Most likely the reason they drastically decreased the drop rates for dye is to keep dye “worth something” in the economy.
And they’ll likely do it again in the future.
Imagine, each character only needs ONE of each dye to unlock it permanently.
Abyss is a very popular dye (which I think I got randomly and just consumed it instantly on my main) because it’s “black.”
Black and white dyes in GW1 were always the most expensive (mostly because they were rarer than the others…) Red was the most expensive “common” dye. (just like Red dyes seem to be somewhat pricey in GW2, from what I’ve heard)
I’d say dyes in GW2 currently drop about as often as in GW1 (with the exception of pre-Searing Ascalon, dye drops were a rarity).
The fact is: GW2 dyes are permanent unlocks per character. GW1 dyes were a one-use consumable. You often had to mix them with other colors to get the specific hue that you wanted. (Which was part of the fun, in my opinion.)
But in GW1, dying gear was much more of a gold sink. You could mix as many as 4 dyes on one piece of armor. (adding 2 reds with a white would give a different color than a red and a white, for example) And so, you’d need as many as 20 dyes to change the color of an entire armor set.
But still, this didn’t keep the price of common dyes from dropping to the minimum trader price of 100g (which is about equivalent to 1 silver in GW2).
If you can wait, dye prices will eventually drop. It’s just a matter of time. Dyes still drop. People will eventually unlock all the dyes on their mains and start selling the extras.
They reset at midnight UTC. EST is -5. EDT is -4…
So when we hit daylight savings time, the reset shifted up an hour. (because it is permanently set to midnight UTC)
I reported this and got infracted for my post.
It seems they’d rather hide bugs than fix them.
I was browsing the Wiki on pets and surprised by this. I’m surprised that the Black Widow is weaker than the pet it copies.
I’ve only ever gotten one Vial of Condensed Mists essence and not yet seen a Glob. But I’ve been stuck at level 10 due to the gating.
I think it was mentioned in the last update that un-infused rings stop dropping at level 24 now.
So, probably for infused rings. (As the Mystic Forge requirements for upgrading a ring to the infused version is absurd.)
It should, it’s just a bother loading each zone and probably causes them extra server load using LA as a hub.
Especially with so many people camping out in LA for Fractal groups anyway.
Uh, for those against Heroes and Henchies…
What would you suggest for players wanting to do story mode dungeons in a few months?
(Arah is required to “complete” the game)
I know ArenaNet’s “I created the fractals” Robert has stated that he’s been tasked with making dungeons more rewarding… But still, they’re going to release more content (and an expansion at some point, hopefully).
Weren’t they promising a more advanced notice for WvW matches? I feel like that should also apply to the whole of the game.
I suspect a nerf coming for that.
It’s an exploit which causes a slight inflation of the economy.
Given the way ArenaNet has been doing things lately, I would agree.
It would also mark another distinct drop in players in anything but the Fractals (does anyone actually go to Orr any more?).
Which, conveniently seems to be where ArenaNet wants to shuffle players into.
In a few months, I’d be surprised if anyone can actually finish the game due to lack of people wanting to do Arah’s story mode. (It’s not very fun… and not very rewarding unless it’s your first time.)
I’ve always thought City Waypoints should be free, since that’s how it was in GW1 (and because of the exploit that’s been mentioned.)
You’d think someone at Arena Net would have figured that out, or at least learned from the mistakes of others (cough*blizzard*cough), who managed to alienate a significant chunk of their playerbase by systematically giving better deals to new players (or players who had previously cancelled their subscription) than to players who had faithfully spent a ton of money on the game.
The deluxe edition is currently cheaper than the standard edition was two weeks ago. And yet, people who bought the standard edition (and possibly spent a lot of money on gem store items since) get nothing to make up for that – not to mention people who bought the deluxe edition at full price just before the promotion.
Well, now they get an ugly hat. I’m sure that makes them feel a lot more valued.
I don’t feel like they’ve learned much from any other game’s prior experience (not even from the original Guild Wars).
Granted, they want plenty of new people that are eager to fork over cash for gold (to catch-up gear-wise to everyone else) and haven’t already been burned by ArenaNet’s RNG strategy for pay-for items.
Watch it be the only way to get certain pieces of Ascended gear.
The free item for Wintersday is just the one they were already giving away for free to new players.
Likely to appease everyone that was like “I already bought the game!”
I recall someone posting that they contacted support to get a refund in order to re-buy the game and get the bonus items.
You can grind a dungeon for them…
As far as “craftable”, I might recommend saving all your gold until the 20th to see if they don’t give additional ways to acquire them (like the The Crossing and Arachnophobia)
The prices for The Crossing and Arachnophobia were both in the 20-gold range right after the Halloween event.
Polymock pieces.
Tybalt Leftpaw, alive and well, to join us in new personal story missions.
WTT Traeherne for Tybalt Leftpaw.
I’ll agree about the MF quiver. It’s simply too expensive. What I think happened “how do we increase the price of all items and encourage people to buy gold?” “Make items with insane crafting amounts.”
They even admitted it was too expensive in the Reddit AMA.
If I was to use cash for anything… It’d be to buy gold. I’d then look for what I wanted on the TP. Though, the most interesting thing from Consortium chests was possibly the crafting materials (as large amounts are necessary for infusions)
Perhaps everyone that was grinding for an ascended back piece crafted theirs? (Or decided to buy it with Fractal relics instead)
Unless a trade window similar to WoW is introduced you are open to either the buyer or seller scamming you. Also the chat filter prohibits you from spamming so all in all it might not be illegal but I’d say you’d be wasting you time.
It’s funny, because a very similar “trade window” existed in the original Guild Wars.
It’s a shame how many useful features from GW1 didn’t make it to GW2.
And this is entirely about ArenaNet’s desire to have a hand in the market. They’re intent on taking gold out of the economy to make gem → gold conversions seem better.
They’ll probably do like they did with Halloween and have some (insanely expensive) craftable items as well as items in the chest.
I’d imagine chests will be more similar to the Lost Shores chests… Seeing all the complaints from the Halloween event. (And they created the Mad King’s Chest in response to those complaints.)
They may also sell “presents” (like the personalized trick-or-treat bags) for cheaper than chests.
All of the previous events will be accessible while he’s in Lion’s Arch, according to the news.
So you can do everything whenever you want (from December 20th to January 3rd).
I find it funny how people are lauding the anti-quit code, whilst ignoring that it will also affect random disconnects.
This still isn’t affecting the reason WHY people disconnect. Which is entirely because of repair costs.
Even big gaming blogs have stated that repair costs are one of their major complaints with WvW.
So now they’ll just punish people subject to random disconnects (due to circumstances beyond their control, like Internet provider being sucky or power outages, etc.).
They could have simply removed the repair cost for WvW. I bet that would have been a better solution to the problem.
Edit: Have they explained how to “safely” disconnect? What if you somehow enter “combat mode” while your client is exiting? Should you leave WvW before quitting the game now?
Kitten is a filter for terms that are tagged as inflammatory or bad among all languages, Noob and Troll are not bad terms just terms used by people, if they are seen as bad that’s a personal opinion.
Noob is the same as lets say a beginner
Troll is lets say the same as someone who likes to bother/flame with no real purpose or with hidden intentions.
Both Troll/ Noob actually do not mean bad words so no reason to tell the devs they are talking badly, is just gamers talking as gamers.
Words only have meaning if people assign them one… Thus “kitten” words are those which have generally been assigned a negative connotation (and are, thus, offensive).
Calling someone a “n00b” is usually an elitist term. (I tend to see people use “newb” or “newbie” if they’re trying to be affectionate with the term.)
It’s very much the same as using the term “nerd.” Yeah, it can be used in an affectionate manner… but it also has negative connotations.
Google’s definition of nerd:
Noun
- A foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious: “one of those nerds who never asked a girl to dance”.
- An intelligent, single-minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession.
If someone called you a nerd (implying the first definition) then I would assume you’d be offended.
The same as calling someone a n00b or troll. It’s all about perspective. You can sit back and say that it’s not offensive as long as no one is saying it about you.
I agree that people shouldn’t attack someone for reporting a bug, but it’s probably in poor taste for a developer to call people that bought his game “trolls” as they’re also paying his salary (if they’re buying gems).
on WOW do a lvl 70 dungeon with equipment designe for lvl 70 chars, and do lvl 80 dungeon with equiopment designed for lvl 80 chars, is the same experience! no real challenge. This is the trap of the vertical progression after the max level.
Is not a trap, players arent stupid to not notice that. People know it but they want that because it doesnt matter if its the same, it feels like your character is evolving. Its the same in everything else, in movies the hero does not go and kill directly the boss, he has to go through trash, mini bosses, get weapons and then kill the boss. Or in Gran Turismo and Need for speed game, you get a new, shiny car? great, now go and race against new and shiny cars.
Horizontal progression let you choose what do you wanna do. Vertical progression not so much. Both have pros and cons. One thing against horizontal progression, is that every dungeon you dont want to do ot every skin you dont like, means content wasted by the designers of the game.
With the latest Need for Speed game, all cars are available from the start… You just have to find them.
Yeah, completing events unlocks upgrades for the car… But that’s equivalent to leveling in an RPG.
You don’t have to depend on a RNG that prevents your progression through a certain race that gives better gear for your car. Because that would just be an incredibly bad game design choice. (See: Fractals, Agony, and Ascended Rings)
I keep hearing about how evil of vertical progression is, but I haven’t really heard why. You guys talk about the gear “grind”(we really need to go over the definition of grind. The only real grinding aspect in this game are legendaries), but don’t really talk about why it would hurt the game. Also what is horizontal progression?
So you’re arguing that 40 skill points, 50 ecto, and 250 of a T6 crafting material for ONE back piece isn’t a “grind”? (Or 1850 Fractal relics, 40 skill points, and 1 vial of RNG goodness.)
Also, playing the RNG every single day for a freaking ring (that you don’t even get to determine the stats of) isn’t a grind?
The issue is that Ascended items (as even stated by Mike O’brien) give a 5-10% stat boost. Yeah, for the 3/12 slots… You may only end up being 2% better than you were before…
But once we have a full Ascended set? That’s going to be a 10% improvement over Exotics.
You can’t tell me that 10% isn’t a noticeable difference. That’s 10% more armor, HP, and attack/condition damage.
This complaining about grind and such has caused ArenaNet to re-evaluate the way they introduced the existing Ascended items (and thus they hopefully won’t make the same mistakes in the future.)
Troll and Noob are terms gamers use, and they are to describe a % of a population in certain aspects when they meet certain criteria. Its true that in the past they might be consider bad terms but please we are in 2012, expand your mind terms that were once bad are now consider usual language spoken by everyone.
So, then, why is it that some words get filtered to “kitten” on the forums?
From every forum topic I’ve ever read, the word “kitten” seems to pop up everywhere…
So while those words may be “consider[ed] usual language spoken by everyone”, ArenaNet still feels a need to censor them because they’re offensive.
Edit: For that matter, I think “nerd” is an even better example. It’s a word that can be used explicitly in a derogatory manner. It may not be offensive if your friends use it, but imagine how you’d feel if a jock called you a nerd. It’d still have a certain sting to it, even though it’s “usual language.”
(edited by Minos.5168)
I’m certain we’ll see Ascended amulets and earrings first (since like rings they don’t really have to design any new art).
Possibly also weapons… (With an update to Legendaries at the same time.)
I mean, it’d make sense if weapons are next since Fractal weapons start dropping at level 20+ (right after you start getting infused rings).
Chris Whiteside at least admitted that much in the Reddit AMA…
Why not allow Ascended rings to be posted to the Trading Post?
This would allow everyone to easily obtain the ring with the stats they desire. It would also solve the limited availability problem, as many people seem to be getting duplicates…
Just remove the little “Account Bound” restriction.
I’ve done Fractal 10 FOUR times now, with no ring. Just “bags of gold” with ~3 silver each.
I’m really starting to dislike the Fractals (and thus don’t really give a flying cat if I get (infused) versions of stuff).
I mean, grinding the same set of dungeons over and over… While making no progress, because I’m not getting any Ascended gear? I can’t go above 10 because I don’t want to be a burden on my group without infusions.
The whole Fractal experience seems very poorly thought out. I’d be extremely surprised if ANet even properly play-tested the Fractals prior to release.
I seriously think this Fractal needs re-balancing to bring its difficulty more in-line with other Fractals.
1) The first puzzle part (switches and all) usually ends up getting skipped via an exploit. I mean, it’s far more desirable just to skip the puzzle than deal with party members on the first two switches getting killed (and having to waste time to go back to rez them).
Suggestion: Scale it for 4 people (in the event that a party loses a player). Most other dungeons are easy enough to do with just 4 players. Slower spawn rate for the dredge in the upper cages (with switches) would help ease the difficulty for this part.
2) Dredge spawn rate for either of the closed doors. There’s almost always a party wipe here. Far more difficult than any other fractal.
3) Tone down the Dredge Mining Suit boss: Ice Elemental is far easier by comparison. Bombs are one-hit KOs. And his ground attacks can even hit the player flipping the switches above all the action. Additionally, his Agony attack is difficult to avoid.
I’d like to say that I have no issue with a dungeon being “difficult,” but for the Fractals where it’s randomly chosen… The Dredge Fractal is kind of unfair for most PUGs. Especially considering the other fractals are so much easier.
(Yeah, you could argue “Just quit and try for a new set of easier fractals” but that’s just an unnecessary waste of time to try to fight the RNG.)
We already have to fight the RNG for drops (like the Ascended ring daily reward)… Why let it determine the difficulty of our FotM run as well?
Sorry, but you are wrong. If it was host side, it would be easily hackable to the point they could just copy all the magical items they want. Everything is still server side, regardless if it is instanced or not.
I wasn’t saying that you were completely disconnected from ArenaNet. You needed a constant connection to continue to play (much like you do with Diablo and Starcraft).
This connection allows them to ensure that you don’t modify the instance through hacking. This is why D3 prevents offline single-player.
That doesn’t mean Blizzard hosts every D3 single-player game. That’s just absurd thinking on your part. Likewise, ArenaNet doesn’t have to “host” instances to make sure you aren’t cheating. You “join someone else’s game” when playing multiplayer.
I’m not going to bother arguing about this any further… since it’s not at all related to my argument.
My primary argument is that they have costs (and these costs are higher than GW1).
They need to cover these costs (in addition to paying off whatever investments were made to cover development).
Server and bandwidth costs would be the roughly the same regardless if GW2 was persistent or not. In fact, it could have very well went up with major instancing since everything happening on the server would have to be replicated for each individual instead of just once for 500 or so people.
Instancing takes the burden of “hosting” off of the server and places it on the players. ArenaNet only had to actually host the town hubs.
This is why Diablo and Starcraft don’t charge anything for Battle.Net access (and Guild Wars was initially designed by people that designed those).
One player “hosts” the instance and everyone else’s machine just copies it.
I’ve played my share of f2p’s and its not really like what is described in the OP. Hell, the f2p’s I have played are Nexon hosted games, the company that everyone likes to bash on, and it’s not like what has been described. I think you are thinking of Perfect World or something… but not all f2p’s are pay to wins.
Here is the cost at most for two f2p games I have played (unless you just like to waste money):
Vindictus
20$ for enhancement runes (gets you a +10 weapon easily on average; +8’s sell on the market for fairly cheap and they are also viable end game)
Player skill can make up for a lot in this game (high enhancements aren’t necessary, but hey some people need that feeling of progression, because they lack actual skill lol)Dragon Nest
No real need to pay for anything, but I do buy skins in game. Armor/weapon stats are scaled in PvP, so it’s not necessary (the best pvpers in DN are probably some of the poorest players in the game lol). Player skill can make for a lot in this game as well, but having a decent weapon can help in dungeons (similar to Vindictus).Having a good gachapon can help make money in a game; especially when there are special cosmetics you can’t really get anywhere else in them. In Dragon Nest wings and mounts are a powerful draw to their gachapon (Dragon Eggs or something, and you can’t even use mounts in actual dungeon runs lol), which makes them a ton of money.
You don’t have to have a pay to win setup in order to make money, but I’m sure it can make a quick buck in the short term before everyone abandons ship lol.
I’m merely stating that their current methods of monetization don’t seem like they’ll last. Especially considering that most people were greatly disappointed by the BLC Halloween gear and Consortium chests. (You could get most Consortium chest stuff from the TP for vastly cheaper than taking your chances with the chests.)
Selling costumes/skins won’t appease the subset of people that “need” gear progression for a “proper” end-game.
They’ll have to do like you said Vindictus does, and sell infusions that give you an extra +5 to stats and agony resistance (beyond whatever the max-level infusion will give)
I feel like they should have another look at these areas, given that Southsun Cove doesn’t have these same issues (now that the Lost Shores event is over).
They probably will eventually… It’s just a matter of when.
speculation and useless conjecture.
Um, no?
lol, he said that ascended gear is going to be endgame for the next year
He also said that they want to continue increasing the power curve
So it’ll be endgame until an expansion comes out with levels 81-90 and more gear to grind for? Sounds grind-tastic to me.
Seriously, if they don’t release an expansion in 2013 bumping up the level cap, I’d be surprised.
(Most likely a Canthan expansion adding the Tengu as a playable race, and possibly another profession and new weapon types.)
And keeping servers up and running requires employees to be monitoring them (and on-call, in the event that a server crashes).
Even if you neglect the additional costs from running a server, they’ve still got a full staff of people working on the game.
I mean, why does any MMORPG need to make money? To pay the employees (and make money for shareholders).
Obviously there’s higher costs with a persistent game where so many more things can go wrong. (Pretty much all the NPC bugs/glitches get fixed —for a while-- when the servers reset. If there was instancing, this would happen whenever an instance is created. This is just one example.)
My point being: The people ArenaNet has decided to cater to are the same group of people that are wondering “Why do Legendaries take so long to craft when there’s no notable benefit (beyond looks)?”
ArenaNet’s current gem store selection involves:
A) consumables that aren’t really necessary
B) character slots (but with vertical progression, you’re going to likely favor fewer characters over many since it’ll require grind to get them all Ascended gear)
C) bank tabs and bag slots (of which, you can only purchase so many)
D) skins/costumes that provide no real benefit in the game
E) Gems → Gold
Why would someone that didn’t want to grind for a legendary purchase skins (with real money)?
The skins were the main feature that I remember from the GW1 store. Character slots and bank tabs were great… but you’d only purchase those up to a certain point.
The GW live team kept adding new costumes to the store every few months. I’d imagine that was/is their main source of income after the release of EotN.
They’ve essentially lost anyone that bought the game based around horizontal progression.
I, for one, am not likely to ever again buy any gems (and, I’ve already spent more on gems than I would have on a comparable subscription.)
The benefit to setting up GW1 as being primarily instanced was the minimal server costs (really just for towns).
They’ve designed GW2 as mostly persistent, so there’s bound to be higher server costs and they’ll have to find ways to recoup those costs.
The people that ArenaNet is now catering to will not likely be very apt to pay $10 for some new skin… They’ll be like “Why am I paying for skins? I don’t even want to grind for a skin. They need to sell me gear with better stats.”
What happens when they start selling more powerful infusions (or including them in Black Lion chests)?
This is why stat-grind was a bad idea. They’ve started catering to people that want a free-to-play MMO with vertical progression, rather than stick to the horizontal progression (where they had their niché market).
1. a single map chat shared between all the cities.
2. a single LFG chat channel shared between all the cities.Problem solved.
3 – a specific whitelisting AI to prevent people’s LFG spam from being construed as gold spam and throttling their chat.
Or they could simply automatically move it to the LFG channel, like Guild Wars 1 did.
Same with trade chat. They should really bring back player-to-player trades (of course, it would only work if you were in the same server/overflow).
Seriously, they had better systems in the original game.
See a lot of ppl miss this you point out no grind in PlanetSide 2 but there is its a skill grind you got to keep playing the game to get good at it and work out each different type of weapon and the skill with that weapon. There is a grind in every game and in every thing you do try not to forget that.
If a game just hand you every thing then you will be off to the next game with in a month and that what happen in GW2 the old high level gear was nearly handed to players and we saw a mass of ppl stop playing and endlessly complain about nothing else to do so they gave ppl something to do and now they endlessly complain about that so tell me by the ACTION of the players over there words what should they do?
Cant ppl be doing it for both fun and items?
The thing is, the same thing happened in the original Guild Wars. Any level 20 mob could drop max-stat weapons. (Heck, if you bought the Game of the Year edition, you could start the game with max-stat weapons.)
The only thing left to “grind” for were specific upgrades to weapons or a specific skin.
Does it say “unique” on it?
That means it’s unique-equipped.
In that case, the cost for a “blue” infusion is already kind of absurd.
100 or 250 of a crafting material only found in the Southsun Cove.
250 or 100 of a T6 crafting material.
20 or 50 mystic coins.
1 or 2 eldritch scrolls.
(the 1st number is for an offensive/defensive infusion and 2nd for “versatile”)
I guess Ascended infusions will require 250 ecto, 250 mystic coins, 5 eldritch scrolls, and 250 of some not-yet-released crafting material.
Exactly, the thing with condition damage is that in PvE, it’s a lose/lose situation especially since you can’t damage objects.
And to add insult to injury, a condition ranger’s pet will just stand there while the ranger is attacking the object.
Agreed. Getting a “bag of gold” instead of an Ascended ring was completely absurd. How am I supposed to keep up with everyone else if the RNG is against me?
The “bag of gold” had like ~3 silver in it. And those are dropped (randomly) from mobs throughout the dungeon too.
Considering the cost to assemble an Ascended backpiece… They should be giving out bags of like TEN GOLD if you don’t get a ring.
So now that the Mystic Forge recipes are starting to be found, there’s Infusions that have +5 to a stat.
What if, in the next Ascended gear release, they add more Infusions with higher stat boosts?
The whole argument in favor of Ascended/Infused gear was that the grind was solely for FotM.
Now we’re finding out that Ascended gear has higher stats than Exotics AND infusions can have stat boosts (other than the agony resistance).
How is it a boatload? Because you don’t like it, so it’s crap. Vocal minority again.
You don’t even read the rest of my post. BTW, accusing the majority on this board of being a “vocal minority” sounds like the Romney camp before the election. We all know how well that went.
47% of people will never agree with anything ArenaNet does.
Like figuring out what to do with all the money they’ve made.
An ArenaNet employee recently posted in these very forums about how “gear checks” have always existed, even in Guild Wars 1.
This was a blatant lie.
Yes, his examples then went on to mention “by showing /rank or a Lightbringer title.”
Well, guess what… /rank demonstrated experience/skill in PvP, which I’d imagine most elitist PvP groups would expect their fellow teammates to have. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, as no one wants to be on a losing team.
The Lightbringer title was pretty much essential in guaranteeing your survival in the Realm of Torment. Yes, you could succeed without maxing the title… but if you weren’t sufficiently far enough in the title track, you wouldn’t benefit your team very much.
For those that don’t know about Lightbringer: “For each rank of Lightbringer, you deal 5% more damage to and have +1 damage reduction against Abaddon and his demonic servants.”
You also have to DISPLAY the title to get the effect, so it’s REQUIRED to display it.
And the “show lightbringer” was really only a big deal if you were trying to do the Realm of Torment. Since, well, it doesn’t benefit you anywhere else.
It’s not like you’d see people in EotN going “LFG <insert dungeon here> – MUST DISPLAY LIGHTBRINGER”
Also, Lightbringer never really fractured the player base like FotM. It wasn’t like people with level 8 lightbringer could access a better instance (with better rewards) than a level 6 lightbringer could.
Ziazis and Krulz,
Thank you very much for the information. I confess that I am amazed how far people can go for a unique skin..:)
Best regards,
Red
Well, that was the very principle that Guild Wars 1 ran off of… And it worked very well for a long time.
Honestly, I don’t care for either of the legendary bow skins. And, currently, there’s no difference between them or an exotic. I’ll probably just settle for an Ascended bow and skin it to whatever I want.