Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

They’re chasing away the hard core farmers who complain on every forum in every game. If they all left, it wouldn’t substantially make that much of a difference. There aren’t as many of them as you seem to think.

How do you know its just hardcore farmers complaining?

Because if you’re not hard core, how vested in it would you be to worry about it? Hard-core farmers by definition would be the ones complaining. They’re the ones that have a real stake in farming. People who farm casually, there are a bunch in my guild, aren’t vested enough to scream at the forums.

If a player is not a “hardcore” farmer and they happen to need “insert mat here” and they find that “insert mat here” is both exceptionally expensive and a pain in the kitten to actually loot due to a round of nerfs. They will rightly wonder what is going on.

When that player also realises that “insert mat here” is needed/used for a variety of different things, well then said player may feel inclined to comment about that situation on the games forums amazingly enough.

Harbinger.8637:

Best trick for Karka is Line of Warding and Wall of Reflection. Champ and vet Karka always start with a charge. So Line of Warding stops that. After that they try to do their burst projectile thing which hits hard. Wall of Reflection will take out more then half their hp.

Other then that not much I can think of. I just run the standard 0/5/30/30/5, and most of the time it’s a breeze.

Pretty much this. You can run any set up for open world pve, just use the crowd control abilities you have (lines, walls and bubbles) more often at southsun. So packing a Staff, Hammer and x/shield with you as well as taking bubble utilties will be your best bet.

Or just hide and spam scepter or staff attacks at everything while everyone else gets downed lol.

Half the time, you are only going to get downed due to an unseen bumrush or a shot from a mob hidden by culling. No change in spec is going to help you out in that case.

Hard to know without a little more detail.

What are your exact traits, utility set ups?
What armour, runes, sigils and weapons are you using?
What is your base defensive rotation?

You say they burn you down in 10-15 seconds after you have blown all your cooldowns. How long has it taken you to get to that point and why are you at the point where you have no options left when only fighting one guy?

Yes you can get nuked down by a good player but that usually isn’t the case unless you have been caught offguard or they simply outplay you.

TooBz.3065:

I suggest playing some PvP or WvW. You may rock but most likely you’ll get your kitten handed to you. There’s no AI like a real opponent.

Pretty much this.

TooBz.3065:

I don’t think most people average 3+ gold / path. Usually, I get somewhere just under 1 g per path. Of course, I may just be extraordinarily unlucky.

Sounds more in the realms of reality.

The notion of easily adding 30G or more to your bank, on average, on a day by day (gaming session) basis with zero dungeon repetition, zero farming, without gaming the TP and just doing what you fancy (including throwing in pvp) seem somewhat unrealistic.

I could ofc be very, very wrong about that and if I am, great tbh! But if so I would love to see a detailed breakdown of how someone is doing as such (and not “get some ectos”).

marnick.4305:

Nope. Each just once.

Tokens to rares and salvage into ecto, same for world bosses. 20s completion reward per path and a handful of mats from chests. Add to that a ton of vendor trash drops. If you merely add the value of the mats, you get into the 30g range easily without repeating any content for the day (which means not getting diminishing returns)

Is 30g + a day doable? Sure, is it easy without actively trying to get it, lucking out (which isn’t statistically significant at all) or flipping items on the TP?

Absolutely.

So you are averaging at least 3g + per path run, not per hour, per run? And you are saying that is possible from the mats alone now?

marnick.4305:

That’s how I see it too. By playing different parts of the world, I tend to have a relatively steady income. If I had a full day to schedule I’d do:
- AC123s
- COF12
- FOTM20
- HotW13
- few world bosses
- fill the rest with WvW
- a bounty

That easily adds up to 30+g without repeating content. Why people want to bleed their eyes out with farming is beyond me. Then again, I was raised on a farm, farming is best done with wheat, sheep, cows … In game I’d rather do other things. Not that I don’t like farming but feeding a pig is infinitely more fun than repeating boring content.

Unless you are running those dungeon paths multiple times each day or sriking out lucky with loot then it is unlikely to tally up to 30g+ (although I am not sure how much the bounty will be bringing in).

If you are running them multiple times each day, well that looks both dangerously akin to a form of farming and also boring beyond the eye bleeding level frankly.

Is 30g + a day doable? Sure, is it easy without actively trying to get it, lucking out (which isn’t statistically significant at all) or flipping items on the TP? Probably not, no.

PinCushion.7390:

Vol.5241:

As someone who has made over 800g from the union waypoint farming, it was bound to be nerfed. I agree with it being nerfed (though I’d love it to still be there). But you must ask, which is more destructive for the economy?

25s dust or 40s dust? and rising? I think the latter.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, arenanet can nerf bugged or immensely rewarding events all they want.

But they just keep nerfing the events that players find as the next best thing ( and just aren’t bugged)

i.e. Collonade, plinx, shelt/pen

40+ silver for dust would be awesome. Finally running events in Orr won’t have to feel like such a huge waste of time that I do anyway because “Zombies are cool.”

Not so awesome if they are not dropping much dust mind you.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

Nice to see a response from a red name to an issue like this, thanks for taking the time it is appreciated.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge….

It is also nice to see the above part,

I’d like to touch on the following though -

How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

People haven’t forgotten about that content, it is merely a case that said content is either new and/or temporary. Stuff like the instigator run is great and if you are going to be doing more things like that (and the buff) then people will lap it up in droves. But after what has perceived to be round after round of nerfs and zero communication, you cannot be surprised that not everyone is suddenly thinking “it’s all cool” after one set of temporary events.

Moreover, people aren’t really angered over the change to the bugged content specifically at all, they are angered over what is seen (rightly or wrongly) as constant open world farm/loot nerfs whilst CoF1 sits there completely untouched.

You are right about the farming sweet spot and if you are indeed working on more stuff like we have seen in Southsun then that is a really, really good thing. If you can make farming an actually engaging gameplay element (other then a chill out thing which some actually enjoy), then hats off to you! More importantly though (for me) is the fact that you have taken the time to communicate this intention.

If someone had come along and tried to explain why Orr has had the kitten nerfed out of it whilst CoF1 sits there as is, then maybe the issue wouldn’t have been blown out of proportion in quite the same way.

Perhaps someone official would like to explain that to us now?

The major, major issue is that you have crazy spike combined with culling. Getting downed by something totally unavoidable is not a great idea.

I’m all for making content harder, but making it harder by whacking in ever higher spike damage, often from totally unavoidable sources? Yeah, no thanks.

Mighty Ice Arrow.9268:

Last night time once again Deso fought for hours near SM door in a complete adverse situation, and you complain about outmanned. Didn’t you feel the damage from our siege? How can you come here crying about numbers, go to EB and see your numbers there. You don’t have numbers in BL’s because all the people are in EB doing stupid fights.

I caught the tail end of that “fight” between Deso Keep and SM door and I must say it seemed totally and utterly pointless.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Hindsight being 20/20 I’m pretty sure they agree the mat/physical currency based system wasn’t the best idea. But you are still failing to realize something; there is a difference between an account veteran and a content veteran. For example I have played GW1 for about five years. I am an account veteran, and get a few little rewards for that, such as birthday gifts on my characters. However I’m not much of a content veteran. I’ve completed all the story stuff and Guild Wars Beyond, but I have few titles and am basically still a PvP noob. Because of that the rewards for long term investment in these things are outside my grasp. I have the best armor stat wise, but I don’t have the most prestigious skins, or those respectable titles, or that neat holo-dragon emote from PvP.

Guild Wars has a history of rewarding content veterans; it doesn’t care how many hours your account has existed or how many hours you’ve been idle in Orr; it only cares what you’ve done. Those dungeon armors are not something to be farmed; they are a mark of mastery. You’ve clocked enough time in those dungeons to earn them. You know those paths backwards and forwards; you are a dungeon guru who can lead nearly any group to success. For that personal achievement you get armor and weapons themed to the dungeon. Mastery, veteran, whatever you want to call it, you’ve put in the hours and the work to earn those rewards.

Perhaps some sort of progress bar would have been a better choice than tokens, but again; hindsight is 20/20.

I am not sure how am I failing to see the difference between account and content veterans. I mentioned time gating and I also mentioned activities which reward content veterans and top players.

Hindsight is indeed 20/20 and it is much easier to sit and pick holes in a system than to come up with a good one from scratch. But let’s be honest here, it should have been obvious from the earliest conceptual stage that having requirements based off oodles of mats dropped from trash mobs is a system which screams of a grind/farm approach.

To have said systems in place and then go about nerfing the kitten out of the open world mobs which drop the mats needed whilst at the same time to keep CoF running at it is, speaks of a rather haphazard approach.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Veteran rewards, not farming goals. They are supposed to take time.

Then they could and should have time gated the process for these “veteran rewards” a hell of alot better than they have done.

Thousands of wvw kills, high rankings in spvp, solo dungeon paths, complete all the living story/dynamic events over the course of months/years.

But no, they opted for a system reliant on an inordinate amount of mats dropped for the main part from trash mobs. Blind Pew could see that is prone to grinding/farming.

If they are going for a no farm approach, well they have borked the system up from the start by the very methods used to achieve said “veteran items”.

Personally even with all the nerfs, it is pretty easy to get most of the stuff if you actually go after it. I’d make it harder if anything. But it is as clear as day how the current set up promotes farming.

Was some nice fights late last night in EB against both SFR and Kodash.

The fighting in and around Orgath Uplands was really fun. Wasn’t just the usual blob meets blob, but split into little pockets of fighting all over the village.

Vayne.8563:

No one said you can’t comment. But saying something isn’t good or ideal and calling something absolutely inexcusable is a completely different story. Maybe you’re that intolerant that you think things are inexcusable, but some people think differently and it doesn’t necessarily make them apologists. I can think of several reasons why CoF is still running as it is.

There could, for example, be different factions that have different theories on how to solve it. One group could want a complete redo of the dungeon and another might want to change the reward structure to make it less rewarding but leave the difficulty. Projects with multiple leaders run into this kind of thing all the time.

They could even be waiting for the dungeon finder to be available, before they do it, intentionally, since it’s so easy to get groups for it. They may feel it’s worth waiting. They may even (I know this is hard for you) have metrics on just how damaging it is and it might not be as bad as people think it is. There are a host of reasons that no one except Anet might know that would make this not only excusable but okay.

Saying something is absolutely inexcusable is the opinion of someone who hasn’t thought it through.

Suggesting that I am intolerant because I find the current situation (which has dragged on for a good while now) inexcusable is somewhat amusing to say the least.

And yes, I have thought it through otherwise I wouldn’t comment on it.

Differing factions? Would excuse the situation if it was a new thing. It is not. If a company cannot resolve a dungeon speed run loot issue after a good deal of time due to the inability to come up with a consensus then there are problems.

Waiting for dungeon finder? Two things occur. First of all, that doesn’t do anything to impact on the loot disparity. Secondly, if it is as simple as waiting for dungeon finder, how about tell us? If they feel it is worth waiting, tell us. Doesn’t take much effort.

Metrics on how damaging it is? Well again, try communicate.

There is plenty of good about the game and what ANET have done/tried to do. There is also quite alot wrong with it and their approach. Some of those things simply cannot be excused at this point in time.

To be completely honest I’m not entirely sure why I am even bothering to have this debate with you. You keep fighting the good fight.

Buying them is the best bet.

Vayne.8563:

Fenrir.3609:

Vayne.8563:

Fenrir.3609:

Vayne.8563:

Yep, it’s long overdue for a nerf. The odds are they’re working on redoing it completely. It’s not quite as easy to change a dungeon as to stop an open world mob from scaling, I think.

It should have been sorted long before now, it is not a new phenomena. It’s a kitten poor effort frankly and there is zero excuse for it.

But no doubt someone will try and apologise for them, even though the current set up makes said apologists look like utter nut jobs.

Right, as opposed to the people who find fault with EVERYTHING and look rational. Gotcha.

Was that meant to be some sort of come back? I do hope not as it was a rather pathetic one.

Some people complain about everything, some apologise for everything. Some though do actually see issues and flaws and raise them on the forums. Amazing stuff.

I’ve pointed out flaws too. I can show you to threads where I’ve done that. But without being inside a situation and really knowing that is and isn’t going on, it’s silly to make judgments.

In other words, judgment in the absence of insight is simply blowing smoke. When you next work for a major gaming company, producing a product, you’ll have the expertise to say what is and isn’t acceptable practice.

But one doesn’t have to be an apologist to be reasonable. One can express their opinions without attacking as well.

Ah the old “you can’t comment because you don’t make games” chestnut. Best shut the forums down now then.

Having played the game, having years or experience playing other games and having the ability to apply common sense is enough to see that there are glaring issues and that the current approach is far from great.

Running around and nerfing the kitten out of open world drops whilst having CoF speed runs galore and an endgame item system which actively promotes farming/grinding in the first place. Well you do not have to be Richard Garriott to see that is borked.

Vayne.8563:

Fenrir.3609:

Vayne.8563:

Yep, it’s long overdue for a nerf. The odds are they’re working on redoing it completely. It’s not quite as easy to change a dungeon as to stop an open world mob from scaling, I think.

It should have been sorted long before now, it is not a new phenomena. It’s a kitten poor effort frankly and there is zero excuse for it.

But no doubt someone will try and apologise for them, even though the current set up makes said apologists look like utter nut jobs.

Right, as opposed to the people who find fault with EVERYTHING and look rational. Gotcha.

Was that meant to be some sort of come back?

Some people complain about everything, some apologise for everything. Some though do actually see issues and flaws and raise them on the forums. Amazing stuff.

Vayne.8563:

Yep, it’s long overdue for a nerf. The odds are they’re working on redoing it completely. It’s not quite as easy to change a dungeon as to stop an open world mob from scaling, I think.

It should have been sorted long before now, it is not a new phenomena. It’s a kitten poor effort frankly and there is zero excuse for it.

But no doubt someone will try and apologise for them, even though the current set up makes said apologists look like utter nut jobs.

Vayne.8563:

Ruh roh. Looks like the farmers are up in arms. Anyone actually play and see how much slower it is to make money? Maybe try killing some of the other stuff on the island which drops blood and fangs?

Honestly I don’t get you guys. In the time you’ve been here complaining, I’ve gotten 4 armored scales. And it hasn’t been that long.

Here we go…

Navi.7142:

Why do they still allow that any killed foe gives loot?

Give it time and a few more patches and they probably won’t.

Shadowy Dawn.4703:

Sorry guess I should have explained better. I know what spots I am missing. I am at 100% for PvE. When I hover over each map they all say 100% except green borderlands in WvW. So I know exactley what points I am missing just thought it was interesting that the account based tracker has me at 99% but the character based tracker has me at 100%.

It is the same on mine, I have two characters at 99% world complete (both only needing langor gulch EB poi) and yet the character select screen shows 100%. I assume it just means 100% pve map complete.

Yep, pretty much impossible to use it at the moment.

Back to normal for me now, seems fixed.

Danikat.8537:

Magxene.2579:

This might seem biased and I understand that it is, but I typically kick people from party for dungeon groups when they are using all Signets(Even with two I am iffy). Especially Rangers.. To me, all that is doing is proving how lazy of a player they are and have no interest in learning what their other skills do and those are the kind of people I don’t want to play with.

See, IMO this is a perfect example of why people trying to be “elitist” is a problem and why it’s a good thing we don’t have an inspect feature.

I doubt anyone can have a comprehensive understanding of every profession – every workable build, why it works and how and what’s central to it and what can be customised.

But people are still trying to make those judgement calls and excluding people from groups basically because they don’t understand how certain builds or mechanics work.

People running highly focused groups to achieve specific goals are aware of the current meta builds to achieve said goals.

Sure meta changes, but the dungeon speed groups or the top ranked tourney teams are the ones driving those meta changes for the main part as they seek out the optimal builds and group synergies.

If I went out and built a high survive based warrior for wvw lol zerging, I am not going to sit there thinking “zomg they are excluding me the elitists jerks” when a dungeon speed run group says thanks but no thanks to me for not having enough dps to suit their needs. Frankly I’d be a bit worried if a team set up to clear a dungeon as fast as possible wanted me in the group with that build.

When they work out how to make a scaling system that isn’t completely borked. When they remove culling from pve and when they add in a decent loot table system for said events. Then yeah.

At the current moment in time though? No thanks.

For certain specific things, yes ofc I would. For general play, no, not at all.

I really do not see the problem with it. I think there is more of an issue with players expecting to be in highly specific, specialized teams even if they are totally unsuited to it.

Good move ANET, it is the little things like giving back the BLSK’s that got wasted due to the bug that will go towards gaining you customer loyalty.

We’ve had communication, resolution and replacement (of the salvage kits at least) with regards to this issue. So from me at least, good job and thanks.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Wemil.7052:

im gonna create the biggest blob and cap all your towers then im gonna dance naked in your spawn

Shows real sportsmanship. Gonna toast for that

This evening was one of the weirdest in WvWvW. So many glitches and bugs.

Welcome to Bug Wars 2.

And now we’ve all been booted.

MagnusLL.8473:

Fenrir.3609:

So Deso (the server I reside on) came 3rd at the end of last match up. Now with the new awesome system.. we are put against the same servers and whacked back in first (green) place?

The system modifies rankings with a random factor. On average we will mostly still get matchups with servers in “our” tier, but sometimes things will get mixed up.

So it does little to nothing aside from bork up colour rotation then. Fantastic.

If this is working correctly then your system needs a rethink.

So Deso (the server I reside on) came 3rd at the end of last match up. Now with the new awesome system.. we are put against the same servers and whacked back in first (green) place?

RedCobra.7693:

snip

I can fully understand where you are coming from. I am on the wrong side of 30 and know full well what older games where like, I have also spent most of my multiplayer time in either full on fps games or in what woud be considered “hardcore” FFA, full loot sandbox mmos. BUT….

I’m not entirely sure your argument is really relevant here, this mmo is all about accessibility, the mainstream audience and pulling in casual players. Why is anyone expecting it to be some kind of bastion of difficulty?

K Kaine.4678:

Fenrir.3609:

Not sure if I am reading it right, but looks like Kodash are going to grab second before the switch.

Kodash is fighting really hard. And we’re doing great!

Fair play to you really.

Not sure if I am reading it right, but looks like Kodash are going to grab second before the switch.

To buy shards and that’s about it.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Pedra.4381:

I suspect he has determined it (whatever “it” is), probably fairly quickly, and now he and others are figuring out how to “explain” it.

Working as intended. I’ll bet on that.

You will get the usual people on here defending it to the hilt ofc.

The salvage rate has got noticeably worse, something has definitely changed.

Grok.6714:

SFR Alliance would like to welcome Troma from ex Grand Cross.
Things are already improving on our side, thanks to his involvement in organisation activities. Deso, instead of whining, you should also look for a competent community leader.

We’d like to thank DRQ for the efforts until last week, and we wish him good luck wherever he may chose to go.

You are right ofc in that people should look to get their own houses in order instead of whinging about what others are doing.

But it’s a bit rich that SFR people are telling others to “stop whining”, given that since the inception of this thread, some SFR forum users have been the biggest culprits of it.

Mirta.5029:

EXireXs.3602:

yeah you always talk about yourself dude! what about others? its RNG! do you expect me to get the same amount and type of T6 that you got?

those bags are 50/50 from what I’ve seen. While it is still RNG the drop rate from them is decent.

The bags in Orr do not give a 50% T6 return back over a large sample if that is what you are suggesting.

marnick.4305:

Time to nerf warrior signets by 75%, that’s 50% over the pre-buff era. Seriously, I didn’t understand how a.net could buff the most OP build by 100%. That’s just silly.

Some people care about PVE balance you know …

This is a thread about spvp balance on the spvp forums, more specifically a thread about how to make warriors more viable at the tourney level.

I’m not exactly convinced that just nerfing signets so CoF1 speedruns have less warriors in them is going to suddenly make spvp tourney teams full of warriors.

Jski.6180:

Its funny ppl where calling warrior the most op spvp class about a month ago lol.

I think you have “warrior” confused with “bunker DD ele” there.

Yeah, very cool indeed.

Ins.7139:

Awesome fighting in EB, that fight went on in SM for ageeeees. Many many loot bags, spent half our time chasing you guys :p

It got very laggy in there at times but it was great fun.

Vayne.8563:

Well, we know for a fact culling is being worked on and it will be released when they can release it. So that’s one problem shot.

But you still have the other problem that part of this forum is defending the harder content and part of the forum is saying we want easier content. So the answer isn’t that easy. It’s not so easy to say Anet should nerf or change this.

Part of it is learning what to do and how to do it. Some guild take those locations at will so there’s obviously a way.

Does scaling maybe need a tweak. Sure. It’s already been tweaked and will no doubt be tweaked again. Welcome to the wonderful world of MMOs.

The culling problem will be “shot” when they actually fix it. I have no doubt they will remove culling, but only when we see some results will the issue be put to bed, not before.

I am all for hard content, but my complaint is not about “hard” content, it is about broken content. There is nothing “hard” about content which you cannot see, instagibbing you due to OTT scaling. That is frustrating, not hard.

Wandering slightly onto that tangent (balancing difficulty for the playerbase), yes ofc it is difficult for the devs and a fine line. But no one in their right mind would think that inordinate spike damage and culling go hand in hand and yet that is exactly what they have done. Just a thought, how about “tweaking” up their event difficulty AFTER they had removed culling?

Part of it is learning what to do? Yes it is easy to learn what to do when invisible mobs hit you for 50k+ damage in a second or two. No doubt some just try faceroll everything or don’t bother to “learn the ropes”, but in this instance it is not really a viable thing to level at the player. It is hard to learn to avoid sudden instagib damage that you cannot see coming.

I’ve played mmos since the pre tram UO days and I’m sure they will continue to “tweak it”, that is to be expected within the genre and tbh I would be somewhat concerned if they didn’t constantly make adjustments. But the current “tweaks” and their inability to fix these “tweaks” doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence.

In short, my intital post stands, there are currently clear problems with both scaling and culling. When these issues are actually sorted (not talked about, actually sorted), great, but until then it is an issue and guesting (whilst it’s great that some people pointed it out to the OP as a current work around) is a work around/bandaid solution to an issue that should have already been addressed.

Khisanth.2948:

Well there is the other obvious solution. Proper scaling of events,. This includes various NPCs paper thin armor and non-existent HP as well as being aware of how the various monster skills interact with the generally braindead and useless NPCs. Having events fail because of stupid NPCs standing in/walking into AoE is not a fun experience.

This. The people who have recommended guesting as method to the OP have done him a kind service as currently that is the only way of getting to the Temples should you be stuck on your own server 24/7.

BUT, guesting is merely a band aid work around, it is scaling/culling combo that needs to be fixed.

There are clearly issues (quite major ones when you think about it) with regards to the combination of broken scaling, culling and the importance placed on spike damage in the game. They really, really need to sort that out pronto.

If that is indeed true (1 clover in 100 attempts), well that is unlucky in the extreme.

Having said that, I agree, the RNG levels in this game are OTT, ripe for manipulation and generally a bad way to go about things.

AntiGw.9367:

I suspect that it would become more apparent as more items are added to the shop.

But it clearly wouldn’t. Switching to full fixed rate would have zero impact in terms of the issue you are concerned about here. I’m unsure exactly as to why you think it would.

AntiGw.9367:

A big problem with fixed prices is the exchange rate of $. In another game I’ve played, the same item had different prices in different countries. That caused players (les Americaines that is) to complain that they had to pay more money for the same item. How do you ensure that an item is priced properly in all countries?

As you can see, such alternatives can really complicate things.

There are already fixed rate priced items in the game and localised rates has not proved to be an issue thus far.

All items can be pegged to the dollar or euro rate. So regardless of your local currency, you are paying the same pegged rate as everyone else.

That side is very easily sorted and pretty much a non issue. The real sticking points would be:

1. Would the game be economically viable from the companies perspective with a move to fixed rate. One would imagine so but it is impossible to say without hard data. If not then clearly it is a non starter, but one would have to call into question a business model so reliant upon RNG (outside of pure gambling business models ofc).

2. Setting the fixed rate to be high enough to promote people actually buying the stuff as opposed to just being able to farm for 3 hours and buy it with gold. But low enough not to put people off.

Point 2 is interesting because it shows how “dodgy” the whole RNG model is. ANET could be clearly obfuscating the real average cost of items because they realise that if people could see for themselves that actual average cost, they would realise they are either -

A. Being taken for a ride by a company trying to screw them over, or..
B. The model is simply unsustainable without grossly expensive items.

Neither of which are ideal.

AntiGw.9367:

Fenrir.3609:

You don’t have to run 8 year financial forecasts to realise that there are alternatives to funding a game other than through RNG cash shop.

Can you explain what those alternatives are, and what makes them better than selling random cosmetic items?

I can’t think of any myself.

From a consumer point of view? Well (sticking to non sub options) selling fixed rate items is one obvious alternative. What makes that better than RNG boxes? Clarity for the consumer and the ability for them to make more informed value judgements.

Is that better from a company side stand point? Well as long as people are still willing to pay for the RNG version, probably not.