Guild Wars 2

Slean.6139:

<snip>
Summary:
-Make all player gems/gold trades have a player counterparty.
-Visibility of offers (price and quantity)
-We already have free markets on everything else in game (that isn’t soul/accountbound) why not gold/gems

Possible issues: If players turning gold into gems through ANet is intended as the main gold sink (since there are no mounts and what not) then this is a moot point.

My only real concern about this would be demand. For it to work there has to be a high & ongoing demand for gems (for something other than gold). I’m not sure what product Anet could market in the gem store that would work.

Example: Tera has ChronoScrolls to fill this need. They grant the user’s account a month of gameplay time and are RMT purchasable for the same price as a month’s subscription. People who want gold fast will sell them on the market and people who don’t want to pay real money subscriptions farm gold to buy them and continue to play for ‘free’. Since everyone has to subscribe, there is a continual high demand and players will pay quite a bit of gold for them.

Obviously GW2 is subscription free, so that’s out. Most of the useful purchases in the gem store are one-time things like bank storage and character slots, so no continual demand. The repeat/consumable items available are… not that desirable. Except maybe tickets for sPvPers? But that only applies to a fraction of the playerbase and they can be obtained for free by playing sPvP anyway…

Why would players pay gold for gems on an ongoing basis? Enough to keep Anet afloat financially, I mean.

lackofcheese.5617:

I don’t think most people have been arguing for a fixed rate – that would definitely be a mistake. Account definitely wasn’t arguing for a fixed rate.

An actual gem market would, like the current system, not be threatened by gold inflation. However, I don’t really see why there’s a problem with the current system.

Yes. I was commenting on why a feature is necessary given the context of the current system. Account was talking about completely changing the system. It’s apples/oranges; I don’t know why he responded to me in the first place unless it was just a misunderstanding.

Account.9832:

GreyWraith.8394:

has anyone considered that gems would be similarly devalued if there was a fixed rate conversion?

The variable conversion protects the value of gems in the face of massive gold inflation (which is inevitable in a game with infinite supply). There is no monthly sub; Anet relies on the cash shop for profitability. If gem value crashes, Anet’s real-life profit crashes and the game would likely follow.

That doesn’t make any sense. Gems have a (real money) value set by Arena Net. $10 for 800 gems (some variation depending on region, but let’s ignore that for now). Letting players trade gems with each other would not change that.

As long as the only way to create gems is by buying them with real money (as happens with Eve PLEX, and as Arena Net claims happens with GW2 gems – but no one can actually verify), then it makes no difference to Arena Net what the gem-gold exchange rate is.

Every gem spent at the store will have been bought by someone (same as with PLEX). Whether the person spending it is the person who originally bought it or whether it changed hands 15 times in the meantime is irrelevant. The (real-money) value of the gem would always be preserved.

The only reason Arena Net can have to want control over the exchange rate is if they are, in fact, “printing” gold to satisfy players who buy gems to “convert” into gold through the black-box exchange.

And that is what actually messes up the economy and leads to items being priced at values that no “normal” player could have earned since launch. And instead of fixing the economy (by replacing this black-box exchange with a transparent player-driven market, like the one in Eve Online – which we were promised before launch), Arena Net are now talking about “adjusting the drop rates” (of legendary precursors, etc.) to try to bring the prices down.

Which isn’t going to work, of course, and can only be seen as a good idea by someone with very little understanding of how economies (and currency exchanges in particular) work.

1. I’ve made no comment on players trading gems with each other, and that has no bearing on my posts here.

2. Gems can be ‘created’ by playing the game to earn gold and converting to gems. Real money purchases are not required.

3. Gold is ‘printed’ by just playing the game. Supply is potentially infinite and available amounts will increase as time passes and players accumulate more by playing. Inflation will inevitably occur.

4. Suppose the following theoretical example with a fixed exchange rate of 1 silver = 1 gem.

Today:
1 ItemX costs 1 silver on the market
$10 = 800 gems = 800 silver = 800 ItemX

Three months from today:
1 ItemX costs 2 silver due to inflation
$10 = 800 gems = 800 silver = 400 ItemX
Buying power is halved. Very few people buy gems with cash for converting to gold because rising prices make it a waste of money.

tl;dr: Cash shop sales drop = Anet profit drops = game endangered. A variable gem-to-gold exchange rate is required to protect the cash shop from the effects of inevitable infinite-supply-gold-inflation-with-time.

voyager.4982:

Rouven.7409:

Of course this is not a problem per se, but discouraging nevertheless.

A couple of weeks ago there was a sweetspot in my opinion. For 40 silver you could trade 100 gems. This is a price that everyone will be able to afford some after a playing session even with mid level characters. That encourages me to buy some with real money for the larger ticket items, and slowly I will be able to buy “fun” things on the side.

I suspect in a year or so we’ll all look fondly back on the days when 100 gems only cost 89 s (last night’s price).

It seems inevitable that the larger availability of gold in the market overall will continue to push the cost to buy gems higher and higher. And for continuing players this won’t be a tremendous burden.

But it does likely hit new players fairly hard. Buying a new bag slot currently would cost about 3.6g, a bank slot 5.4g (I wrote ‘sloth’ on the first go – who wouldn’t pay for a bank sloth?).

In some other MMOs new players could always make some quick cash by learning how to sell raw mats. But, barring some major change in the market, I don’t see how that happens here. At current prices you’d have to sell roughly 4,000 copper ore to earn that much (versus, say, some WoW servers where you can sell 20 copper ore for that price).

I agree about the continuing increase in Gem prices. What you’re missing is that mat prices will not stay the same. As inflation occurs, continuing players will have more money to spend on low level mats and those prices will go up.

Will it be enough for increased bank inventory? No way to know yet, but it won’t be as bad as the numbers above look. And there’s always the cash shop; a one time investment of $10 or less will double your bank space. Most people with the leisure time for MMOs can afford that much.

I’ve seen lots of people comment about gold being devalued, has anyone considered that gems would be similarly devalued if there was a fixed rate conversion?

The variable conversion protects the value of gems in the face of massive gold inflation (which is inevitable in a game with infinite supply). There is no monthly sub; Anet relies on the cash shop for profitability. If gem value crashes, Anet’s real-life profit crashes and the game would likely follow.

I had basically the same experience except for not being angry over it. Given the amount of account hacking in GW2 and credit card fraud in the world in general, I prefer Anet and my bank err on the side of caution.

I had to wait an extra day for my computer-money shinies. I can deal.

The part about Visa itself blocking all access is troubling. Hopefully the rep was wrong. Are you aware that Anet blocks CC purchases on declined cards? After getting it fixed with the bank you will need to contact GW2 customer support to have the card unblocked.

Edit2: btw there is a known issue: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Unable-to-Purchase-Gems-After-Halloween-Update

I find myself wondering why large patches aren’t released around 8am (US/EST). Unless they contain critical stability/exploit fixes, of course… (waits for patch notes…)

Almost all of the personal story missions for every race involve violently beating the kitten out of something. The OP seems to be confusing violence with indiscriminate violence, or lack of moral guidance in how violence is applied.

The right question is: are Asurans an amoral race?

I don’t think its GW2, the same trend applies to all the newer games I’ve looked at recently. Our current (youngest) crop of gamers just prefers video for this kind of thing.

I’ve always been more of a reader – its so much faster to skim text for the information I need than it is to wait several minutes for someone to narrate (maybe) useful stuff at speaking speed.

Mog.1589:

Its not the lack of loot or whatnot that makes this game loose longevity. Its the lack of progression once you hit 80. Only progression in the game left is to A] Grind for a Legendary or B] SPVP till your Rank 90.

This is true for those who are playing for progression. Those of us who are playing for other goals see no loss of longevity.

As warmonkey.8013 pointed out above – including progression actually reduces longevity for us because we are forced to grind (which we don’t enjoy) to keep our characters functional.

Mif.3471:

Zojja is Felicia Day

True story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS85KJsw2rg

I love the trenchcoat on my tiny thief. I wouldn’t be averse to other options for those who don’t though.

I can only see this working if picking up supplies rendered the carrying player immune to speedbuffs, portals, etc. so that they are forced to literally hand carry them at normal jogging speed to the destination.

Zyrusticae.7245:

This wouldn’t be a problem if the helmets were actually modeled with spaces for our ears to poke out through.

Instead, they just clip through… and clipping ALWAYS looks bad! Fix, please!

Agreed. I consider this a straight up art bug.

Wow, that’s better than the Asuran head-size bug.

XelNigma.6315:

Cinder.4865:

It doesn’t really matter what others call themselves, so long as it isn’t offensive.

Why does some one being offended give them more rights than some else?

I know mmos tend to have there own rules to keep the peace that would other wise be unconstitutional.

But this way of thinking is really getting out of hand.

Agreed. The right to not be offended isn’t in the US Constitution.

That said, there is a difference between the right to speak freely on a public street corner and the “right” to put whatever you want on servers owned and operated by someone else. Especially when the owner might be held liable for the contents of their servers.

Why shouldn’t the treeople have plant names?

>.>

<.<

what?

I also noticed while trying to aquire some real numbers vs. training dummies in the mists. Very irritating since VoJ makes it almost impossible for my Guardian not to burn things.

One of mine…

Forums are typically a very vocal (and often polarized) minority of a game’s population. The bigger the population, the worse things get. That said, useful discussion/information is there – it just takes a bit of sifting to find sometimes.

Hux.8739:

The flames the OP gets for his exit critique is so reminiscent of fanboi. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that 99% of all the flames in this post were made by people who are either not yet 80 or have been 80 for less than 2 weeks.

I imagine I will get flamed for saying this but in due time those flamers will have to eat their hats. I am 41 years old, I beta tested Asheron’s Call. Played Ultima I, etc. don’t hand me the WoW generation crap. What is your plan for the game post 80? Seriously, W3 is all about which server has more players. You can play SPvP/TPvP at level 1 so it’s not even an MMOin that regards and how many times can you be interested in explore mode dungeons for shiny gear? 2 weeks….2 weeks after hitting 80 at 2-4 hours a day. Your mileage may vary. Game was fun, worth 60 bucks to me to play it. It does have an end though, if you think it doesn’t you will eat your hat in time.

Some people are playing for shinier shinies with 0.0025% more StatX; that’s cool. I wish those people luck elsewhere; this just isn’t their game. The devs have been entirely clear on that since pre-launch.

I’m looking for fun and engaging gameplay, which I consider to be an end in itself. So long as I feel GW2 is providing me with that, I’ll be here. When it doesn’t, I’ll be elsewhere. I’m sure that will happen eventually, but adding progression wouldn’t keep me here because I’m not interested in grinding the same thing over and over for better stats to grind more with. To each their own.

I joined my previous casual MMO (which has no endgame) in 2005 and I’ve been playing ever since. The only reason I moved to GW2 is because that game is shutting down soon. In contrast, WoW held my attention for a single year. Progression simply doesn’t drive me.

This thread has been a fascinating study in gamer perspectives; most of the disagreement seems to come from two groups who play for totally different goals.

flyinpoons.6481:

GreyWraith.8394:

The entire two-post-wall-of-text OP summarizes as:

I can’t figure out how to play without a Tank and Healer.
I like endless Pavlovian Raid Grinds.
Bugs make me cry; devs: push ‘insta-fix’ button NAO.

Your post summarizes as:

I’m terrible at playing traditional MMO’s.
I want things with little real effort.
I hate anyone that thinks any other way, but enjoy criticizing them for criticizing.

I literally LOL’d. Let’s revisit that list:

Being terrible at traditional MMO’s is impossible for anyone who’s nominally functional (and yes, been there and ‘succeeded’ at that).

Grind != Effort

Criticism for unrealisitc expectations/lack of patience does not imply hatred for anything. You do seem to be in a hurry to demonize me though.

The entire two-post-wall-of-text OP summarizes as:

I can’t figure out how to play without a Tank and Healer.
I like endless Pavlovian Raid Grinds.
Bugs make me cry; devs: push ‘insta-fix’ button NAO.

Inflation typically affects the market as a whole – which means prices for other things will rise, and you will have the opportunity to make larger amounts of money (and therefore afford prices that currently seem astronomical).

Mighty Favazz.1546:

I just don’t get it…

It’s very useful in PvE if you learn to identify attack emotes by tough enemies. Big attack coming? Blind = miss. Even for less powerful enemies, it’s one less attack that will be hitting you; that’s helpful when combined with other forms of mitigation.

Right now it’s October 11, 9:06 pm Eastern time in the US. The two posts above me are time stamped October 12, 2012 00:30 and October 11, 2012 22:04.

Sooooo. Either they are posting from the future or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?

Account.9832:

GreyWraith.8394:

I will suggest that you give us the ability to rearrange our weapon skills on our skill bar and save the order in a character-specific local game file.

Using character-specific files doesn’t solve…<snip>

Apparently I should have been more specific: I was referring to weapon-and-character specific rearrangement of skills, as you suggested.

I’d like to see it added to the Hero panel/weapon skills tab. This tab does nothing at the moment but list known weapon skills, if we could drag-and-drop (for example: GS2 —> GS4) to swap skills around it would be perfect.

I’m playing a guardian; the dps golem is fairly useful for improving kill speed on tough enemies, particularly since I can use mace or hammer to give it buffs/heals. For leveling it’s far more useful than any of the guardian elites.

Nurvus.2891:

Guys, have you noticed skills are arranged in order of cooldown?
No cooldown, small, mid, big, biggest cooldown.
That’s the only reason they rearranged the skills.

Yea, we got that. Like I said in the OP, I can deal with it. I just hope they aren’t planning to make a habit of swapping skills every time they adjust a cool-down unless they give us skill-order customization. I don’t want to relearn skill orders every time they issue a patch.

I’m more concerned about the precedent this suggests than the change itself.

WrathxCrazy, you’re missing the point.

Patch note claims aside, Retaliation was a minor part of the change (and near-perma Retaliation builds are still possible anyway). It may be only 1 symbol, but its the only symbol that GS gets and its CD was doubled. That means all symbol related effects for traits/buffs/debuffs/heals/etc were effectively halved for GS.

It isn’t a ‘minor’ change, and the patch notes don’t even comment on this.

Thermopylaes Finest.9034:

What now, Anet? Are we going to have to relearn our characters every time you change a skill recharge? I get what you people were trying to do, but as a player who quit GW1 because of your destruction of the dervish and who nearly didn’t buy this game for fear of having what I liked playing destroyed again for the sake of “improvements”, I see I should have saved myself the money. Let the flaming begin, everyone who is going to tell me I’m wrong for having an opinion on the internet.

I’ll agree that I’d like to see a more thorough response from our Devs. I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet; this is an amazing game that’s reasonably balanced (especially considering how recently it was launched).

What concerns me most is that the changes and their stated reason don’t match. This was by far a bigger nerf to GS symbol use in general (and to associated traits) than to retaliation (which is still near-permable). Either someone made changes without fully understanding the effect they would have, or the reason given was…. incomplete.

aaron.4317:

you can kind of point and click to move. If you hit both left and right mouse click you will auto run, releasing makes you stop.

I don’t use it, but its there.

Fair point, as a workaround. Not that I have any intention of getting into the habit of clicking to move. Either it will be fixed, or ill come up with an alternative bind scheme.

Girjon.3560:

Well actually I ment only pve but for pvp its a different story.

I wasn’t talking about PvP at all. I just used PvP as an example of opponents who are at least slightly higher caliber than ‘bloody stupid’. Usually. Try reading that again with the understanding that I’m talking about PvE.

Addtional feedback note: as pointed out in the links below, this change does not prevent a near-constant Retaliation build. What it has accomplished is a general nerf for GS symbol builds.

I only see two possibilities. Either:
1) The change reflects design error because it simply does not do what it is supposed to, while simultaneously affecting numerous traits/abilities not related to Retaliation.
or
2) The patch notes reflect gross miscommunication which is the result of incomplete/incorrect information.

About near-perma-Retaliation: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/You-can-still-do-endless-retaliation-its-just-harder-guide

About symbol builds: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Greatsword-change-making-symbol-builds-no-longer-viable

I’ve noticed a related issue. I’m a lefty so I use a mouse w/ left hand and right hand on TFGH for movement. I use ERDCV for skills 1-5 and ALT+ERDCV for utility/etc skills. I’ve noticed I can’t use my heal (ALT+E) if I’m also pressing movement keys. So I have to release all keys (stop moving), heal, then start running again. Hardly practical.

Ever tried Tank + Healer + DPS in PvP? Didn’t work out so well? That’s because it only works if your opponents are bloody stupid, and made stupider by deliberately programmed aggro mechanics that allow the lowest damage member (Tank) to completely lock up the enemy’s attention…

It’s an outdated formula that needed to die years ago.

[Edit] Moved this up to the OP.

RoRo.8270:

They had this feature in gw1 where some skills worked different or just had different figures based on pvp for balance purposes. Why doesn’t the system in gw2 work like this?

I’ve seen this elsewhere and it totally killed the PvP half of that game for me. Suddenly it was like a completely different game – the skill names were the same, but the ability/trait/etc functions were totally different. It really kills player crossover between PvE and PvP.

Who or what is keeping you chain-CC’d?

I would love to see this added to the in-game control options. Not so in love with it that I’m willing to use a random 3rd party mod though, especially given how hard hackers/phishers have been working to steal accounts.

Posted a feedback thread about this in the Suggestions forum, feel free to use it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Feedback-Guardian-Greatsword-change-10-7/first#post370609

I’m not going to argue the ‘refocus’ of retaliation; I can understand why you’d want to go that direction from a balance perspective.

I’m not going to complain about the rearrangement of skills on the bar, although I would ask you to minimize this sort of thing. It’s really going to screw people up, especially with pvp-trained twitch reflexes. I will suggest that you give us the ability to rearrange our weapon skills on our skill bar and save the order in a character-specific local game file. This will resolve the issue for those who surely will complain about it.

I am going to complain about the cooldown changes:
Symbol of Wrath – cooldown increased by 100% to 20s
Leap of Faith – cooldown reduced by 25% to 15s

Like I said, I get the Retaliation change, but if you are going to remove/reduce our ability to reflect damage then give us a better chance to get into melee and deal damage by hitting things. I request a 10s cooldown on Leap of Faith.

[Edit] I have to agree with several other posters who have pointed out that Guardian synergy is closely tied to symbols, including our traits, damage, buffs, debuffs, heals, and survivability. Doubling the symbol CD is a big hit to all of the above.

I like the potential for refreshing Virtues but a 3 second root/stun in a game like this is absolutely horrific.

The tomes lack synergy with everything else about guardian play. IMO elite skills should complement/enhance existing gameplay/traits/skills not completely replace them with something else.

Tracedragon.2384:

There are very few people who currently use the downleveling system for solo play… gets you very little gold and karma… you can one/two shot every mob…

These thing sorta go together. I agree in general – characters should get rewards scaled to their level, but for that to be practical the downleveling system will have to make 80s weak enough that they can’t 1-2 shot everything. Or we could have hardmodes as you suggest. Either way, I definitely approve of this suggestion.

I like the fact that this game is different. Not having mounts is part of that.

If they are added and have a practical use (i.e. speed buff) then people will feel obligated to get them; if they are purely cosmetic then we’re talking about a huge amount of art/development time spent on something most players won’t put much effort into getting.

I was actually pleased by the fact that it’s possible to create female characters that aren’t freakish surgically modified anorexic pornstars. I wouldn’t mind seeing something like a general BMI slider to adjust body thin/thickness.

I have been quite frustrated by broken skill points. Most recently Metrica/Inquest Complex and Brisbane/Hidden Lake.

These points are important because they add up to abilities that I should have and don’t yet while leveling, and the OCD completist in me is going bonkers. I don’t believe the system needs to be redone; we just need the bugs fixed so we can actually get our points.

Keep up the good work. Both with bot/spammers and with community communication. Thank you.

Do you have a source for that silvermember? You certainly could be correct, but diminishing returns could also be a deliberately programmed part of the system.

I haven’t done more than dabble in crafting/etc yet, but I was planning to spend some serious time on it in the next week or two so it would be nice to know if we have real info one way or the other.

This game has amazing flexibility/versatility/utility both within and between its classes. Players who don’t see that are probably blinded by their own preconceived notions of how classes ‘ought to play’ or they are just copying someone else’s cookie-cutter build and failing to realize that more than one effective playstyle exists.