Guild Wars 2

There a very simple answer to your desires and it’s not reducing drop rates. By simply disallowing the sale of said items they would become truly rare. You know this, I know this, heck everyone knows this. The only reason as many people have items mentioned is not because they were able to farm them…..it’s b/c they were able to buy them from the tp. Earning gold is easier then farming certain items <—-there’s your issue in a nut shell.

Might want to take out numero 3 as per:

Advertising of any businesses or organizations is strictly forbidden by our forum Code of Conduct. Continued violation of this rule will result in the permanent suspension of your forum posting privileges.

Just a suggestion for the sake of keeping the thread

Fortus.6175:

Geotherma.2395:

TooBz.3065:

Whether drops are the same as they have always been or not. The OP’s point is the same. Consider increasing the drop rate, currently, it makes the game less fun.

For who? What will increasing do to people who make 10g a day or even 20? I’m sure John Smith could come in here and explain the economics behind bumping drop rates and its negative affects on the economy. So you are making more money, but now everything is more expensive. So you just did absolutely nothing by increasing drops. Same reason we don’t just make more money in the world, some people actually think to fix our debt we could just use our machines to print out more money and pay it off..

you see, in a economy where money income is fixed, items have a minimun value price and trades are based upon supply/demand (once again, regulated by a minimun price, cant highlight how important minimun prices and fixed incomes are in any economy) you can actually calculate a good dropping rate that keep economy balanced.

I wont go much into mathematical details because I would probably bore you, but I will skip all that part and tell you that right now the economy is set up with a safety net; that is, drops are borderline the lower they can be while still being able to affect economy to adapt to fluctuation populations. Here is the issue with that; there is a surplus of money, but not materials, which means that with a fixed gold income, you will try to maximize gains by doing dungeons and farming before diminishing returns, anything that deviates from that is ineffective. This causes an inflation, since the gold is present, but the mats arent, therefore prices raise (demand) while mats (supply) remains constant.

Now here comes the real issue; because nobody wants to farm corn and fruits, everyone wants to live in the urban area, the amount of people playing open world is too small, most mats come not from people going out there to farm them, but those who went somewhere out there, for a secondary objective, killed a few stuff and got “lucky”. Meaning, that if you wanted t6 mats you wouldnt go out there and kill stuff, do events on open world, you would go to CoF, farm it for 4 hours and get the gold for it. See the problem? It is a vicious cycle, you keep pumping gold out there but supply remains the same. AKA Inflation.

The system was designed for a certain number of people out in the open world, but Anet didnt take into account how personally unrewarding is going out there, they are thinking only on the big picture, which is the economy stability, but as a human being we are selfish, we want to see our time’s worth. I dont know if decreasing population of the game has anything to do with this, I dont have any statistics on this subject and it is hard to tell if people are quitting, but if they are this only makes the situation worse, since we are reaching almost the “safe net” limit, at which point the economy reaches peak inflation, and 3 golds would be just as hard to do now, but would get you just as little as 1 gold, maybe even less (once again, I lack the whole number behind it therefore I can only “estimate”)

tl;dr for those who dont like explanations: this game is setup for people to go out there, but personal reward is too small, therefore people tend to lean to gold farming, which leads to inflation since most of the time many mats can only be gained out side in the world. The economy has a safe net setup but possible decrease on population only makes the situation worse. A vicious cycle which could be solved if the community went out there and played, but since human nature is selfish, it wont happen.

TY for typing all that out…..it saves me from doing it

I will add that this also creates a deterrent for new and casuals, which only serves to fuel the cycle further, along with other negative consequences.

Work on making a triforge pendent with it? Besides that…yeah basically left with disheartening options.

marnick.4305:

Essence Snow.3194:

John Smith.4610:

I see no current issues with the exchange, it’s functioning very well. Remember for every opinion on which way should be “favored” there is at least one opinion for the opposite.

PS please stop calling everything inflation, it’s driving me mad.

For the new or casual player there definitely is an issue (ofc we have to look into what we define as an issue) as gold>gem is really not an option for them.

For the non casual or seasoned player…yeah, I’ll agree there’s no direct issue.

You’re still living with the false idea that gold>gems is the primary way to buy stuff in the gem store. It is an option for the dedicated, was always presented as such. As casuals, we got the gems>gold. That’s the whole set up.
This market is even dominated by the casuals, as gems have to be converted to gold, before the opposite is even possible.

Well ty for telling me what my ideas are. I was evidently unaware that I thought it was the primary way.

The bolded is what I actually take issue with. The issue that the whole thing is ever becoming less of an option for the casual and new players. Some of the major draws of GW2 (apart from general gameplay) for a lot of players were 1) no montlhy fee 2) no advantages in cs. No. 2 got sidestepped by using the term conveniences and offering the option of converting ig currency to gems. Well since the latter is trending in one direction, I am afraid it’ll have a negative effect on new and casual players, which are needed to sustain a healthy population in this genre. A cutting off one’s nose despite one’s face sorta deal. It’s counter intuitive imo.

tyvm =D……15 chars

so…do I get the ecto?….lol

It seems to really have nothing to do with t1-2-3 and all about certain bosses and whether or not your roll is unlucky. Much like a lot in this game rng can screw ya. I have no idea why they think it’s such a good idea, when I have yet to meet a player who enjoys it.

Syeria.4812:

Essence Snow.3194:

Syeria.4812:

Essence Snow.3194:

Syeria.4812:

Economics is not a zero sum game. No one “loses” money because of flippers. In fact, flippers provide several fantastic benefits to everyone in the economy. Furthermore, the more people there are flipping, the smaller the margins are, which means higher insta-sell prices and lower insta-buy prices than the economy would have absent their presence.

I keep hearing about how flippers benefit everyone. I am curios to how. So they bring prices to equilibrium faster…..who does that benefit and why?

From what I gather from your post, it benefits impatient players and flippers. On the same token doesn’t that take away from player who are not impatient?

With the sheer number of players using the bltc the liquidity of most functional items is not really an issue. I contest that flipping creates more of an “irrational exuberance” for said items.

Beautiful strawman.

Flippers are the sole reason for price stability (which benefits everyone except for speculators) and market liquidity. So many people have pointed out ways that flippers benefit the economy (you even listed one in your own post!) but zero people have pointed out ways they harm it.

Sole reason? Is there any evidence of that? How is “irrational exuberance” a strawman on items that have high liquidity w/o flippers? Are you suggesting that no items would have it w/o flipping?

That’s not what a strawman is. The strawman is where you said “from what I gathered from your post” and then made up a really really silly claim so you could try discredit people who disagree with you, even though no one actually thinks the thing you claimed.

“Irrational exuberance” simply isn’t a thing. Flippers don’t create prices, and don’t meaningfully affect equilibrium prices so there’s really no negative you could be finding here. There are no items which are currently flipped who would have as small a spread between bid and ask in the absence of flippers. Having a limited spread is inherently a good thing for the market. Since there’s no negative results that anyone has established from flipping, that means flippers are necessarily a good thing.

When you denoted “insta-buy” and “insta-sell” as one of you points….my comment was directed at that, which would be in direct conflict of straw man definition.

I would contest that your position of a straw man was actually the straw man.

The bolded section of the quote seem to be in contradiction of each other.

“Irrational exuberance” was in quotations for a reason. The term implies a negative effect that creates unnecessarily high prices.

Syeria.4812:

Essence Snow.3194:

Syeria.4812:

Economics is not a zero sum game. No one “loses” money because of flippers. In fact, flippers provide several fantastic benefits to everyone in the economy. Furthermore, the more people there are flipping, the smaller the margins are, which means higher insta-sell prices and lower insta-buy prices than the economy would have absent their presence.

I keep hearing about how flippers benefit everyone. I am curios to how. So they bring prices to equilibrium faster…..who does that benefit and why?

From what I gather from your post, it benefits impatient players and flippers. On the same token doesn’t that take away from player who are not impatient?

With the sheer number of players using the bltc the liquidity of most functional items is not really an issue. I contest that flipping creates more of an “irrational exuberance” for said items.

Beautiful strawman.

Flippers are the sole reason for price stability (which benefits everyone except for speculators) and market liquidity. So many people have pointed out ways that flippers benefit the economy (you even listed one in your own post!) but zero people have pointed out ways they harm it.

Sole reason? Is there any evidence of that? How is “irrational exuberance” a strawman on items that have high liquidity w/o flippers? Are you suggesting that no items would have it w/o flipping?

Shaman fractal objective and infused stone during frozen fractal

Syeria.4812:

Economics is not a zero sum game. No one “loses” money because of flippers. In fact, flippers provide several fantastic benefits to everyone in the economy. Furthermore, the more people there are flipping, the smaller the margins are, which means higher insta-sell prices and lower insta-buy prices than the economy would have absent their presence.

I keep hearing about how flippers benefit everyone. I am curios to how. So they bring prices to equilibrium faster…..who does that benefit and why?

From what I gather from your post, it benefits impatient players and flippers. On the same token doesn’t that take away from player who are not impatient?

With the sheer number of players using the bltc the liquidity of most functional items is not really an issue. I contest that flipping creates more of an “irrational exuberance” for said items.

John Smith.4610:

I see no current issues with the exchange, it’s functioning very well. Remember for every opinion on which way should be “favored” there is at least one opinion for the opposite.

PS please stop calling everything inflation, it’s driving me mad.

For the new or casual player there definitely is an issue (ofc we have to look into what we define as an issue) as gold>gem is really not an option for them.

For the non casual or seasoned player…yeah, I’ll agree there’s no direct issue.

Krosslite.1950:

the player community it is sad to see them crying for the old ways instead of even making a effort to try the new way.

Krosslite.1950:

I must add that also due to it being an open world arena that there will be and I would go as far as say, there are, DEs out there that do require a controlled group (raid) mentality to get through them.

How do you not know that these open world dungeons DO require teamwork if no guild has made a DE raid group that has half start at point A while the other half started at point B and pushes forward till they meet.

Krosslite.1950:

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

Seems like there is a “new way” to try things…it’s called a “raid”.

*sry had to….it was kinda obvious

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Okay I’ll follow suit……….

The assumption #1 is odd b/c you have the numbers and know the potential is not balanced. Therefore it must be rhetoric and you don’t really want an answer to it.

The assumption #2…well I believe that some players do feel this way. I don’t feel they should be dead even, but a whole lot closer then they are. This “feeling” would include potential as it is the major factor that unbalances the two.

We have a disparity that is rapidly evolving in our economy. We have an ever increasing wealth gap that serves to be of the detriment of our mass player base. Those with increase prices while those w/o are left soured. If our success was not so closely tied to active players, this would not be an issue. Unfortunately players are the name of the game in this genre. When a mmo loses it’s masses it’s health fails. Regardless of the health of it’s economy independently, if the masses are unhappy with it, it is not beneficial to the game.

As it is late…very late….I won’t dive into plans to balance what is very complicated, but there are a few things that are rather obvious. Tune the economy to make the mass player base happy. Decrease the profit potential allowed by the tp via caps or some other measure. Fix unbalanced farms cough*cof p1*cough. Increase drops of usable mats. Decrease drops of merch fodder. Rely less on rng and remove it from hindering long term goals.

Anyways……the main just of it is….regardless if a game like ours has a “healthy” economy, if the mass population of the game is discouraged with it, it is not “healthy” for the game.

Ofc this is just the delusional ratings of a sleep deprived player, so take with a grain of salt.

Mourningcry.9428:

So, let’s play “what if”…

What if Anet did decide to regulate prices, and set a fixed rate (even if they do re-strike it on occassion)….

Anyone care to offer an over/under for how long before it takes for first post complaining the rate is too high hit the forums?

W/o any further guidelines no one can do that. It would all depends on where and how they set it for a reaction guestimate….ie the question is too vague to be answered

Kaiza.4618:

@LFK I think you are overstating the amount of people with a built up level of wealth. Gold isnt exactly easy to come by in this game and there have always been money sinks even before the Gem explosion happened. Ectos used to cost 35s+ when I started playing in Dec. Crafting is a money sink for most professions.

People are just working alot harder to keep up I believe as I have been, more than theres just a ton of rich players driving the economy forward. I made this thread in order to voice concerns about people hitting the wall and New players getting shafted all together trying to catch up.

Fully optimized with as little downtime as possible I can make 5.5G an hr doing CoF before selling any drops. Ive gone days where I dont get an exotic out of there in 10 hrs because of DR affecting the chests. This takes a dedicated 5 man that knows what its doing to get that kind of cash, LFGin it sucks 90% of the time. AFAIK CoF is the best money in the game outside of TP Manipulation and im not fond of playin the auction house 24/7.

Anyways… Im busting my butt to keep up and from looking at the popularity of CoF farming, many others are too since its the only real viable way to make cash in my experience. If Gem prices and T6 Mat prices continue to inflate, were gonna have a real problem on our hands.

It would be very interesting to see a current wealth distribution like we had upon launch. I very very very much doubt we will as I suspect it has collapsed to one side, which would not be prudent to let us know.

That said, like I have noted in other threads, I feel that some market inflations are not reliant on the vast majority of players. As long as the input from the few is sufficient to sustain such market trends there will be no relief for the rest effected. If that case may apply then Joe Casual and Nelly Newcomer will negatively feel the ramifications.

Imo that is poor design, regardless of it’s economics, as it has a detrimental effect on the population, which sustains the health of an mmo. Without the masses everyone will be negatively effected in GW2.

Sunflowers.1729:

Ursan.7846:

Sunflowers.1729:

Pretty sure she will keep buying transmutation stones, if anything.

Well he said “account upgrades.”

But the reason why I bring it up because these account upgrades, while expensive, stay with your account for the rest of your lifetime. So while yes, assuming inflation keeps on occurring, on the flipside you also need to buy way fewer upgrades.

That is true until you can no longer farm fast enough to keep up with inflation, or are a new player who doesn’t have any upgrades at all.

Personally I just don’t like mechanics which exclude newer players so much.

This^^ 100 fold

It is not healthy for a game of this type to have such things. Eventually older players will thin out and w/o new players to replace them, we will have a “terminal flaw”.

While I agree it would be nice…it’s not going to happen.

It was never meant to be a level playing field. The amount of gold into gems was always meant to exceed the amount of gems into gold.

Very simply…yes it is based on the players, but the parameters are not based on the players

My thoughts…….

The gem exchange is set up in a manner conducive to inflate itself. While there are multiple influences that inflate the rate, there is only one counter measure. This is obviously not meant to be balanced or reach some equilibrium. It is meant to keep the inflow of funds trended.

As others have noted there are spikes on the hill. The spikes are not the time to convert gold>gems. However I wouldn’t recommend waiting too long after a spike settles to buy as there will inevitably be another influence coming along to further increase the rates.

Geotherma.2395:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

“I can haz azended!?”

Seriously though, wouldn’t that be like a pay to win situation? I doubt they’ll do that.

This. They specifically said at no point ever would items be available in gem store that offered an advantage over others. And since ascended is BIS gear… no. So anyone who has a ton of gems could just outright buy the best gear in game through transactions. You should have to earn BIS gear, with hard work or at least daily’s (laurels) etc. Money should not be the main theme behind the best gear. I personally could buy a legendary or two off the TP by simply tossing cash>gold, and that itself feels wrong. Even at the insanely high price, I believe it should have to be earned. people who spent the time to craft and people who spent the hours to afford it in game, they deserve the shiny weapons that offer no real benefit. But gearing out on gold is just bad, people need to earn something in game through work, not just tossing gold in to win.

As for fractal rings etc, I think you should be able to mystic forge them into something or at least sell for karma idk. I hear a lot of people have like 20 rings and can’t do anything with them. But at least they earned them.

They said it would not offer a UNFAIR advantage. That however is very open to debate to where it’s subjective nature can very well be worked around. There are many of the items that do not appear to have any significant impact one way or another vs anything else CURRENTLY available. This (imo) is one of places where the “vagueness” comes into play.

Even though 1 item may not be that much of a change from what’s available currently, multiple items (either grouped together or over the chain of timed progression) will definitely have a noticeable difference from the beginning……ie…..If we keep adding up the small differences eventually we will have a large difference.

Another thing I see thrown around quite frequently is the term “convenience”. In many debates that term is used to separate an item from the term “advantage”. This is something I do not fully understand as the two terms are rather synonymous.

As the game in itself has individualistic goals, objective means to an end change from player to player. This only adds to the subjective nature of what may or may not constitute “unfair” here.

tl;dr…..The whole thing is vague for a reason…..imo that reason is so they can change whatever/whenever w/o being tied to specifics and the possibility of further backlash, which was seen early on.

I’ve been retired for almost 4yrs, but do not qualify for ssi on multiple fronts. I’m not sure where this question is leading either as I cannot find any relevance to much of anything….ie what does ssi have to do with someone’s grumpiness and how would that relate to this game anyhow?

So….when I logged in I didn’t have a percentile, just the number 276. Anyone able to explain how I might derive my percentile from that?

I don’t like the pick or any other gem store only item. The reoccurring releases only raise the ratio. This serves to make gold>gem less attractive and rl cash>gem more attractive. It seems to me that with each new release they are seeing how much they can get away with.

Take an inch…we will get used to it. Take another inch…we will get used to it. Take another so forth and so on until next thing we know we are far past inches into the realm of yards. The distance from were we started to where we will be staggering.

Imo the same practice applies all over the game. It’s hard not to think back to arguments over gw1 and see that some were right about direction. In the long run it’s obvious, but in the short term players are blinded by numerous ideologies.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The TP is only the primary source of items if a player chooses that path. I, personally, have been farming T5 mats, mithril and elder woods. I then craft Greatswords until my inventory is full, and make runs with the Forge. I rather enjoy the feeling of tossing stuff in, and hoping a Precursor pops out.

I would argue that for t6 mats, lodestones, giant eyes etc… it is definitely primary.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Well I think you’re assuming that farming mobs and making money on the TP requires the same amount of work and skill, which I don’t believe is true. Farmers can (and many do) increase their profits be being smart about what items they farm and when and for how much they sell them. The reason there’s a gap in earnings is not because TP investing is inherently better, it’s that the folks involved in it that do make a lot of money put effort into researching the best way to get the most value, whether they’re purely working in buy/sell orders or whether they’re selling the items they found by farming.

Profit potential from farming is no where close to that of trading, to the point of not even being comparable. With the use of assistance tools (which have no official stances…see posts) the effort needed for trading is diminished substantially.

Pandemoniac.4739:

So, you want folks to feel more rewarded for farming, but you want to reduce the market for the items they’re farming? I understand that lots of folks would rather find items than earn gold, but I think what you’re missing is that buying things on the TP is basically trading the stuff you find that you don’t want to someone that wants it, and getting what you want from someone else who found it and didn’t want it.

Currency is a good thing because it frees you from having to find and make everything yourself. You’re looking for armored scales, but oops, an exotic weapon drops. Are you just going to toss it in the bin, or are you going to sell it and buy some armored scales? That one weapon drop could represent 10 armored scales dropping from one mob, but only if you turn it into gold.

What we have now is relying on the tp 1st. Imo it should be a supplemental tool, not a primary system. If a player wants to farm an item for a purpose, they should be able to reasonably do so. Atm between DR, poor drop rates, and high amounts required players cannot do so feasibly. There is something lost about not being able to do something for yourself within this system. I for one feel much more accomplishment from building something rather than from buying it. That is one thing that would help this game “feel” more rewarding, which is a major issue of the players.

14 hrs of nothing but clicking….hate to say this, but…“that’s just stupid”. Whoever thought of this one needs a reality check. Dumb is dumb no matter any attempts to justify it.

Jski.6180:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Jski.6180:

Lévis.5489:

Einlanzer.1627:

Its current state is truly pathetic.

It has the potential to be awesome, and they just let that potential continually go to waste.

The story of the game.

Its realty the story of the players trying to label and use the word pathetic right.

Nope, I think he meant the game.

I know what he trying to get at but it still the story of miss use of a word and the try at labeling the game as such. First it was WoW like then treadmill then grind all have failed this is nothing more then the same thing.

Its out right sad at this point to try to come after the game in this way because every time the argument it used it weakens it point over all.

“I think the game is sad and getting sadder because of X reason” yet they still post here and play the game that they find sad to be a game in the first places. Its one thing to make a point of something you do not like but to out right dam a game because of small bit that are not comply finished by using such strong language is hyperbole.

Just an observation…..Calling out someone for misuse of a word, while using poor grammar, is not exactly tactful.

[xyz] Recruiting top 500 leader board players| Be part of the best!| sub-500 need not apply|wisp for info

I’m sure something along those lines will be seen at some point

No Walking.6349:

So someone who has played the game longer shouldn’t have more achievement points? Lol….no.

One who plays 30mins a day for a week vs one who plays 10hrs in 1 day……who has played longer?

Syeria.4812:

Nike.2631:

I farm charged lodestones, but its often thankless work.

I consider a normal run 45-60 minutes (after I log in and check the Temple of Dwayna has been flipped – I only occassionally am involved in the flipping myself). In a normal “run”, in MF armor, some MF runes, and with Omnom Bars (which actually seem to work better than the armor or runes…) I expect about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a lodestone drop within the hour. About 1/4 of my runs that have a lodestone drop see a second drop. Exactly once I’ve gotten 3 lodestones in a single farming session.

I find my odds are improved in a group – enough so I’m suspicious that magic find is shared and cumulative across party members. The one time I got three lodestones was also noteworth in that I was in a group most of the run AND we cycled back and forth almost exclusively between the veteran air elementals, killing a few stray air elementals and almost completely ignoring the sparks.

In otherwords you CAN force them out of the dark depths of the RNG, but it takes serious persistence.

There’s a lot of superstition about groups providing better drop rates, but I believe it’s a result of two things: more efficient mob clearing, and a sort of sampling bias. When farming mobs in a group, you’re naturally going to kill more of them, even when compared with farming around other people but not grouped with them. Obviously you’re going to get more drops by killing 150 mobs than you would when killing 100 mobs. Groups are always going to try ensure everyone tags the mob before it’s killed, so even efficient non-formalized groups will produce fewer loot events than a formalized group will (on average).

The other issue likely to come up is a sample bias. When I’m farming something fairly rare alone, I can only see my own drop rate. I don’t see what the other people with me end up getting. When farming with a group, usually people will link if they get a good drop. When they link a good drop, the brain naturally tries to count that drop as loot for the group, and tracks how well the group as a whole is doing. But when no one links anything, people tend to consider only their own personal drop rate. In that way, party members have their drop rates counted only when they have a successful drop. When there’s no drops at all, their lack of receipt isn’t counted, it’s simply dropped from the mental data set. This causes the appearance of drop rates to be higher for groups than for individuals, but doesn’t actually demonstrate that.

However, it’s worth pointing out that this is a game, and is presumably played for fun and enjoyment. While that sampling bias doesn’t actually improve the drop rates for players, it can make players feel like they’re doing better, which can make them enjoy the activity more even though there’s no real rational reason for them to feel that way. Being aware of this sort of sampling bias doesn’t actually change how it’s tracked and interpreted, so it’s a good way to feel better and more accomplished about your farming.

Anyone that has farm cursed shore events alone and in groups can attest that drop rates are noticeably better in groups. I’m not referring to quality of drop, but quantity. It really is a night and day difference in most cases.

You said that the time was the value added to the seller. That implies that w/o a flipper no other party would buy in an acceptable (value stand point) time frame. That is an assumption that rule cannot be based on due to it’s non-confirmation nature as well as being individually dependent.

The event that uncontests CoF drops lots of large ritual bags…Razen the Raider…I think

Basically you r trying to debate exceptions, not generalities and those are not worth debating as there are always exceptions for both sides. As such there is no point in continuing down path of getting nowhere.

That assumes that flippers are the only ones buying at said price, which is too subjective to be counted as rule.

Rebort.6295:

Essence Snow.3194:

In our particular instance value is not calculated on the front end, thus it does not add value.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Could you elaborate? I propose that when I flip, I am adding value to the item I am buying and adding value AGAIN to the same item when I sell it. Value does not equal cost.

From my gathering you are taking time as the sole added value. Time saved to the initial seller adds no additional value…….ie they do not lose anything by marginal increase in time of selling. They do not have holding costs and the potential of earning based on time function of funds received is too subjective that it cannot be used to correlate a value. The “value” created in that regards is not objective and thus is not applicable to the overall general value.

Ofc this is in regards to generality for the sole purpose of debate on rule.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Zumy.6318:

Twilight, Bolt, Anomaly, 9 Cultural t3 sets, 20 different Trinketsetups, 3000g in ectos, 800g in other stuff and 11g on the bank :-).

Working on two incinerators simultaneously from zero on. Making gold is so easy in GW2.
I guess I spent around 10.000g so far.

!!!

Someone has a lot of disposable RL income.

Either that or a LOT of free time.

I would say tp trading…it really does give you a sense of how out of balance it is with most all other gold acquisition methods that there in these types of games.

In our particular instance value is not calculated on the front end, thus it does not add value.

marnick.4305:

5. Being pretty is irrelevant for something that’s primarily a pointing device. While a Ferrari is red (and only red), it’s primary function is to drive fast.

Huh? From Ferrari.com:

How to choose a new Ferrari

Ferrari’s customisation programme allows Clients to completely personalise their cars, right down to the stitching on the leather interior and the colour of the brake callipers. Ferrari has also set up a dedicated space at its Maranello factory, which is effectively an haute couture Atelier in which Clients can consult with Ferrari’s team of experts on creating a truly bespoke car.

Features affecting the car’s performance and safety cannot be modified, neither can the fundamental design of the car, but Clients can make changes to all other areas of their new Ferrari. The main areas covered by the customisation programme are:

Exterior and colours
Clients can choose from a wide range of bodywork colours, double- or triple-coat paintwork, and carbon-fibre inserts for the car’s side panels and door handles. They can also select the design and colour of the wheel rims.

BartBacardi.5371:

. But it’s also very doable to grind them.

I beg to differ….dr kicks in trying to grind these, thus impeding farming them via grinding.

I’m inclined to agree. It really does seem that champs have about a 95% chance to drop a blue, 4% chance at green, .9999% chance at rare and .0001% exo chance.

While I agree that if they made it too rewarding everyone would do it….what we have now is that players avoid them b/c they are too unrewarding.

Idk to me it seems obvious that it needs to be balanced better.

Syeria.4812:

The wonderful thing about the TP is that gold can be made by doing almost any type of content in the game. Certain activities might not be the most efficient methods of obtaining gold, but almost any activity in game will eventually generate enough gold for a player to obtain the items they want. The problem is, people see the most efficient ways to obtain these items and for some godforsaken reason decide that the time and effort involved by that method should be the extreme maximum investment that anyone should ever (under any system) go through to obtain it. Logic would dictate that the maximum investment should be one of the least efficient methods instead. The best baseline would actually be one that’s very much still possible: obtaining the item on your own without purchasing anything from the TP. But people see shortcuts and decide the fastest route is the only route.

I would agree with this assessment if certain markets were not still in the initial stages of inflation.

marnick.4305:

Yesterday I figured out the meaning of hardcore gaming.

In the evening, my fiancée told me she needed a few hours of sauna. I said sure, quit the game and we drove to the sauna.

Hardcore would have been to tell her I had to kill some dragon with some guys on the other side of the evening for 4 more hours.

How many of you would have told your significant others to stay home because of a videogame? This question is at the core of hardcore gaming, and why most GW2 players don’t want things like raids, trinity and the like. Even a Guild Bounty only takes half an hour for a skilled team.

Just out of sheer curiosity… does she not have a license? To me that time she is out enjoying her sauna is the more appropriate time to play, rather than when she is home.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

@Essence Snow

I realize your post was meant to be humorous, but the sentiment of your post rings true throughout the forums.

I was hoping you’d actually mention the Trading Post as one of those methods of gaining gold that is leaps and bounds above other methods…but you didn’t come right out and say it, although I think that’s what you were implying, lol.

Many forum goers need to realize one simple fact: Making money on the Trading Post is NOT EASY!!!! It takes a LOT of work….it’s just a different kind of work. It’s not looking for the most efficient path in a dungeon, or tweaking a build to get your DPS just right, or picking the perfect team of players to get you through it faster. Doing those things require a certain mindset and capabilities that are not available to everyone. It is, however, the ability to acquire data, formulate calculations based on that data, present those calculations in a meaningful way, understand that presentation, and then act in the most appropriate way based on the amount of information you have.

Whether it’s playing a certain type of content in the game, or playing the Trading Post, both require more work than many people realize….and the reason players don’t realize how much work it takes to figure it out is because many of them just use what other people provide for them. They’ve rarely ever tried to figure it out for themselves.

Utilizing “tools” (spidy, spreadsheets, zicore’s notifier, etc) is other whole issue upon itself. One could argue they ease the amount of work that playing the tp requires, much like how macros, textmod, even bots ease playing the game. But….big one….but tbh I don’t really want to get into all that atm.

Ursan.7846:

Essence Snow.3194:

To be fair, they enabled the ability to completely bypass or drastically shorten the “journey” via gold. As such we receive contrary messages about what they may or may not want.

This is an interesting discussion that I’ve had a few month ago. I agree with your stance, but I am going play devil’s advocate because I found the justification fascinating.

Why is the journey shortened via gold? You are implying that gold is somehow easy to earn. It’s not. To amass the amount of gold required to buy a Legendary takes a lot of time in-game (grinding, TP trading) or in real-life (actually working and earning money).

In the end, gold gives you options, because you can convert anything (time spend in-game, time spend out of game) into gold. Why are you denying this option to people who don’t have much time to spend in-game, and wish to convert the fruits of their labor in real-life to in-game goodies? Why are you denying this option to people who don’t play the game like you do, and wish to purchase a Legendary solely through their own preferred method of gameplay?

Now my argument is that Legendaries should actually require you to play all aspects of the game. However, being able to purchase them with Gold doesn’t necessarily “shorten” the journey as some would like to claim. It’s just giving the playerbase more options.

I gotcha…let me see if can humor ya.

Ofc we have the obvious direct route…..rl cash>gems>gold>legendary, which completely bypasses the journey. Then we have playing of the tp (intial investment from various sources), which is more of an alternate journey yet still shorter. Finally we have grinding, which sole purpose is to amass something as fast as possible, which leads me into direct farming.

Direct farming of things like t6 mats and lodestones is horribly inefficient. There are counter measures put into place to reduce players ability to do so, thus increasing the duration of that portion of the journey immensely. This creates a massive time gap between methods, one that is obvious enough to steer players towards gold acquisition.

We have various methods of gaining gold in game, but not all are created equal. To be blunt some are not even on the same playing field. Those that provide potential leaps and bounds over all other methods are unbalanced with the rest of the economy. Because they have such elevated levels they have the potential to effect the economy directly and indirectly effect everything that the economy is tied to. Thus they have the potential to unbalance the economy and the game a a whole.

Disclaimer….this was to humor a post…please don’t take this as a stance

Charismatic Harm.9683:

One of the MAJOR difference between the two is that the pricing of items purchased with gold are partially controlled by the players.

There really are a lot of variables.

Ursan.7846:

You are arbitrarily applying your own time scale of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable.” Just quick glance at the requirements of a Legendary (250 each of t6 mats? Incredibly rare precursors?) gives you an idea of how long Anet wants the journey to be.

To be fair, they enabled the ability to completely bypass or drastically shorten the “journey” via gold. As such we receive contrary messages about what they may or may not want.

Well….point very well taken…admittedly didn’t read throughouly…my fault

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Update: I’ve made a change so the wurm can no longer be killed before the event starts, and increased the max scale of the event so it should be slightly less zergable. It’s in QA’s hands right now for testing, and should be in a future update.

Fix is not entirely working as I have seen it be killed multiple times b4 the event actually starts today and in the past few days.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.

Are you suggesting a system with an ever increasing, permanent diminishing return?

Basically….the more money you have going through your account via the Trading Post, the more you would pay in fees? Or…would it be based on volume of items….pure traffic? Would it be a limit of either items or gold you could trade in a period of time before being taxed a higher amount?

I’m interested to hear your ideas on this…..most ideas I’ve heard deal with taxing the rich more solely because they’re rich…..which is a ridiculous notion in and of itself. Just because someone has money, that doesn’t mean they should be punished for it.

Edit: These questions may pull this thread off topic….but it’s my thread and I’ll do with it as I please, lol. If it veers off too much, we’ll bring it back to the topic at hand.

I’m not sure of the implementation of it. As I said I have only tinkered with the thought, but basically because of what it is…yes it would on some level increase the tax based of an increase of x variable. Whether that variable should be based on the volume of items, total value of items, or some mishmash of things …idk

Pandemoniac.4739:

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

The 15% we have now is a proportional tax…ie…it’s fixed. A progressive tax increases as value of whatever is being taxed increases.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it is a qualitative assumption in that most activities in the game simply do not have high enough profit potential to support such prices. The observable impact certain activities have on them is apparent via the ability those activities have to support certain prices.

ex) the activity of farming meta events does not have the ability to sustain the high prices
the activity of cof p1 grinding has the ability to sustain the high prices

OK, but when you say “high prices”, you mean “the high prices of precursors and legendaries”. So, if you want a legendary and you want it soonish, you either have to get extremely lucky, or you have to grind out gold doing (insert current most popular method). What is the problem with that?

Saying the entire system is broken because luxury items are expensive and hard to get doesn’t make any sense.

By no means am I saying the entire system is broken. The luxury system (lots of variables) however is another matter.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I don’t think there’s anything they could do to the TP to change the profit potential there….not so long as it remains global, has player controlled pricing and nearly everyone uses it to buy and/or sell their goods.

The easiest option for ArenaNet would be to “nerf” CoF P1. That will just bring a different portion of the content to the surface where people would complain not only about the CoF nerf, but also the profit potential of the other content.

Anet is changing the game slowly…thankfully. It’s when game companies make big sweeping changes to large portions of the content when things get broken in a hurry. I’m sure they have their eye on CoF P1 right now and are deciding how best to “deal with that situation”.

That’s something that I’ve been struggling with. I’ve tinkered with the idea of progressive taxes associated with using the tp, but it’s only a glimpse of a thought atm.