If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I’ve only seen one argument that’s affected my opinion:
- AP chests are loyalty rewards.
- A permanent cap on dailies limits the rewards of those who who demonstrate their loyalty by playing every day.
I disagree, because they implemented “loyalty chests” as the 30-day login reward. AP chests are supposed to be rewards for achieving the most in game. Daily achievements are anything but.
The fact that we have the 30-day login reward does not invalidate the daily AP and AP milestones as loyalty rewards.
The game has more than ONE loyalty reward system.
It has two
One rewards you for just logging in – and it does that by giving you your daily log-in chest.
One rewards you for logging in and doing some stuff – and it does that by giving you 10 AP – 2 gold and some spirit shards.
They are working together as a tiered system. You show up – you get this. You do some more stuff – you get more.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I know it’s now ‘common knowledge’, but did ArenaNet ever state that the cap on Daily Achievements was to ‘allow newer players to catch up’? Or was that just something that the forums decided?
I don’t remember the Devs stating any particular reason for the cap. Mention of the cap was added to the Wiki in June of 2014 (when the cap was 10,000 AP). Nothing in the patch notes about it as far back as the April 2014 (major) update.
The News Blog about the new Daily System with Log-in Rewards and the choice of completing the 4 Dailies out of 12 was released in December of 2014. Again, nothing about allowing new players to catch up; it was more about ‘give(ing) players the opportunity to try things they may not normally experience and feel like the rewards they earn for doing so mean something’.
Thus, I’m not sure that the Daily Cap is all about ‘catching up’.
It has nothing to do with people “catching up”. ANet introduced the cap because a small minority of AP hunters were complaining about being “forced” to login every day and do dailies to keep their spots on the AP leaderboards, and apparently this was too stressful for them to handle.
I was there when that happened and the AP hunters had a valid point. Back then the 10 AP you could get per day were spread out over 10 dailies.
So if you wanted 10 AP per day you had to spend maybe one hour or more doing ALL the dailies. I can understand why they wanted this changed.
But right now that cap is useless – there’s no more pressure to do all your dailies to get all your AP because daily AP is easy now. 3/10 dailies and you’re done. It will NOT take you more than 10 minutes.
So the change that was made for them should be reverted – because their original reasons for asking for the cap no longer exist in game.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I’ve only seen one argument that’s affected my opinion:
- AP chests are loyalty rewards.
- A permanent cap on dailies limits the rewards of those who who demonstrate their loyalty by playing every day.
That’s pretty much the core of it. It’s counter intuitive the way it is now -you get rewarded for being loyal to GW2 but if you’re too loyal (by being loyal for very long) you won’t get anything anymore.
Because instead of getting MORE rewards as you invest MORE time and effort into being loyal – at one point when you’re “loyal enough” you should stop being rewarded.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It’s not about “catching up” at all. It’s about putting a cap on what are the easiest points to obtain in the game. You can’t daily your way to account bound rewards/bonuses, you should have to play the game, actually invest your time in it, to be rewarded. Of course it’s going to have a cap, and I think it should remain as it is.
Except the rewards are there and there aren’t really enough APs to get them.
And you blame the Daily AP cap instead of the imbalance of achievement points of what is currently obtainable, in comparison to what we used to earn for similar meta achievements?
Daily AP cap is something that they can easily “do” for us. So there is some hope that if there is enough outcry we might have it removed.
The imbalance of achievement points of what is currently obtainable in comparison to what we used to earn way back when is something that would require a lot of effort to reword.
They’d have to go back and look at all the AP rewards and rebalance that. Let’s not kid ourselves – Anet won’t. Because of outcry – and most likely because they don’t have the manpower to do it.
This is the company that cancelled it’s own legendary weapons because of lack of manpower. You’re just daydreaming if you think they’ll go back to rebalance AP just for the sake of a few of us on the forums. We’re not worth that much time.
We have to ask for simple and easy to do solutions. It’s the only ones we have a chance of getting.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It was insulting because John Smith is supposed to be the in-house economist. He should know what it is. The community relies on his expertise to watch over the game’s economy so even if he did not know what it is he’s expected to at least “save face” and not make a complete mockery by asking US what it is.
The fact that he didn’t even do that shows a complete disregard of the community and what they think.
It literally takes 3-5 seconds to google “salami slicing” and find articles describing it in detail.
Let’s put things differently – how would you feel if your doctor – upon telling him that your medication is giving you palpitations asked “whoa – what are those?”. You would lose faith in him wouldn’t you?.
Same with the JS situation – the attitude that’s insulting is that he does not even care if we lose faith or not – and by extension he doesn’t even care HOW he presents himself to the community.
Why ask us what it is? Why not just find out yourself? It’s basically HIS job.
First managing the game’s economy is only ONE of his jobs. I seem to remember recently his name being mentioned relating to development of current events or living story.
Second he only really has two jobs when dealing with the game’s economy. First keep the amount of gold in the active economy from spiraling out of control. And that is controlling the sources and sinks. The second is to control the price of commonly dropped items and mats so their price neither drops to the NPC Vendor floor or increases so only a very tiny portion of player base can afford them. That’s too is balancing sources with sinks.
He sees the economy from the 30,000 foot view, very macro. No he probably, like I do, doesn’t see an issue as the price shift was going to occur anyway, matters not if it was on patch day or a few days before or who profited off of it. Someone was going to.
There is always someone “outraged” about something on the TP (currently Mystic Coins) and demand JS do something about it. His default response over the years has always been snark or feign ignorance because it doesn’t matter what he says, he will still be “wrong”. The outraged don’t care about reasons, they only care about their own wants, not the game’s economy as a whole and already has dug their foxholes and bunkered in. These people are no different than that one parent who is “outraged” over the Captain Underpants series being in the elementary school library at the school board meeting that’s discussion building maintenance.
If what you’re saying is true then why even post at all? Why agitate things further?
Doesn’t he notice the people wanting an answer? Doesn’t he realize that posting something that’s not said answer will only make things worse?
If the outraged are already all set-up as you say – why expose a target and give them a chance to fire off? Why not just let it burn itself out?
Poking a stick at angry people is really not something you should do – especially if you can’t fix their problem.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It was insulting because John Smith is supposed to be the in-house economist. He should know what it is.
Let’s put things differently – how would you feel if your doctor – upon telling him that your medication is giving you palpitations asked “whoa – what are those?”. You would lose faith in him wouldn’t you?.
Sure, but that’s a terrible analogy – it’s more akin to your doctor not knowing about pulsatilla, or your mechanic about rolling coal. Sure, it’d be nice for them to be knowledgeable about tangential trends in popular culture because they’d have more insight into it, but it’s not part of the core knowledge base.
In this case, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for John to be unfamiliar with a pop culture term for penny shaving, which is something you would talk about as part of auditing round-off errors in an accounting class, not economics. I totally get that what economists know and what accountants know may not look all that different to an outsider, but I assure you the difference is pretty stark.
(Full disclosure: I’ve done a bunch of doctoral work in economics)
Or just that he made a funny joke that was in no way at your expense, and you want to crucify him for not giving out a sterile company response. Don’t ask for anet employees to give information and interact with the community more if you think it’s ok to treat others like that. No matter what his position, he has no direct obligations to you.
I go to work and do my job on point. I’m supposed to do things right, by the book and proper. I do said job in said fashion. I expect others to have the same common courtesy.
Their level of interaction is indeed affected by these responses but how else can I respond when the interaction is so unprofessional?
Somebody asked a question – answer the question. Alternatively – if you’re not going to do it right don’t do it at all.
He might not have a direct obligation to me – but I don’t have an obligation to not speak my mind either. So I do.
If he replies to a thread that contains a question in my opinion he’s taking the obligation of providing a decent answer to that question. Why else would he even post? If he wants to make a joke he can make it – answer the question then make the joke. Easy.
This thread is about an economic phenomenon. He is the team Economist. Don’t you think that he’s somewhat aware of the fact that if he posts in the thread people will expect a bit more than just some funny jokes?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It was insulting because John Smith is supposed to be the in-house economist. He should know what it is.
Let’s put things differently – how would you feel if your doctor – upon telling him that your medication is giving you palpitations asked “whoa – what are those?”. You would lose faith in him wouldn’t you?.
Sure, but that’s a terrible analogy – it’s more akin to your doctor not knowing about pulsatilla, or your mechanic about rolling coal. Sure, it’d be nice for them to be knowledgeable about tangential trends in popular culture because they’d have more insight into it, but it’s not part of the core knowledge base.
In this case, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for John to be unfamiliar with a pop culture term for penny shaving, which is something you would talk about as part of auditing round-off errors in an accounting class, not economics. I totally get that what economists know and what accountants know may not look all that different to an outsider, but I assure you the difference is pretty stark.
(Full disclosure: I’ve done a bunch of doctoral work in economics)
You can argue that it wasn’t supposed to be part of his “core” education and I’ll agree that maybe that is the case but why show such disregard to what people think?
Why not just do the decent thing and look it up properly before posting your next post?
It is unreasonable for him to not research something properly if he decides he’s going to respond to said thread.
It’s like taking on a case then neglecting to brush up on the particularities of that patient’s condition because why would you?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
There’s an entire profession in the real world dedicated to predicting what prices will rise and fall. It’s by no means a stretch to say some players are always doing that without insider information. Once you amass enough gold, you become able to buy out supply of certain things that others can’t even afford. So while I’ll never be a person to play the trading post to make profit others will make forum posts that anet must have introduced ghastly grinning shields to drop prices.
So what I’m getting at is there’s no way for anet to stop “insider trading”. Even if they post the patch notes on this website first before giving it to the third party media ones, which they apparently do? You’ll still see the same market trends. And there’s no way to know if any or every game tester is abusing their information, and there’s no why to punish them or for us to know if they were punished.
Lastly, just play some content! This game is fun, stop being mean and raising prices on people.
Yes – true – but in the situation where the patch notes are given to a select few sites and content creators the system is closed.
They get to impose these trends and take advantage of them and the other players get to do nothing.
If the information is posted for the first time on an official site without anyone receiving it in advance the effect will be the same ( market manipulation – trends) but the system is open. Since everyone who sees the post can now try to get in and use the information.
What this does?
It allows people to compete and thus earn the “right” to profit from that information.
It also means the guy that profits today won’t be the same as the guy who profits next time – more people will benefit from this as they try to “grab it for themselves”.
With the current system the same content creators and same sites benefit from it over and over and over again. Nobody else gets a turn or a chance.
Yes – the effect will be the same in the end – but at least for those willing to put in the time, effort and logistics – there is a chance to make it work for you.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
This is where we disagree. You see them as business people first, fans second. I see fans who are trying to turn their passion into a source of income.
The moment they profit from their passion they can’t really be considered “just fans doing it because of the lulz” and must be considered a business. Even if they aren’t or claim they’re not.
To elaborate, the people I’m talking about have played GW or GW2 since early beta. Their YouTube channels overwhelmingly featured videos centered on these games from those times. Before Mindcraft or LoL or Hearthstone or most of those other top streaming games. Most were holding down “real” jobs while covering the game until very recently (ANet started noticing them around the time HoT got announced) and have recently tried to turn it into a business.
Yes but regardless of that – giving them an unfair advantage is still wrong. If they matter so much they should be on a pay roll.
Just because people have a hobby that happens to be promoting GW1/GW2 doesn’t mean they’re automatically these awesome people that are more deserving of things than others.
I don’t have a youtube channel or twitch – but I was there for the last 3 years of GW1 and for GW2 ever since the betas. Before the betas even – I went to the first playable demo and traveled around 1600 kms by car to do that. Is a youtuber more dedicated than me?
There are people that spend more time in game than a youtuber spends playing AND making videos. Are they less deserving?
And you still think monetization on YouTube amounts to anything for Tubers their size. It doesn’t even pay the monthly food budget. We’re talking under 50K subscribers and videos only drawing a few thousand views during the video’s first month. And since YouTube pays on a sliding scale based on TTM average views, it simply doesn’t pay well unless you are pulling in significant views per month.
It’s irrelevant. The fact that they’re not earning a a LOT doesn’t mean they should gain this advantage – because they’re “poor”. If they’re doing so poorly Anet should maybe help them out – or offer some recompense – but not at the expense of others. Or before others. Or in grey areas.
As for why ANet doesn’t hire them straight up, cause they are still considered unbiased news sites.
How can you be “unbiased” when your income ( or some of it) is generated by content related to this game. If the game does poorly – so do you. If the game dies – so does your revenue stream. They are not unbiased.
You pay sites like MMORPG, MMOHut, etc with exclusives AND advance copies of the patch notes or access to the test server in the days before a major patch. So just like the big MMO news sites, the partners are granted an early copy of the patch notes and the test server so they can film their story walk through videos without an endless stream of photobombing giant Norns and Charr with wings obscuring the scene.
So just give them stuff that doesn’t have “insider trading” information.
Now from the partners I’ve talked too, which I admit is only like six or seven, they too are POed that some partners have broken this trust and thus painted them as inside traders as well. Now they don’t want to lose that early access because it helps them interact with their followers/subscribes.
You mean it helps them make a profit – or grow closer to potentially making one in the future. I get that they’re mad. They’re right to be mad if they didn’t do it but there’s really no way to prove that they did or didn’t. So the only solution is that they don’t get the chance to.
but I don’t think the “damage” those partners are doing is significant. And while ANet could sanitize the patch notes about recipe and drop changes, I think it’s dangerous to expect them to sanitize the test server beyond access to crafting stations.
Why?
The “fair” argument can’t hold water if the solution simply gives the advantage to another limited group.
This is not about “fair” – it’s about “equal opportunity”. And the openness of competing – with a system like that EVERYONE can try to pull it off provided they are willing to try hard enough. That’s not 100% fair – but it’s more fair.
And I’m NOT a “content creator”. I do know several and broke bread with a few IRL which is why I take the position I do.
Pretty much. I’m not against them – the problem is not them – it’s what Anet is doing.
And it will create a community backlash against them that most of them might not even deserve. Just because there’s no way for them to disprove the charges brought against them by the community.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It’s not about “catching up” at all. It’s about putting a cap on what are the easiest points to obtain in the game. You can’t daily your way to account bound rewards/bonuses, you should have to play the game, actually invest your time in it, to be rewarded. Of course it’s going to have a cap, and I think it should remain as it is.
Except the rewards are there and there aren’t really enough APs to get them.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Agreed. I’m surprised at some of the responses here and elsewhere. The argument is basically, “Let others catch up while you get nothing.”
That seems rather one-sided. But let’s go with that. When will ‘everyone’ catch up? When can we then raise the bar as far as the cap?
Except that you still get 2 gold and 3 spirit shards for doing your dailies, among either karma, mats, PvP/WvW reward track potions. You aren’t getting nothing if you have maxed your daily AP. You are still getting quite a lot from them.
Don’t cherry pick. That has nothing to do with this discussion. We’re talking about AP. They can keep all the gold and spirit shards involved. That’s not the point of this thread. Nor the point of progressing your achievement tab.
Your example has nothing to do with what you quoted. Nothing to do with the cap. And nothing to do with this ‘waiting for everyone to catch up’ excuse.
You’re the one cherrypicking here. You claim that the argument is “Let others catch up while you get nothing.”, which is simply not true.
Just because you are not getting AP from the dailies anymore does not mean you are getting nothing from them. You can’t claim that you get nothing from them, as that is cherrypicking and borderline pedantic. Using your arguments, I should be compensated extra for doing more than 3 dailies each day because I’m “getting nothing” for the extra dailies I do.
Dailies reward everyone, you can’t justifiably deny that. And besides, its not like a newer player is going to catch up to the people who have maxed out their AP from dailies anyway, its just not going to happen, even if ANet just maxed out the daily AP for everyone, these players missed out on all of the extremely generous AP from season 1 releases. They are never going to come close to you.
Let’s make this simple. I am AP capped for my daily AP. You are not.
I log in.
You log in.
I get nothing.
You get something.
We both did the same thing – I did it for longer and am still doing it now yet I’m no longer rewarded for it.
Why?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The thing is, if you remove one cap of repeatable achievement points, you should really remove it from the others.
You know, Agent of Entropy (capped at 250pts) Hobby Dungeon Explorer (capped at 200pts). Fractal Frequenter is not even repeatable (Why? This doesn’t make sense to me and should be repeatable like the Hobby Dungeon achievement) yet I’ve never seen anyone complain about these having a cap. Why? Why does the Daily point cap get so much fuss but the other caps do not?The Daily AP cap gets so much fuss and is different than the others because it is daily.
Unlike those other achievements that you could ( if they were not capped) farm indefinitely in-game the daily cap is a reward for loyalty and sticking with the game.
You log in and do your dailies every day – that’s your reward.
I also feel the cap should be removed. Even without it the gap between new and old players by now is so large that “catching up” isn’t something one should expect to be able to do quickly (or at all).
if someone has 25 k ap right now and has been playing for 4 years straight – daily AP cap or no-daily AP cap – you’re never catching up if you start now.You’ve missed out on too many one-time living world things and whatnot to catch up.
So it’s ok to remove a hard cap (15k AP) as long as there is a daily soft cap (10AP). So why not do that for other repeatables? You’re still asking for a source of unlimited AP.
This is the thing, because most people at 20,000ish K AP have stagnated on acquiring AP, they rely on Daily AP to push to the next reward.
Instead of asking about the AP imbalance of what we get now for achievements compared to what we used to get. How many new achievements (mainly how many points are associated with them) are added into the game compared to how many are retired. It’s instead turned on the Daily AP cap, not the imbalance. Do you see how completely backwards that is?We all draw loyalty from different places, some from the wardrobe, how many legedaries you have, your fractal level, PvP level, WvW rank etc. Having your Daily AP capped at 15k, plus all the permanent points, should be enough to tell you how loyal you are.
I actually have to agree with Malediktus, remove the points altogether and double the permanent ones we earned/can earn, and seriously look at the latest and further achievements award points. It would completely solve this non issue.
Because the point here is to give something for something. Anet’s game model relies on player exposure to gem-store items in order to increase the chances you’ll buy something.
For that purpose the entire daily log-in reward system was created – in an effort to make players log in every day in order to increase the chances they’ll be exposed to some gemstore sale or another.
Daily player retention is a core requirement for any game that has a “gem store”.
The soft cap of only 10 per day is there to make you come back the next day. It is also good because it will over time differentiate between players that STICK with the game for the long haul vs players that log on infrequently.
I would also like more AP added into the game to fix the stagnation but I also realize that AP is added into the game when associated with content and there is very little content being added – so thus I can’t ask for more AP.
They could make the little content we get now reward disproportionately high amounts of AP when compared to older content but that would really upset players. Including me.
I would LOVE more content in the game and would WANT more AP associated with said content but the sad truth is we’re not going to see that for a long time.
AP keeps people logging in – if it’s not capped then there are higher chances you’ll make some people keep coming back every day. Better odds they might actually like some gem store thing and buy it.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The thing is, if you remove one cap of repeatable achievement points, you should really remove it from the others.
You know, Agent of Entropy (capped at 250pts) Hobby Dungeon Explorer (capped at 200pts). Fractal Frequenter is not even repeatable (Why? This doesn’t make sense to me and should be repeatable like the Hobby Dungeon achievement) yet I’ve never seen anyone complain about these having a cap. Why? Why does the Daily point cap get so much fuss but the other caps do not?
The Daily AP cap gets so much fuss and is different than the others because it is daily.
Unlike those other achievements that you could ( if they were not capped) farm indefinitely in-game the daily cap is a reward for loyalty and sticking with the game.
You log in and do your dailies every day – that’s your reward.
I also feel the cap should be removed. Even without it the gap between new and old players by now is so large that “catching up” isn’t something one should expect to be able to do quickly (or at all).
if someone has 25 k ap right now and has been playing for 4 years straight – daily AP cap or no-daily AP cap – you’re never catching up if you start now.
You’ve missed out on too many one-time living world things and whatnot to catch up.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
It was insulting because John Smith is supposed to be the in-house economist. He should know what it is. The community relies on his expertise to watch over the game’s economy so even if he did not know what it is he’s expected to at least “save face” and not make a complete mockery by asking US what it is.
The fact that he didn’t even do that shows a complete disregard of the community and what they think.
It literally takes 3-5 seconds to google “salami slicing” and find articles describing it in detail.
Let’s put things differently – how would you feel if your doctor – upon telling him that your medication is giving you palpitations asked “whoa – what are those?”. You would lose faith in him wouldn’t you?.
Same with the JS situation – the attitude that’s insulting is that he does not even care if we lose faith or not – and by extension he doesn’t even care HOW he presents himself to the community.
Why ask us what it is? Why not just find out yourself? It’s basically HIS job.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Most of the TP sites I visit have at best, a tip cup. Hardly a regular job, more of a passionate hobby. Same with some of the YouTubers and Twitchers at the beginning (going back to GW).
First and foremost their “tip cup” doesn’t mean they don’t get personal gain out of it. It’s not the case of “boo hoo poor youtubers”.
Youtube videos are monetized and on top of that it might not be financial gain they’re after. Maybe they’re in it for the fame, or e-celeb status. The point is they are doing it for themselves and are benefiting from it. So it pays out for them – be it under the form of cash or whatever else.
Their long devotion to themselves through this game is recognized by ANet which grants them perks that we don’t get.
I fixed that for you.
Like access to the test server, free region transfers, codes for giveaways to help viewership, and early info so they can sound knowledgeable on patch day. ANet decided these sites are important as an advertising vector which is why some got referral links which pays them a commission on new accounts, HoT and P4F ones, created with those links.
And that’s what it should be limited to – links and straight up cash if they want. But not an unfair advantage over other players.
Just put them on a pay roll and call it a day.
Sure many now cover gaming or just THIS game as a job today but their primary source of income isn’t from ANet. They do it because they like the game, otherwise they would only be focusing on the games in the top 10 Twitch list.
You’re very sure they do it because they like the game but honestly I believe most youtubers and twitchers would switch to those top 10 games if they could. But they can’t – why? because somebody already beat them to the punch or was better at it and now the market for those games is generally saturated. You can’t break through. So you find another niche. Like GW2.
I’m sure every youtuber wants to make those big bucks off WoW or some other more popular MMO out there but not everyone can do it because there are already others doing it and sometimes you just won’t be able to break through in that market.
Ask any small YouTuber, they pay very little unless you are routinely getting 50K+ views on every video.
You forgot to add the part where it’s them also trying their luck out – maybe they’ll blow up. Maybe not. Every big youtuber was once small.
tch takes half of the subscription money (again unless you have 1000s of subscribers) and no cut on advertising. And those 4+ digit tips you see on clipped on YouTube, doesn’t happen to too many streamers. Many can earn more working retail, McJobs or waiting tables.
Yeah – but they don’t. They prefer this and profit off of it. Maybe they don’t want those jobs – maybe there’s more comfort in this.
The point is regardless of how “little” they earn they EARN something and are doing it for their own benefit and not ours. Youtube has long since stopped being a platform for free entertainment and is not a full on business.
I am not denying their contribution – I follow WP’s videos and watch them regularly. They do contribute to the community but that’s no reason to give them a unfair advantage.
If Anet feels they should get more stuff they should pay them money. Not give them the rights to abuse the TP.
I am not even asking for blood – and if there is any vitriol(which I do not believe is the case) in my posts it is strictly and entirely directed at Arenanet who is handling this whole situation unprofessionally – splitting the community and creating a conflict-rich environment by refusing to address this in a simple manner.
Are you a GW2 content creator? Do you provide X amount of exposure to the game? Ok – here are your in-game gem bonuses, your paid contract or whatever. Make it official – make it visible – make it clear cut.
Don’t keep it in this grey area.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
So you are saying that ANet’s partners, those who make all those YouTube videos and do weekly streams promoting the game “don’t do anything to earn it”? It’s not like they are on the payroll.
Exactly. They aren’t on the payroll. If Anet thinks they deserve getting rewarded for their efforts, they should make it official.
There’s nothing more destructive for any system than unofficial, hidden deals that allow some people to act outside of it for personal gain. No matter how small that gain is.
This is actually a good point.
If these content creator’s efforts are so good that they are key to Anet and GW2’s success then by all means – hire them. Or sign a contract and give them money.
But don’t allow them to gain unfair advantages over regular players without ever making it official.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
No you don’t. You get that chest if you managed to tag the octovine event. Otherwise you get nothing.
There is a chest that is a rewarded specifically for it. If you don’t do the event you don’t get said chest. I know this for a fact since I’ve done numerous maps that I haven’t done the event on.
The “end of Tarir chest” is a pop-up next to your minimap on the right hand side of the screen. It rewards keys, currency, rares? i don’t remember and certainly a lot of XP.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Elite specializations should give new ways of playing a profession. Not fix their holes. The guardian needs more ranged weapons at core, and the necromancer needs cleaving at core too. Those are basic roles, and elite specs shouldn’t be about basic roles, but advanced ones.
The only problem is that by design Elite specs are here to “fix holes”. Because there’s a kind of pressure put on players to buy into the expansions and thus the elite specs if they “fix holes”.
Let’s look at ranger – nobody wanted rangers in their groups pre-HoT – at least not most PUG groups. Because of pets and clunky mechanics.
This “hole” has been fixed through Druid – the go-to healer for most groups (organized or pugs). The only thing is that to become a druid you have to spend money on HoT.
So by fixing this hole through an elite spec Anet adds pressure on players to buy expansions and buy into the “fix”.
“You want to play your ranger in groups because you like rangers? – just give us this money here and get HoT and you’ve got yourself a one-way ticket to any group that needs a healer”
“You want a decent ranged option on your guardian? – get this HoT and you’ve got it.”.
So because of this – because elite specs and what they bring to the table for professions (especially in the area of fixing “holes”) are a huge driving force behind expansion sales I doubt we will ever see any more expansion or work done on the “core” classes.
It’s sad – but it is what it is.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Very few are “demanding blood”. Most just want an even playing field which would be very easy for Arenanet to do.
And while I’m not against a public early dissemination of recipe and new source changes, the motivation is still punitive as the only guaranteed result is denying those currently taking advantage from taking advantage and instead giving the advantage to an entirely different “elite” group, those online and in game at the moment the patch notes drop with the fastest machines, the fastest connection and the ability to speed parse the notes, not to mention the liquid gold to start buying up everything.
So the result will be taking it away from partners and friends of partners and giving it squarely to the TP mavens.
It will be taking it away from people that didn’t do anything to earn it in the first place and giving it to people who actually work towards obtaining said advantage.
It would be giving it to whomever wants to take it – instead of these “select few” that just receive hand-outs at this point.
Now as much as I’m hate the argument that was presented on Reddit, I’m going to use it here because I object to your comment.
So you are saying that ANet’s partners, those who make all those YouTube videos and do weekly streams promoting the game “don’t do anything to earn it”? It’s not like they are on the payroll. At best they get commissions on sales IF their viewers choose to use their referral links.
Plus we are talking only a few thousand gold, which is worth currently around $65-70 per 1000 gold from the gem shop. But before you go “we are talking 100s of thousands of gold” we aren’t. About 13K Stabilizing Matrices were drawn down from the TP in the days before the patch. At the peak you might be able to make 20 silver profit on each. That’s a total of 2,600 gold. Even if they were vacuuming up two or three times as much as other players sold off, it’s still under 10K gold, $700 in value split among those who leveraged the info. And because of the price increase, there’s now three times as much on the TP now than before, but at a 50% markup.
I’m saying that those “partners” aren’t partners. They don’t work for Anet. They work for themselves and through that work they also promote GW2.
I’m saying they get enough benefit from just working that they don’t need the additional “insider trading” thing.
The point is very simple.
I understand that by proximity to Anet and Anet employees there will always be a group that profits from insider trading – but I believe this group should be as small as possible.
To that effect I believe that the only people that benefit from this should be close friends or families of the developers since there is unfortunately no effective way to keep the devs from disclosing information to said family members or friends.
I also believe that “content creators” do not fall in a category that deserves to profit from “insider trading” because what they do is a job – a regular job that just so happens interacts with GW2.
I do not believe they create content for the sake of promoting GW2 out of the goodness of their hearts but because they want to generate revenue for themselves.
The bottom line is that in their case Anet can certainly pull the plug and stop them from obtaining the “insider trading” information and I also believe this should be done ASAP.
I also believe that IF there are content creators out there that don’t monetize their content and do it solely because they enjoy it and want to promote the game then yes – maybe you could argue they should be “in the know”.
Care to give me some examples of such content creators though?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If Anet wanted people hopping maps to loot multiple finished metas, they wouldn’t have designed Dragon’s Stand explicitly to prevent that exact thing.
But you can still loot the entire DS without doing ONE event to help the map.
If they wanted you to get rewards ONLY for participating then this would not be possible – and right now it is – in DS, TD, AB and VB. You can open chests regardless of any participation in the events.
You can’t loot the end DS chest without participating.
Yes – and you don’t get the End of Tarir event loot if you’re not participating in said event.
The only difference is that the DS chest is in one place and the Tarir final chest is a pop-up. But they’re basically the same thing.
The bulk of the loot in BOTH cases comes from the other chests that work with a key system.
You can open chests in Tarir just like you can open Noxious Pods in DS – without participating in the event itself.
That’s what I’m referring to – you can loot the map without getting the event reward.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Very few are “demanding blood”. Most just want an even playing field which would be very easy for Arenanet to do.
And while I’m not against a public early dissemination of recipe and new source changes, the motivation is still punitive as the only guaranteed result is denying those currently taking advantage from taking advantage and instead giving the advantage to an entirely different “elite” group, those online and in game at the moment the patch notes drop with the fastest machines, the fastest connection and the ability to speed parse the notes, not to mention the liquid gold to start buying up everything.
So the result will be taking it away from partners and friends of partners and giving it squarely to the TP mavens.
It will be taking it away from people that didn’t do anything to earn it in the first place and giving it to people who actually work towards obtaining said advantage.
It would be giving it to whomever wants to take it – instead of these “select few” that just receive hand-outs at this point.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Except in that case it would be a free for all fair competition where the fastest ones are the winners instead of what we have now where the chose few are the winners and others are not even allowed to participate. I’m sure you can see the difference here too.
The point is, it’s not a fair competition no matter how you cut it. People with slower computers. People who work when the client gets updated. People sleeping on the other side of the world.
I would rather have Anet benefit people who dedicate their own time to blog or create user content. Wooden Potatoes makes his living through the ad revenue his videos and subscribers bring. I’m not a huge fan, but I respect the sacrifices he makes to bring us fun and informative videos. So if it’s a choice between some random kid, or a respected content provider getting rich, I’ll go with WP.
It will never be fair. But it’s not about FAIR. It’s about WHO can compete.
Right now I can’t compete – even if I have the fastest internet, best PC, and might not work a job and spend every second F5-ing GW2 news sites.
Give me the chance to compete. It will never be fair but it should at least be open.
I would rather have Anet benefit people who dedicate their own time to blog or create user content.
These people don’t do it for you or me – they do it because it earns them money. Or it allows them to boost their egos and self-esteem. Or they want to be e-celebs or whatnot.
Wooden Potatoes makes his living through the ad revenue his videos and subscribers bring. I’m not a huge fan, but I respect the sacrifices he makes to bring us fun and informative videos.
Yes – and he CHOSE to make those sacrifices. He profits from his choices as well.
He’s not a martyr. None of them are. And they certainly don’t deserve preferential treatment in this manner.
So if it’s a choice between some random kid, or a respected content provider getting rich, I’ll go with WP.
Why? There are people playing this game that are more deserving of “getting ahead” by virtue of what they do day to day. I’m sure we’ve got a fair share of first responders, teachers, doctors and whatnot in this game.
Why should just WP benefit in-game because of his line of work?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Arenanet could make this a smaller issue by getting that information out to players earlier. There are tons of ways. They could do pre-patch notes, a Public Beta Environment, Include into their pre-patch dev chats to name a few. Letting the same clique have a huge advantage every patch is BS. The only reason I can see someone defend this is because they are one of the few that get the info every patch and so of course they don’t want it to change.
The issue doesn’t change if you release the info one day or one month early. As soon as the information comes out, the first person who logs in gets to take advantage of the information. Whoever has the strongest PC, best SSD, and fastest fingers wins.
Yes but this at least creates a competition and leaves you free to compete. If you care about it enough you’ll stay up at night ( provided you’re in that timezone) and invest in the best SSD and the best internet in order to be competitive at this.
As it stands unless you’re one of those “content creators” you can’t even sign up to compete.
And yes – I might buy an SSD or better internet to stand a chance to get a good TP scoop. I will however not build a youtube career just for this specific purpose.
My point is : make it an open and fair race. Or make it no race at all.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
If Anet wanted people hopping maps to loot multiple finished metas, they wouldn’t have designed Dragon’s Stand explicitly to prevent that exact thing.
But you can still loot the entire DS without doing ONE event to help the map.
If they wanted you to get rewards ONLY for participating then this would not be possible – and right now it is – in DS, TD, AB and VB. You can open chests regardless of any participation in the events.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The reason it should get fixed is very simple:
- People who did not participate in an event are getting rewards from it.
No one can participate at the same time in all those instances, so those who jump to another instance are getting rewards they didn’t earn.
If you want to enter into how good or bad those rewards are that’s an entirely different matter.
Someone who did not participate in something should not be rewarded as if they did.That also goes for any other content. For example:
- In silverwastes, keys should be removed, replaced by just shovels. And shovels earned by playing as event rewards from defendign and retaking forts, for keeping the skritt tunnels open and the second waypoint ready, and from bonus map rewards. Then dig spots should appear as the forts progress tying rewards to events.
- In dungeons and fractals, that should get their rewards scaled based on personal participation, and when players get kicked, instead being sent outside the instance, they should end up in a copy of the instance, while keeping their own participation, so they can still get friends and guildies to finish the content instead losing all progress, but those friends won’t get as rewarded because they entered late., preventing this being used to ‘split’ instances on purpose to sell the rewards at the chest, and discouraging kicking players to sell the rewards, and encuraging getting players to run for the start when selling paths like when selling mission rushes in GW1 so path sellers would be more likely to teach those paths, since no one would buy a run if it isn’t from the start as they won’t be getting rewards and achievements.
- In world bosses, chest should give a daily Hero Choice bag to everyone who get 100% participation by participating enough during the event and pre-events. That bag should give a choice between things like rare weapon bags, stacks of materials like cloth and leather, crests, rare materials and the like. Thus rewarding more those that participate in the entire event over those that arrive to press 1.
And all those things should happen while also makng sure people keep their participation and rewards even if they disonnect. So if you were in an AB that just finished and disconnect, you can still talk with a tarnished exalted to enter the treasure chambers and open the chests you earned for the rest of the day on any map, even if the map in which you finished doesn’t even exist anymore.
Really?
I don’t participate in most of the Dragon Stand map event and still loot every chest. There is precedent for this – even in other maps.
IF Anet wanted you to get rewards based strictly on your participation it would reward you the loot at the end of the event. The fact that we have a loot system that involves chests that can be opened even if you did not do the meta clearly shows they wanted people to be able to loot even if they did not participate in the meta.
You don’t seem to realize that the EARNING of the reward is the KEY you use to open the chest. If you have that key then clearly you have earned the right to open the chest.
It’s THAT easy.
The real thing here is that you want a different system – and I get that. But the system WE HAVE clearly shows what the devs intended. If you have the key – you can open the chest.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
ANet grants access to their media partners days before it goes live and simply NOT having the exact client/server software running on test is madness. And while ANet can sanitize early preview patch notes, doing the same to the test server is asking for an oops. Balls get dropped all the time, that’s why we get multiple patches on patch day.
As far as I know NONE of the media previews that have come from third parties have had anything to do with crafting or TP stuff. Just disable it. Or replace it with something else.
Expending the manpower to hunt down and punish the culprits is problematic. There is no way ANet would sanction a major MMO news site, game reviewer, streamer/YouTuber or owner of a popular player resource. It would be shooting themselves in their own foot. ANet needs goodwill from them and making a large site their enemy wouldn’t help the game at all. Therefore sanctioning the “little guy” is then problematic because then “justice” isn’t being mete out fairly to all guilty parties.
True – that’s why they should not be using versions of the game that have this stuff in them.
Most times the media they released is related to visuals, cutscenes, armor set looks, story and whatnot. Why would they need access to crafting data or anything else related?
In the end this topic, while legitimate, is a tempest in a teapot. ANet simply won’t expend any significant manpower to track down the “culprits” or future proof their pre-patch day access with a custom build. All they can do is issue a strong reminder not to and maybe cut off the next preview from EVERYONE.
And this is further reinforcing the already prevalent idea that they’re way over their head and unprofessional.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I don’t see the issue: Content providers shouldn’t be shown things that will change the market if they are going to take advantage of that information. Show them that there will be a new crafted item, but not what the recipe is for instance.
As for testers, if they are taking advantage or leaking information, fire them, ban their accounts, and hire someone who won’t.
You can’t really prove that they are taking advantage.
The fix here is there should be no information regarding future market changes in a testing environment. Because they’re there to text the gameplay mechanics not the TP’s economic future.
They should not be able to see what goes into crafting what. You can just have some grey icons with “placeholder x” or “placeholder Y” if they really must test crafting.
The reason you can’t just outright ban testers and find ones that won’t leak is that there is no way you can prove that they did or did not take advantage of this.
I doubt anybody would be stupid enough to test the game and then immediately go and buy that item that they knew would spike on the TP on their main account and get caught.
Most likely they’ll tell someone else they trust – that person will make bank and they’ll find a way to share the money long after.
That’s the most logical and possibly easiest way.
There are other more convoluted ways to go about it but the bottom line is you can’t really figure out WHICH tester leaked it. Or why.
There will always be insider trading – but like I said – I expect it to be limited to parties close to the developers themselves – because there’s really no way to stop that.
It should NOT however involve people that get “early access” because they’re “content creators”. That’s their JOB. They earn MONEY from that. They’re not doing it because “they feel like it” or for the betterment of the community. It is a means to acquire income.
Sure – some might have started out with good intentions and may still retain them BUT that’s no reason to give them access to this sort of information.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I’m in the same boat – i want my book back!
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
No.
AB Multilooting is an exploit and it subjectively hurts the economy, because it damages the prices of all tradable loot in the game. It doesnt work in DS for a reason and so it should here.
Fixed.
I’m not sure how it’s subjective. It’s a form of inflation. If you can increase rewards to the point where they’re so profitable that people are threatening to leave if it’s fixed, something is wrong.
No aspect of the game should be so profitable that everything else pales in comparison, particularly something that’s 15 minutes long than almost anyone can do.
When you pour gold/loot into the system, you get inflation, which is objectively bad for the economy.
It forces people to play stuff like the AB multimeta if they want to afford things, because a bunch of people who do it can afford to pay more, and prices go up for everyone…but not everyone does it or wants to do it.
There’s nothing subjective about it.
Do you understand inflation at all? Read what I wrote above.
There is a SET finite amount of gold in this game that is at any moment in time distributed among the players. Inflation IS NOT GENERATED when materials are used as rewards because exchanging those materials with another player takes gold out of the game through the TP.
Inflation is generated when solid gold is added to the game out of thin air – see dungeons.
What you are trying to describe is that it increases the gap between “farmers” and “non-farmers” -but that’s not inflation.
The purchasing power of gold INCREASES every time an AB multi-map finishes – because at the end of it – when people sell everything – there is LESS GOLD IN THE GAME than there was before the AB-multimap. So each gold is now worth a little bit more – since there is LESS OF IT.
Is it really that hard to understand?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Any change to the meta in AB is going to come with collateral damage. Some people will be unhappy and some of those will leave. Probably not as many as threaten to leave.
On the other hand, it’ll mean more people doing other metas, like TD and VB, which would make some of us happier and, in my opinion, would be worth it in the long run.
The AB meta is something that’s been going on for too long. It really doesn’t help the game as a whole. It helps the types of people that can farm the same event over and over again because it’s profitable. I submit that’s not a majority of the playerbase.
As long the AB meta pulls people from other areas of the game, it’s a problem that needs addressing in my opinion.
Just because people do AB doesn’t mean they’ll do VB or TD. The metas are different. And the TD meta isn’t even interfering with the AB one time-wise.
Also – it “pulls people” for what? 30-40 minutes?
The same statement about “it’s hurting the game because it pulls people from the rest of the game” can be made about anything you choose to dislike.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
@hornswroggle +1 I also see it as an exploit and please don’t pretend it does not hurt the economy. A single looting of the chests is enough reward for putting the effort of completing a meta event. Looting multiple times those chests -is- an exploit despite many sugar coating it and saying it isn’t. The way I see it you should put time and effort for the loot and reward you get. I dont think anyone should be rewarded with so much rewards for simply forming a squad and jumping across several maps. This multiloot thing needs to end, imo.
Can you people please explain to me HOW it hurts the economy? I mean I’ve seen you and many other posters keep going “It hurts the economy” – but HOW? Can you be a bit more specific?
Because the way I see it is this:
AB Multimap does not give you straight-out GOLD rewards – which means it rewards you in two other ways:
-Account bound stuff – which is account bound and thus has no impact on the economy
-Materials and Rares that are worth money.
Now those materials and rares are worthless by themselves and you need to sell them on the TP in order to get your money out of them. Every time you do that the TP tax that’s taken means gold is being taken away from the game which in turn decreases inflation.
So let’s sum it up:
By forcing people to sell their stuff via the TP in order to get their monetary value out of it inflation is decreased. By generating rares ( which in turn give ectos) and materials not only is it decreasing inflation ( see TP stuff before) but also lowering the prices for all players on these specific items.
Explain to me now how this is bad.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The whole idea here is to lock certain builds into certain trait lines so there are FEWER viable options and thus it is easier for them to balance out the classes.
Another issue is that the trade-off created between having to spec into a certain line to improve a certain weapon through its trait creates opportunity cost.
More viability in builds means more balancing on Anet’s end of things. And I don’t think they want to do that.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I’ve said this same thing many times.
The counterargument that most give is that they timers are there to discourage “cheesing” the fight in all Nomads gear or something.
My response is, so what if people want to do it in all Nomads or something else non-meta that allows them to do the fight slower than the current groups? I say let them.
Just add in gold/silver/bronze reward tracks based on how fast the boss is killed. That way, you still reward the work the current groups are putting in – while opening the fights to a wider array of play styles.
This would allow players and communities to control their own kind of “easy mode.” Guilds looking for a more casual experience could take groups in designed around experiencing the fights rather than killing fast.
To me, this would be a win-win. Rewards would still be based on skill, but the experience would be open to a wider range of playstyles.
Yes – let’s have people safely clear the boss in 1 hour in their full nomad gear while they’re watching netflix. I’m pretty sure that would become the case.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
My static group does MT 100 4 necros 1 druid healer in 8 minutes. Find something that can beat that. You know why people kick chrono in t4?
Realistically chrono does only like 10k DPS and all the boons you give gets stolen. Then there’s that thing called armor scaling where power DPS drops by about 30% ?tested by a dnt friend). So you in total you do about 6-7k DPS and all your boons are stolen. It’s basically asking 4 people to carry you for a free ride.
why am i supposed to believe any of this, or care? Give an adequate explanation as to why your 4 necro team can clear MT in 8 minutes (are you bouncing epidemics off horrik or something? If so, only two of you needs to be a necro) as opposed to a team of 2 necros and support. No matter how much you doubt chrono, there is absolutely no good reason to stack more than 2 necromancers on any team, ever. If you have one necromancer for epidemic, and really want to only do condition, engineer can out-damage necromancer with conditions by about 7k per second (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v76gq/qt_updated_guides_and_dps_benchmarks_for_all/). If you care about survivability, druid is on top. I’m sure if you used 2 necromancers, 2 engineers and a tempest you could clear mai tran in 2 minutes with your mad skillz.
Also, toughness stops scaling after the level 50 fractal. Even if 30% drop was accurate, necro can only put out 25k in conditions per second, which probably drops to 20k per second w/out those nooby chronomancers and PS warriors, making it still inferior to any decent zerker team set up with support.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Yes engi can outdamage necro – but their rotation is more complex than the condi necro’s.
The point is this – Necros make T4s easy – you will almost never wipe and can easily even afk/tab out/watch another screen WHILE getting T4 done.
That makes it very good in most people’s book.
I get that it’s not optimal – but do you really honestly believe that most people that have done fractals since day 1 of FOTM release actually want to give it their absolute 100% attention and fully commit to it? No.
You want to clear the run with minimal interaction with it or others. Yes you could bother for a “speed-clear like team” but why would you? Why not stack 5 necros and watch netflix while occasionally checking the screen and clearing through in a breeze?
The mistake you make is assuming that people actually care about getting it done fast.
Sure – getting it done fast is great but getting it done a little slower but with minimal interaction is even better.
This is the same thing as why people used to stack in safespots for mossman back when the FOTM dailies were 56, 67 and 77. Sure it took longer but how much time did you spend doing it if you were tabbed out or watching something else?
The answer is : you spent no time doing it because you were doing something else and the T4 just completed at the same time.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
(edited by Harper.4173)
Basically I’m just getting a lot of “I like X race” but do you think that it’s worth it in the long run? Look at how pitifully few armor skins HoT came with?
and how many less skins would there have been if there was only one race?
I only played GW2 because of multiple playable races otherwise there are tons of other completely the same MMOs to play.
There would have been MORE skins. Because in the time it took fitting the HoT skins to 4 more races they could instead have made MORE.
No there wouldn’t. There wouldn’t be any armor skins at all. At least not of any relevance.
Objectively there would be more. Subjectively they wouldn’t be of relevance to you – which I don’t really care about.
My statement is true – yours is false and you’re using your subjectivity as a crutch to your argument. It’s a bit funny and a bit sad.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Yes – but there are 5 races. Obviously there are going to be more of the other 4 combined than any one of the races.
But the fact that there are more humans than any other races and the fact that the second closest is norn – which are literally bigger humans does say something too.In fact you are purposing to lose majority of game population only because you think that it will somehow increase amount of armor sets made. Ugh.
Reading comprehension?
I am not proposing anything be done to the existing races – the 5 races are there – they’re not going away nor am I proposing that.
I am proposing we don’t get MORE races that will only make everything EVEN HARDER for Anet.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The action item is this: Anet should be aware they did a poor job – should be aware WHY they did a poor job and should not do it in the future ( possibility of adding more races) because they’ll probably only make it worse.
Seriously, if anyone was unsure whether the OP was a useless waste of space or not, this should remove all uncertainty.
You’re amazing – just because someone has a different view and opinion suddenly that person is a “useless waste of space”.
Good job friend.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The action item is this: Anet should be aware they did a poor job – should be aware WHY they did a poor job and should not do it in the future ( possibility of adding more races) because they’ll probably only make it worse.
And with this statement, I now am convinced this is a troll thread. Tah-tah.
~EW
I am not trolling – I honestly believe they’re not going to be able to pull it off. Just like they promised LS every two weeks and were unable to keep up the pace.
Just like they promised a full set of new legendary weapons and were unable to deliver.
I just don’t want them to dig themselves deeper. They should realize they can only do so much and then accept that fact – and ultimately deliver content reliably and of high quality instead of trying to do everything at once.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Also – they could use armor concept from GW1 – if only they would – it would sell really well too.
They have already. They brought out one of the GW1 monk armour sets and there is one of the heavy armour sets as well, I forget the name.
Personally I would like to see more of that too.
They did the monk thing for outfits. And out of all the armor from GW1 we’ve only seen a very very tiny part be brought back.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The lore could have been just as rich regardless of what races we could or could not play. This is not an argument.
It is so. Nyeh.
Also, arguing against something that has already happened and cannot be reversed seems like something that’s actually “not an argument”.
Seriously, what’s the action item you’re proposing with this hypothetical?GW1:EOTN had rich asura, norn and charr lore without the PC being either of those races. Parts of the story were specifically fixed on these races and there was a very lore-rich narrative there.
In a way I feel it was much more interesting to experience these races as the odd one looking in. They felt somehow unique and more interesting back in GW1 particularly because you couldn’t be a part of them. Being able to make a character of that race feels kinda odd to me.But the PC is still an outsider. The lore can build, yes, but it’s deeper by having the character experience it directly.
A human-only choice of playable races doesn’t mean the other races don’t exist lore-wise – that they can’t have stories or meaningful impact. It just means they would have an easier time as developers making skins.
And yes – having fewer races to put armor on means that you could make MORE armor but also better quality armor. We’re not getting either at this time.
Quality armor starts in the design phase. The concept phase. Considering the number of questionable items that have actually been released, I’d say the concept phase is experiencing some failures. No amount of manhours invested on the execution on bad concepts is going to produce results. Three quality armors that I will actually use means much more than twelve lip-curling, shoulder-cringing armors that are more easily produced. Those twelve armors take the same time and effort as the three really-awesome ones.
The action item is this: Anet should be aware they did a poor job – should be aware WHY they did a poor job and should not do it in the future ( possibility of adding more races) because they’ll probably only make it worse.
Also – they could use armor concept from GW1 – if only they would – it would sell really well too.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Something that is shown in the data – There are more non-human characters than human. And I strongly suspect that the Charr and Asura numbers are largely so low because of the developmental neglect they’ve suffered.
Yes – but there are 5 races. Obviously there are going to be more of the other 4 combined than any one of the races.
But the fact that there are more humans than any other races and the fact that the second closest is norn – which are literally bigger humans does say something too.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Watching WP’s recent video about new races really made me crystallize some thoughts that I’ve had for a long time.
Watch it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oVADcOSTeY
The game is struggling with the production of cosmetic items and one of the main reasons is the fact that it has too many races.
The main culprits here are the Charr – but every race’s particularities have some part in slowing down the process of creating new armor.
This is a problem because armor and cosmetics are the primary driving force that keeps people going in GW2. It’s not gear grild – it’s skin grind – and we’ve got very very little skins.The game released with a good abundance of skins – but ever since we’ve had too little come into the game either through the gem store or other means.
That aside I also feel the story could have been much more interesting, focused and well written if they didn’t have to write a neutral 5-race story and by doing so distanced themselves quite a lot from the franchise’s original lore and setting.
I don’t hate the non-human races – In fact they could have had just as much story and lore expanding their stories in the game but the only playable race should have been limited to humans – for practical reasons.
Humans are already the most popular race in-game and were so even close after launch.I’m actually curious how others feel. Do you like the fact that we have 4 other races even if it means we get armor very very very rarely? Do you think it was worth it?
This thread is pretty pointless honestly.
If you want more gear then ask them to hire more staff, or restructure, to work on gear.
This thread is here because I want to discuss these issues. I also want to point out that I feel more races would be a mistake.
And before people go crazy – yes I would like more races in my game but I’m also grounded in reality enough to notice Anet is already struggling and would only dig themselves even deeper into kitten they can’t get out of.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Basically I’m just getting a lot of “I like X race” but do you think that it’s worth it in the long run? Look at how pitifully few armor skins HoT came with?
and how many less skins would there have been if there was only one race?
I only played GW2 because of multiple playable races otherwise there are tons of other completely the same MMOs to play.
There would have been MORE skins. Because in the time it took fitting the HoT skins to 4 more races they could instead have made MORE.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Of course all data is not accurate, can’t be, could only be if they release another new article like that, but they give us trends, and if all the sources say more or less the same as the only (old) official source:
No they don’t give us trends. You really don’t seem to get how this works. If you have a sample size that is big enough to be relevant, like the reddit one, then if you make multiple measurements the same way over time with the same group of people, then you can see trends.
Getting some random things together from 3 different sources that are questionable at best only make you feel better because it fits your belief and so I wouldn’t call that data.
And it still doesn’t even go into time played element because even if you made a variety of characters of different races, people generally do not give all their characters equal play time. So what if I made a charr and leveled it to 80 but then rarely play it anymore because I prefer my asura or human? This is why I am not so much interested in the amount of characters made of each race but how much time they are actually being played. It’s where people spend their time that matters in my view because apparently that’s what they enjoy the most for whichever reason. The reason why would be the next thing to investigate.
But really, just leave the anecdotal statistics alone. It only detracts from the conversation.
We have a game that has multiple races in it that can be played. That is a fact and it will not change because someone doesn’t like it. This does have consequences of course for the resource allotment in the development area. Whether or not this is warranted or worth it, we cannot know. For that we need actual data that shows what people are actually doing in game.
We probably won’t get actual data so we can only hypothesize. I see the following possible hypotheses:
1) In hindsight it was a bad idea and now it’s a millstone that’s dragging Anet down in development.
2) It was clearly a good idea that warrants the investment but it does put a burden on development.
3) It sort of hangs in the middle and it’s not a decisively positive item which makes it a necessity to keep putting resources into it but not with the desired return.I think that only in option 2, it can be seen as a successful idea. In option 3, it could serve a greater good, which then makes it a positive or it could be something that makes Anet wish they hadn’t gone for it because it’s a lot of trouble for very little return.
As I don’t expect Anet to share their metrics, I also don’t expect that this discussion will bring forth anything that could make any of the 3 options more plausible than the others.
I do hope it was successful because I like games that give as many options as possible, but if the reality is different, then it’s a shame because it’s a lot of resources that could’ve been spent on other things instead.
The OP is of course worried about the last part. All I can say is I don’t know, but if it is the case then I agree. I just don’t know if it’s the case and I don’t believe anyone here can prove it either way.
You want the real, hard data? Here’s my suggestion – go in-game – do stuff in the open world and count what race each person is.
I’ve done this a few times over the past months. I’ve also done it in groups. Humans are by far the most common thing you’ll see.
As for what’s going to happen – nothing will – the 5 races are set in stone at the moment – I just hope they don’t make the mistake of adding more and straining their already thing resource management even further.
They have a history of overreaching and instead of delivering some limited stuff of great quality trying to deliver too much stuff and end up having to cut corners on quality.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
This game definitly needs more butt capes for the super original human female meta.
The super original human female meta is there because that’s what most people like.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
That picture
http://i.imgur.com/S5G0i6j.png
is from that page
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3dcvf0/here_are_the_classesraces_that_people_actually/I gave both links, so others do not need to read through all the text on that page.
Of course all data is not accurate, can’t be, could only be if they release another new article like that,
but they give us trends, and if all the sources say more or less the same as the only (old) official source:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-state-of-the-guild-wars-2-economy/then it is safe to assume, that humans were and are still the most played race.
Fact>Assumption/Educated Guess>Guess
__________________________________________________The existence of 5 races instead of one is the main reason we don’t get more armor more often.
That is simply not true, the problem in the race/armor equation is that they try to fit every armor on every race and gender, if they would only make “cultural” armors it would reduce the time for each set immensely.
Also, what Leo G said.
My point is this. If you only had humans as a race that would be the situation in which you would have the fastest possible output of new armor skins. Anything on top of that – more races – means less armor overall.
If all players played humans then making ONE set meant you’ve covered 100% of the player base.
Your “all sets cultural solution” is only a half-fix – because if you make one norn set for example you only cover the norn part of the player base.
So in order to bring sets to ALL the players you must make 5 “cultural” sets. Instead of one.
Get my point?
Even if it takes much less time to make ONE cultural set – having 5 races means the last race to get a set has to wait 5 times while other races get sets. You’re changing the situation from: Everyone waits X time – to some people wait X time and others wait less.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Fun fact: add up the stuff- human stuff is by far the most popular.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
The game is struggling with the production of cosmetic items and one of the main reasons is the fact that it has too many races.
It’s simply not true that the game is struggling with the production of cosmetic items. ANet might not be producing as many armor sets or backpieces as people are insisting on, but they keep producing them nonetheless. And certainly, among the reasons that this game produces less are the number of dissimilar races.
Other reasons include consistently high-quality skins (I think most of them are UGLY, but there are often great details), the amazing animation (one of the new BL weapon skins has a little surrender hankie, which i hate, but the animation is fantastic), and a huge assortment of dyes for the 2-4 dye channels.
Perhaps the only reasonable comparison we can make is how many BL weapon skin sets compared to how many other weapon skins: the weapons aren’t dyeable (so use fewer resources to produce) and don’t change much for tall/short toons (mostly just scale) and we have a total of three dozen BL skin sets, or about three per quarter (4 months). The HoT released 3 new legendaries (&1 after), auric, chak, machined, specialization, reclaimed, and updated skins for some old legendary precursors.
tl;dr there are lots of reasons we don’t get as many new skins as we’d like; the existence of charr & asura playable characters is just one of those reasons.
First of all I’m talking about armor skins here – not weapon skins.
Second of all they’re not really producing them at a “good” pace at all.
Compare how many armor sets the core game shipped with against how many armor sets have been added since in an almost 4 year period and you’ll see what I mean.
The existence of 5 races instead of one is the main reason we don’t get more armor more often.
I wish a dev would comment on this.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I highly doubt having multiple races actually causes issues with armor design. The reality is the majority of armor is designed on a human model and then shoehorned on to the others. It’s only really a problem on Charr, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they use a script to snap human armor onto a Charr and then possibly try and fix some clipping… Given how most of the armor looks like butt on a Charr, I highly doubt they actually build and model each armor by gender and race separately. There are a few exceptions where Charr get some special features like the tail dragon or fiery tail, but not enough where I’d consider it a real possibility. I think most people simply state that to make excuses for Anet dragging their feet on armor. If they want to weigh in and tell me I’m wrong than I’m all ears and I’d like to know why Charr tails clip so badly.
You don’t really get how armor is made do you? There isn’t a “Script” that transfers human armor on charr.
And yes – the 5 races means it takes significantly longer to make each piece of armor.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”