and have no function as a requirement to gain other items, have fallen in value since HoT.

I was actually referring to the fact that the poor will always be poor. Because they are not “farming” or “playing the TP” to make gold. They are just out there playing “their” particular part of the game (say PvP or WvW or mapping/exploring).

Yes, they made choices about how they wanted to spend their time, and those choices have results.

Lynne.8416:

The rich will always find a way to be rich (as even when they go “broke” they know how to amass gold quickly). Some people play the game to amass gold because that is what THEY enjoy and they tend to control the price of items on the TP as they can afford to buy out the low and sell high.
Not saying it’s wrong, it’s just how life works.

The rich will either still be able to do what got them there, or will find the next thing that will keep them there. Why will they have this and the poor don’t? The rich made the choice to spend their time pursuing gold.

Ohoni.6057:

Its not only common netiquette but also common courtesy in real life, sometimes even legally required, to provide a source, when you quote someone.

The source is implicit, it’s somewhere up thread, which you should have already read before you got to my post. If I source something from outside this thread, there will be a link.

It’s basic, useful formatting; it’s not hard to use, and not using it is rather disrespectful. As I think I said earlier, I wasn’t going to bring it up because then you’d level the accusations that, well, you’ve leveled at the people who brought it up, and that would probably lead to a general derailment. Now that this point has been brought up, I agree.

Ohoni.6057:

It simply takes statements other people made out of context and prohibits readers of your post to double check the source.

Its disrespectful and doesnt really help you to get your points across.

You dont have to type in poster data, you can just copy/paste it along with the quote.

Its very simple and your reluctance to do so makes it look like you dont want to provide context on purpose.

You see what I mean about people using this as a sideshow when they feel they’re on their back foot in the primary line of discussion? I mean, you didn’t even address the actual topic at all.

I think this person (I’d say who, but there’s no name) was reading through the thread, and found your lack of etiquette so infuriating that s/he felt the need to post. Also, ad hominems are unbecoming. S/he stated that they found your formatting disrespectful, and you respond by saying that this person only said that because s/he was losing; do you see what I mean?

Ohoni.6057:

where all characters and all accounts are created equal it is the quality and effort of each player alone that enables him to accumulate wealth in game.

That’s not entirely true. While the basics of each account are created equal, accounts created earlier than others have more opportunities to exploit loopholes before they get patched or nerfed, and then take that money and roll it into some other venture. The longer you’ve been playing, the more opportunities you’ve had to gain an advantage. This is bit similar to an aristocracy as played out over generations, in that anyone born in the middle of a medieval period could theoretically distinguish himself and earn his way into the aristocracy, those who have already been in the aristocracy for generations are much more capable of staying there and further advancing their station with far less effort.

This is true regardless of the TP, regardless of pretty much any of the things talked about in this thread. So I ask: your point?

Ohoni.6057:

I think that the changes I proposed would benefit more of the players, since relatively few of them benefit from the current model, so whether they actually care about the issue or not isn’t particularly important.

And you have shown no evidence or reason for why I should think that, nor any reason why it should be done.

Ohoni.6057:

But when the thread starts moving fast and you start responding to multiple people who may be saying conflicting things in the same post, it gets messy and hard for people to follow or even realize that Ohoni is responding to the things that they said, especially when they aren’t the first person they respond to.

Why should you care whether I’m responding to you? Do you not care what your fellow posters have to say? You only want feedback on the things you’ve said? That’s pretty self-absorbed. It shouldn’t matter who I’m replying to, it should only matter what I’m replying to, regardless of who said it.

The two things were separate points, and I think you know that. Stop conflating the two. The point is that, with the name, you can just click to see the source post, figure out who you’re responding to, etc. It’s basic etiquette to include them, and makes things rather annoying to follow if you don’t. The only reason I know who you’re responding to is that I’m writing half of it.

Ohoni.6057:

Not to mention, this forum will link to the direct post. So that if the person who quotes crops out parts, other readers can click on the link and get the permanent link to the quoted post for more context if necessary. Since, Ohoni doesn’t do that AND crops out parts of the posts pretty much all of the time, context can be lost. This holds especially true for threads that move quickly.

Whenever I have to look up the context of a comment, I do a quick word search for a relatively unique phrase, that usually turns it up.

Again, it’s rather annoying, much easier to do with the name there, and is just a pointless inconvenience for readers.

Ohoni.6057:

So, you want to make a player who has almost no investment in the game, just finished leveling their first character, to be just as well off and just as capable of getting high-end stuff as someone who has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours gathering materials (in this case gold).

No, that’s not what I said (you really do seem to have a habit of that, don’t you). You would need to progress towards the goal, you just shouldn’t be able to use gold to shortcut the process. I mean, you can have millions of karma, that doesn’t mean that you are owed the right to buy every legendary component for karma if you like.

No one is talking about being ‘owed’ anything. Again, this is your opinion, I’m sure you can fill in the rest yourself. Beyond that, you’ve missed my point, which was that you are invalidating the time and investment of players pointlessly. Well, not pointlessly, it achieves one thing: making everyone else play as you do.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, you may think that any given thing should be true. That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. You don’t get to force everyone else to think and play with the your opinion.

You say some variation of this point a lot, and you seem to think that you’re actually challenging something I said. Of course this is all my opinion, and of course I can’t force it on anyone. That’s never been in doubt. I just believe that it would be in the best interests of the game, anyone is free to disagree on that and I’ve never portrayed it as otherwise.

All of your arguments for your beliefs boil down to two things:
(1) just your opinion
(2) a claim but no evidence
An opinion is not an argument, as you use it. A claim is one, but relies on your ability to substantiate it. What I am saying is that your opinion is not a reason for a position.

Ohoni.6057:

With the amount of this thread spent on your feelings, one would think that it is. Anway, you’re not quite right: In almost ever ripoff in human history, the victim’s knowledge of the value and uses of the item was inaccurate. No one is concealing the uses of an item, but in fact you can ‘/wiki Item Name’ as a chat command to find the wiki’s documentation of its uses. Thus, for it to be a ripoff, they must have an inaccurate understanding of the item’s value. So please, go ahead and argue that the prices that items are bought and sold at aren’t accurate.

Yes, but you have to look that item up via outside sources. In most land scams, people always have the option of tracking down documentation on that land, getting it privately assayed, consulting locals about potential future uses for it, whatever, but that doesn’t mean that the scammed has no obligation to be honest in the first place. Just because you can scam someone, and they could have avoided it, doesn’t mean you’re justified in doing so.

You missed my point, I was saying that no one is hiding recipes for an item so they can buy it from you cheap. Adding a way to show every recipe for every item in-game would be pointless, redundant, and large. Just imagine mousing over an Iron Ingot to see the entire screen overflowing with recipes for this iron armor piece, thar iron weapon part. The wiki documents it concisely and efficiently.

Ohoni.6057:

And all I’m asking for is that you stop conflating the TP with the rest of the game.

I would be happy to do so just as soon as items/gold bought or sold on the TP can no longer be used anywhere else in the game. So long as items/gold that pass through the TP CAN be used in other aspects of the game, the TP is a part of the game, and you cannot rationally argue otherwise.

The first half has nothing to do with what I said, lol. I’m not arguing the TP isn’t part of the game, it very much is. I’m arguing that the properties of other parts, or even the sum, are not always comparable to other parts.

Ohoni.6057:

What you want is to be able to do whatever you want, however non-goal-oriented it may be, and end up with the same result as, say, Wanze, who has been focused on getting one specific thing to the best of his ability, knowledge, and research.

I wouldn’t go that broad with it. I wouldn’t say that farming moas, for example, should be as profitable.

The exact same logic and reasoning can be used to justify that.

Ohoni.6057:

But I think this is a pretty big game, with a LOT of things to do in it, and to argue that NONE of those activities should be even 1/10th as rewarding as TP flipping is a bit irrational.

And I think you don’t understand what I said earlier about comparability, or what Smooth and Wanze have been saying about that in this whole thread. Not that I’m surprised.

Ohoni.6057:

The miners rarely made money because they were chasing a dream-story that didn’t exist, at least not as they thought it did. The shop owners made money because they provided what people wanted when there were a LOT of people that wanted those items. Basic supply and demand. I don’t see your argument.

Really? Because you seem to have nailed the GW2 economy.

Point me to the people that are chasing money from a source that doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist in great enough quantities for it to be possible.

Ohoni.6057:

Its basic math, just multiply the current value of your loot on the tp by 2 or 3, list it at that price and wait until it sells. Thats all there is to it.
Boom, you make as much as a trader.

And if it never sells because you gambled at a price that never gets reached? I do have at least a few orders on the TP that I’ve let ride for a year or more. Not everyone has the disposable income to tie up significant amounts for months on end without returns.

And he is willing to tie up that money for that long. And you would consider that no more valuable than opening chests in the Silverwastes. I would say that I fail to see your logic, but I can’t tell if there even is logic here.

Ohoni.6057:

You only see the benefits of a perceived high reward that traders seem to get in your opinion and want it for your playstyle as well.
You completely disregard the risks involved.
Once other reward structures get similar penalties applied to them, we can talk about buffing rewards.

There are certainly ways to greatly reduce risk from the sort of “yolo” tactic you suggest. There are much safer bets to make with plenty strong returns, so long as you take the time to research and have the tools available to do so.

Read that last clause a few times to yourself. Again.

Ohoni.6057:

If typical gameplay doesn’t involve enough “risk” to justify the sort of rewards the TP offers, I’d be fine with some sort of “self gambling” system, where a player could bet a certain amount of gold that he could complete an encounter without dying, or with only a fixed number of lives, and only if he beats the spread does he take home the prize. I don’t know that I’d want to gamble on the performance of others, there already enough of that just in time wasted when an event wipes.

Or you can accept that there are fundamental differences and stop making false equivalencies.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not like normal play is entirely without risk. Sure, you aren’t gambling money, you aren’t putting gold up front that you stand to lose, but you are always gambling time, and time is money.

And yet, for you, time isn’t the issue with precursors, it’s money. Oh wait, you just agreed that time is money. Huh.

Ohoni.6057:

If a player in PvP wins more matches because he’s a more skilled player, then fair enough. If he wins more matches because he’s playing the one class out of nine that is objectively far superior to any other class even when played by players of equal skill, then that’s not very fun for players who would prefer to play as the other eight classes, even if they do always have the option of playing the god-class themselves if they like.

We’ve been over this before. You and I are not competing for who can get Dawn first. Yes, the TP is a competition, but the rest of the game isn’t. You can earn what you need for Dawn at whatever rate you want, dependent on what you’re willing to spend your time doing.

Ohoni.6057:

Who says Wanze isn’t working hard? If you’re suggesting that your gameplay takes more skill, or more hard work than him, why not take the easy route and play the TP?

Because this is a game. I work at work, I don’t work in games. I play games to have fun, and I don’t have fun pouring over spreadsheets. I just want to have fun AND be able to afford nice things.

If you just want to relax in GW2, that’s fine. Just don’t relax and then ask for the same things as people who worked.

Ohoni.6057:

I have not been opposed to better UI. Earlier, you said that under your system items would move ‘rapidly towards equilibrium,’ so I asked how that would happen. You now admit that removing TP flippers would slow that movement down and have provided no evidence or reason for why it would move toward equilibrium.

Lol, I didn’t “admit” anything, I was just clarifying the system because you didn’t seem to understand it. Different components serve different purposes.

Prove that those functions would serve those purposes, that they would achieve the goals without counteracting each other, and that they are necessary and that Anet has good reason to consider the whole thing.

Ohoni.6057:

Removing flippers was never intended to help bring equilibrium (nor do I think that it would slow it), that was intended to increase fairness.

I’ll get back to this later, just keep it in mind.

Ohoni.6057:

Fair. You haven’t demonstrated that this would actually happen though.

Fair enough, and I’m not even sure how I would go about doing that. It’s what I think would happen, and it’d be nice if it did, but it might not, and if it doesn’t we would at least be no worse than we are right now. If you have any suggestions as to how to do it better, that’d be great.

Outline what economic forces would cause this. Prove that they would not be counteracted by, say, the removal of flippers overcutting buy orders and undercutting sell orders (I’ll get back to this). Then give evidence-based reasons why this needs to be done and how it would make the game objectively better without fundamentally breaking the economy or other game systems. If you can do that without bringing in your personal opinions and without making unsubstantiated claims, and without gaps that would undermine the whole thing, you will have convinced me, and I will agree with you. I’ve laid out here what will convince me; can you do the same?

Ohoni.6057:

If they now understand what, why would someone ever sell to buy orders or buy from sell orders?

Well, they have to transact a trade somehow, right? I mean nobody benefits from just sitting on the item.

Well, yees, and that’s exactly the flaw that I’m pointing out. The same reasoning that got you to this point would create just such a scenario. But go on.

If a player realizes that he can make more money in a reasonable time by just undercutting sell, then he’ll do so. And another realizes he can still get his product fast by just overcutting buys a bit, then he’ll do that, and the two sides will move closer and closer together, one side more than the other if the balance point is not 50/50, but eventually they’ll be close enough that it doesn’t really matter which they pick so they’ll just buy whatever.

Congratulations, sir, you have just outlined one of the most basic principles of flipping that people have been using for years. In the current economy. With item margins as they are…

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve seen that happen already on some commodities, where the prices get so close together that undercutting the sell order even slightly means that you’re picking up buy orders. The existing UI handles this situation very poorly, btw, they really should allow you to place your buy/sell order for the quantity that you want, even if some portion of that quantity would instantly be fulfilled due to existing buy/sell orders.

So the existing system can cause it, but of course we need this fundamentally different system so that it can happen, right?
/s
I think what it’s doing is not letting you sell more than the buy order is for, so you don’t accidentally sell N of your X items, and end up with a sell order at the former buy order price for X-N of your items. I agree, it’s a little clunky.

Ohoni.6057:

But let’s make sure to not consider the other side, that sellers get less money for their items and/or buyers have to pay more for their items, no, that’s not an effect of what you want to happen. Let’s also not pay attention to how vague ‘significantly’ is.

We could if you like, I really don’t mind. Yes, sometimes sellers would make more than they currently would, but each time they do so, it would be because a buyer would not be paying that higher price. And of course the opposite is true from the other side. Since neither side would have to deal with resellers, the same customers who would be getting worse deals one time would be getting better deals some other time, and it would average out to them getting better deals overall, since there wouldn’t be anyone skimming profit potential off the middle.

That made no sense, so let me give you a hypothetical run-down. Players 1-5 sell item A to trader 11, and players 6-10 buy item A from player 11. Let’s say item A has a 2s-4s buy-sell order spread. Players 1-5 sell to buy order, getting 2s per A. Players 6-10 buy from the sell order, paying 4s. Now, same people, same choices, but player 11 no longer exists. The item now has a 1s99c-4s1c spread because 11’s orders no longer exist. 1-5 sell to the buy order for 1s99c each, and 6-10 buy for 4s1c each. Do you see how it doesn’t ‘even out’ the way you think it does?

Ohoni.6057:

Right now, you can go kill boars in Queensdale, getting items and money from them, sell the items, slowly stockpile money, and eventually have enough money to buy the item you want. It may not be efficient, but you can do it. The only person that wants to remove ways to reach goals is you.

Yes, but currently that method is not balanced against other methods. I think it’s reasonably well balanced against other adventuring activities, low pressure for low reward, but it’s not at all balanced against the TP method. To go back to my building analogy, adventuring would be taking the stairs and hallways, or taking the ramp the long way around, the TP method would be taking a system of powered elevators and moving walkways that will lift you to the destination in a fraction of the time and effort, but it requires you to know the passcode to access it. It’s not a balanced alternative. I’m not necessarily saying remove any alternatives, but any alternatives that exist must be balanced with the other possibilities.

If you think it’s as easy as a passcode, I don’t know what to tell you. Even if we assume it is, it would be closer to giving everyone the first half, and some people go off and search for the second half, while the rest decide they don’t want to. And to add you into this scenario, you chose not to pursue it, but when you see some people starting to figure it out, you yell for them to tell it to you, despite not having done anything for it.

Ohoni.6057:

You can hold that belief as long as you want, not everyone else does and you don’t get to force that belief on everyone.

Sure, but a lot of other people also seem to be complaining about the amount of grind/RNG/gold/etc. involved in certain rewards, maybe enough to care about, I don’t know, but ANet should really try to find that out.

Irrelevant. You might notice that the majority of this thread has been on the topic of demolishing the TP as it stands. We have touched on those those topics, yes, but only as points in the overarching discussion. Not that it matters, saying that a lot of people agree is merely a fallacy (argumentum ad populum, to be exact).

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve said this before: advantages only exist when you are competing for an end goal. You are not in any competition to get a high-end item.

And I’ve said before, you’re entirely wrong on that, because the TP is a competitive landscape in which those who succeed do so only at others’ expense. You can’t make money without someone losing it, if both sides get a fair deal then they just break even on the transaction. Your argument that the economy is not competitive would be true ONLY if prices were fixed, and if I we were only racing towards a fixed gold vale as fast as we each could.

And if you had read what I had said before, you would know that I’m not talking about the economy here, but the game as a whole. I agree, the TP is a competition, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Ohoni.6057:

You missed the point. People don’t want to farm 5000 mithril, they want to buy it now, and oh look! TP traders will put that sell order supply up.

Yeah, but you don’t need TP traders for that. Where did the TP trader get his 5000 mithril? He got it from other players who were farming for metal, and who got less for their time and effort than the TP trader is going to get from reselling it. So someone comes along and wants 5000 mithril, he doesn’t need the TP trader to list it, because the mithril that trader would have bought and resold would still be sitting right there, just at a lower price.

1. The buy and sell orders were there for any farmer to look at. If anything, the farmer would get slightly more, because the trader would overcut the last buy order.
2. To say that it would be there at a lower price makes no sense unless, between the two versions of events, that player actively made a different choice, in which case you can’t compare the two versions. Additionally, traders keep supply in the market for longer, so the person who buys 500 mithril from him would have otherwise bought up more expensive mithril.

Ohoni.6057:

And the thing is, if it’s impossible to re-sell materials, then let’s say that the sell price does creep up, because less people are listing sell orders. Well in that case, people who actually earned those materials could be making more money, which they actually deserve.

At the converse expense of the buyer, my whole point above.

Ohoni.6057:

Better that they make more than that middlemen make more, right? And if the price goes up, then that encourages more people to farm those mats, more of the mats enter circulation, and the prices come back down again. It would be no less stable than the current system.

Except that those exact same forces are at play right now, but with the additional balance of traders. The trader keeps supply in circulation for longer. That is, mithril sold to a trader will remain as supply on the TP for longer, reducing prices.

Ohoni.6057:

The only way that they would be getting a better deal is if you forced the seller to make a sell order and the buyer to buy it, in which case the buyer is getting a worse deal, or if you forced the buyer to place a buy order and the seller to fill it, in which case the seller is getting a worse deal.

Again, you don’t have to force it. You just need the UI to do a better job of informing the buyer/seller of his options, so that he can make a decision that better suits his needs than he might otherwise make, and by eliminating middlemen, whichever side comes out on top, it’s not a middleman, it’s an actual player, and he might benefit on one transaction and lose out on another, but it would balance out to a net gain over the current options.

Said like a person who believe the ‘middleman’ isn’t even a player. That aside, what I’m saying is that a better deal will always be a bad deal for someone else, no matter what system it is under. I’m also saying that it only ‘balances out’ if a person, at varying times, both uses the sell order for his loot and doesn’t, both uses buy orders for what he wants and doesn’t; in other words, someone who is utterly inconsistent.

Ohoni.6057:

-not doing something because you don’t like it
-complaining that someone else profited because they were fine with doing it
-demanding that they not get that profit because you don’t like that someone else can profit doing something you don’t like
Laziness isn’t quite the right word, but it’s close.

Yeeeah, right up to that last bit. “Laxiness” is pretty far off the mark, “disinterest,” maybe? This is a game, it’s meant to be fun. Players should not have to do things that they don’t enjoy just to remain remotely competitive. Some activities can be more rewarding than others, but they should all be within a fair close min/max level of reward.

No one is forcing you to do it, you don’t have to. Disinterest in the TP? Plenty of options. Interest in the TP? We’ve got one option. Oh, wait, Ohoni got what he wanted. Nope, you’re just screwed.

Ohoni.6057:

We have maybe 3-4 people that have contributed to this thread in favor of your side.

Keep in mind, this is not the only thread discussing related topics. There are plenty of other threads discussing things like the cost of precursor crafting, guild halls, Scribing, etc. It is an issue that a lot of people seem to care about. Again, you can argue “not enough,” but neither of us can say how large the relative populations are.

As I said above, I haven’t seen other threads on demolishing the TP as it stands, which is what this one has been about. The other topics have been points within that overarching discussion, not the actual topic at hand.

Ohoni.6057:

Anet don’t really care how gold is distributed – only how much of it there is in the economy.

You might be right, but if so, they would be wrong, because that would be a very shortsighted way of looking at the situation, like saying that an event is working perfectly well just because it does not bug or stall or do anything outright glitchy, even if the actual content of the event is not fun for most players.

Almost as if making sure every event is unique and fun for every single player is impossible! Anyway, the whole point of QA, testers, and their feedback is to make sure the events are fun enough, at least for the time period and player types those people are, which I’m sure is diverse, so they can test the appeal to a more diverse set of player types. As I was pointing out earlier in this paragraph, they can’t appeal to everyone; there will always be some people that oppose any given part of the game. You are the small group that oppose the TP. And you haven’t given any reasons why people should agree with you.

Ohoni.6057:

They need to also ensure that players feel that the gold distribution is handled fairly, that playing in a way that is fun and engaging to them also feels financially rewarding, that it feels like a valid path towards the goals they have.

Anet does NOT need to coddle your feelings. And since you like to bring in psychology, let me bring some in. Anet does not only have no duty to coddle your feelings, they can’t. That link is a bit borked (you need to stop it from reloading), so I’ll also add a link to the book that it talks about.

Ohoni.6057:

They’re still best off appealing to those who actually play the game, rather than those sitting around in LA.

Standing around in LA is playing the game, AFKs aside. Whether it’s a way of playing the game or not, it is perfectly valid. But I think this little quote tells us all we need to know about what you consider actual gameplay.

Ohoni.6057:

I guess it must also be unfair for people knowledgeable and good at pvp to beat someone who just "yolo"s it as you put it

Again, no it’s not, as the game is currently balanced, but that’s because being very good at PvP does not confer any significant advantage over those who are not. If being very good at PvP brought in as much gold rewards as being very good at the TP, then it would indeed represent a very serious reward balance issue.

His point isn’t reward balance, it’s how borked your logic is, how little sense it makes when you use it on other ideas.

Ohoni.6057:

The only two things they can do moving forward is to 1. implement systems that reduce the amount of additional wealth players can accumulate off the TP, and 2. GREATLY reduce the actual value of having gold wealth, my ensuring that gold is completely unnecessary towards achieving practical goals, like by having Precursors crafting that costs no more gold than generic exotic weapons, guild hall upgrades that are entirely based on the guild achieving things, rather than the guild buying things, etc.

So, in other words:
1. eliminate the effectiveness of one playstyle because you chose not to do it and want the same rewards as if you had
2. Destroy the usefulness of what others have acquired so that they have to play the same way as you

Ohoni.6057:

Make it so that a player who has no gold is no worse off than a player with 10K gold, that he can just as easily acquire the very best things in the game, because those things cannot be earned using gold.

So, you want to make a player who has almost no investment in the game, just finished leveling their first character, to be just as well off and just as capable of getting high-end stuff as someone who has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours gathering materials (in this case gold). I fail to see the logic. All I see is the size of the backlash of the sheer number of veteran players who have just had their time and investment into this game be invalidated, because that’s how illogical this would be.

Ohoni.6057:

“So, just nerf the more lucrative outlier play styles.” in the name of fairness. Let’s examine my current play-style. I log in daily to get the login chest and mine some platinum. One day a week or so I run around the zone, harvest more mats, kill stuff and maybe do an event or three. Should that play style, which requires little to no effort, yield as much or nearly as much return as more involved play styles?

It should yield roughly as much as any playstyle that takes about that long. Of course playstyles that require more direct engagement, like the DS meta event, should reward more, but not magnitudes more.

Again, you may think that any given thing should be true. That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. You don’t get to force everyone else to think and play with the your opinion.

Ohoni.6057:

You don’t seem to understand this. What’s good for one doesn’t mean it’s good for the other. Allowing all players to be happy by asking for handouts has a high negative impact for the game as a whole.

nobody’s asking for handouts, everything would be worked for, all that’s being asked for is a better distribution of rewards (and yes, for the context of this discussion, TP profits DO count as “rewards,” however much the flipper insist otherwise).

I agree, nobody is asking for handouts. Handouts would mean teleporting you up a mountain that other people have climbed a lot of. What you want is for the mountain to be destroyed so that no one can ever be above you.

Ohoni.6057:

You’re not Entitled to making all the Gold you want.

True, but in a game, players should be entitled to a general sense of fairness, that while you have to work for what you get, every other player is expected to work just as hard for what he gets. This discussion is not about players feeling that they are entitled to more loot, it’s that they feel entitled to having as much loot as other players who are doing as much or less work than they are, and that Is a fair entitlement to have.

We both know ‘fairness’ is meaningless, or at the very least, any meaning it has is slippery enough to fit any of your arguments. And you can have as much loot as say, Wanze…if you put in the effort that he put in the way he did so.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not a rip off if a player feels my prices are acceptable.

Again, whether they “feel” that your prices are acceptable or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it’s a ripoff. In almost every ripoff in human history, the victim “felt” that he was getting a good deal.

With the amount of this thread spent on your feelings, one would think that it is. Anway, you’re not quite right: In almost ever ripoff in human history, the victim’s knowledge of the value and uses of the item was inaccurate. No one is concealing the uses of an item, but in fact you can ‘/wiki Item Name’ as a chat command to find the wiki’s documentation of its uses. Thus, for it to be a ripoff, they must have an inaccurate understanding of the item’s value. So please, go ahead and argue that the prices that items are bought and sold at aren’t accurate.

Ohoni.6057:

And as I’ve said before, you’re not Entitled to the Gold people like Wanze makes because you’re not putting in the same efforts as he is on the Trading Post. You’re more than free to compete with him.

I would like to be able to compete with him by merely playing the non-TP portions of the game. That’s all I’m asking, for the other aspects of the game to have profit potential competitive with the TP.

And all I’m asking for is that you stop conflating the TP with the rest of the game.
/s
When he said that you are free to compete with him, what was meant was that you are free to make the same trades, do the same things on the TP, etc. A market competition. What you want is to be able to do whatever you want, however non-goal-oriented it may be, and end up with the same result as, say, Wanze, who has been focused on getting one specific thing to the best of his ability, knowledge, and research. Are you starting to see the probl-no, of course you aren’t.

Ohoni.6057:

Rather, we’re paying them the price of their goods that they’ve decided on. This is Capitalism at it’s finest. They labored for 2 hours to sell me a stack of Mithril, and I paid them the price they asked.

An it reminds me of classic gold rush communities, in which miners rarely made much money, but shop owners typically made a killing.

The miners rarely made money because they were chasing a dream-story that didn’t exist, at least not as they thought it did. The shop owners made money because they provided what people wanted when there were a LOT of people that wanted those items. Basic supply and demand. I don’t see your argument.

Essence Snow.3194:

Seera.5916:

~snip~

It has been brought up before.

And the reason was……………….

Because they are responding to the points…not the people.

Seems to be hard to fathom that someone would actually debate the discussion points and not the people replying in the topic. Idk…….lol

I wasn’t going to bring it up, but adding the names does make things much easier to follow. If I want to see where a person got what they’re quoting, I can just click the name. If adding a name to the quote makes it irresistible to make ad hominems, that’s something you should think about.

Edit: just reloaded to see stuff about quoting, added that.

Ohoni.6057:

What would be removed is the people who buy those 5,000 mithril ores at one price, and relist it at a higher price (either immediately or at a later date), forcing the people who actually want to use those mithril ores to spend more for them or do without,

No one is forcing anyone to buy any mithril. If those buyers want to place buy orders, they are just as capable of doing so as the trader. Again, you demonstrate the failure to understand the most basic method for selling items, undercutting. No one is forcing the buyers to buy at the sell price anyway, so that’s just a blatant strawman.

Ohoni.6057:

while the people who did mine those ores would not be seeing any of that profit.

Maybe because they already saw their profit after choosing to fill buy orders. If they had wanted the money from sell orders, they can list at sell order prices.

Ohoni.6057:

If someone gets a better deal in a transaction, it should at the very least either be the end-user of that item, OR the original creator of that item, not someone who’s only contribution was in making the deal worse for both of them.

The seller chose to forgo some money to sell the items immediately. The buyer chose to spend more money to get the items immediately. The only way that they would be getting a better deal is if you forced the seller to make a sell order and the buyer to buy it, in which case the buyer is getting a worse deal, or if you forced the buyer to place a buy order and the seller to fill it, in which case the seller is getting a worse deal. So in your idea of a better transaction is actually no different than what already happens, except you’d force each side to do it.
As to the idea that those people should be the original creator and the end-user, that is your opinion, not everyone shares it, and you can’t force it on everyone.

Tigaseye.2047:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There is no injustice or unfairness, but rather laziness. Asking Anet to give you something because you don’t want to use existing mechanics to get for yourself is pretty much Entitlement.

No, it’s not laziness either.

Not wanting to play one, EXTREMELY inactive part of the game, is not “laziness”.

Since when were we talking about very inactive parts of the game? as far as I can tell, that’s just a red herring.
What you are doing is this:
-not doing something because you don’t like it
-complaining that someone else profited because they were fine with doing it
-demanding that they not get that profit because you don’t like that someone else can profit doing something you don’t like
Laziness isn’t quite the right word, but it’s close.

Tigaseye.2047:

I’ve also said, previously, that most people simply don’t enjoy playing the TP, so won’t want to do that.

No one is forcing you to. But you want the benefits of doing it without being willing to actually do it…

Ohoni.6057:

]It might be even more interesting if, when you get your DR scaling relatively high, if you list something at a sell price, it instead goes automatically to the person with the highest buy order, and you only get back what they offered (although you do get a refund of the listing fee difference).

Tigaseye.2047:

In other words, make the TP randomly do exactly what the person didn’t want to do so that they randomly earn less money. Maybe they should also add something where if you use too many attacks, it will have a chance to use a random attack (including heal, utils, and elite) instead. Or instead of doing an attack it will just give you an automatic, uncleansible, unbreakable 10s stun. See how little sense this makes? No, of course you don’t.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~ and also gives people a much more accurate idea of the true value of the item, since the price would be more likely to rise until it hit a true “max reasonable price.”

So to you, a price based on the idea that someone might sell you an item they hadn’t meant to sell you is an accurate, reasonable price. I have no other words for how nonsensical this is.

Tigaseye.2047:

If people actively dislike standing around in LA, flipping things on the TP, they will not continue to play for long, if that is the only well-paid option.

No one is forcing you to trade on the TP. You can get high-end gear without ever trading on the TP.

Tigaseye.2047:

Now, as far as I see it, Anet have three possible solutions:

Solutions to what? You haven’t actually proven that there is a problem.

You telling people, repeatedly, that they are jealous/lazy/“Entitled” for not wanting to flip the TP, in a game, all day long won’t change anything.

Strawman, he isn’t calling you entitled for not wanting to do it, that’s fine. He’s calling you entitled for not doing it then wanting things as if you had.

Tigaseye.2047:

If enough people are unhappy, they will just leave.

That’s probably true. You haven’t demonstrated that people are leaving because of this specifically, that there is a large enough quantity of those people for Anet to care, or that any solution proposed in this thread will fix this issue without breaking larger/more important things. So that statement is perfectly true, and perfectly useless.

Ohoni.6057:

Edit – You may not understand my analogy, so I’ll break it down. GW2 has mechanics in place that let’s you buy something or sell something at whatever price you want. If you don’t want to sell an item that another player is willing to pay for, that’s your choice. No one is forcing you to sell the item. But that also means you don’t get to complain about an “issue” that you created for yourself. No one forced you to take the $100 when you could have had $10,000.

Yes,. but it’s not nearly as simple as you make it out to be. Yes, you never have to buy or sell at the prices given to you, but if you like “yolo” it and put whatever price you think is fair, without any regard to market conditions, then chances are that the transaction will never complete, or at least not for a very long time.

Strawman. What he’s saying is that you are taking the $100 (not trading on the TP), then whining because someone else got the $10000. You aren’t even talking about the same thing as his argument.

Ohoni.6057:

If you’re going to push the system effectively, to get the best prices for the item that you can reasonably get, you need to have a better than zero grasp of how well that item tends to perform. This requires a level of research and knowledge that at the very least could be said to be more than what an average adventure game player is particularly interested in acquiring.

And that is why people aren’t getting as much money/saving as much money as someone who does do that research when selling the same item. They choose to pay more rather than try to minmax it.

Ohoni.6057:

Ideally you would also concede fairly plain point that not everyone is capable of judging these factors as well as others, no matter how much they might apply themselves to the task, and it’s unreasonable for the privileged to take advantage of that fact.

With ‘unreasonable’ being the incredibly weaselly word that it is, you’ll just define it such that it is whatever your argument needs it to mean. Regardless, part of the skill of TP trading is being able to evaluate information. Your real point here is that you don’t like that it may be possible for some people to be able to earn more money than you, so whatever they’re doing is ‘unreasonable.’

Ohoni.6057:

And again, the problem is not that these players can turn their skill and experience into advantage, that they can benefit by being more knowledgeable than the other guy, the problem is entirely in the DEGREE of advantage it offers them over other game types and skills, that not only does it earn them more money, it earns them WAY more money, relative to time and effort involved.

So, you don’t like that other people are capable of earning sizable amounts of money through their choices, so you want the choice they make to be eliminated. And again, the only place where advantages exist is in a competition between players for getting something first; you are the only one viewing it this way.

Ohoni.6057:

The problem is not that anyone “forced you to take the $100 when you could have had $10,000,” it’s that you have no idea whether the best you could reasonably get is $10,000 or $101, nor should you really have to.

You don’t have to, and no one is arguing that you were forced to. What we are saying is that you chose to take the $100, then complained because other people were able to chose the $10000 and benefit from it. Maybe you should go back and read what was said, because you are arguing as if this is about TP prices when it isn’t.

Ohoni.6057:

You telling people, repeatedly, that they are jealous/lazy/“Entitled” for not wanting to flip the TP, in a game, all day long won’t change anything.

Yup. If people want to play a market-flipping game, they should play a game that is just about market flipping, they should not be messing up the economy of GW2 in the process.

You say TP traders are ‘messing up the economy of GW2.’ What evidence or proof do you have for this assertion? I see none. To the part you are quoting: we aren’t saying you’re entitled for not wanting to flip on the TP, but rather that you don’t do it but want the benefits of doing so.

Tigaseye.2047:

I’m just saying that, if people are unhappy with the amount of gold they can make, by playing the parts of the game they enjoy, some (or all) of them might decide to leave, sooner or later.

In other words, I’m stating (what should be) the obvious.

That is perfectly obvious.. It also has no bearing on reality until you can demonstrate that this particular cause-effect happens. It would also help your argument if you could prove that this happens frequently enough for Anet to care.

Tigaseye.2047:

False. That’s only how you feel.

No, it’s not only how I feel.
I’m not even talking about myself, here.

We have maybe 3-4 people that have contributed to this thread in favor of your side. You speak for yourself, maybe a couple friends, and maybe a couple other people here. If you mean that you speak for any larger group than that, you have given me no reason to believe that to be true.

Tigaseye.2047:

No, I don’t particularly enjoy ripping people off on the TP, as it happens, but I know for a fact I’m not alone in that.

Your phrasing betrays you.

Tigaseye.2047:

But, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you enjoy it, think it’s morally good, or want to have to do it.

No one is suggesting that you should be forced to do it, forced to enjoy it, or forced to have a good opinion of it. The only people who want to eliminate a playstyle is you.

Tigaseye.2047:

If I’m not having fun, I just leave games, sooner or later

…and I’m not alone.

Then prove that you have enough people that agree with you for Anet to care.

Tigaseye.2047:

I mean, honestly, what a ridiculous conversation.

Having to explain that people might leave games if they’re not happy.

No one is arguing with that. I am arguing that you haven’t shown that enough people are so unhappy over this that they will leave. And I argue that because I have seen no evidence to suggest it.

Tigaseye.2047:

I know Anet already take a small cut, with the TP fees, but they could do far more to very successful TP players, than that, if they liked.

Not saying they necessarily should, or shouldn’t, but of course they could.

The basis of the position of people like you and Ohoni is that they should do something like that. And yes, they could. But you haven’t given a single, evidence-based reason why they should.

Tigaseye.2047:

If enough people stop playing, or play far less, the game dies.

No one disagrees with that. It’s just that no one has given me a reason to believe that enough people are or will stop playing over this.

Lothirieth.3408:

They’re rich, so kitten you

If you believe that is what I am saying, you haven’t read a single one of my posts.

Lothirieth.3408:

I honestly think some of them possess zero empathy (laughable for someone who thinks he is an expert in psychology), are unable to understand that people have different interests and that a good game should cater to multiple interests (regarding fun, rewards, etc.)

Ad hominems are unbecoming…and untrue.

Lothirieth.3408:

They’ve got theirs and since they enjoy that method of money making, which also happens to be the best, then everyone should too. It’s ludicrous.

No, I think you should play however you want. The only people who want other playstyles to be eliminated is you.

Harper.4173:

Except this will never happen because guess what – the average player is so out of touch with everything it’s not even funny.

That’s a really curious statement. Can you explain what you mean?

Tigaseye.2047:

The thing is, much as you’re trying to accuse Ohoni of wanting to change the game, to suit himself, the truth is it wouldn’t make his life any better than it could otherwise be, if he was like you.

The key phrase here is, ‘if he was like you.’ The fact is, he isn’t, and he does stand to gain from it. In fact, the basis of his position is that him and people like him would be better off. Not, mind you, that he’s actually lent any evidence to it.

He’s, clearly, more than bright enough and more than dedicated enough to the game to work the TP, just like you do.

Tigaseye.2047:

He just morally objects to the idea of a few people becoming very rich, ingame, while others either can’t, or don’t want to, do what it takes to follow suit.

One person’s moral objection holds no weight in arguing for Anet to change it. If he can’t give solid, evidence-based reasons (and based on this thread, he can’t) for why it should be changed, then there is no reason to take it seriously.

Oh boy, lots to cover.

Ohoni.6057:

Then tell me, what would be driving this rapid shift? (1)How would eliminating TP traders and making everyone aware of these ‘bad deals’ in any way make an economy move rapidly towards equilibrium? (2)Why would it stop within ~5%? (3)Why, at that point, would people sell to buy orders and buy from sell orders now that (under your theoretical ideal) they understand how it works? Where do you draw the line between a ‘bad deal’ and a ‘good deal,’ and how can this line be objectively derived? How do you even define a ‘bad deal’ and ‘good deal?’

1. Removing TP hustlers wouldn’t help things move towards equilibrium, but the better UI feedback likely would. When people know that the item they want will move/arrive in a timely manner even if they place an order in the middle of the existing values, then the will be more likely to move towards those values.

I have not been opposed to better UI. Earlier, you said that under your system items would move ‘rapidly towards equilibrium,’ so I asked how that would happen. You now admit that removing TP flippers would slow that movement down and have provided no evidence or reason for why it would move toward equilibrium.

Ohoni.6057:

One value I’d like to see, particularly on craftable items, would be to have a simple line with dots on it, ~snip~ That might not be the ideal way to display it, but something like that sounds like a good idea.

I don’t even disagree.

Ohoni.6057:

2. No particular reason it would stop at 5%, it could balance out at 1c difference, the point is that it would be as close to zero as the market would bare,

Fair. You haven’t demonstrated that this would actually happen though.

Ohoni.6057:

3. Because they would have a better understanding of the risks involved, that placing a slightly lower sell price is almost guaranteed to sell the item before they’d need the money, and at a higher price than just fulfilling the buy order.

If they now understand what, why would someone ever sell to buy orders or buy from sell orders? If they know that it won’t take much longer for the sell order to sell, and that the sell order is even slightly higher, why wouldn’t they just make sell orders? The only real answer that that if they didn’t, items wouldn’t move, players wouldn’t get what they want without getting a worse deal, and your position is meaningless.

Ohoni.6057:

4. The “good deal,” for both parties, is when the price arrived at is as close to the highest/lowest amount that most people would be willing to pay. If someone pays considerably more than that, or accepts significantly less, then someone in that exchange is getting a bad deal.

But let’s make sure to not consider the other side, that sellers get less money for their items and/or buyers have to pay more for their items, no, that’s not an effect of what you want to happen. Let’s also not pay attention to how vague ‘significantly’ is.

Ohoni.6057:

When gold is distributed in an uneven manner, yes. It creates an imbalance.

Let’s compare:

But I don’t care that you get it first. I don’t mind that at all.

Yeah. You really don’t.
/s

And I don’t care if some people get things first, so long as it’s not as far first as the current system allows for. It’s a matter of degrees, not absolutes. You can’t perfectly balance anything out in these cases, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying towards balance.

The two quotes were both in the exact same context, precursors. You said mutually exclusive things about acquiring the exact same items. So no, you can’t say that you don’t care if I get it first, the say that you do care, then say you only care about certain degrees.

Ohoni.6057:

Thank God.

Don’t worry, I’m back to repeating myself.

Ohoni.6057:

Okay, so:
-you wanted more ways to acquire high-end items
-Anet adds to the game a new way to make precursors, part of the highest-end gear
-you complain that the new method requires things you don’t want to put in the effort to get
-you still want more ways to get things
Huh.

Yup.

Well, there we go.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~ I just generally favor solutions in which you can choose various varieties of effort with which to pursue the goal, like having a sprawling building where you can reach the top on the opposite corner by either using hand-cranked elevators and walking straight lines, or taking stairs between the floors, or taking a ramp that spirals around the place, they would each take the same combined amount of effort, but different types of effort.

Right now, you can go kill boars in Queensdale, getting items and money from them, sell the items, slowly stockpile money, and eventually have enough money to buy the item you want. It may not be efficient, but you can do it. The only person that wants to remove ways to reach goals is you.
To extend your analogy, you are complaining that Anet won’t make the building shorter because you see someone high up on the ramp.

Ohoni.6057:

Separately, I also believe that the amount of effort/cost they ask for certain rewards are just more than they should reasonably ask of ANY player, some combination of RNG, material costs, or busywork that is just inappropriate for the value of the reward in question. I believe the costs involved in those items should come down for ALL players.

You can hold that belief as long as you want, not everyone else does and you don’t get to force that belief on everyone.

Ohoni.6057:

And of course thirdly, I believe that the gold economy in this game has been so horribly distorted by market abuse that it should not at all involved in acquiring most high end items anymore. It could have worked, but they did too poor a job of policing the system over the past three years, and it’s really too late to fix it (not that they shouldn’t take what steps they can to try).

See above.

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve never claimed it was an “exploit” according to ANet. ~snip~ ANet does not currently view this as an exploit, but they could choose to at any time, and I argue that they should do so.

Thus far you have failed to provide any objective argument with any evidence-based backing. All you have said is either your opinion, or a claim that is utterly unsubstantiated. Provide some evidence if you want to make an argument.

Ohoni.6057:

Here’s your problem Ohoni. The game already allows all players to be as rich as they want to.

No, that’s just false logic. Just because someone could potentially do something with their account, does not mean that “anyone could do it,” any more than saying that “anyone could win a gold medal in the Decathlon.” Some people are better at manipulating money than others. This really should not confer any significant advantage in an adventure game, but even if you disagree on that, it’s completely insane to argue that it would be fair for it to offer as huge an advantage as it does in this game.

I’ve said this before: advantages only exist when you are competing for an end goal. You are not in any competition to get a high-end item. Your decathlon analogy falls apart in the exact same way. And the potential to do something means that they could do it, that’s just the meaning of the word potential.

Ohoni.6057:

When you allow players to make more money from farming events or quests, you increase the rate of inflation by a rate equal to the new wealth generation. And because TP playerss’ revenue is based on other player’s wealth, you basically increase their earning potential by the same rate as the new wealth generation. In laymen’s terms, the more money you make, the way more money Wanze will make.

Which is why if they introduce new faucets, they will also have to introduce more sinks, but more importantly they need to include methods of reducing the profit potential of working the TP, so that this money does not flow up to the fatcats.

Again, this is your opinion, not everyone holds it and you can’t force everyone to abide by it. Not that you’ve given any reason for anyone else to hold it. I hope you realize that TP traders sink large quantities of money out of the economy

Ohoni.6057:

If the world existed how you wanted it to exist, every person who goes to Vegas would walk away with a lot of money. Vegas would then go bankrupt, and there’s be no more Vegas. Take my analogy, replace “Vegas” with “GW2”, and you have the outcome of what your suggestions would do.

Nope.

Any actual refutation of his point, or any evidence that he isn’t right? Nope.

Ohoni.6057:

Your suggestion is akin to asking for the removal of the Trading Post entirely, and replacing it with a glorified merchant.

Honestly I’d prefer that to the alternative of leaving it as is, but that’s not what I’m asking for. Supply would still be determined by how many of the items the players bring into existence, demand would still be determined by how many people want that thing, all I’d be doing is reducing the role of the middleman taking his cut in the middle for providing no actual value to the scenario.

If the ‘middleman’ actually has no function, why do people buy the items he sells and sell their items to him? Surely if it had no value, no one would participate, because they could do the exact same.

Ohoni.6057:

Your idea hurts way more players than it helps, because a vast majority of the players who purchase goods from the TP want instant gratification. Remove the players who provide that instant gratification, and you have angry players who will complain that they have to farm 5,000 Mithril ores themselves. Oh wait…

Nobody’s talking about removing the people who farm those 5,000 mithril ores. Those 5,000 mithril ores would still get farmed, and still get put on the market,

You missed the point. People don’t want to farm 5000 mithril, they want to buy it now, and oh look! TP traders will put that sell order supply up.

Ohoni.6057:

and the people doing it would make out just as well, likely better than under the current market, as would their customers (one or the other might end up doing slightly worse, but between the two of them they would make out better than they would currently).

Any numbers, evidence, or general proof that that is actually true? No, because it isn’t. You don’t even understand the concept of undercutting, one of the most basic selling strategies.

Ohoni.6057:

I was originally saying that making it harder for people to ‘do bad deals’ would also make it harder for people to buy and sell loot. Then in response to that, you admitted that the price would approach equilibrium only because nothing was selling due to no one being willing to ‘do bad deals;’ in other words, comparatively little actual trade would happen under your system because no one will fill the other half of an order/listing, and thus no one getting the items they want.

No, everyone would get what they want, it would just be at a more fair price. The prices would all shift rapidly towards an equilibrium point within the 15% margin, likely within a 5% margin, making them impossible to flip, but perfectly viable for anyone to sell what they do not want, and buy what they do not have.

Then tell me, what would be driving this rapid shift? How would eliminating TP traders and making everyone aware of these ‘bad deals’ in any way make an economy move rapidly towards equilibrium? Why would it stop within ~5%? Why, at that point, would people sell to buy orders and buy from sell orders now that (under your theoretical ideal) they understand how it works? Where do you draw the line between a ‘bad deal’ and a ‘good deal,’ and how can this line be objectively derived? How do you even define a ‘bad deal’ and ‘good deal?’

Ohoni.6057:

People would only not buy items that are priced at significantly above the equilibrium point, or ordered for significantly lower.

Another baseless claim, only this time it doesn’t even make sense.

Ohoni.6057:

For hundreds, if not thousands of items on the TP, there are huge margins in the pricing because people do not really know what the “fair” price is, and have to guess based on the existing price offers.

No, they have huge margins because they either haven’t spent enough time or are too slow to have reached equilibrium. Or those that have the item generally value it significantly more than those that don’t in such a way that the two don’t get close.
On this “fair price,” if what people currently want for it and are willing to pay for it aren’t markers of a “fair price,” then what is one and how do people discover it when they currently don’t?

So you have a problem with other people being able to get items first because they have gold.

When gold is distributed in an uneven manner, yes. It creates an imbalance.

Let’s compare:

But I don’t care that you get it first. I don’t mind that at all.

Yeah. You really don’t.
/s

Ohoni.6057:

You want them to make the entire process account bound so that everyone else that wants to make one this way is forced to do the exact same things. Why? So that people with gold can’t get it before you. So much for coexisting playstyles.

I would be in favor of having multiple paths, perhaps offering twenty things you could do to advance towards the goal, but only requiring you to complete fifteen of them, or having three different ways to pursue several of the objectives, something along those lines, but yes, having gold should not give you a leg up over players who do not. This concept does not make perfect sense to you for some reason?

On that last concept: refer to every other opinion and ‘should’ throughout the last couple pages of this discussion. I’m tired of repeating myself on that one.
Okay, so:
-you wanted more ways to acquire high-end items
-Anet adds to the game a new way to make precursors, part of the highest-end gear
-you complain that the new method requires things you don’t want to put in the effort to get
-you still want more ways to get things
Huh.