Guild Wars 2

morrolan.9608:

Bunda.2691:

The issue at debate here is really over what it means to “play” Guild Wars 2. Some view the game as fighting/exploring only, and thus that the TP is but a means to facilitate this form of playing. Others see GW2 as a sandbox world in which everything interactive can/should be pushed, pulled, and toyed with, including the trading post. Herein lies the debate.

Its clearly not a sandbox which is the crux of the issue. If it was a sandbox there would be no argument, players are presented with a world and are free to make their own content out of the world. This is not GW2 and ohoni very succinctly summarises in his sentence above how many of us believe the TP should operate in the theme park game that GW2 is.

Sandbox isn’t quite the right word. What I think he meant was whether the game is just exploring/fighting enemies vs. a place where everything Anet has put in can be used, tried, and messed around with to the fullest ability of the player (not counting bugs/exploits). Imo, the former is just a piece of the latter, and the latter is the truth.

morrolan.9608:

Bunda.2691:

But because this is an inclusive game with a large player base, everyone needs to realize that each aspect really does make the other parts of the game more enjoyable, and Anet deserves commendation for creating such a functionally interconnected and dynamic world. Having fun “playing” the TP requires others to go out into the game world and “earn” loot drops. Conversely, a liquid and dynamic trading post makes “playing” the open world more fun, by allowing easy access to almost any good or item.

I have access to almost any good or item in other theme park mmos where the TP is just a utility.

Strawman, but I will answer it. The trading post is a utility to the common player dealing with loot, that people who know enough and are experienced enough can use it for more.

You dealt nothing with the main point of Bunda’s paragraph, which is basically that different people find different things fun, and Anet should be applauded for creating such an interconnected world. I will add to that by saying that you have no right to ruin another’s fun just because you don’t like it, or that you’re jealous of what they have.

Bunda.2691:

And at the end of the day, the point here is to have fun, correct? Why not let both TP and open-world players have their fun, so long as neither is actively harming the other? Because, if you think about it, both open-world and trading-post gameplay are just different ways of pushing different buttons on the keyboard. Those who spend time mastering combos and professions and learning engagements are rewarded with achievements and drops. Those who spend time studying markets and mastering the TP interface are (and should be) rewarded as well.

As an economic simulator the TP isn’t a good one though, the UI is poor and doesn’t offer nearly enough in the way of information.[/quote]

Again, strawman. His point was about how, since they are just different ways of getting rewards, people who learn how to play the TP should benefit, just like a dungeon runner benefits from learning the dungeon. And that both TP people and open-world people can have fun together. He didn’t say anything about simulators, or UI info.

if you have an item, you can do three things: match lowest seller, match highest buyer, and create your own price. The first one posts an item at the lowest price any other sellers currently have their up for. The TP will hold the item until you remove it or it sells. The second sell it instantly to the highest bidder, which is usually lower than the sell price, and the last is self explanatory.

If you want an item, there are two things you can do: buy from lowest seller, or place a buy order. The first one instantly gets you the item, but costs more. If you place a buy order, you spend the money now, and the TP holds it until you either remove the order, or it gets filled, and then you get your item.

Ohoni.6057:

Now, imagine Bo$ was in play. Maybe by the time the market shift happens, only one of those has sold, so there’s only 9 left. The first six sell very quickly, the remaining three get pulled by the original sellers before they sell, and are relisted for 80s, 1g, and 2g respectively, and all sell. Now in this scenario, there are two major differences. On the seller side, the listers of the lowest six items don’t make any different profit, but the ones that pulled and resold made significant profits. All in all, the “sellers” have made a notable profit over the current model. On the buyer’s side, seven of the people got what they’d wanted at a significant discount over the current model, and have hundreds of silver left in their pockets. The few that did end up paying in the same range as the current model were the latecomers to the party and still would have ended up spending even more under the current model (a total of 5.2g under the current model vs. 3.8 under the new).

This presumes that these sellers are consistently monitoring the prices and are ready to pull them whenever, as well as there being a large enough time gap for them to do so. The last line about 5.2g vs 3.8g is irrelevant because it is only based on made-up numbers that can be tweaked.

Ohoni.6057:

The only one left out of the new model would be those that neither create nor use anything by money, they would get nothing, as it should be.

Should be by what definition, except that you think so? What do you even mean “by money?”

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~

And that’s the situation I’d like to see changed. I don’t think that it should take any amount of effort to make money off the TP, or conversely that putting a lot of effort into the TP should make money. The TP is not something that should require skill or even interest to make the most of it, it should just be a tool for players to get rid of items they don’t want, or to find items that they do, not as a money engine for those that care to work it.

So your plan is to get Anet to implement your Bind on Aquire thing, basically do a 180 away from a free market, just based on your opinion? Good luck, because that won’t get you anywhere.

Again, most of this is just “I don’t like what other people are doing, so they shouldn’t be allowed to do it.” A childish idea if I’ve ever seen one.

Lampshade.7569:

I have not once written anything even remotely related to the difficulty of TP gaming.

Lampshade.7569:

So basically, you are saying how satisfied you are with having a steady supply of gold for almost no effort.

Hmm, that second sentence does seem to be about the difficulty and effort of flipping, and on the casual side too.

That does seem to conflict with the first statement.

Ensign.2189:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

…you know a well as I that middlemen more often buy things up at times when they are cheap, creating artificial scarcity, and then dribbling them back in the market to attain the maximum price for each. This is good business sense from their self-interested perspective, but is not the behavior of someone looking out for the best interests of the community.

What you describe here is a service that actually benefits the economy – players buying low and selling high are smoothing out prices over time. Players doing exactly this hold prices high even when drops are abundant, giving more value to the players farming the drops and selling them as they come in. The price then takes longer to rise once the supply goes down, as inventories trickle back into the market.

Smoothed prices are a huge boon to the naive trader – he doesn’t have to concern himself nearly as much with the timing of when to buy or sell, because it doesn’t matter much when prices are smooth. He can then focus on the parts of the game he actually cares about, and will reliably get good prices on the TP without having to put much thought into it.

Actually, that was said by Ohoni…bad syntax because I was tired and didn’t notice in the small box…sorry if I was misleading.

Credit is due where credit is due.

Also, something that couldn’t have been fitted into the earlier two posts now due to editing:

Ohoni.6057:

I believe that the system should not reward that disparity, that the average player should not HAVE to spend time and effort researching proper market strategies in order to make the most of the market system. That is not a skill that should be necessary in this game.

Again, This sounds like entitlement. You want people who don’t even have a basic understanding of the TP to reap about the same amount of benefits as those who understand it through and through.

Firseal.4716:

I would like the option to buy the new axes in a soulbound flavor for 800, if any developers check this thread.

Make both choices (soul and account) available in the gem store and let people get whichever they like.

If they do this, and they bring out that dreamthistle axe or whatever it’s called…that will make my day.

ZilentNight.5089:

Firseal.4716:

~snipped for conciseness

Decisions are not based on one person’s opinion.
It is made in the best interest of the community.

That doesn’t matter because they can just add additional choices. This isn’t about reversing the change, or not wanting the change. It’s about having the choice to not spend the additional 200 gems for the account bound rather than soulbound. Don’t tell me they can’t do that.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~

Summary (excluding all taxes to make the numbers simple):

Player A – Sold rune for 7 gold.
Player B – Made 2 gold profit
Player C – Satisfied with rune
Ohoni – Not happy to see rune resold, but his opinion doesn’t matter since Player C is satisfied with the price he paid.

Moral of the story – Capitalism works. Any argument otherwise means that person wants a state controlled distribution of wealth.

But C is only happy with it because he is ignorant to the fact that he could have gotten it for 7g instead. He would be very annoyed if he realized that someone had scammed him for 2 gold.

Heavens forbid! A missed opportunity because he wasn’t online at the time! He must be being scammed for any higher price! /sarcasm
Really?

Ohoni.6057:

And player A would be annoyed if he realized he could have charged 2g more and it would still sell.

One of two things must have happened: 1) Player A listed it well below the seller above him. In this case it is entirely his fault for not getting that additional profit. 2) He listed alongside others and they were all bought up by the trader. In this case, he couldn’t have known that the trader was going to buy it, and no one is to blame but human lack of knowledge.

Ohoni.6057:

Ideally he would have just charged 8g and they both would have been happy. The one least deserving of any returns in that scenario is player B, who did nothing bout making the whole thing worse.

If true, then 9g would be the equilibrium pricing in this situation. You, however, seem to consider any loss of potential profit (whether in-cash or in item worth) as bad, which would make 8g theoretically the worst. You will have to explain how B made it worse because if C was only willing to pay 7g he could: place a buy order and wait if the current buy price was <7g, place a buy order and hope while waiting if the current one was >7g, or he could simply leave.

In the end, the only reason that A and C lost potential profit was because of ignorance, and for that, they have to be told, or educate themselves.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, and as I’ve said, I do not want a PvP Trading Post. I want to play a PvE-only trading post, where players help other players find items they need, and pay a reasonable transaction fee for doing so, and nobody tries to skim money off of either of them. I do not want the TP to be a game in and of itself, I just want it to be a way of facilitating the rest of the game.

So…..you want to prevent people from doing what the want/like to do because you think they shouldn’t be able to make money off it?

Ohoni.6057:

You seem confident in your position that middlemen skimming off the top are a good thing, however ridiculous that might seem to someone who isn’t drowning in Kool-aid.

Now you are just making personal attacks.

Ohoni.6057:

Player C wanted it now. Putting in a bid at 7g introduces an unknown factor, when will that order will be filled. He’s willing to pay the 2g to both eliminate that unknown and allows them to get the item immediately.

That’s no different between someone buying something from Amazon Vs the Mall. Sure Amazon may save you money but you can get your hands on it now at the Mall for only $X more. It’s the buyers choice whether the difference in price is worth the immediacy of acquisition.

A middleman isn’t necessary to ensure an immediate purchase though. Initial sellers are perfectly capable of placing sell orders, I do so myself on a nightly basis.

Initial sellers are generally physically capable of making sell orders. It is whether they are informed/choose to do so.

Ohoni.6057:

In an idealized world middlemen would only be in the business of speeding up the process, of buying reasonably priced sales and reselling them as reasonably priced sell orders, but you know a well as I that middlemen more often buy things up at times when they are cheap, creating artificial scarcity, and then dribbling them back in the market to attain the maximum price for each.

The middleman, as you say yourself, drives the prices of items closer to equilibrium when they drop, and by dribbling them in, he creates a larger variety of sell orders, which may slowly drive the price down a bit, as well as possibly creating artificial common-ness.

Ohoni.6057:

This is good business sense from their self-interested perspective, but is not the behavior of someone looking out for the best interests of the community.

And what is this ‘best interests of the community’ based upon, if not just your own opinion?

Sorry for the double post, couldn’t fit it all it one.

Ohoni.6057:

The middle man offers a service.

He does not “offer” anything. He insists on it. If middlemen offered their services then that would be fine, because nobody would take them up on it, but this is essentially like going into a Starbucks, and when the barista calls your name, a complete stranger grabs your cup and offers to give it to you for a modest fee. Nobody asks the middleman to get involved, he does so anyways. You cannot call it an “offer” without an offer actually being made.

Bad comparison. It would be more like this: you buy cookies at a bakery sale for $1, then, later, you sell them to a friend for $1.50. He doesn’t steal your goods, he buys the goods, from you now, then makes a profit by being willing to wait for someone willing to buy them at his prices.

Ohoni.6057:

In case you didn’t catch my drift last time, should always implies opinion. By the fact that you use should to describe your main point here invalidates it.

That would be your opinion. Most things are opinion, consensus is the sum total of opinions. Most issues cannot be resolved one way or the other without opinion playing a role, so saying “you raised an opinion, therefore you lose” is just nonsense people say when they know they are in the wrong but for whatever reason do not want to admit to it.

By the same token, you can’t say, “I think this, therefore I am right.” You can’t prove to me what I quoted is true in any other way than “because I think so.” Also, you bring up consensus, but do you have consensus supporting your side? Or does it support mine? Or neither?

Ohoni.6057:

So we should only look at the negative cases that support your argument? Rather than looking at the whole picture?

Not necessarily. You presented, however a condition that is at best a neutral one, one in which the parasites have not caused harm, but neither have they provided any significant benefit. Given that, they really don’t bring anything to the discussion, they neither reduce nor offset the example I provided, so why raise it at all? It’s like saying that plenty of smokers die from things that have nothing to do with smoking. Well true, but plenty of them do still die of smoking, and the other things they die from they would have died of regardless, so why bring it up other than to try and distract from the flaws in your own position?

All you seem to say is because it doesn’t meet your requirements (having the trader be part of it, which he does), then it isn’t relevant. The trader does technically play a part, not by what he does, but what does not happen with him. In those cases, Player C gets it at the prices that the trader buys at, and in all of those cases (which you dismiss), your point is completely eliminated. You say it happens all the time, so why do you dismiss such an important set of trades?

Ohoni.6057:

That example does not work, because the cost of getting Dawn on average from the mystic forge (the only non-drop method currently) is probably far more than 200g. Traders have not created an illusion of Dawn being hard to get, it IS that hard to get.

And yet there are always drops too. Not every price has to be based entirely on the mystic toilet. Even John Smith said that increasing precursor drop rates is unlikely to actually lower their sale price, and he knows the secret numbers.

The drop rate is incredibly low. Just because those weren’t acquired in the same fashion as I mentioned doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as valuable (which is created by rarity and usability) as the ones from our toilet here.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~

It doesn’t matter to me, all that matters to me is the impact they have on other players. If they are harming the game experience for their fellow players, then they should either be prevented from doing so, or, if that is impossible to achieve, they should be ejected so that the other players can go about their business without them. I believe there are ways to curtail TP Gold Farming without actually banning anyone though.

What is your evidence that they can only harm the player base? All you seem to have is opinion and the Plaers A/B/C example (see above)

Ohoni.6057:

This is the most interesting definition of nothing I have seen unless you are referring to the bots above.

It’s an accurate one. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s taking an item off the shelf, putting it back up, and pocketing cash for doing so.

So you hold the opinion that someone that did no research, didn’t bother to get a basic understanding of how the TP works should reap about the same amount of benefits as a person who has spent their entire life studying economics and how markets work?

Ohoni.6057:

If the initial seller sells it to the trader for 1g, those 85s he got is all profit (presuming that he got it as a drop, as you advocate). If the trader then sells that item for 2g, then he gets 70s, 15s less than the original seller.

Yes. I take it from your emphasis that this is intended to be shocking in some way? The reseller should make less profit, he should make zero profit. Any profit he makes is bonus. The initial seller earned that item by going out into the world and adventuring. He spent time and effort doing that. He caused the item to exist in the world. The reseller did nothing, just just spent money and made back more money, and that brought zero added value to the system. It doesn’t matter whether he makes a 20% profit or a 1% profit, he shouldn’t be making any profit at all.

In case you didn’t catch my drift last time, should always implies opinion. By the fact that you use should to describe your main point here invalidates it.

Ohoni.6057:

This makes a couple assumptions that make the average player (that you say you are advocating for) look quite incapable and dumber than is accurate:
1) The trader will always be able to buy from Player A before Player C has the chance to. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t enough traders to be watching every item 24-7 well enough to do this
2) Player C is incapable of placing a buy order. If this is true, then there is no hope, and indeed in this case the trader would be making it easier through undercutting. If this is false, then if Player C is not fine with paying what the trader has listed, then he can place a buy order and not have to buy from the trader, who has failed at pricing their items.

I’m not saying that scenario happens every time, but considering that it’s the only scenario in which Player B has a role to play, it’s the only one relevant to this discussion. Sure, C can get there before B does, and I’m sure that happens all the time, but those are situations with a happy ending, we don’t need to worry about those.

So we should only look at the negative cases that support your argument? Rather than looking at the whole picture?

Ohoni.6057:

2. buy orders that will get filled are judged relative to listed sale prices, so even if C does place a buy order, it isn’t likely to be fulfilled if traders have given the illusion that the going rate is considerably higher. There’s basically no point in saying “I would only pay 200g for a Dawn, so that’s the Buy price I’ll list!”

That example does not work, because the cost of getting Dawn on average from the mystic forge (the only non-drop method currently) is probably far more than 200g. Traders have not created an illusion of Dawn being hard to get, it IS that hard to get.

Ohoni.6057:

Half strawman. You make broad statement, then fail to back it up logically and resort to saying “Go away.” If all I wanted was to be a market tycoon, then I could go play some of those games. But maybe, just maybe I want to play this game, and just maybe I’m allowed to play a game whether or not you want me to play it.

You are, but if your doing so makes the game worse for the majority of players, then it would be in ANet’s interests to get rid of you. That’s why they have a rule against bots, after all. Why should gold-farming bots be ejected from the game if gold farming traders aren’t? All in all, I think I prefer the bots, they at least give you amusing scenes of naked rangers with bears swarming Frostgorge Sound like locusts.

Do I need to pull out a dictionary? A bot is short for robot, and is a program designed to do something without the player dictating it, like moving around without the player input. In my opinion, Bots that place orders on the TP should be ejected, but human TP traders should not.

Ohoni.6057:

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

Why do you feel entitled to the ability for Player B to turn a profit for doing nothing? That’s the only entitlement I see here.

This is the most interesting definition of nothing I have seen unless you are referring to the bots above.

Ohoni.6057:

Often it seems the behavior revolves around keeping their inventory as empty of “junk” as possible and doing so as fast as possible.

Items you list on the TP as a sell order as just as gone from your inventory as items you “sell it now” on. If the player’s goal is to dump items from his inventory either method works just as well.

True.

Ohoni.6057:

If you’d like to make a suggestion that would balance it out, that would ensure that the initial seller would make all the money a flipper would, or that he would make half-way between his asking price and what a flipper could get for it, then I’d be happy to listen, but the way things are, if people post too low, there really isn’t much that can be done to compensate them, the best case scenario at that point is that at least the buyer will get a good deal out of it. There is NO reason why a middleman should get a good deal off of it.

If the initial seller sells it to the trader for 1g, those 85s he got is all profit (presuming that he got it as a drop, as you advocate). If the trader then sells that item for 2g, then he gets 70s, 15s less than the original seller. If the trader then holds onto it for a while and sells it for 6g, then he gets 4g 10s in profit, which, yes, is far more than the original seller, but at a time investment. If the initial seller had decided to hold onto it for a while, he could have sold it for much more, similarly. The trader could also lose money if the item devalues while holding, and he could use those 70s to do other things.

Ohoni.6057:

Honestly I think that the system could do a better job of keeping the players informed, by not just listing the available buy and sell offers, but also listing more data, such as the average transacted sale price over the past week (or last ten sales if it’s a slow moving item), so that people would know what actual players were willing to pay for it.

I can agree with this, to a certain extent. Anyway, the trader can only sell items at prices people will pay, without losing at least some money, and can’t artificially lower the buy price by the fact that multiple people have posts there.

Ohoni.6057:

How are they parasitic? How have they taken anything away from anyone else in these exchanges?

I explained that. Player A sells the item low. Player C actually needs the item. Player B (the parasite) buys the item low from Player A, and sells it high to Player C. Now Player A isn’t any worse off, nothing can be done for him, but Player C is out the difference that Player B pockets. He is worse off. Player B has gained money without doing anything positive for anyone else. That is, by textbook definition, a parasite.

This makes a couple assumptions that make the average player (that you say you are advocating for) look quite incapable and dumber than is accurate:
1) The trader will always be able to buy from Player A before Player C has the chance to. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t enough traders to be watching every item 24-7 well enough to do this
2) Player C is incapable of placing a buy order. If this is true, then there is no hope, and indeed in this case the trader would be making it easier through undercutting. If this is false, then if Player C is not fine with paying what the trader has listed, then he can place a buy order and not have to buy from the trader, who has failed at pricing their items.

Ohoni.6057:

As you’ve pointed out, only a fool uses the “sell it now” function, the only reason for it is if you desperately need cash immediately, and 99/100 the player can afford to wait.

Then either a lot of people need cash desperately, or we have a lot of fools on our hands.

Why? Can you logically (not because then the traders would profit ) justify to me why that should be so?

Because it’s in the best interests of the majority of players. This is an adventure simulator, not a market simulator. If you’re in this game because you want to be a market tycoon, there are other games for that, go play them. The rest of us don’t want you around. [/quote]

Half strawman. You make broad statement, then fail to back it up logically and resort to saying “Go away.” If all I wanted was to be a market tycoon, then I could go play some of those games. But maybe, just maybe I want to play this game, and just maybe I’m allowed to play a game whether or not you want me to play it.

Ohoni.6057:

but the person who should profit from buying at a low point should be the person who actually needs that item. The person who profits from selling at a high point should be the person who brought that item into the game world. Nobody else should be involved in that object’s lifespan but the person who made it and the person who puts it to use.

Read the bold, underlined words. Now, two questions:

Why? Can you logically (not because then the traders would profit ) justify to me why that should be so?

Also, Ensign made a few good points a couple posts up.

Aside from what has been said, Anet designed the professions and the number of them with certainty. At one point in development there were 12. They probably thought of druids, maybe even did a bit of designing for them. They specifically ruled them out until the ones left felt distinct. And I think that they are against adding more professions.

Malediktus.9250:

If you really believe they will still be “best in slot” if they decide to raise the level cap, you are probably in for a nasty suprise.

Source? Or just speculation?

Yes, something did change. When they introduced ascended crafting, they added 400-500 to the 3 weapon-making disciplines. To go along with that, they adjusted the leveling curves of ALL crafting disciplines so that you would need to go to 500 to get the full 10 levels. That included the ones that still cannot go to 500. However, if they release ascended armor is a similar fashion as weapons, then the armor-making disciplines would be able to go to 500.

Ohoni.6057:

You’re offering ways to better compete with them, I’m saying I don’t want to compete with them. I don’t want competition to be a thing on the trading post.

So you are saying you want a market where there are fixed prices such that everyone buys and sells at the same value as one another? That defeats half the point of it being a player market.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~

No, that’s not a difference. “The player” may be willing to wait too, he’s just not trying to make money by taking advantage off his fellow player. The difference between the player and the TP Gold Farmer is not patience, it’s the willingness to buy items at a price that people are willing to offer them for, and sell them for prices people are willing to pay, rather than the other way around. If the TP Gold Farmer wasn’t involved, then the prices would be much more stable somewhere in the middle, because people wouldn’t be “speculating” on whether the price will rise or fall later in the day, week, or year, they would just be putting the items up for what they intended to get for it and that would be that.

If “The player” is willing to wait too, then he’ll put up a buy order. If a trader can get his buy orders filled, then people are willing to pay that. If his goods sell, people are willing to pay that. If they don’t, then he overestimated and will be undercut and might lose money. Speculating is something that (imo) is very different from trading. Trading is buying low, selling high. Speculation is placing a bet on what will happen to the markets in the future.

Patience is a significant difference between traders and just the normal PvE player. If the player wants to make a smaller, quick buck without waiting, he can fill the trader’s orders. If the player wants to get an item fast, and without waiting, he can buy the trader’s items. Either way, the trader provides a convenience to the normal player by waiting for them, and letting the normal player get what they want, when they want it.

Ohoni.6057:

If they really need to keep the TP Gold Farmers happy by allowing them to compete with each other, then just set up an “sBLTC” option, a marketplace that is entirely separate from the normal GW2 economy (accessed from the Heart of the Mists), one in which they can trade sBLTC items for sBLTC currency without distorting the prices that normal people have to pay or receive on the trading post.

As far as I am concerned, TP competition was never the point of being a trader. Except for the occasional troll with a lot of money, there isn’t much point to trying to be a competitive trader. The point is not to drive prices up, but to make money from giving others that convenience.

Behellagh.1468:

Sindex.9520:

~snip~

Well that’s a lovely thought and all but here’s the thing. Average weapon skin with tickets is 5. 10 scrapes per ticket. 1 in 4 chance (some says it’s lower) for a scrap. That’s 200 keys. At 25 keys per 2100 gems and 80 gems per dollar/euro that would be $210 or 210 Euro or over 16 thousand gems. Think they would ever post an item for that much ever? During this key sale it would have been only $168. And that’s average RNG and we all know it’s a fickle beast.

That’s why new skins are on “sale” for one ticket each. This way it’s at least vaguely affordable at $40. And right now the most expensive single thing at the Gem Shop is the deluxe upgrade at $25/2000 gems.

Actually, it isn’t quite as bad as you might think. That doesn’t take into account the fact that whole tickets can drop. Using the data available to me through the drop rate wiki page, scraps drop about 21.07% of the time, and full tickets 2.68% of the time. Using that and you 25 keys for 2100, it only costs about $118.125, about $90 less.
This is using imperfect numbers, if anyone has percentages backed up by more data, then I can use that.

Why did Mad King Thorn disappear for 250 years, then suddenly come back? If there is any lore behind this, I would like to know it.

What was the intention with the 20 Slot Halloween Pail and Mini Bloody Prince Thorn? Is there a reason that they cost so much?

Will the Lunatic Court be expanded upon in the story?

What were the seals needed to unleash the Mad King? The first was Queen Salma becoming Queen, but what were the rest?

Why does Mad King Thorn wear a pumpkin on his head? Also, will we ever find out where the pieces of his body are located, or have some sort of scavenger hunt to find them?

[insert everything Konig said here]

Will we be seeing any additional lore being revealed during this year’s Halloween? Such as the Bloody Prince making another comeback in another upcoming patch and facing his father. Or will this be reserved for next year?

It seems like Edrick and his father are both pretty mad. Is there any time when they got along? Seems like those 2 could get up to some really terrible mischief. Or maybe a family squabble that dragged in innocents?

How is the box made, and can we make new ones or destroy the existing one?

What are the magical powers of candy corn? Are there any other candies that have powers?

What drove the Mad King to his madness?

Who was the original inventor of Candy Corn in the GW universe and why is Mad King Thorn so obsessed with it?

Why are there only a few halloween weapon skins for this year and not 1 for every type of weapon?

I would like to know how the rules of the Underworld work. Supposedly Mad King Thorn was locked away in the Underworld, and could only visit the mortal realm during Halloween. But he has been slowly breaking the seals that keep him locked away. How does Grenth feel about all this? And is there any connection between Mad King Thorn and Dhuum? And where exactly is the Mad Realm located in the Mists? How much power does Thorn have over this realm?

Assuming the Mad Realm existed naturally, how did Oswald Thorn come to take control of it? If not, how did the Mad Realm come to be? Was it made for individuals with such lunacy as Oswald Thorn or did Oswald Thorn himself somehow make it, as we’re told that he had or knew powerful dark magic.

Questions were taken from posts below that I liked, credit goes to them for those questions.

Nightingale.9714:

Omg people I got the dye like a day and a half ago now lol. Cant believe this thread is still active! /CLOSED thank you.

You started the thread. You started the thread 23 hours ago. A day and a half is 36 hours. This thread has not existed for that long. Also, whether or not you have the item that the thread was made upon has no bearing on whether people post.

Thank you for reading.

Taldren.7523:

CMstorm.8679:

eles need a sword or elemental scythe

Ele needs 1200+ ranged attacks.

So make scythe a 1200+ ranged weapon. When your casting spells, all issues about actually hitting go out the window

a t s e.9614:

+1000000 I don’t understand what you are trying to say but
Thief needs more hp that’s a sure thing . Sitting at 10k
Is beyond ridiculous . And the huge Bonus Pannel made
my day xD thanks dude .

And the ele doesn’t need it?
Eles need higher base HP in the first place. They don’t have stealth.

Quakeman.9378:

I do run 0-20-0-10-30 sometimes depending on who I’m running with.

You look to be missing about 10 trait points there.

EvaPilot.3816:

Yeah. I use 1-5 as normal, WER are my movement, D for dodge, ASFG for attunements, ZXCV for utilities and elite, Q for heal, T for interact. But I find that even with that I have a tendancy to stand still while I focus on attunements and throwing out as many spells as I can as fast as possible >_> I am a terrible gamer.

I have found a setup that works for me, but I haven’t gone into WvW really, so I don’t know how this will work for you: WASD for movement, 1-4 for attunements, N for dodge, and all 10 skills in order are E, C, shift, V, B, R, T, G, Y, and tab. That way they are all near to my movement, the only downside being that I have to shift around a lot of other keybindings.

Shiren.9532:

Why would anyone source WoodenPotatoes on this? Not only does he not work for ArenaNet but he’s been wrong in the past. This isn’t an attack on WoodenPotatoes more an issue of people putting him on some kind of pedestal simply because they are too lazy to read the text inside the game themselves.

Actually, I think that person originally linked the video because of the footage on it, where he breaks out of the map (sort of) and then goes and looks at Zhaitan’s dead body.

Apparition.1576:

I feel dumb, I always thought the plural for mongoose was mongeese LOL

Also, we need more meese around here. :P
I’ve always enjoyed thinking the moose plural is meese.

Illusion.1807:

I would also want to point out that it is illogical to make eles spells weaker and have longer cool down just because eles has more spells. Having more spells is eles’ unique strength, just like Mesmers can summon illusions. Mesmers do not get punished for summoning illusions as their illusion spells have short cool down, nice effects and can do good damage. But in contrast, eles is punished for its strength, which does not make sense. Also, the punishment is way too much: poorest health, light armor, have to invest 30 in arcana, mobility nerfed, healing nerfed, and slow casting, relatively weak, and long cool down spells.

That being said, I have a feeling the developers would rather buff some aspects of eles to be OP instead of admitting their mistakes of over nerfing eles. Hopefully, I am wrong.

This a thousand times over. Eles are “balanced” around their prof mechanic. Our skills are worse with longer CDs. We have the lowest HP, lowest armor. We also have attunement CDs, which start way too high and shackle us to Arcana. That doesn’t even go into the nerfs. Or how a skill very similar to one on another prof, when put on ele, is considered OP.

I love the prof, hate the balance.

It is true. 1-400 now gives 7 levels and to get 10 you have to do 0-500…which is only available on 3 and is exorbitantly expensive. I’m not happy about it either :/

I personally would like some changes to Incinerator, including larger, longer lasting footsteps that look more like fire and less like a tiny splat of lava that must mean your foot is 600 degrees Celsius.

To whoever is capable,
An invite to the letters and numbers to the left of this text would be quite nice. Thank you.

Amurond.4590:

It’d be nice if we had a less kitten way to update a buy order on an item.

Agreed. +1

Nike.2631:

They’ll be back.

Source?

champ.7021:

Galen Grey.4709:

I am leveling artificer up as well.

But really its not so bad, what I do is 15 mins of gathering gets me the wood and ore I need. Then go to do a world event or two, sell the rares and use the profit to buy the ectos (sometimes I refine the rares directly but generally its cheaper time wise to just sell and buy) and craft 1 exotic or two that will get you up a couple of levels!

Until i see an ori node in every dungeon im going to say crafting to 500 is bad

Until I see tokens in every explorable area I’m going to say dungeon tokens are bad.
/sarcasm
That logic doesn’t really work. If we saw rewards for every gameplay type in every gameplay type, that makes is pointless to actually do things like explore and find new, cool places and things that you might not have otherwise found. If I got glory points for doing things in the Plains of Ashford, that could mean that I don’t go into sPvP and have the fun that I might have.

Bump for justice. We want some answers on this!

Spiral Architect.6540:

ANet never intended for players to use skills with condition damage.

rofl.

Tom Gore.4035:

Frostfang.5109:

I have done 100% map completion and I only will with one character because of this matter. WvW maps should not be necesary for PvE map completion.

They are most certainly not required for PvE map completion.

WvW maps are not required for 100%ing all of the PvE maps. WvW maps ARE required to get your 2 Gifts of Exploration.

Adine.2184:

I think there should be a heavy that can do both offense and defense but neither particularly well . they would do this through use of "atunements "

Here is my idea .

A Heavy class that “attunes” itself to either offense or defensive roles. Its class mechanic would be to have an offensive and defensive attunement that would switch weapon skills based on it . It would have a medium base health and have the following weapons
Main hand
Sword,Axe,
Off hand
Dagger,Shield,Sword,Mace
2 hand
Longbow,Hammer
An example of offensive vs defensive attunements might be
Sword Dagger offense grants a chance at poisoning a foe on dagger strikes and is purely offensive where as Sword Dagger defense grants a chance at stability every so many seconds and has more block/evade skills

See: Elementalist Attunement swaps (though they are not deff/off, specifically).

Buying it from the gem store and then have a smashing fee on top of it is too much. You don’t gain much if you spend so much on something that actually affords you very little convenience. First you pay through money or gold to get it then more gold to use it, all it actually does is allow you to do it anywhere. That isn’t worth the cost to most people.

It would require some balancing, looking at, etc, but I like the idea. Not necessarily likely at all to happen, but a very good idea. Cheaper bank spaces in general would be very nice.

itamar.4690:

SeNoZinD.9874:

…Signets stack with swiftness?

the MS signets

The speed signets do NOT stack, as stated on the movement speed article.

ThiBash.5634:

Off-hand scepter would be a good place to start I think. The best part is that you’d only have to think of 8 new skills.

Other good candidates, balancewise would be two-handed weapons since they don’t run the risk of overpowered combos with the current single hand weapons.

Or, instead of thinking of entirely new skills, they could revamp the current ones so they are actually useful. Right now eles are balanced around inefficient button-mashing, a profession mechanic that binds us rather than helps us, and a lack of a weapon swap.

We are basically supposed to do our attunement dance and pop everything that isn’t on CD, and all of our skills are mediocre to bad simply because we have access to 4 attunements. That means that our profession mechanic is not designed for us to be in fire for one purpose and swap attunements for their purpose, but rather dodge through them all just to do even OK. Instead of having a bonus from the attunements, we are shackled to them…painfully. Then, because of this attunement swapping, we are locked into only one weapon set by design, which further limits our versatility and possibilities.

That isn’t even going into how we are the lowest armor, lowest vitality class that is simultaneously bound to Arcana and, to a lesser extent Water Magic……

Yep, because it wouldn’t be a Daecollo ele post without being stupidly OP.

Wrong forum. See here.

just curious, is there much of any logic behind putting lightning bolts into fire (two completely different things)?

Fernling.1729:

They have already added one strictly cosmetic mount, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more.

This is news to me. What are you referring to?

Bump for Legendary justice. Lets see something!

Knote.2904:

Suddenflame.2601:

One huge snip

They’re doing it backwards and always have been.

Instead of nerfing the new optimal farm spot (which they implemented btw), they should just normalize that profitability across the game.

If you could do w/e you find fun and ALSO make the same 20g that guy made doing the thing he didn’t like, it would be much better, there wouldn’t even really be a concept of “farming” then, it would just be “playing the game”. You could then just do w/e you find fun, that guy could do w/e he finds fun, and you both make “progress” to your goals w/e that may be.

That is if, 20g/X was the “rate” Anet wanted it at, but that’s just an example. And sure it may not be perfect, even if they did this and champ or zerg farming was still 5-10% more profitable so what? It’s still better than it being 100% more profitable.

If that means nerfing w/e is currently most profitable then w/e, thing is Anet just nerfs the top farming activity, then introduces a new one, and repeats.

You can’t use “fun” to encourage people to do something, that’s the job of “rewards”. Players determine what they find fun, and do that, but then the creators introduce the rewards that will influence players to do what the creators want them to do.

So you can’t just make something boring to discourage farming, that doesn’t make any sense at all lol.

But do you know what that leads to? Massive amounts of inflation. You know what that leads to? Much higher prices on the TP. You know what that leads to? Farming to keep up with the prices and get what you want.

If I can earn that 20g/X doing whatever, then that 20g will be worth a lot less in general. So then I need far more gold to buy what I want on the TP. Just saying.

Zerroth.2401:

QQing for the sake of QQing…….

Three levels is nothing, why even complain… You still gain 10 lvls from maximizing your crafting to 500….so at the end of the year ,you can have a toon fully lvled from only crafting as long as you have the gold to do so…….. This is excellent because what is happening is now crafting will actually start being useful as less people use it as an easy ride to up lvl.

I have already said something similar earlier in the thread, but since you seem not to have read it, I will restate it.

I am not talking about leveling 2-80 through crafting, because that is a different argument/issue. I am talking about who gains and who is shafted by the change. The person who has 8-15 toons all with fully leveled crafting, etc is the player who gains. They gain because they got their 10 levels per craft and now they get an additional 3 for 400-500. The person who has 1-7 toons who are nowhere close to finishing crafting are the people who get shafted. These players now get 7 levels for the same money/crafting levels as the earlier people got 10. To get the last 3 they don’t get from 0-400, they have to spend exorbitant amount of money. Further, they don’t get the “extra” 3 levels the first group of people got.

To address what you said directly, no you do not still get 10 lvls for 0-500. You used to get 10 for 0-400 and now you get 7 for 0-400. Now those last three lvls cost a couple hundred gold on top of the 0-400 cost. You also don’t (yet) get all 80 from crafting because every discipline is affected, not just the weapon making ones. Yes, you can get 10 lvls through crafting if you have the gold, put instead of paying 13g or so like you used to, you pay 213g or so for the exact same levels.

tl;dr Yes, you can still pay to craft those 10 lvls but it now costs an exorbitant amount more and those who did it pre-patch also get 3 more lvls. So no, this part of the patch is not good, fair, or useful.

Draknar.5748:

Did they promise to update the Incinerator specifically? I think I missed that post. It would just be so odd for them to promise on that weapon because it is already so freaking awesome. Dual Incinerators drool

See SAB: BtS release notes

Mark Katzbach

The Juggernaut, Bolt, Incinerator, and Rodgort now have larger footfall effects.

I approve of these suggestions. It should be in the suggestions sub-forum though.

Erebus.7568:

while i agree on most of these points i see another major flaw.

imagine if the necromancer didnt have his shroud form, or the ranger didnt have his pet, etc, it didnt exist and he got nothing instead… how strong do you think the class’s would be?

my point is that is what have happened to the ele, we got NO special ability which can “reinforce” us in a heavy way… we got attunement which is more of a handicap then a bonus due to all the issue’s you have with trying to mix 4 “weapon switch” abilities into doing something others have to be able to do with 2..

i really do believe there is a serious need for an actual effective bonus mechanic, and activation of some sort instead of just the clear “weapon swap” which all other classes gets for free…

we forget to mention the traits as well, which is CLEARLY splitted up amongst elements made in a way where they buff the element and not all elements, which when we are suppose to constantly use all elements is an inharent issue as well..

made a little suggestion on an active ability for the ele.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

Yes. This. Anet seems to be thinking like this:

Since ele has 4 attunements, we can make the skills have 2-4 times the CD, 1/4 the effect at best, and severely limit their ability without investing 29%-43% of their traits into one line for a single bonus. That will balance the fact that they have twice as many skills available, despite losing their profession mechanic and having to frantically mash buttons to get even close to the effects that other professions have.

And the traits are split among the different elements despite encouraging the attunement dance that almost every ele has to do. It is as if they want us to swap attunements all over the world and back again twice, and yet at the same time encourage us to stick in one attunement all the time. Our weapon swap and profession mechanic and skill balance was stolen in favor of the attunement dance that the traits don’t even support.