The ability to make gold to which this game relies on so heavily.
It is much like one profession being leaps and bound better than all the rest….unbalanced. Ofc there are always going to be some that are a bit better, but when one is far better then it causes issues.
What benefit does having such an imbalance provide as to keep it as such?
I’m finally able to bring out the true basis of your argument: Skill
You’re upset that some TP Traders are good at what they do. Having the knowledge and experience to do something that’s profitable isn’t considered unfair. Just as an SPvP player who has the skills to beat his opponents over and over will have a higher rank. The end result for these two examples are one makes more money, and one makes more ranks.
What you’re suggesting, is that Anet put in place barriers because one player is more skilled than another at one aspect of the game. If that’s your sense of “fairness”, then you should be asking that the Open Market concept of the Black Lion Trading Post be eliminated from the game.
All of the available 3rd party tools available alleviate the need for much skill while trading.
You spvp analogy would work if that player played on an unbalanced dominant profession.
What I am suggesting is that they balance (not completely, but at least in the same ball park) methods of obtaining gold……at least give methods similar treatment (every other method is regulated). If this game were not so heavily reliant on gold, again wouldn’t really be an issue, but alas it is.
There is a reason markets in rl are regulated. Why we don’t learn from that is a mystery to me.
The ability to make gold to which this game relies on so heavily.
It is much like one profession being leaps and bound better than all the rest….unbalanced. Ofc there are always going to be some that are a bit better, but when one is far better then it causes issues.
What benefit does having such an imbalance provide as to keep it as such?
Your smarter than that……..please think about it. If you cannot see why this is may be an issue, well then there is no point in responding to you any further.
There is no issue. If you want a particular rare item, make an effort to get it. By asking for a short cut or handout for that item, you’ve already lost the argument.
Trading is the shortcut……btw this is not about winning or losing an argument, it is about awareness that something exists that has a greater negative effect on the game than positive effect. If the only reason you posting is to win an argument then it’s pretty obvious reason will not have any bearing.
As an example wvw player who plays 2 times as much as a trader or a champ grinder does not have a chance at such things unless they get an extremely lucky drop. Entitlement for them…you betcha. There is no balance in effort/time spent/reward in this game atm thus the entitlement justification does not fly.
Nothing in the game is really required so that as well does not fly as justification.
Here’s where the problems are with your thinking:
1) WvW player has the same, equal chances to get a rare drop as a trader does in WvW/PvE. So if a WvW player plays 2x as much as a trader in WvW/PvE, they have 2x more chances to get a rare drop. So in essence, you should be saying it unfair to the trader, since he doesn’t play as much.
2) You say it is entitlement, then you go on to say that I can’t use that as a basis for my argument? Not sure how to respond to that.
3) There is balance in this game. It’s called RNG. Everyone’s base chance to get something is exactly the same. If someone spends time to increase their Magic Find with Luck, then their chances are augmented by said Magic Find. If I have 300% MF, and you have 0%, that means I have 3x more chances to get a rare drop than you. That’s pretty fair, as I spent the time to buff my MF. If you don’t like it, then you have the option to spend time to get Luck as well. Nothing prevents you from having the same stats as me.
Traders are still players. They just approach money making from a different angle. If they can make money off of others, then their skill at such gameplay isn’t “unfair”. They make the choice to sacrifice their chances to get rare drops from enemies by playing the TP.
A rich player can afford to buy a luxury item, and another player without money can’t afford to do the same, that’s how life works. Complaining about this is akin to saying “Why does the President get to live in the White House, and I can’t?”
Your smarter than that……..please think about it. If you cannot see why this is may be an issue, well then there is no point in responding to you any further.
The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible.
You can, if you so choose, buy up the overpriced goods and resell them at lower prices, if that makes you think you are making the price more ‘fair’. Better for everyone would be if you find supplies that are underpriced and order them at slightly higher prices (loot bags and salvageables are the spot, I think). Find products where the prices are over the top and supply them at slightly lower prices. Be brazen: under-cut that seller. Be bold: offer more than the highest buyer. And don’t whine: we all have the same economy to work within. Nobody gets special treatment. In that sense, the economy is fair. The BLTC doesn’t exclusively buy its widgets from me. You are perfectly free to sell your widgets to them, or to buy out my widget supply and list them at higher prices. If you want an unfair economy, then demand that ANet supply everyone with one of that item. Demand that everyone get their choice of precursor, or their choice of T6 Mats. Or demand that other players in the market be punished for the high crime of ‘buying something cheap and selling at a higher price’. Demand that you get one of the only 200 issued in game items, despite your not having done half the work of others in the game that also want it. Demand all you want, but realize that when you chose how you play, you also decide what your opportunities are. If you don’t like your available opportunities, then change how you play. Don’t whine.
Me, I’ll watch that my tiny corner of the market doesn’t go stagnant.
Traders do get special treatment as they have the only unregulated method of obtaining wealth in the game, thus it’s why the profit potential from it is leaps and bounds above everything else.
It’s a legitimate concern..not a whine there is a difference even though it might be hard for some to discern.
You do know that a very small portion of the game population are active traders, and even a very smaller portion actually make a ton of gold? If everyone were a sensibile trader there would be no profit.
You may think being a trader is all gold and roses but you can lose as much as you gain.
Again, it is not a concern because it’s an isolated, limited case and it’s not harmful to the game.
As long as there are enough of them to sustain demand above supply (extremely probable with low supply items) they will dictate pricing. Everyone else will not figure into the equation and have no bearing on pricing. Thus it creates a disparity….it’s not that hard to understand really.
The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible.
You can, if you so choose, buy up the overpriced goods and resell them at lower prices, if that makes you think you are making the price more ‘fair’. Better for everyone would be if you find supplies that are underpriced and order them at slightly higher prices (loot bags and salvageables are the spot, I think). Find products where the prices are over the top and supply them at slightly lower prices. Be brazen: under-cut that seller. Be bold: offer more than the highest buyer. And don’t whine: we all have the same economy to work within. Nobody gets special treatment. In that sense, the economy is fair. The BLTC doesn’t exclusively buy its widgets from me. You are perfectly free to sell your widgets to them, or to buy out my widget supply and list them at higher prices. If you want an unfair economy, then demand that ANet supply everyone with one of that item. Demand that everyone get their choice of precursor, or their choice of T6 Mats. Or demand that other players in the market be punished for the high crime of ‘buying something cheap and selling at a higher price’. Demand that you get one of the only 200 issued in game items, despite your not having done half the work of others in the game that also want it. Demand all you want, but realize that when you chose how you play, you also decide what your opportunities are. If you don’t like your available opportunities, then change how you play. Don’t whine.
Me, I’ll watch that my tiny corner of the market doesn’t go stagnant.
Traders do get special treatment as they have the only unregulated method of obtaining wealth in the game, thus it’s why the profit potential from it is leaps and bounds above everything else.
It’s a legitimate concern..not a whine there is a difference even though it might be hard for some to discern.
It seems you want a fair price for all player types, am I correct? One person has a lot of money due to dedicated farming, or using real money to buy Gems to convert to Gold. Another person is a Casual who plays 1 hour a week, and has less than 10 Gold in their bank. So if I’m understanding this correctly, you want a rare item that’s limited in quantity, to be made available to the person with a lot of money, and the person with little money?
That’s called Entitlement.
Now if Anet required all players to have said rare item, but still allowed us to have an Open Market where we dictate our own prices, then I would agree it’s unfair.
As an example wvw player who plays 2 times as much as a trader or a champ grinder does not have a chance at such things unless they get an extremely lucky drop. Entitlement for them…you betcha. There is no balance in effort/time spent/reward in this game atm thus the entitlement justification does not fly.
Nothing in the game is really required so that as well does not fly as justification.
We have made no changes to the drop rates of the Wxp items.
Yep, they still stink and are not a viable option to alt progression. Hopefully ya’ll will change this so they drop more often (kegs are like black lion keys) or just make wxp account bound like the player base has been clamoring for.
Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).
While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.
If people are willing to pay 585g, then 585g is the fair price. You can try your own luck in the forge if you think it isn’t “fair”.
The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible. Thus we have a funneling effect into certain play styles that don’t really benefit the game’s positive health.
I’ll give BP one thing for sure….the ability to rally your entire map population to defend or to take objectives. Ya’ll are tough to fight when ya’ll are all congregated together in one spot.
This whole week it’s been really hard to find smaller groups besides NSP who only seem to come in small groups.
I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.
Just like the real world then…where 5% of the population control 80% of world resources/$.
You know, in the real world I don’t mind that fundament inequity so long as I’m not having my nose rubbed in it. Its ok that there are Shadowy Overlords so long as they extend me the courtesy of staying shadowy…
Maybe its for the best we don’t have charts like that for this game being publicized. It would just be depressing.
It’s a certainty that some tp traders hold extreme disproportionate in game wealth. That is a given when trading goes unregulated.
On one hand it acts as a general funneled gold sink, which is good.
On the other it helps create item disparity, which is bad.
I fully understand what each is and how it works. That wasn’t the question. The question was to “why” money is the justification of not allowing players to basically do the same thing to the gem exchange that they do to the trading post.
Considering everything in the tp is only 1 extra click away from money…why?
So hypothetically FA and SBI could tie, both get top silver rewards, one moves into gold league for second season and the other might be left in silver league to get top rewards again?
2 nice stripers. Most Christmas trips we spend a lot of money and don’t get lucky. Hopefully this year it’ll be different. If not I’ll settle for some new tackle.
Have to edit due to topic change………
Account bound WxP…….common sense we need this
Limit on TP profit potential…my personal crusade
There is no need to make wxp account wide. Why should a lvl 30 twink who was never in wvw have all the stuff you earnd with your lvl 80 who is rank 300+ ?
If so, there must be like spvp. Make all lvl80 make all have every weapon armor rankabilities who are ingame. you see anet will never do this because they allready have it in spvp. if you want that go play spvp.
There is a difference between learning the ropes in wvw and learning the ropes on a profession. Once a players learns the ins and outs of wvw, they will not need to relearn it all over again just because they play another character. It’s like having to start over from kindergarten if you want to dual major or change majors in college.
They don’t have to make it complex, because complex economic data just isn’t appropriate for the average player. Maybe for other economists, but the average joe it’s not really all that enlightening.
Well the data IS complex – abstracting it to something a non-expert can find useful without drawing bad conclusions is what makes the task time consuming. I’m not an economist, but most of my career has been turning data into information (signal processing) . I could present Fourier Transform graphs to other Engineers but it wouldn’t be helpful in communicating with the business folks. It takes some thought and creativity to extract information from data for a general audience, and usually requires doing some significant analysis before you can figure out how to present what’s interesting.
Even in the financial world where I’m working now, interpreting a chart for a particular security requires expertise. There are a lot of folks with that expertise because there are generally agreed upon ways of presenting certain bits of information. That doesn’t exist yet for virtual economies.
Don’t get me wrong- I’d love to see another state of the economy. It’s just not as easy to throw together as some folks think it is, unless it’s going to be so simple that it’s impossible to extrapolate anything interesting from it. It would just be fodder for forum arguments.
I might be wrong here, but shouldn’t this type of thing already be happening as part of someone’s job over there as is? I really don’t think a simple “Good” is sufficient to the question “How is the in game economy going?” from the higher ups who make the decisions. They want information much like we do and I’m sure it’s within someone’s job to give them such.
Imo they just don’t want to share this info with us now that has evolved.
I’m a little bothered that people are even suggesting hardware like GTX 780/780TI or other out-of-question expensive pieces. OP asked for a $1,000 to 1,400 dollar build, not a $2,400 dollar build.
Don’t think anyone was suggesting those cards for this build. We just got bit sidetracked as the 780ti just came out. One that note though, amd might allow 3rd party coolers in time for bf cm in which case a 290 non-ref might very well fit into this budget.
The 30% difference (tax if you want to call it that) prevents people like me from actively treating the exchange like the real world currency markets. People who have experience in these types of exchanges are more likely to benefit/profit, which in turn hurts everyone else.
Much like how traders beneift/profit from flipping?
I meant it in the pricing sense. A faster card for 300 less than the titan. You’d think they drop the price of the titan. Granted the 780ti only comes in 3gb atm and the titan comes in 6gb, but, who would buy a Titan now?
PS…castrated was a poor word choice as it is more commonly used to depict a held back version of a card……..ahhh hindsight
As far as GPU, the GTX 780 Ti reviews have just hit the net with a storm with a 10-15% performance increase over the 290×. So more options for gpu goodness, along with a new toy for sobe’s test bench.
So they castrated their prior Titan flagship, how odd. You’d think they would at a very minimum change the pricing to reflect where it stands now they have released the 780ti.
Could it be cheaper, yes. but the parts picked are all top quality. And as a added bonus it will ‘look’ good with a red/black theme.
I put in 6 of corsair new 120mm Af series red LED fans, adds a significant chunk of cost to it, but ill make it look great. Ofc u could buy these at a later date to save money and stick the with stock 2in 1 out fans that comes with the case.
The 250gb SSD could also be lowered to 120GB to save a bit if u want.
The GD65 gaming motherboard has great feature and look baller. The 4770k with a H100 cooling it means u can OC it nicely for that extra performance needed for GW2 to play as good as can be done atm, which is to say ..not good enough in WvW and LA :P
And ofc finaly, the graphics card. If u want more VRAM then one of AMD’s R9 280x’s would probably be the best bet. Try get one like Asus’s DC2T or MSI’s Gaming 3G.
I’m trying to look at that build a tweak it a bit.
What do you think about changing out the h100i? From my understanding haswell will hit it’s limits regardless of a h100i, h80, cm 240 seidon, etc etc…..
As for cpu….Is the 7 series worth the extra cash over the 5 series?
Gpu…..As for all of the parts we are on the verge of BF (black friday) as well as non-reference r9-290. These two things are sure to shake up the pricing of gpu’s such as the 770.
Fans…..As relating to the cpu cooler…..maybe consider 2-4 ap series? Ofc that woud be dependent on 120 vs 240 rad and case
PS: I cannot stress enough BF BF BF BF CM CM CM CM CM deals are on the horizon
Wxp should be as it is, toon specific simply because it reflects one toon’s progression in a certain environment, such as WvW.
I really hope ANet leaves Wxp and the point system restricted to per toon and NOT per account, which is utter ridiculous as to why people continue to want and expect this WvW stuff to be account wide.
Please explain further how exactly account bound wxp (skills char bound) would detract from “one toon’s progression in a certain environment”.
Long answer: We will not see anymore analysis like that, (imo) b/c the data would show how far we have come from those “favorable” conditions. Purposefully showing the distance we are from said conditions would not be wise, thus…..the answer is no.
Was just wondering what ya’ll thought about having other topics as collaborative developments other than living world, wvw population, and pvp game modes?
Would anyone like to see topics such as “Dungeon Design, Reward Structures, Open World Structure, Festival Design, etc…etc…”?
The gold to gem rate on the exchange is not a measure of inflation. If you consider how the exchange works and interacts with players you’ll realize that it’s a great measure of only one thing…
Let me try this again, hopefully w/o getting infracted this time.
Is that one thing: The desire for players to play for rewards vs directly buying them?
No if everyone stopped buying the prices will remain the same as long as nobody is also buying gold with gems. The price will stabilize once the two sides of the exchange balance one another in terms of gems.
The two sides (buying gems with gold and buying gold with gems) are so lopsided it’s not even funny. So buying gold with gems will never be able to fully balance the ratio. Players buy gems with cash mainly to get items in the store not to convert it to gold. Most of the gems created never enter into the equation, thus their ability to balance the ratio is non-existent.
It was set up to do exactly what it is doing. It was inevitable that prices would always rise. To ensure that they do promotions and additions are thrown in rapid succession one after another. Ever think you’ll buy gems after the promotion wears off and prices settle back down only to see another on come in on it’s heels and further increase the rate? Yep, that’s on purpose.
Unfortunately this has a negative side effect………detouring new players. There is one thing that any mmo needs and that is a constant influx of new players. Anything that detracts from such (imo) is not a good thing.
Change you title to something like " unable to purchase gems with credit card" or something to that nature. There is one thing that’ll almost guarantee a response and that is cashola., other things not soo much.
So I’ve seen a lot of really bad math, outrageous claims and all sorts of speculation concerning ascended gear and how much it increases your damage. I decided enough is enough, it is time to put the rumors to rest and show the actual numbers.
The attached picture shows the calculations for FULL ascended gear. This includes 2x one handed weapons, full ascended armor, full ascended trinkets, and full infusions (13 offensive, 3 defensive). It also includes standard food buff, trait line contribution, and runes of the undead.
As you can see from the picture the % damage increase is almost precisely 5% under ideal circumstances.
It should be noted that precision and condition duration play absolutely 0 role in the final calculation because a standard necro can already cap bleeds on a target so they play no role in the damage. Toughness is included for the runes of the undead #6 bonus. Torment is placed at 3 stacks since this is the most a necro can currently apply under any circumstances.
When I get home tonight I will look up the numbers on scepter direct damage to add to the calculation, however that is very complicated and will almost certainly not have an effect on the final outcome. (it hits in the region of 100dps, so even with a 50% increase from ascended stats that would only be adding in an extra 50dps, changing the final result to 7%)
So please start spreading some truth around. At least for condition damage specs the increase is a flat 5%, not 15% or other huge numbers i’ve seen flying around.
Kinda hard to proclaim something as “truth” when it takes a partial look at it. In your own words condition dmg and precision are taken out of the equation due to a necro being able to cap condi stacks? What about professions that don’t solo cap their conditions? Also torment can be added by the new superior sigil of torment as well as venom sharing from a thief.
Increase the amount of gold sinks, for god’s sake limit TP profiteering, and balance out methods of farming gold.
The reason some prices are abnormally high is b/c there are methods (like playing the TP) that simply do not have equals. Thus there are enough players that utilize such methods to sustain elevated prices. Leaving things as such while severely limiting others was/is (imo) a very costly mistake as it really does detour new players, who are vital to the health of the game.
Well with only 2 responses in 14 pages (the one on page 14 was “Fix F/U”), I doubt they will read this much less consider tweaking anything.
That aside, I agree it’s too long (cut scenes etc) and good rewards are either to dependent on rng (named of dreams) or not balanced with time/effort to be worth replaying it.
Imo it simply takes to long vs other options. The interesting rewards that are specific to it are problematic since they are based of severe RNG, thus ruining their draw towards the path.
I’m not sure why both sides have to min/max. I would have to assume there was a evaluation on the most apt pricing. It would be interesting to see the numbers from sale prices vs normal prices to see if normal prices are on the down slope of DR.
Imo prices are to high for what items are and how much they cost to add additional units. I feel that they would sell more and make more profit by reducing prices, not to 1 dollar (get out of here with min/max only), but to something more dependent on TLoDR.
While I don’t know the numbers (and noone does without guessing), Tequatl is being done by at least a few hundred people a day. A small portion of the population, yes…but still that’s a lot of people that do it and many of those have a niche boss they really enjoy.
While it can be arguable that the Claw event brings more people, doesn’t mean they all like it. Its a faceroll for rewards and that brings people out too.
Tequatl is one event that fills a niche, open world raid like experience. There are many, many more and all that people are missing now is the one guaranteed 25silver rare they used to get. Do the ones you like and leave those of us that like Tequatl, to him.
Use the number of kills vs amount of days x spawns x servers. It’s not done much at all, roughly <1% of concurrent players participate or <.01% of game population.
Ah this explains a lot. I was getting very perturbed at the red msgs and thinking why didn’t this bother me before? Now I see why…it wasn’t there before…lol.
How should we go about getting out of the animation that one hand swords lock us into while attacking so we may dodge or use others skills when timing matters?
I feel that making the ultra rare weapons sellable is a mistake. It makes it so that playing the content (non farm grind) is not a valid option to obtain them. What we are left with is sheer luck (lottery level), farm grinding for excessive amounts of time, and playing the trading post as the avenues to them. Why of all the things to do in this game are we rewarding those three? I cannot think of one justifiable reason as to why those should reward the most desired skins vs playing content.
I feel what we should be after is rewarding actual game play versus other options that do not enrich the world.
Given both populations are present at same time:
ex)
If server A has 100% pop cap on map 1 they get 100% score tick.
If server B has 75% pop cap on map 1 they get 125% score tick
If server C has 25% pop cap on map 1 they get 175% score tick
Use tiers to which percentage of population get which percentage of tick.
I know they are concerned about players getting hostile with each other over join a map, but realistically this happens regardless. A great example of it is happening now with the hardcore wvw players vs the achievement seekers.
I’m pretty confident no one wants the actual skills bound by account, just the wxp. This would allow you to keep each characters roles, yet not detour you from playing more than one character.
example) The 100 rank points worth of wxp on your account would allow each character on that account to have access to character bound 100 rank points.
Stuck on one toon is a bad argument now. With all the liquid WXP you can easily get a good jump on levels on a new toon. I saved over 100 drops, 20 timbles and 2 kegs since reset plus the 50+ laurels I have. Thats 50 levels for any new toon without even walking into WvW…
I don’t think anyone else is having this kind of luck, not to mention 50 levels on one alt means nada in the grand scheme of things.
It should be account bound. They have not given one VALID reason why it is not, nor has anyone else.
50 levels is a great start! 4 ticks Supply master, 2 ticks Build Master, 2 ticks Repair Master is 19 points which is a good base for your points. That leaves 31 points to start a mastery like AC or Ram. 50 Ranks is more than enough to start a fresh character in WvW. I wouldn’t expect a new character to have defense against guards, a full mastery and some other stuff, that’s just silly imo.
We need 1315 ranks on each character atm to unlock the skills. Since the game comes with 5 slots and there are 8 professions, one can see how 50 is not much in the grand scheme of things.
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