Personally, never-ending stat progression has completely killed my enjoyment of WvW. I simply cannot enjoy a competitive game mode where you are forced to grind for new gear every time something new comes out in order to remain competitive at the highest level. I can only hope they would implement a version of WvW where the sPvP stats and gear is used so I can start enjoying this great game mode again.
But this post is about an entirely different issue: I honestly can’t phantom how ANet can possibly maintain proper balance between different classes when max stats is a moving target.
Is balance on a smaller-scale class-by-class basis just not a priority for WvW?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-The-Stat-Cap-Is-So-Important/first
This thread sums up my view on vertical progression pretty well.
This is the most important one for me: “… those who want an MMOG where competition between players is not permanently skewed by never-ending gear score differentials”. I just wish they would at least remove never ending progression for WvW, maybe by implementing a version of it that utilizes the sPvP scaling and gear system.
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Regarding the comments about waypoint system being a gold sink and that eliminating it is a bad idea: I completely agree.
However, please note that the changes I have suggested don’t really modify the prices in any tangible way. Many players already save money off Waypoint costs using the Mists->LA->Closest City trick, so making it free in the first place should have very little effect on the effectiveness of Waypoint costs as a gold sink.
All it does accomplish is remove the multiple loading screens that players have to deal with to make use of this trick, and maybe more importantly, allow all players, regardless of whether or not they are even aware of these tricks, to pay the same price for Waypoint travel.
The purpose of gold sinks in virtual economies is to reduce inflation. The reason that inflation needs to be controlled is so that new players won’t have to pay an unreasonable amount of gold to buy anything they off the trading post. Waypoint costs in the current state skews effective wealth in favor of experienced players because they are more likely to employ these cost-saving tricks than a player new to the game, which is the opposite effect of what a gold sink is meant to accomplish.
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I forgot to mention that Leap finishers don’t break stealth immediately in the same way that blast finishers do when they land on an enemy.
So I’m almost certain this is a bug.
It’s an I-win button against melee classes as Pistol/dagger-thief. Just spam it till they are dead. Pretty lame but unbeatable for non-thieves.
Using shadow strike 15-25 times to kill someone, its damage is super low, doesn’t sound like a very effective I win button to me.
Kaon, what was the nerf to the ability, how was it before?
The shadow step used to occur whether or not you landed the dagger strike. Which gave it immense utility as a gap opener (and closer when combined with about face button) and escape mechanism when spammed.
Not death blossom but in that fractal with the jumping platforms, I used heartseeker 1 too many times on a dying harpy and leaped to my death. =/
How about granting stealth on steal when health is below 25%?
The stealth will be instant like before, but on-demand instead of triggered automatically.
Pretty much the only times I use it is to quickly step out of AoE or to open some distance when immobilized. Its usefulness has been severely reduced since the nerf, but it was necessary as it was definitely a bit overpowered before that. Body shot is still in a much worse state though. I literally never use it outside of the occasional misclick.
On a side note, can anyone confirm if it can be used to escape Guardian’s Ring of Warding? I can’t seem to recall.
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I always walk to places I want to go in GW2 (outside of a fast port here and there to fight a dragon), saves me a bunch of gold and lets me see things I’d not always see. Interesting little events, NPC conversations, random other players doing stuff, etc. It just makes the game more fun and interesting. Half the fun of going somewhere is getting there, using the WP system robs you of that.
You enjoy the journey, I enjoy the destination. Two different ways to play the same game. Reducing the waypoint costs wouldn’t impact the way you choose to play in the slightest.
It makes it so less people run places and hollows out the world more. MMOs are about meeting wandering strangers on a dirt path, not instantly teleporting to a chest to get loot.
My suggestions do nothing to encourage short distance teleports like you mentioned. Prices for same zone Waypoints would likely remain the same as they are now, unless there is a major city nearby.
It facilitates teleporting to distant places to meet up with people for events/dungeons/exploration where walking is simply not plausible given you have a group waiting for you.
In this case you can either choose to wait 3 loading screens or pay 2-3 silver more for direct teleportation, and I’m arguing that this choice shouldn’t exist if players’ time is actually valued as they claim.
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This really should be tweaked so that it does damage first, and then apply stealth.
Right now it seems to be the other way around. So if you have a smoke field and a mob standing in it, using a blast finisher simply won’t do anything at all because the damage breaks stealth.
Any thoughts?
I’m ok with endless waves, but they really shouldn’t be camping the Waypoint…
The Waypoint cost scheme as it is right now discourages exploration and pushes players toward time-wasting workarounds (such as going to mists -> LA -> closest nearby city -> goal) in order save Waypoint costs.
I’m proposing the following changes to the current system:
1. Eliminate fees for all Waypoints in all major cities
Because they are essentially free within the current system by going to Mists -> LA -> Asura Gate. If ANet really does value the player’s time, why make them sit through so many loading screens?
2. Calculate Waypoint fee using the minimum of the following two distances: distance to player and distance to nearest Waypoint in a major city
Also because this is essentially what it could cost within the current system, only that players have to deal with multiple loading screens in the process.
These changes should make Waypoint costs across Tyria more reasonable to all players in most situations.
Any thoughts?
I can’t possibly be the only person using more than 1 monitor…
I’ve been rolling a condition thief in tourneys for a while now.
The biggest problem with thief for condition builds in my opinion is the complete absence of Burning across all of its weapon skills, utilities and traits, which is why I’ve been rolling a full set of Balthazar runes. Works pretty nicely with Withdraw once you get used to positioning and aiming your rolls to end at the enemy. =)
I really don’t want to see this thread die out so I’ll post my 2c also.
Yes there is vertical progression in most games, GW2 and 1 included. But whether or not the vertical progression has a defined end is one of the defining factors for my enjoyment of a game with a competitive aspect (WvW). I want to reach that final plateau in stats, however long it may take, and know for sure that I will be on an even playing field with every enemy that I might face. Taking that plateau higher every few months makes that impossible without mandatory grind with each update, however shallow the power curve.
WvW is basically dead to me now. At least there is still sPvP.
Vertical progression without stat progression? You do know that Infusions have stats too right? And when they mean Infusion will be the new vertical progression, they mean that newer Infusions introduced will have higher rarities, Agony resistance, AND stats.
So instead of a gear treadmill, we’ll have an infusion treadmill. I’m still hoping they would come around on this but it doesn’t look like it will be happening judging from the responses in the AMA
I see it as a matter of morality and sustainability.
I don’t understand the “morality” argument at all… The drop rate for good items from BLCs is well known (read as: it’s basically a lottery ticket), and they’re in NO WAY mandatory for anyone to play and experience all the game content, and people are obviously still buying them, so… (((scratches head))). Of course, I’ve only bought maybe half a dozen scratch-off lottery tickets in my entire life, and don’t understand why people do THAT either, so…
The thing that really REALLY gets me is why ANYONE would spend that much money on ANY sort of in-game item. Even if a BLC had a chance to drop a magic flying unicorn/pegasus that ran on rainbows and crapped gold, which gave a blanket +100% increase in all weapons and skill bonuses, I wouldn’t drop $300, $400, or more on trying to get one. Hell, even if the drop rate was 100% for that much money I wouldn’t buy one, let alone the marginal quality-of-life improvements offered (on-demand banker? really?).
Morality of business practices on ANet’s part is what I meant. You seem to be looking at it from the other side. Please read over my post again with this in mind.
It’s not always just about the in-game advantage. I want to support ANet’s development of the game with my money and get a bit of extra convenience in-game that in no way affects other players’ enjoyment of the game. Is it too much to ask for if I would like to get a fair chance at getting the convenience item that I want out of the process instead of a lottery that too often results in complete junk?
I see it as a matter of morality and sustainability.
Yes, they are raking in a lot of money from people spending on keys right now, but at the current state, spending money on keys will likely get you nothing desirable and too much of everything else when storage space is at a premium. A business that is purely interested in profits will have no problem with charging a player as much money as possible and giving nothing in return, and will likely only start making changes once players smarten up and stop spending money.
I’d like to think that ANet has the decency to act differently and proactively provide a better product to the players before they are forced to do so from reduced sales, but I’m beginning to think their hands are likely tied when it comes to the BLC issue by higher-up NCSoft execs.
For the record, I have no problem with spending money to support development for games that I love. I’ve frequently contributed hundreds of dollars to kickstarters and have regularly spent hundreds of dollars on cash shop items for games that offer worthwhile products, but I’ve had to find out the hard way that Black Lion Keys are not worthwhile products.
I made a post about this a while ago… in summary, I have opened more than 1000 chests with hard earned gold and about $100 of cash from the last sale, and only have 2 identical account bound endless tonics and an inventory full of useless crap to show for it. I was trying to get a perma trader npc fyi, but I’m going to move on now. Having dumped enough gold into keys to make a legendary for all my characters, I’m starting to think that I’m as much of an idiot as ANet must think for having dumped all that money, real and ingame, on this scam.
Here’s the thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/After-opening-2-stacks-of-BLCs-some-constructive-feedback/
I have not seen devs respond to any black lion chest related topics so far, so things are probably going to stay this way for the forseeable future.
Is there a way to do this natively in GW2?
I’m running a main monitor and a smaller extended one to the left side and often end up clicking outside of the main monitor, minimizing GW2 during important fights, and usually ending up in getting myself killed…
If not, consider this a feature request.
In the mean time, how are other multi-monitor users dealing with this issue?
Portal completely ignores one of ANet’s design pillars for skills: All other skills in the game, without exception, affect a maximum of 5 players.
Without exception, huh? All skills huh? Veil, Temporal Curtain, Line and Ring of Warding would like to have a word with you. Its a utility effect, not a condition, not a boon, not damage, not healing. Reflection can reflect the projectiles of far more than 5 people, because its a utility effect. Quit making up game design pillars that aren’t there.
I stand corrected. But if those skills you mentioned do affect an unlimited number of players, then they need to be rebalanced, along with portal.
You also bring up reflection, which is another good example of something that scales out of control as a result of ignoring the 5 player limit. This should be changed to something that blocks all projectiles but only reflects back to a maximum of 5 different sources. The classification that “it’s an utility effect” shouldn’t exempt this or Portal from balance considerations.
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Portal completely ignores one of ANet’s design pillars for skills: All other skills in the game, without exception, affect a maximum of 5 players.
This is a hard limit ANet set to prevent multi-target damage/buffs scaling out of control with large groups. Think of thieves using shadow refuge to stealth an entire zerg for 15s, Guardians giving 100% heals to literally every ally within range, or Rangers immobilizing and applying massive bleeds to every single enemy around him. Sounds bad? That’s the state that Portal is in right now.
Portal is the only exception to this rule, and as a result DOES scale out of control. This is so ridiculously obvious that I’m not sure for what reasons ANet could not see it, blind love would be my guess.
Portal wouldn’t be all that imbalanced if AoE damage had no limit on player count either, as everybody who comes out of the portal would get hit at the same time with every AoE. But right now 100 people could come out of the portal whereas your AoE could only hit 5 of them. This is practically the very definition of broken.
ANet, please realize already that Portal is breaking not only our game experience (compounded by culling issue), but your own design principles as well. And it could all be fixed simply by limiting the max number of portal uses to 5.
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I’ve only spent $50 on keys in total when they announced the perma-trader as a drop, the rest of them I opened with gold. See my thread for the results: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/After-opening-2-stacks-of-BLCs-some-constructive-feedback/
To answer your question, with over 600 BLC’s opened, practically nothing except for 2 (!) account bound mystery tonics…
An update:
I just dumped another 80g on keys today, and opened over 100 chests. As you can imagine, by now I have VERY low expectations when I open these chests (I still do it since it’s the only way to “progress” toward getting my perma-trader, and there is very little else in the game I’m compelled to work towards at the moment). These low expectations mean I don’t get disappointed as much when things don’t turn out as I’d like them to when dumping huge sums of gold into keys. This is great since I have never once gotten the result I had hoped for (perma-trader), or anything even remotely close (perma-merchant, banker) with the exception of the everlasting tree tonic I got a few weeks ago, which was, thanks to my low expectations, a very pleasant surprise for me.
The results of today’s chest opening session, however, made me realize that my expectations just weren’t low enough. 100+ BLC’s plus the mad king chests made from the resulting mystery tonics and boosters got me 3 shoulder skins in total. If those were all I got, this session would be business as usual, and I’d have been able to shrug it off like the past half dozen similar sessions. Instead, this is what I got in addition to my 3 shoulder skins: http://imgur.com/CYEvy
That’s right. A second Endless Mystery Tonic. The exact same one that turns me into trees. They managed to ruin the only bright spot in my pitch-black chest opening career… Having a second one of these is literally more useless than even the countless black lion salvage kits and harvesting tools that I’ve complained about in my opening post, because it’s not even consumable, let alone tradable. I would hope that eventually they might allow me to trade in this for something of similar rarity, but judging from ANet’s complete lack of response on any BLC related thread since the Mad King Chest announcement, I seriously doubt this would happen anytime soon.
It would really have taken a lot to make me give up on getting my trader, but this has done it. I’ve spent enough gold on BLCs to have been able to build any legendary I wanted in the game, and only have 2 (!) account bound mystery tonics to show for it. Until ANet at least shows some interest in improving the situation, BLC’s no longer exist as far as I’m concerned.
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Now that you’ve already brought everybody’s attention to it… I have about 3 stacks of them bought at around 10s sitting in my bank in preparation for winter events.
Best of luck to both of us. =)
I think town clothes should simply be “unlocked” similar to the dye system, instead of being actual pieces of equipment that take up inventory space. And account bound instead of soulbound, of course.
Just curious, is everyone here using some form of USB-based soundcard?
I’m using a FiiO E17 USB DAC, and I see that DavidGX above, as well as a few others in the previous page, are all using USB headsets. This might just be a coincidence but if enough people are in the same boat then it might be worth looking into.
I’m also using 24 bit 96 kHz as the default audio format in Windows advanced audio settings.
I remember trying changing audio quality settings and still getting the issue which is why I have it changed back to Highest. I’ll try using defaults again and report back if I no longer get the issue.
Definitely a good idea if all you want is to make BLC’s more attractive. However, ANet would effectively be forced to remove a lot of the Black Lion chest drops (boosters, * access express, repair canisters, etc) from the Gem Store because due to the sheer volume of BLC’s out there, the equilibrium prices of these items would be much much lower than their gold equivalent price on the Gem store right now.
Gem store prices are really random and nowhere near what many of those items are actually worth. Granted, I don’t have their numbers to look at, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that the money they’re making off of forge stones, black lion kits, XP and karma boosters absolutely dwarfs the money they make off of everything else. It’s not like the prices on these things are anywhere near their revenue maximizing points.
The question they’d have to ask is whether the several million they’d make off of black lion chest at equilibrium (and I’m not exaggerating on that price) is worth the revenue they make off of selling res orbs and black lion sickles.
Or whether they’d be smart and use the market signals from this to adjust their prices – they’d make tons of money selling instant repair canisters at 15-20 gems a pop, for example, but I can’t imagine they are hot items at 70.
Yeah, without the actual sales data none of us can be sure of what the situation is with tool sales in the Gem Store. They will probably adjust prices to gauge demand at different prices over time to find a revenue maximizing price point, but I’m sure you can see the importance of maintaining a monopoly over the distribution of these items rather than leaving pricing up to the free market, where they have the risk of being valued as practically worthless, and where much of the revenues don’t go to them but to the sellers.
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What’s fascinating to me is that black lion chests would easily – easily! – be worth cracking if I could sell everything that came out of them on the trading post. The fact that everything is soulbound and account bound is the major limiter on their value, since there are so many dead drops as a result.
Given the number of excess black lion chests out there, that would mean that allowing players to trade their BLC drops is quite literally a million dollar idea.
Definitely a good idea if all you want is to make BLC’s more attractive. However, ANet would effectively be forced to remove a lot of the Black Lion chest drops (boosters, * access express, repair canisters, etc) from the Gem Store because due to the sheer volume of BLC’s out there, the equilibrium prices of these items would be much much lower than their gold equivalent price on the Gem store right now.
From a business perspective I can see why they would want to avoid that situation, as boosters and other tools probably account for quite a bit of their Gem Store revenue.
How much do you think they may gain in key sales? I personally will never buy a key for cash/gold/gems/RL$ after hearing about the ridiculous drop rates.
Do you mean gain in key sales from making BLC rewards tradable? If so, my guess is that it probably won’t be enough to offset the loss in sales for everything else.
If you mean from the token system I suggested in the OP, I do believe this will increase their key revenue significantly, without cannibalizing sales for any other item in the Gem Store. A lot of people, like you and me, would be willing to buy keys for gold, or even cash if the price is reasonable, but are discouraged from doing so because of the all or nothing nature (mostly nothing) of the current BLC system, as well as the horrendous drop rates.
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What’s fascinating to me is that black lion chests would easily – easily! – be worth cracking if I could sell everything that came out of them on the trading post. The fact that everything is soulbound and account bound is the major limiter on their value, since there are so many dead drops as a result.
Given the number of excess black lion chests out there, that would mean that allowing players to trade their BLC drops is quite literally a million dollar idea.
Definitely a good idea if all you want is to make BLC’s more attractive. However, ANet would effectively be forced to remove a lot of the Black Lion chest drops (boosters, * access express, repair canisters, etc) from the Gem Store because due to the sheer volume of BLC’s out there, the equilibrium prices of these items would be much much lower than their gold equivalent price on the Gem store right now.
From a business perspective I can see why they would want to avoid that situation, as boosters and other tools probably account for quite a bit of their Gem Store revenue.
I’ve had this problem for quite a long time and it’s one of the most serious issues plaguing the trading post right now. Productivity grinds to a halt when you’re selling more than a few thousand pieces of a commodity because of this issue. I’m really surprised that the devs are apparently not aware of this issue yet?
100% reproducible from the steps below:
1. Have 2000 of any single item in your inventory (8 full stacks).
2. Go to the Sell tab of trading post
3. Choose the item you have 2000 of and list it for selling at a price
4. Sell the rest of them using the add to lowest listing function, clicking the sell button as fast as you can
Actual Results:
4. Depending on how quickly you listed the items, at the 6 or 7th stack (500 or 250 left), you will encounter the error.
This seems to be the effect of some sort of flood control algorithm, as you will be able to post new orders if you wait a while. If this behavior is intentional, there really should be a more informative error message than what we have right now. Having such a flood control system for selling but not buying just doesn’t make sense to me though, so I’d wager this is a bug.
2. Receiving non-stackable/soulbound tools from BLCs
This is one of the most annoying non-droprate related issues with BLC’s for me personally. ANet wants to give players incentive to open Black Lion Chests, yet there is a completely unreasonable inventory space cost to the player for opening them. Black Lion Salvage kits and Black Lion harvesting tools, are some of the most common tools received from opening BLC’s. Every time I get one of them, I let out a small sigh… Because every time this happens I have to say goodbye to a valuable inventory/bank slot, which is one of the most costly assets in the game. Once you get past a certain point in number of chests opened, the only valid option left is to discard them, which I really shouldn’t have to do with something that I spent Gems on.
Setting aside the usefulness of these items for a moment, consider the regular harvesting tools: The sickle comes in stacks of 50, and axes/picks in stacks of 100. When you take into account the cost of inventory space, the 10/stack BL sickle and 25/stack Axe/Pick becomes by far the inferior good. Black Lion Salvage kits are in a similar situation due to the existence of Mystic Salvage kits that stack up to 250.
To add insult to injury, Black Lion Harvesting tools are SOULBOUND. This compounds with the stacking issue mentioned above, which means if you opened the chests on a single character, those 50 other stacks of tools are only usable on that specific character. So now you have 50 dead inventory slots, which is about 30g worth of space. If you have other characters you use for harvesting high-end materials, tough luck, they won’t be able to even HOLD the tools to save inventory/bank space, let alone use them.
Opening BLCs costs Gems, so it really should not give us an inferior tool that is more costly to store and use than available elsewhere, that is if ANet wants players to bother spending gems doing so. Making all of these items stack to up to 250 each would greatly improve the user-friendliness of BLC’s and thereby their desirability.
Black Lion Chests are a serious point of contention right now. And the issues I discussed above I feel are at the core of the problem. Address them, and many people, including myself, will be happy to spend money on Gems again.
Congratulations on making it to the end of my epic post. =)
Thank you for taking the time to hear what I have to say.
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I’ve been spending about 30-40g on gems every week for more than a month now and just dumped another 100g into gems today. All of it I spent on keys to open BLC’s in hopes of getting the permanent version of the Black Lion Trader, which I happen to want more than any vanity item in this game.
The results have been discouraging so far to say the least. I have not yet gotten a perma-trader, merchant, banker or anything of the sort. The only non-common items I’ve gotten so far are a few Halloween skins (only 2 of which are weapon skins, and that’s after converting everything into Mad King chests) and an everlasting tonic that transforms me into a random tree, which is a lot of fun, but not exactly what I dumped hundreds of gold trying to get.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t upset, but I’m not here to vent out my frustration. Having opened over 500 chests, I’ve noticed a number of serious issues with the BLC mechanic in practice, and would like to discuss some of them here:
1. Rare items need a cap on effective Gem price
Before I went into this BLC opening business, I knew the terms, that this was all based on chance, and that I could very possibly not get what I want. I decided to take that risk and in fact did not get what I wanted. This, I can accept.
What bothers me is just how very little I DID get from it, and the spine-chilling thought that the results would have been the same if I used real money instead of gold to buy these keys.
Let’s do a little bit of math here: 500 chests requires about 500 keys to open. There is a chance of getting a key from a chest, so let’s peg that chance at a generous 20%. This means I used about 400 keys to open all of these chests. 5 keys cost 450 gems, so 400 would cost 80 times that amount, which is 36000. 4000 gems cost $50 of cold, hard cash, so 36000 would cost $450.
I hope you can see the problem now. The fact that Gems have a real world price associated with it means that there really does need to be a reasonable cap on the amount Gems you are expected to spend to get something you want. “Better luck next time” really doesn’t cut it from a MORAL perspective when the player has paid $400 and received nothing but boosters, tonics, and inferior tools (I’ll get to this in a bit).
I can’t help but feeling that the current drop rates of rare items from BLCs are simply not fair when put into perspective the “average” amount of real world money players need to spend on keys to be able to get one. Many players probably share this perception, and as long as this perception continues, players will be discouraged to spend money on gems, which is both bad for business on ANet’s side, and bad for players due to the inflating Gold to Gem prices.
By rare item, I mean any time-limited skin or anything permanent, because let’s be honest, those are the only real desirable items from BLC’s. Other games with successful models of key purchasing have desirable items with EVERY key purchase, as in the case of TF2 with unique weapons and hats.
However, this problem takes more than just increasing drop rates to solve. As long as the rare drops are RNG based, there will exist people with bad luck like myself who end up spending hundreds of dollars in real money with practically nothing to show for it.
To put an effective cap on the price of these rare drops, we can introduce a new guaranteed drop in the BLC, let’s call it the Black Lion token for now (we could also just use the Mystery Tonic). Each BLC would drop 1-5 of these tokens, and once you have accumulated enough tokens, you can exchange for the exact item you want from an NPC, where all the rare drops are available for exchange.
This system would retain the luck element (some at ANet would call it “fun”) of the original system, in that there is still a chance to get a rare item from the chests themselves, but ensure players are adequately rewarded for each BLC they open, and progress toward getting the exact item that they want instead of opening chests aimlessly hoping to hit the jackpot, which, as anyone who has opened more than a few hundred BLCs can attest to, is an extremely demoralizing process, and does very little to encourage Key purchasing.
*Apparently there is a 5000 character limit. Continued on next post…
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As title says, I’ve been playing a thief with 4 pieces of Superior Rune of Vampirism and it works fine in the Mists and in the first match I play. But after that, the Leeching icon just doesn’t appear after using my healing skill (I’m using Withdraw at the moment) and no HP is leeched at all from the first attack according to the combat logs.
Also, the behavior for the “next attack leeches life” effect itself seems a bit buggy.
For instance, when I use AoE skills such as cluster bomb and infiltrator’s arrow (which doesn’t even hit anything), the effect disappears but no life is leeched. I understand why you wouldn’t want the leech to proc on multiple targets for balance reasons, but shouldn’t the effect stay active until you use a single target skill in that case?
The leeching also doesn’t proc on Infiltrator’s Strike, which is a single target skill. This I found a bit strange. Probably something to do with the fact that it leaves an AoE marker on the ground where you can shadow return to. It really should count as a single target skill for this purpose though.
I really want to use Vampirism Runes in my build. But in it’s current state it’s way too quirky to consider.