Guild Wars 2

And the trait change was supposed to make it easier for people.

ROFLMFAO

Lethalvriend.1723:

I think posts like these are the reason they didn’t put a roadmap up like last time, people take the list as if it’s set in stone the moment they read about it. They have already implemented alot of requested features etc, it’s just a matter of time. They aren’t as big as Blizzard or something so they have to push certain things further down the list.

Not being as big of a company is no reason to not have a roadmap.
It just means you don’t put as much stuff on it. Leaving customers in the dark is bad business.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Does anyone know whether traits are the same in the China release? If they are, does anyone also know whether a player base that had not seen the old system is reacting?

The answers to these questions may make quite a bit of difference in how ANet reacts to the criticisms in this thread. If the new population is not complaining (or likes the system), and it they want to keep the two versions as close as possible, we may not see substantial change.

I think that some of the complaints arise because we’d gotten used to how traits were. I also think that there are some aspects of the system that are objectively bad — like putting adept trait capping in high level zones.

Isley.1649:

Did the devs even tell us WHY they came up with the unlocking system in the first place?

From the Blog on traits before the feature patch.

“This new system for acquiring traits in the game brings back an aspect of the original Guild Wars that we really liked, which was exploring the world as a major component of character progression. Acquiring traits will be a horizontal progression system which will give us new ways to add new traits to the game and promote interesting content!”

Of course its because we were used to the old system. The old system was good and if it was like this from the beginning I would have quit and never bought the game for my 2 kids. I would have never spent the few hundred dollars in the gem store either. Its a crappy system. It is not a well thought out system like that which was used in GW1. There is almost 0 character progression through leveling now as it is all back loaded. Your best bet is to champ train or EOTM train to level 80 and then run through your personal story to get a few traits and then buy the rest.

It is not what people asked for when asking for “skill” unlocks like in GW1.
It is not well thought out as you can not get the traits for your current level with out help and the traits have no rhyme or reason about how they are placed. In guild wars 1 you would cap an elite skill from an npc that used it which makes sense. In GW2 they are placed behind a barrier because arenanet wants you to do that content, so basically they unlock where they unlock just because.
It does not make it easier for new players as it is confusing and makes them have to turn to 3rd party websites to figure out where to get any new traits with out buying them. And most of all it is not fun. Leveling used to be fun, this change made it tedious and boring with a push towards get to level 80 ASAP mentality so you can get to end game and start gearing up.

I don’t even understand why they would change it in the first place. The trait system was one of the few things that was fine the way it was. When players ask for a “skill” hunt like in GW1 and then you look at the systems in place, one a “skills” system and the other a “traits” system, why the hell would you change the traits system.

I see no redeeming qualities about this change that could not be done better with out the awful changes that were made.

It would be cool if they added a legendary type armor that each piece cost an equal amount of all dungeon tokens. So like a fancy helmet that cost 180 of every type of dungeon token. So you give people something to work for besides gold. It would be cool if world bosses also gave tokens that could get some new skins also.

Like others have said, go ahead and keep putting stuff in the shop just please put something in the game as well.

8 characters
5 level 80 with 100% map completion, War, Guard, Ele, Ranger, and Engie
3 lvl 20-60 I forget the exact levels and % map completion, Thief, Necro, and Mesmer

phys.7689:

SkyEagle.5029:

This is what they are working on.. a game that looks like a 3rd grade cartoon.. http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/
screwing over GuildWars for a crap kitten concept. Don’t keep your franchise going, kill it and go away…. good luck with ‘WildStar’ pos

pretty sure arena net is totally different company than carbine, and the dont share resources, but i could be wrong.

That said, wildstar may be cartoony, but the game design, pretty good i think.

Carbine may not be Arenanet but Ncsoft is Ncsoft. Ncsoft supposedly makes the decisions. Expecting something different is like expecting something different from EA.

SkyEagle.5029:

This is what they are working on.. a game that looks like a 3rd grade cartoon.. http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/
screwing over GuildWars for a crap kitten concept. Don’t keep your franchise going, kill it and go away…. good luck with ‘WildStar’ pos

lol when I first saw wildstar I thought the exact same thing. It looks like kiddie cartoon. Since the same studios are behind it I won’t ever know if its actually decent though as I will not give these guys anymore money unless they turn this game around. Something about full me once comes to mind.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Rollback is a no no, because this feature is already implemented, because it brings some good things, and because the playerbase (that came from GW1) actually asked for this, including myself.

What it needs to be done, is that they need to improve the new system. Improve.

Elite hunting was very fun in GW1, but it had some nuances that were not considered in this game:

• In GW1, you only hunt for elites – normal skills are brought in shops. This new system makes you hunt for every single trait, even the weakest ones. That’s a major difference right here.
• In GW1, elite hunting is very easy to understand and identify: you see a boss with the aura of your profession, then you bring the capture skill, kill him, and see what he has. It’s something that happens naturally, while you play through linear missions or while you vanquish areas, and only occasionally find those bosses optionally (when you decide to explore areas, which certainly makes exploration more rewarding).
• In comparison, trait hunting in GW2 can come from anything and anywhere – you never know what or when until you go to the trait’s page and read where you can get it. It feels random, scattered unnaturally, and for those players that are leveling their characters, it is highly restricting when it shouldn’t.

This system is awesome in theory, but it needs serious improvements.

Adept traits, and some master traits, should be significantly easier to get – thus why I have suggested that the first trait for each adept trait line should be unlocked by default, and why all story instances should unlock an adept trait and, later one, a few master traits. This will make the system a lot more natural and fluid, because what all players will need to do to unlock most of the easy stuff is to simply follow the story.

Then, they need a way for players to easily identify the places where they can unlock the remaining, high tier traits. Just like GW1 had with the boss auras, there needs to exist something, perhaps placed in the map the moment you get vision of the respective area, that there exists a trait to collect.

You missed 1 other difference, the fact that they used traits instead of skills like in gw1. If they had just gone with unlocking skills and left the trait system alone we would be in a much better place.

Everything else about how they should fix it shows how inept they are. I used to have a lot of faith in their abilities but the new trait system was a complete rush job that didn’t even take 5 min to think how it would affect game play negatively. It shows they just don’t care about the player experience. There has been tons of ideas of how to do it better and they have said nothing. The best thing for them to do is roll back to the old system but leave the trait respect button. Then come up with a better way of doing it that does not make people stop creating new characters or chase away new players.

Scientia.8924:

With over 1200+ posts, this thread should be stickied by now

With over 1200+ posts, they should have done a roll back by now

I just thought of something, maybe I have been giving arenanet/ncsoft to much credit and they honestly do not see how bad some of these decisions are. So to help them out here is what they should do to fix this and make money. Roll back the entire trait system change and add just a retrait button and add the new traits directly to the list.

Now make it so that skills are sold at heart/karma vendors. Make them cost karma and skill points at those vendors and make all karma vendors locked until you complete the event just like heart vendors. This way people will have to complete the events and not just find one that isn’t contested, thinking of temple vendors. After you get the completion once, then you can go back to the vendor any time it is not contested. This will annoy some players but I think it is something they can live with. Make it so the skills are in level appropriate areas. You do not put tier 1 skills in level 50 areas. Put the skills in areas and vendors that make sense. Like put racial skills in the proper racial areas,(no getting a char racial skill in an asuran area).

Next you add a vendor in every city that has every skill and it charges gold and skill points. Make the skill point cost exactly like the heart/karma vendors and keep that cost the same as what skills currently cost. For each tier you can make the skills have increasing gold cost with elites costing the most obviously. I would make the healing skills cost the same as tier one skills except for the ones. have those cost the same as the elites.

For any new skills you can attaché them to new events or event heart/karma vendors that do not have any skills attached to them.

EDIT: Forgot to add they should make defend events count as completion the same as attacking so that players can get completion for events that are constantly defended.

Edit: One more thing I forgot is adding vendors in WvW that would have the skill point cost and instead of karma or gold it would cost badges.

radioAspen.6829:

Enzo Kensei.9850:

I don’t know who has this ideias, it may seem good on paper but in the game are horrible.
Now i’m not playing how i want, i’m playing how they want…wich seems contradictory with the manifesto…yes the manifesto…that chapter is buried and long gone, i guess.

No, they sound pretty bad on paper too. That’s what has been so baffling about this whole thing.

Yeah, baffling is the perfect word there. How it made it to live/production and not in the trash makes me think they do want this game to die. Or they are testing how much they can mess with/push the player base before killing a game for marketing/research reasons.

Rauderi.8706:

tl;dr – Trait hunt bad!

They should have never changed traits except for the addition of the retrait button . It should have been a skill hunt like gw1.

I don’t know why people still cry about this. The entire time I played I never once had an issue with not being able to do a dungeon because of not having the proper gear or proper class. Read the LFMs and if they are asking for something that you aren’t then do not try to join that party. How about instead you start your own kitten LFM and leave it open for all. As long as the dungeon is not CT(COE/COF) I had never waiting more than 5 min when posting my own lfm. When I wanted to run a dungeon I had never run before I would put an LFM up that said I was new to it and needed a guide or new and looking for others new and guess what it would fill fast. Ya know why it filled fast? Because the community actually has a bunch of good people that like to help each other out.

EgonVenkman.1907:

As much as it is driving some players from the game, it is also training/conditioning/brainwashing others. They want them to think of this as the norm. As more and more people fall out of the game, those that are left become more and more tolerant of the status quo. This is their Ultimate GoaI believe. Not just raise profits in the short term, but have a player base that expects and demands content for the Gem Store.

There are many here, even in this thread spouting “The game NEEDS this.” Those are the players Anet wants in their game. Not the Gold->Gems people, and certainly not the players wanting more unlocks available In-Game.

I agree, that’s why I even though I no longer play I still read the forums and chime in. Voices of reason need to be spoken so they can get heard or else the BS becomes the status quo.

The thing I don’t get is how they don’t realize that they would probably make more money by making it possible to grind for a drop rather than buy/grind gold. Players want to have fun in the game and more players would be here to buy the crap in the gem store

chronus.1326:

Dafomen.7892:

Stevizard.4926:

Sorry guys, but any customer-centered business must care about what causes customers to quit buying (or playing) their product.

[…]

Sincerely,
Stevizard

+1

When I was working for another MMO running studio, that company was ignorant for insights light these.
They basically didnt care about what anyone said if he wasnt a high paid suit, where most of them hadnt even a clue about the product itself, but had some fancy job titles and nice boards in theirs offices with some monetization statistics on it.

Trying to explain or convince them to listen to what their customers had to say even it wasnt a lawsuit was, despite all the internal and external smoke screen PR (where most of the revenue vanished in to anyway), like talking to a brick wall.
It was really weird because to me it seemed most of them just didnt want to understand whats going on, because they would have to step ‘out of line’.
They preferred to stay in their office ‘doing their job’, watching the ship sink and grabbing on what they can get.
I dont know, but thats the impression I got. And I saw the numbers, every working day.

Well, the best description about what happened next would be….a crash landing with many casualties beginning of course on the “lower end”….poor buggers.

If a company reaches a certain size, loosing touch with the basics is its biggest treat.

Anet seems to have reached that tipping point somewhere in between GW and GW2 with an integrated accelerator it seems.

To be fair, I probably should swap Anet with NCsoft.

Basically the same thing can be read at the Glassdoor page of ArenaNet too, which is what makes me so indifferent.

I’ve never seen a company come out of this. The world is changing. Customers are more self-aware, the smoke screens are becoming smaller and smaller relative to the size of the internet. There isn’t really enough money out there to lie so effectively anymore. For a while, maybe, but its becoming increasingly inefficient. Maybe that’s why a lot of companies just don’t care anymore and just want to grab as much money as they can while they still can. Nobody actually wants to provide a service anymore. It’s too much of a hassle.

I read lately a quote from somewhere, I don’t know what it was. It was that the first company which comes out and starts behaving like a normal person will become incredibly rich and well received.

Customers are growing tired of BS.
They see the BS better, and that sight isn’t going anywhere. And their mouths are not as open yet as they could be, but their wallets are closing sooner.

The first person who realizes that and gambles on honesty becomes incredibly rich.

First dev who comes here and says “You know what? You are right. Here’s what’s going on in the company now:” and lay out everything will be revered by the community and everyone will fight for him. The gamer community would kickstarter fund a guy like that up to buying up the entire company. And that’s probably not even a joke.

Have you seen what gaz did with M. Heros. That game had horrible launch reviews and was destined to die. That game is now better than ever and I would say one of the best ARPGMMOs out. And they did it by actively communicating with the player base and listening. I can’t remember a game that spends as much time communicating and actually giving the players exactly what they want.

I know ARPGS aren’t everyones thing but the way those devs are treating their playerbase and the constant stream of content is 100 times better than what ncsoft/arenanet are giving the gw2 player base.

Blizzard is another company that did huge changes to satisfy its player base. So there are some large and small companies that are actively listening to what players want and it doesn’t take 2 years or more to do it. It does suck that those 2 are ARPGMMOS and not your typical RPGMMO.

For the OP I agree with everything except for the selling of dungeon runs. If you can solo something with out using any exploits then I do not see why any one should have an issue with it. In many games I have found it fun to solo stuff that others find hard. A lot of the time I would try to grab some freeloaders and give them free loot just to help the less fortunate/skilled/whatever. Charging for it seams pretty lame but if people are willing to pay the fee then so be it. I personally wouldn’t pay but that’s my choice and I see absolutely no reason to force others to play the way I play, even if I do find what they are doing is lame. As long as no exploit are being used and I do not find being carried through a dungeon an exploit. Many players get carried every day through dungeons and even though they pretend to be helping, in reality they are just a burden.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Strange that you look at it that way. The way I look at it. Because this is a B2P game we should not get the F2P cash—shop focus but get an expansion every year we have to pay for if we want the content.

That is how I look at it. sadly it tunred into a cash-shop game that has the F2P negatives.

And you look at it like that because you are completely unable to understand how much work and money an expansion would take and thus it would not be possible to survive on expansions alone.

Stop spreading FUD. GW1 did it, so why can’t GW2. Plus they could keep the store just not have to focus every second of development time on it.

skullmount.1758:

papryk.6273:

what’s the next thing to be nerfed? chest from daily?

Too late, they’ve been nerfed already.
(Remember when we use to get loads of karma? Peppridge Farm remembers )

that peppridge farm comment made me giggle

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I have to agree with the loot being subpar. But not because they stopped the QD champ train but because they failed to deliver alternatives to the current farm methods.

I’ll leave the link to a thread I’ve created regarding Eventloot:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Event-loot-nerfed/3820952

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I can’t get behind this decision. I can’t remember one single event which is worth farming because of the loot you get at the end. All in all I think ArenaNet should work on making eventfarming more desireable to compete with dungeonloot.
Reducing the current abysmal poor loot is definitely the wrong way.

Be careful they will probably nerf dungeon loot even more to make the event farming more desirable lol

Wonderly.1324:

Dusty Moon.4382:

People don’t understand that – bling, in this game, is about working for it as it is optional – now you have to work for it if you want it.

I absolutely agree with you, Dusty Moon. People whine because they want legendary items through non-legendary means. facepalm How about, don’t even consider converting money —> gems --> gold. How about, just play the game, and if you’re committed enough, disciplined enough, you get what you worked hard for. And if not, you really don’t deserve it. It’s not just about game devs making money. It’s about the game having value. Items (especially cosmetic ones) have value intrinsically because of it’s scarcity. That principle means not everyone is going to have one. What should determine who should have these precious items and who shouldn’t? Well I would suggest that it should be the people who are willing to put in the time and effort. As for everyone else… My legendary weapon, my fractal weapons, have value to me not just because of the look, but for the simple fact that you don’t have one and you want one.

You aren’t acknowledging the fact that it was easier for people in the past to get what you got. They aren’t asking to be handed anything they are asking for the same rate to get something that you had. How can you say with a straight face that people should just work at it when in the past it was way easier. How about make it so everyone who wasn’t around for it can make 100g a day doing dungeons. How about bring back the pen/shelt farm so the new players can get their t6 mats. This game has changed tons in the last year and for those that made tons of money in the beginning to say just suck it up is pretty lame considering that most of them had it way easier.

Code.8615:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Raf.1078:

sorudo.9054:

….i play an mmo for the game, really don’t care about the loot at all……young players these days….

Same here. If I make enough to keep me in siege wvw, I’m a happy camper. But the loot frenzy in this game…sheesh.

It is in all games – it is the RAID/Entitled attitude that is rearing it’s ugly head.

I’m happy for you guys , you have different priorities than other people and other people have different priorities than you. Wow what a concept, it doesn’t mean your way or their way is right. So please stop the condescending BS. It just makes you look like a stuck up kitten bag.

Funny how you don’t say the same to the people making broad claims about the reasons “we” apparently play.

I don’t remember this thread being about “what part of the game do you enjoy”. Its “Loot =why we play stop the nerf”. And yes it is a broad statement but I do not think it is meant to cover every player. I think it is more meant for we that play for loot. But I can not speak for the OP. I also don’t remember any where in this thread someone being condescending about another players play style until the few that I quoted chimed in.

Also for those of you that don’t play for loot. Would it hurt you if the loot tables were changed to have better the drop rates that many are asking for. I am unsure why you would even bother chiming in if its only to say you feel indifferent to loot. How does chiming in to say “kids these days” or "it is the RAID/Entitled attitude "contribute to the discussion.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

cainejw.7142:

Gold sinks. Why do you think you now have to pay to start an event? Because Anet has no idea how to creatively handle gold in the economy other than “Pay me to access this content!”

It’s because gold is abundant and easily gained if you have a lvl80 and they took out one of their gold sinks? AC 1/3(3.5g) cof 1/2(2.5g) coe 1-3(3.6g) (all assuming you get the 20s and the once per day path chest) will net you easily almost 10g and that’s not even counting drops. Running these paths will take a good group at most an hour and a half or so.

Having a gold sink in the game is fine as long as it serves some kind of purpose.

They already nerfed the gold you could make. That 10g used to be way higher. Try 100g a day doing dungeons. That is what I would call abundant and easily gained. Not a measly 10g. Plus all those people that made all that gold still have a lot of it because they already have everything and don’t have much to spend it on now, so the new gold they make gets saved.

all these nerfs to gold gain and new gold sinks only hurt the poor, and they do not stop inflation because the majority of the gold out there is held by a small percentage who already have everything and so their wealth just keeps on growing.

Xenon.4537:

somsom.5201:

As others have said, ANet is focusing more and more on the gemstore side of the game and less on the actual game(lets be realistic: the wardrobe patch should have been there on day1).

When their 2 latest ads feature a bullet point of “get more gold” and suggest you RM -> gems -> gold…it’s not hard to see where the future of this game is heading.

There needs to be more outcry against that type of advertising. It’s like Anet is becoming a scumbag car salesman. It’s just not good for their image. And if indeed that’s the direction they want to take the game, I think they will seriously be risking the death of GW2.

I kind of prefer it, as it is eye opener for many people. I prefer people and corporations to be honest and own what they are. Plus it makes it harder for the white knights to do their jobs ;-)

Dusty Moon.4382:

Raf.1078:

sorudo.9054:

….i play an mmo for the game, really don’t care about the loot at all……young players these days….

Same here. If I make enough to keep me in siege wvw, I’m a happy camper. But the loot frenzy in this game…sheesh.

It is in all games – it is the RAID/Entitled attitude that is rearing it’s ugly head.

I’m happy for you guys , you have different priorities than other people and other people have different priorities than you. Wow what a concept, it doesn’t mean your way or their way is right. So please stop the condescending BS. It just makes you look like a stuck up kitten bag.

Xenon.4537:

I’m scared NCSoft would sooner shut down GW2 than radically restructure its monetization. They already shut down like 3 other MMOs they weren’t satisfied with.

I’m scared they will just nickel and dime it to death. arenanet or ncsoft whatever it doesn’t matter my point is still the same. The people in charge would rather make a quick buck then a product that will last.

Fungalfoot.7213:

Mirta.5029:

It’s so that people would buy gems and convert them to gold. This is on one of their official advertisement pages.

Indeed and it’s just as suspect of a practice as the RMAH was in Diablo III. I never was comfortable with the idea of legitimizing what is essentially gold selling but it is what it is.

Hopefully they will eventually come to their senses and stop this madness. After all, Blizzard did.

ya know I didn’t care about the buying gems with gold as it brings in more revenue for anet and we all know there will be gold sellers in every mmo. But I don’t understand why its so hard for the companies to leave it at that and not try to squeeze more money out of it. Why do they have to fiddle with loot drops, gold income, and crafting recipes? Like with D3 I’m not sure why they didn’t just fix drop rates, why did they also have to remove the RMAH and the normal AH. Is It because the companies can’t control themselves so the only way to not mess with the game is to remove the temptation?

Xenon.4537:

Blizzard removing the RMAH from D3 was a huge surprise to me. They were willing, as a business, to remove a source of income from the game and totally revamp the rewards to drastically increase the quality of the gameplay experience. Part of it was probably to generate hype and increase sales for Reaper of Souls, but still they pretty much restored my faith in them as a company.

I’m not sure Anet can afford to do the same thing though. They aren’t nearly as big as Blizzard, and NCSoft has dominion over them, whereas Blizzard is pretty much free to do what it wants.

activision has dominion over blizzard. I think it all comes down to is does the company want a product that will last for years or do they want a product that makes money in the short term. Blizzard realized that D3 was done for if they didn’t change things and that having something they could sell for the next 10 years like D2 was in their best interest. I don’t think anet cares if gw2 dies in NA/EU as they have china and a new mmo they can work on. So I think they will nickel and dime as much as they can till it dies.

Conncept.7638:

kratan.4619:

A R W E N.6895:

Azrael.4960:

Real money -> Gems -> Gold conversion has been part of the game from day 1, didn’t you know?

But did you know that the focus on gemstore is actually increasing so much?

But did you know that their jobs depend on people spending in the gem store and not just providing free content?

They could try actually selling things in the gemstore at an honest price without gambling, and not allow them to be bought with in-game gold. Which would have been any intelligent and honest persons way of handling it in the first place.

League of Legends has been so successful because it just took certain things and said, ‘these are going to cost money, end of discussion’, and then it made those things well enough that players would spend money on them. And it made, a lot. There is nothing wrong with having certain things that cannot be earned by in game farming. That philosophy not only earned them a lot of money, allowing them to expand the game, but it has continued to drive them to make better and better ‘for sale’ content rather than cutting corners.

Everything that is right under LoLs system is wrong in GW2’s, it simultaneously and continually punishes everyone. Those who would like to purchase things from the gemstore for real money get jipped by RNG and corner-cutting because the items are designed and priced knowing that ANet isn’t guaranteed any money off their sale because of gold to gem conversion. And simultaneously in-game rewards are constantly being nerfed because they have to control how much gold in-take players can make in order to make any gemstore sales and control the exchange rate. And to add to all that, this system encourages gold sellers, not prevents them. Anet has to push that people need to either buy gems to get items or gold in order to make ends meet. And when it comes down to it, they are never going to compete with the exchange rate of the gold-sellers.

This monetization system is broken, I rarely say things this extreme, but they need to remove this entire system and start over.

I applaud you. If the anet devs would just look at what works and doesn’t work for other games we would not be having these talks. Honestly I don’t think they care though as they are making a crap ton of money doing it this way and every change they make seems only to be for more monetization like with the new trait system.

cainejw.7142:

mtpelion.4562:

cainejw.7142:

Gold sinks. Why do you think you now have to pay to start an event? Because Anet has no idea how to creatively handle gold in the economy other than “Pay me to access this content!”

This statement is blatantly false.

So, how have they creatively handled gold in the economy other than paying said gold to access content? If you know a statement is false, please provide examples showing it is false. I really would be interested to know how Anet has created a gold sink that is not “Receive content for gold.”

What Content is from the gemstore only? Am I missing something? I see lots of toys and styles and what not, but that’s not content, that’s bling as another poster put it.

Skins and items. I term this as content because Anet themselves said that endgame in GW2 is cosmetic. As the end game is content, and the end game is cosmetic, therefore content is cosmetic.

If this was Barbie’s my lil pony dress up I might agree but its not this is an mmorpg.

Jerus.4350:

kratan.4619:

A R W E N.6895:

Azrael.4960:

Real money -> Gems -> Gold conversion has been part of the game from day 1, didn’t you know?

But did you know that the focus on gemstore is actually increasing so much?

But did you know that their jobs depend on people spending in the gem store and not just providing free content?

Amen!

Did you know another game was able to ditch the RMAH and still make money and please the customers. They could make money and keep the game running and not nickel and dime us. They ditched the buy to play/expansion model for the free to play nickel and dime model not because it doesn’t pay the bills, they ditched it because the nickel and dime model shows higher profit margins for less work. Meaning they can pump out kitten LS updates that disappear every two weeks rather than work on real content. So they would rather make a little more money and have an inferior product. This is what makes me mad, this game could and should be a much better game but they aren’t trying to make the best game they can, they are trying to make as much money as they can.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Pretty sure they might actually be trying to force stabilization on the exchange. They don’t want to stop people from converting, that would be stupid. But by making it harder to get gold they encourage people to put Gems back into the pool to get gold, lowering prices.

I don’t play for loot. Playing for loot in this game is absurd. Just like playing for loot in almost any sandbox is pretty absurd. Acceptable loot is easily accessible and even plentiful. I also don’t play this game to “win” all the money, because that seems to be the actual definition of loot here. We’re not talking about gear drops, or quality of gear, but the amount of gold whatever drops can be converted into. It’s sort of kind of neat to be “rich” in a video game, but ultimately to what end? What are you doing with all the gold?

I haven’t been restricted from killing anything, just how tough a portion of those things are, and to my knowledge the story hasn’t changed.

So the run down is, I don’t see the problem. It’s a lot of QQ for nothing important.

People see bling and they want it is all. Also, they still think that getting ascended/legendary is going to make them OP (and they want that – it is the WoW, RIFT, TERA problem). And yes, I agree, it is all QQ’ing for nothing.

I think they want the prices to drop in the TP as right now they are ridiculous.

If they want prices to drop then they should increase drop rates and fix certain recipes to not be absurd, silk and silver dubs being the 2 biggest culprits. But instead they have done the exact opposite. The truth is they like the prices high and they like low drop rates and they like having few ways to make gold, so that buying gems looks like a better alternative. Would you like to grind 100hrs for the item or just buy some gems. They know what they are doing and many of the players know what they are doing also.

Galen Grey.4709:

Which brings me to my next point.. at first glance it may seem that nerfing income is a sure way to make trading gems for gold profitable but it really doesnt.

people consider a very important factor. Arenanet dont set prices on stuff you buy other players do. The price they set is equivalent to what other players can afford / are willing to pay.

If they nerf income that price will drop because now people will no longer afford that price ergo stuff will sell for less.

Think about it… if say in 1 hr farming I make 5g I may be willing paying 5 – 8g for the same amount of crafting materials I would make for 1 of gathering (I would go up to 8g because I really dont like gathering that much would rather do another 30mins of farming instead) there are others like me so gathers happy sell their logs for say 5s each

But now lets say arenanet nerfs farming hard and I start making 1g per hour instead of 5. Do I really hate gathering that much that I am willing to play 5-7hrs to avoid 1 hour of gathering? I would assume for most it will be no so people stop buying at 5s. Gathers might resist a bit at first hoping farmers would turn around but how long are they going to do that? IT will start with one gather who needs money fast to undercut a bit the lowest offer and soon price will start to fall. With cheaper materials, crafting stuff will be cheaper. etc..

not only that but becuase people now have less gold the conversion rate for gems will start falling as well since less people buy gems and more people are willing to sell them which in turn will deter people from converting real money. if $1 gets you 7g you’re more likely to buy then if $1 gets you 2g even though the spending power remains the same, its just perception paying tricks.

Of course some might get out their credit card and pay that 5s using real money but do you really think that will be sustained enough to keep the prices artificially up? Besides if arenanet’s true goal was to encourage gem to gold conversion dont you think boosting rewards would actually achieve a better result? think about it, lets say farming rewards are boosted from 5g to 50g per hour what happens? now gathers can afford selling at 50s per log because farmers buy it and not only that but because now people can afford more gold the rate of conversion for gems increases $1 might now net you 70g which obviously looks nicer to a potential buyer.

Now Remember not everyone is a farmer thus players who dont farm need to compete with farmers since gathers are not going to charge 2 prices for farmers and everyone else. Only they have no way of affording 50s per log because their ingame income is way lower then that. So what can they do? start farming 24/7 which they dont enjoy doing or use the credit card ?

Which scenario is more likely? I think the 2nd why? well in the first scenario with the nerf both groups of players get closer in terms of income so prices will be in the range both groups of players can afford (groups being farmers and everyone else)

in the 2nd scenario you have a bit rift between farmers and everyone else. That rift has to be bridged by the everyone else group if they want to buy stuff and they can only do that by joining the farmers or using real life money.

so is nerfing really increasing gem -> conversion? I personally dont think so

This is all wrong where do you come up with this stuff LMFAO. If you increased drops there would be no need for ever buying gold as you would just go and loot it. By making the things rarer drops it means you MUST go through the TP to get what you want. By them letting the TP to be controlled by a small portion of the population, those few can afford the high prices and keep them high so they can make money. Which makes it harder for your average player, who doesn’t game the TP, for them to buy what they want. With out any way to grind gold in the game the quickest and easiest way to get that gold is to buy it and they are even advertising that now.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/phoenix-weapons-new-faces-and-more-in-the-gem-store/

“Get More Gold!

Remember that you can exchange gems and gold at our currency exchange on the second tab of the Black Lion Trading Company! Currently, you can get 1 gold for about 15 gems and 50 gold for about 670 gems! "

The agenda is obvious, how anyone can say that is not what they are doing is laughable.

I will say that nerfing QD train is meh. I saw nothing wrong with the train but from what I hear there is other ones now so doesn’t really matter. It is kind of messed up for new characters though since they nerfed the trait system and made it an absurd grind and that would at least help you get though it.

MithranArkanere.8957:

We need a trading nerf to compensate.

If all easy and quick money making schemes get fixed, then everyone has more or less the same coin.

Still, market speculators have insane amounts of gold, which they use – or so they brag about – to buy entire stocks of items and resell them at obscenely high prices, when they know people will demand them, like a certain rune that can’t be crafted or a certain miniature with limited availability.

As a result, you get lots of people making reasonable amounts of coin, coin which they end up using to pay for the insane prices set by the market manipulators, and lots of coin gets redirected to them, making them even richer over time, and the rest even poorer, as their reasonable amounts of coin is worth less and less in contrast with prices set by those able to buyout entire stocks.

This is solved with a very simple cooldown on reselling what you bought, with would prevent entire stock purchases to resell right away, without affecting normal trade and sell.

Once that is in place, reselling would only work over longer periods of time which requires more strategy and planning, and those cases of excessive prices will slowly go down. That way speculation is still possible, but it’s not something that can be done in excess almost exclusively by those that exploited quick money making schemes when they were available and have amassed too much capital.

——

Also, the game depends too much in the trading post. Getting things by yourself can take ages.

There has to be alternate sources for some materials that have too few soruces. For example, while one can gather wood and metal, and many animals drop salvageable items that produce decent amounts of leather, cloth is much harder to come by. For cloth and some other materials a fourth kind of node should be added: Locked chests.

They would be scattered in maps and give always at least cloth and some leather and sometimes fine and even rare materials with some luck, and require a lockpick gathering tool to open. While chest at the end of jumping puzzles and guild puzzles would remain open, some of the existing chests in the world would be turned into Big closed chests (e.g. a chest in a cave guarded by veterans), that like “rich” nodes have more basic materials and a bit higher chances for fine and rare, but can only be used once a day. Each map should get at least 1 ‘rich’ locked chest in a fixed location. And 2 in random ones.

Some group events should also make available once-a-day nodes on success. A tree-heart or nightmare court champion would drop a 3-use thick sapling node or a little herb farm of 3 1-use nodes, an event against elementals or steam creatures may reveal a rich metal node at the end, while a “racial faction” group event with a node reward would probably have a chest.

That would compensate with poor luck with drops. If you only got junk from all enemies in the event, at least you have the node.

They should remove the TP entirely and use brokers like they did in GW1 for dyes. It would make rare items valuable but there is not any way to manipulate the system. They won’t do my idea or your idea though. They like it that a small percentage of the population have all the gold and have gotten the prices so high. It makes it so their is more incentive for the majority of players to buy gems to change in to gold.

I hate people saying that we should support them. I bought the digital deluxe version and I have spent about $200 on storage space and collectible space and character slots. And I got digital deluxe version for one of my kids and the normal version for the other. That is way more than enough support. Now how about they stop kittening with the game and let us play rather than nickel and dime us.

Velimirius.7018:

Well best way to rewards yourself is to spend cash on gems. Thats the way Anet is pushing the game to.

Probably in a few months mobs and champs wont even have a drop unless you spend xxxx cash a month to unlock mob drops….

^This

I left the game hoping eventually they would change their ways and just watching the forums hoping for that something to bring me back. All I ever see though is nerfs to any way of making money in the game. And now they have advertisements that say “hey don’t forget you can buy gold in our gem store”. Its pitiful, I don’t see how anyone can defend what they have been doing because they are getting more and more blatant about the best way to get any thing is to pull out your credit card.

Harper.4173:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Aegis.9724:

GW2 is DESIGNED from the ground to favor zerg mechanics, due to how dynamic events work. Putting counter-mechanics in it, like requiring organization, massive scaling, no loot/xp will always end frustrating everyone.

Even zerg events that require coordination and that i consider fun and well implemented fall in this trap, like tequatl – Very well designed IF you have good commanders/ people who know what they’re doing, which means parking in the map 1 hour before the spawn, horrible and hopeless fight if you dont….which goes against the very philosophy of gw2.

Honestly, the only people i know who seem to be enjoyin the pavillion are on this forum. Everyone in my 2 guilds, all my friends and everyone in map chat HATES it.

The mechanics DO NOT favor zergs – it is the players that feel that way. The players get lazy and just go to for the fastest route possible – which is zerg DPS. Saying the mechanics favor zerg is just a silly, uninformed statement.

With Tequatl and the 3-headed wurm (as were some of the Temples and higher level bosses), it was the start of more difficult mechanics that need coordination and communication, which is what GW2 was all about. After all, all the races are cooperating with each other to defeat the Elder Dragons.

If your guild doesn’t like a challenge then they don’t have to play the Pavillion because you need to actually coordinate and communicate, not zerg mindlessly. Obviously, they couldn’t deal with good coordinated WvW either because they just want to zerg, spamming one skill.

People wanted the game to be harder and now that they get it, they are complaining that they can’t be mindless and stand in one place spamming one skill.

I say GJ A.Net!!

The pavilion is harder now than it was last year – if that’s good or bad is debatable.

The pavilion is now a complete waste of time compared to last year because the rewards are so bad I don’t see why anyone would bother to put in the time and coordination it takes to get gold reward (more than once anyway).

The bottom line is that while last year the Crown Pavilion was hailed as one of the most awesome features added, with people going there and enjoying it for the whole duration of its stay this year’s pavilion is a ghost town.

People don’t do it because there’s no point. Last year you could get T6 drops, champ boxes and even chests after a boss was killed.
It was fun to team up with people and get loot together.

This year you have to coordinate a LOT of people and you’ll get what? Nothing good. The gold reward isn’t worth the 8 minutes spent do get it.

Might as well do a dungeon path.

If there is no reward for a task in a game then what is the point. The dopamine fix you will get for repeating something without any reward shrinks immensely every time it is repeated for most people. In competitive games there is a dopamine reward if you win or even if its a close match and you do very well but lose. So in that case I can understand repeating the activity for no reward. But to do something in a MMORPG video game more than once just for the sake of doing it for little or no reward feels like a waste of time that could be used more productively doing something else in the game. Maybe like doing something that does give a reward.

Celtic Lady.3729:

As frustrating as the nerfs and lack of rewards in the game are for many players, as long as Anet is getting what it considers enough money through gem sales, it’s all good from their point of view. Will eventually enough players leave the game due to no rewards for playing that Anet realizes they made a mistake? Possibly. Although large businesses aren’t necessarily known for learning from their mistakes.

I have bad feeling that they do not care if this game dies as they have made tons of money while it lasted and they can just move on to the next project. I hope I’m wrong though.

yeah, that’s the biggest reason I don’t play anymore. They nerfed all the loot in the game so all you can do is grind gold to get anything. Then they nerfed all the gold so now the grind for even gold is kittened so unless you game the TP your best bet is to buy gems, then buy gold with those gems. That’s a kittenty game model and business model that won’t last. Like you mentioned they need to either add permanent content(and not a single dungeon or world boss) or fix the loot tables to make the grind worth while. Personally I think they should do both but they would probably get some people to return with just doing one of those.

Tentonhammr.7849:

What’s the point of this system if so many (not all, but a lot) of the trait unlock requirements make people go, “kitten it, I’ll just buy it from the vendor.”?

To make us pay for stuff that we used to get for free.

If they would roll back the entire trait update and redo it all using skills instead I believe it would go a lot better. Using SP and gold or special event unlock for skills while leaving the old trait system alone and adding all new traits to the list for free is the way to go. Traits are to important to the leveling process it doesn’t make sense what they have done. Its like a dev that knew what he was talking about mentioned it to his boss that didn’t know jackkitten and his boss mixed up traits and skills and then pushed the wrong thing through. I believe that if they had used skills instead of traits, even with attaching such a huge cost for purchasing the skills this thread would not exist.

Yeah they should make all craftables bind on equip and they should remove all the time gates on them. It would make things easier for everyone. New players would have less hurdles to jump. Veterans could make some money with all the mats they have saved up that are just collecting dust. It would be the kind of move that anet could do to please almost everyone.

arenanet could careless what you do in game as long as its gold making profitability is low. Which is why they took the coin reward away from champs. They won’t do anything else. Once they nerf the rewards they move on to kill the next best way to make money. So for those that want the train utterly wiped out that is just too bad and you should get over it. If you really want a fix for the train you should be asking for anet to roll back a bunch of the nerfs they did to things like shelter/pen farming. That will get the high level toons out of QD by giving them some other place to farm.

The biggest thing I keep wondering is why the hell did they do this to traits rather than skills. They should put all the traits back to how it was before and then attach skills to events and things instead. So we still get to have the skill hunting but we get to keep our leveling progression so you feel stronger as you level. Any new traits should just get added to the list. For new skills maybe add a new area and attach them to completion of an event or boss there.

There is so many better ideas than what we got. I have no idea what they were thinking.

Edit: As soon as I hit reply I figured out the answer to my question. They want to charge for stuff you already got for free. Nothing more nothing less.

Sartharina.3542:

I think people really don’t understand how Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be played, given how much they’re treating it like other MMOs.

Am I the only one to hang around whatever area I feel like simply because I enjoy the scenery and find the enemies fun to fight?

You can do that in any RPG or FPS game it doesn’t mean your way is the “right” way. And who the kitten are you to say how a game that was touted as “play the way you want to play” is supposed to be played any ways.

Brother Dulfite.5793:

I committed to marrying my fiance and loving her alone the rest of my life.

I can think of tons of things to call that but hardcore doesn’t seem to be one of them :P

It was obvious that supply would dwindle and cause the price to slowly rise. Since there is no way to get them anymore except for 5 laurels the supply will keep dwindling. The smart people new this and saved/bought all they could and gamed the system with duplicates. Expect the prices to go way up and finally plateau in about 6 months.

The original problem with silk was that there wasn’t enough wanted item recipes for it. So that made it really cheap. The fix to that was to add more crafting recipes for items that people want, one way to do this is add new items like ascended. There was never a reason to mess with the recipes and it should have never been done. Especially since they changed it about the same time as ascended was release so the value of it would have changed on its own. When you add in the fact that silk is included in every crafting ascended armor recipe it is more than obvious that it would go up on its own.

Arenanet are smart folks though so they knew what they are doing which is why they did what they did and why they don’t respond about this issue. They want certain items to kittenedly out of whack compared to other similar items and why not have it be something that is used in all the ascended armor recipes.

Ensign.2189:

If they made any changes it would be to push the other materials up to 100 per, not the other way around.

The whole point of these recipes is to sink large amounts of materials, they aren’t supposed to be dirt cheap.

the same price as mithril would not be dirt cheap it would be balanced.

Edit: Just to clarify, the reason they were dirt cheap before was because there was nothing to use them on before. They were only a way to get to max crafting level so they deserved to be cheap. Then they made ascended gear and it gave them a use. So there really was not any reason to change anything else as that simple fact alone would have made the cost go up since it is used in more ascended armor recipes than any other material.

Anet knew this and they also knew what increasing the refinement cost would do and what making the damask recipe cost so much would do. They are smart people so they knew. So they want things this way even if it is completely unbalanced and unfair(light armor classes punished for being light armor).

pdavis.8031:

Yeah, to an extent. I have noticed more of a push toward the gem store. However, as a F2P game, it makes sense. I don’t see it as a “greedy business model”, but as a business, they NEED to make money to pay their employees, maintain the game, roll out new content, and ultimately increase their bottom line. Is that greedy? No. It’s how businesses work. You can only make so much money with straight game sales without having any additional income to support the product. MANY companies do this in one form or another.

If Anet didn’t do this, the game would ultimatley fail because they wouldn’t be able to defray the costs of upkeep. At least it’s not like many other “F2P” games where you can only progress so far then you have to pay to continue.

that’s just untrue though. They could have initial game sells and have the gem store and make money with out EVERY ASPECT OF THE GAME REVOLVING AROUND THE GEM STORE. I’m tired of hearing this lame excuse, no one is saying they shouldn’t make money. They already showed how well they were doing before these changes and they were so proud of it they really shouldn’t need anymore cash grabs. How about some real content or a feature that is not tied to the gemstore.

this game is for the extremes, extreme casual and extreme hardcore. Its for players that float around between games and really don’t give a crap about anything in game and have no goals – extremely casual. And its for those that have the time to spend over 50 hours a week. It is not for your average player though. Just my own opinion.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The unlock cost at the trainers is way too low. There is pretty much 0 reason to spend time doing something to unlock them when you can just buy them so cheaply.

I would suggest upping the cost by 10x in gold, the SP cost is fine.

that’s absurd, we used to unlock every trait via manuals for a little over 4 gold and 0 skill points and now you are saying it should be higher than the increase they already did. Some people baffle me

TheDaiBish.9735:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Am I the only one wondering why they used traits to get people out in the world rather skills, preferably new ones. Why go and fix something that wasn’t broken. If they would have worked on creating new skills and added them to world events and then removed the cost respect traits I am pretty sure everyone would be kittening ecstatic. Leave the old manuals for level 20, 40, and 60 unlocks and just add any new traits to the list. They could have added an npc near each event where players could by the new skills just like in GW1 to replace the gold sink they tried with traits. It just seems like the more obvious way to do things but then again it makes the game more like gw1 and they sure the hell can’t have any of that.

In an interview with MMORPG.com, they said:

• Skills take longer to implement (since it uses more assets [animations, art ect]).
• Skills already had a progression model (purchase with skill points), while the actual aquisition of Traits didn’t (since everything was automatically unlocked when you bought a Manual).

so in other words, they are lazy and greedy. If they are going to do anything that takes effort its only to add another way of monetization because there was a progression model with traits, its called leveling