Guild Wars 2

The accumulating value isn’t in the picks you don’t buy, it’s in the nodes you choose to harvest that you would otherwise skip and in the extra bag space if frees up.

I don’t expect to make it back this month, I expect to benefit over the course of the game – hopefuly 3-5 more years.

Doesn’t break my heart I’ll never see another ruined ore again because I forgot to flip my picks before digging after changing zones.

Fuzzion.2504:

Agree.They should let the players set the prices. Non soul bound on acquire. This would greatly benefit both the PvE market and the WvW market.

I would really like to hear what Anet says on such a future prospect.

Because being a Trading Post Barron should be the ultimate pathway to sucess in every slot… Yeah, no.

Fuzzion.2504:

We can buy exotic and can buy LGM, why cant we buy ascended stuff?

You CAN. Go buy a triforge amulet.

Healix.5819:

Since they’ve talked about one day increasing the level cap…

Got a link to that? I’d like to see what ANet actually said.

Go buy your way to a Triforge Amulet.

HappyDale.5398:

I personally feel that the unlimited usage pickax is a Horrible idea. For one simple reason it removes a gold sink. (Now you could argue that this particular gold sink is a small population, but still it is a gold sink that was in game). Maybe this item won’t affect the economy in a negative way, but the idea that Areannet would provide a gem store item that would remove a gold sink is troubling.

For those that don’t understand a gold sink is something in game that removes money from players, in order to try and control inflation.

It removed a goldsink for harvesters – letting them move up a little compared to say, oh, day traders or COF 1 commandos.

I can totally support that shift in relative wealth.

Bought and cheerfully equipped my fouth one (I have 14 slots). I’ll give it a week before deciding if any of my lower level alts need to never have to buy picks.

I just don’t expect them to let me plug even a minor gold drain forever, account wide for 10$.

Nothing about rarity is nothing about rarity. If the table were unweighted (making these a fabulous way to get some of the rares in the pool), that would be such an attractive proposition that there’s no way I’d forget to specifically say so in my ad-copy…

Malediktus.9250:

They are outragous rare. Wont spend a cent on these unless they are 100% buy. I would pay 800 gems for a set of all new colors and not one more.

Which is why you’ll have none at all, unless you buy them from someone who IS willing to takes risks, and prices to profit thereby.

I’m actually sort of looking forward to these colors being rare enough that I take notice when someone is wearing one after the sale ends.

figjam.5296:

Looks like you can buy from trading post directly..It’s much better to buy from TP than wasting gold/gems on gem store.

Only if someone else takes the risk for you…

I opened 5 Frost packs

3 silt (common)
1 marine (common)
1 white (rare)

I’m largely satisfied with the outcome. I got 5 cracks at some of the rare blues (I have an alt I’d use most of those on) and came away with a rare that I’m happy to apply to one of my 80s.

Just mulling over whether to go again. Will probably specifically double check the special colors on my alt before deciding.

I think that if you are going to wait three months, then its a terible investment – if they haven’t made some announcements about progress on the precursor scavenget hunt in another 3 months they’re going to have not-at-all virtual torches and tridents surrounding their offices in the hands of an angry mob… and once there IS word of a precurrsor scavener hunter tangibly inbound, the market for them is going to implode.

-looks at the new dye packs-

I think ANet is unconvinced by the anti-gambling arguments.

Now I have to decide if I want to try my luck on the Frost Dye packs…

As they come up on the AH it’ll be easy to preview them.

Love these things. Love ’em.

…and were you using Orichalcum picks on copper and silver, or were you carrying around level appropriate picks for while dinking around waiting for the Frozen Maw to start? There are are many ways these add to your convienience factor that are going to add up over time.

It also has a fantastic animation when mining and makes picking up copper with 80th level characters completely guilt-free. Zero harvesting overhead.

3 of my character have them already and I expect to buy several more.

Somebody is actually seeing those precursors drop that you’re so eager to turn over your life savings to get. Either they drop from the environment a lot more than ya’d think, or someone’s found the sweet spot to make a profit over the long haul for generating them via the forge.

It only takes a few “’nother 1000gs in to the toild soo thad 2000 now and no luck” signs posted around your gold mine to scare off the competition .

I can live with the 4 second reveals.

I die over and over again because “stealth no longer clears the agro table” makes the DOWNED stealth skills COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. It’s worse than having no button for it all all, because staring at it thinking it’ll do something if only you could get it off is false hope that distracted you from the 25% fewer tools you actually have. This is a true for Mesmers as it is for Thieves.

Stealthing while downed needs to be reverted.

Or maybe the nuance “your behaviors are not automatically reflected into the larger populace” escapes you. Could go either way on that one.

Ursan.7846:

Because rarely do people farm bosses with an specific goal in mind.

-stares at Final Rest-
-checks Shadow Behemoth timer-
-looks at Ursan-
-stares at Final Rest somemore-

You sure about that?

I farmed the Svanir Shaman for a couple “Eternal Ice” accessoies because the fit a theme for one of my alts, but honestly that didn’t take very long.

I think that equivalance could be achieved if ANet sold the fusion weapon tickets for 4000 gems or so. Maybe 5000.

I’m honestly a little put out they don’t have a precurssor-like terrible drop chance from killing Molten Alliance critters… or maybe they do and no one has ever actually had it happen yet :p.

So why aren’t you applying that solution to your race change problem? Roll a toon of the race you wanted, and move on?

And then you get a free black lion key… Or become the first person to have 2 pact weapons.

Uh, yeah, simplistic solution is simplistic.

Himei.5379:

This.

No, not “This.” but thank you for assumining I’m a mouth-breather that can’t count .

This is the reason why we assume we get more drops, because as a group we tag more kills, thus more drops.

I’m aware of the increased number of kills per minute when farming sparks/air elementals/verteran air elementals solo vs. in a group. Really. I am. Conciously even.

As a game designer, it occurs to me that party-wide shared magic find would A ) negate 99% of the arguments and complaints people raise about wearing magic-find gear while running dungeons meaning said person contribute less while reaping greater rewards and B ) explain why it’s not summed up for us on the Hero Panel character sheet.

In any event, yes, the more reliably generated lodestones are predictably easier to buy at the AH. I had a group that got into farming CoE steadily for a while – during that time I racked up quite a few charged cores, but compared to the speed ball that is blitzing CoF, yeah, its still slow going.

It will crack me up without end if someone wins their gambling argument legally – and ANet just pulls the whole game from that country as being too much of a pain in the rump to bother doing business there at all.

Killyox.3950:

That’s why I do not buy them.

I hate the idea of PAY-2-RNG.

I’d rather have those skins purchaseable for 250-300gems each…

I’m sure you would. It’d be kitten terrible idea for ANet, but you’d make out brilliantly.

Lets reality check that thought:

Supposing the drop rate is 1 in 50 (and I’m now leaning toward that as more likely than my previous off-the-cuff 1 in 100), ANet is setting the value of their design time at something more like 4500 gems per ticket. (300? pfft, no.)

So lets throw a real proposition out to them and see if you’re still so interested:

“Hey ANet, would you consider selling the Fused weapon tickets in the store for 4500 gems?”

I farm charged lodestones, but its often thankless work.

I consider a normal run 45-60 minutes (after I log in and check the Temple of Dwayna has been flipped – I only occassionally am involved in the flipping myself). In a normal “run”, in MF armor, some MF runes, and with Omnom Bars (which actually seem to work better than the armor or runes…) I expect about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing a lodestone drop within the hour. About 1/4 of my runs that have a lodestone drop see a second drop. Exactly once I’ve gotten 3 lodestones in a single farming session.

I find my odds are improved in a group – enough so I’m suspicious that magic find is shared and cumulative across party members. The one time I got three lodestones was also noteworth in that I was in a group most of the run AND we cycled back and forth almost exclusively between the veteran air elementals, killing a few stray air elementals and almost completely ignoring the sparks.

In otherwords you CAN force them out of the dark depths of the RNG, but it takes serious persistence.

peacemaker.5634:

This is getting ridiculous.

It is. Because a basic concept is not permeating the membranes here:

You. CANNOT. Purchase. A. Fused. Weapon. Ticket.

They are not for sale.
There is no going price.
There is no amount of money in the universe that will give a 100% chance of acquistion.

If you want to buy one… tough.

If you want to dink around with the game’s slot machine, you might be pleasantly surprised. Or you might get the basic doo-dads that are the only thing you should be expecting out of the deal. But if you walk up to it assuming you’ll win, its going to kick your backside. Repeatedly. Or not, depending on RNG’s mood.

I currently don’t see any way to purchase fractal weapons either. So any presumption of such a promise (got a link?) were pretty much dispelled months ago in my book.

They come from two places – a 1-in50 chance of dropping from (boss?) chests and the ones bought with bubbles. I’m guessing one of those 2 sources is NOT account bound.

Do you have 5 points in virtues?

Chrisplosion.3756:

Reize.2176:

96 chests, 0 skins.

Your bad luck really puts mine in perspective…

Neither of you are to bad luck yet. 400 would be bad luck. Less than 100 is well within standard deviation .

Still waiting to give them a wad of cash for playable centuars.

Wads and wads of cash if need be.

Astral Projections.7320:

They did say rare. But there’s rare and there’s RARE. They should let the buyers know the odds. It’s one thing to gamble for 1 in 10 odds, another for 1 in 100. People are entitled to know which it is before they spend their money. It’s odd, and somewhat suspicious, that ANet refuses to let the buyers know what the drop rate is.

They have told us drop rates at least once – for Final Rest.

…1 in 2000.

“Rare” does in fact mean “Rare”. Like, completely not kidding “rare”.

I have to wonder if people would be so quick to say “I’d buy it if it were on sale” if the gem asking price were say 7,500 gems per ticket? Because that’s proably a bit BELOW the average amount ANet is making on these.

Sander.8516:

Had to spend 115g to receive one ticket. After having spent +/- 300 gold, I received my second ticket yesterday. A guildie of mine has roughly spent 250g by now and still has’nt gotten a single ticket. Honestly feels like getting a slap in the face, when reading about people that got lucky on their first attempts…

Meanwhile ANet must be ecstatic being able to obliterate that much mud-coin from the game with a single set of weapon skins. It’s nice to see inflation getting slapped in the face for a change.

In my experience a well-geared banner warrior (even before the patch) absolutely ROFLstomps Guardians as team support/healers.

Which doesn’t stop me from running a support Guard, it just makes me focus on the types of support a Guard does well.

Or was this deeply insightful compare and contrast session in the context of the 12-year old’s one dimensional universe of “I killz it. I kilz it guud!”?

Its stunning how little you understand either class.

Sojar.1495:

I’ve now dropped over $300 on getting a Fused weapon…

…ANET, this type of business model is amazing for your profitability. But you’ve just lost over $2,000 in just this fiscal year from me. I was going to continue to support the game via the Gem Store, but after being ripped off in such a massive way…

Or you could get hit by bus, lose your source of disposable income, or just plain get bored with the game and move on. There are a LOT of scenarios in which getting $300 NOW is a much better play than hopping for $2,000 over time. Expecially when some of those scenarios involve you forgiving them and going back to granting them some additional amount of money over the next year.

I invite you to change it to a purchasable item, and perhaps give those who spent innumerable amounts of complimentary ticket as compensation.

I have to wonder what your reaction would be if they did… to people who spent $400 on keys. Or are you assuming that whatever this theoretical cut off point is for 1 ticket gratis, you automatically qualify? I see plenty of people who would be just as kitten if the cut-off were $250 dollars, even thought you would be sitting pretty. And more than a few who would be wondering “Hey, I got mine after $100… should I get a gratis ticket too? Or was that drop from the boxes essentially a waste since anyone who spent as much as I did gets one in addition to the box drops?”

Hmm. I’m not sure if the workaround for that has been closed or not.

Lane.3410:

Wow, I always thought I was abysmally poor, but the replies in this thread are making me feel rich. o_O

I have about 200g. I honestly thought that was very little for someone who has played ~20 hours a week since September. I’ve actually struggled to find ways to make more gold. What I have is mostly due to selling everything and buying little to nothing.

I have ~1,400 hours played. As was pointed out in a nearby thread, players who do a variety of activities have wildly less money compared to similar play times focused on using the TP or farming the heck out of 2-3 extremely fast dungeon paths.

I’m one of the people that plays to PLAY (as in liesure activity with some light cognitive demand) rather than playing with gold as a scoring mechanism. So I don’t have an amazing amount of gold, but I also don’t complain about it (…much – I still gripe about core and lodestone drop rates just a little).

My Ranger is alive and well. Did a few dungeons just fine. Shot down a dragon or two since the patch.

Then again my build didn’t rely on quickness from pet swap.

Someone threatened you… in any way shape or form… and you didn’t leave right then?

Don’t coddle idiots. The only person playing your character is you. If they want to be the guiding mind behind 40% or more of a party, they can frikken two-box.

Avigrus.2871:

A-net failed to listen to the Wintersday feedback, which either means they are not reading these forums or they don’t care what their customer base is saying, which is a worry.

I’m thinking tens of thousands of dollars walking in the door via the gem store has to be included in the “feedback”. As is a flood of gold being eliminated from the bloated economy so fast it pegged the gem/gold rate.

Or not comming in, as their response to the Wintersday “feedback” suggests.

If that had worked to their satisfaction, I think we’d see a model more like it.

I won’t be buying anything from them.

Then there is even LESS reason to try and curry your favor.

I can’t imagine thinking so little of ~700g as to throw it away like that.

Maybe I’ll think that way in a few years, but not now.

Its because we get too much gold. And not quite enough valuable goods.

I’ve said it elsewhere – if Dynamic Events rewarded 1-2 random blue-or-better level-appropriate crafting mats instead of coin, it would be a different universe.

71 gold in the bank (saving to unlock “Golden” title – ussualy I only keep about 20g on hand for whims)

+ I have hundreds of gold in t6 materials as I slowly build up to being able to create gifts of might and magic.

+ 2 characters in full exotics and 3 more in near-full exotics. Most of those 80s keep 1g in their individual wallets for sudden expenses.

And 56 charged lodestones… my precious stash as I work towards Infinite Light.

I am a harvester – I go out on loops with one 80, find all the good nodes, then come back with 2-5 other characters and grab them repeatedly (corriander seeds for the win). I do a random dungeon now and then by answering PUG requests in LA (1 a day maybe). I do a level 10 or 20 Fractal daily when friends are on and ask me to come.

azurrei.5691:

Just think, if Anet wasn’t greedy with gem store lotteries, we could buy skins directly for a flat price and the drop rate would be 100% (and everyone would be happy, woah, can’t have that!)

Everyone except ANet, clearly. You know, the people doing the actual creative work in this exchange?

I blame Napster – it gave people the perverse belief that the buyer, not the seller, should dictate asking prices.

munkiman.3068:

You’re going to need a massive amount of data if there is a true RNG on the end of this system. If so, even anet may not be able to give you accurate statistics anyway. Doing this is quite possibly a lost cause.

You need more data to get a strong degree of accuracy as about the cube of the inverse of the chance. But you can start excluding higher values much, much faster than that. I think we can all agree, just from anecdotal evidence the chance is NOT 50% per box, yes?

Keep in mind also that BLC drop rates are not values as they appear in nature – somewhere a human chose the drop chance, and humans are far more likely to pick numbers with few significant digits. That it was set to 1 in 100 is far more likely than it was set to 1 in 143. So to build a decent approximation strong enough to decide strategy on, we can for the most part focus on comparing the data vs. likely candidates.

Is it 1 in 25? Probably not, but not entirely impossible due to limits of the reliability of reporting.

Is it 1 in 50? Again, proably not, but if it were I wouldn’t feel like this thread was wasted effort.

Is it 1 in 100? That would be consistent with a lot of the data, and is one of those psychologically insideous numbers that would be easy to present in a meeting to finacial managers for aproval… Its also probably the upper bound of rarity you’d want for an item you WANT customers to “farm” aggressively over a short span.

Is it one in 200? I’m inclined to say no – even with reporting bias the number of people who have turned up 2 tickets in less than 50 attempts would make me suspicious. And again the psychology of “Less than 1%” is likely to drive off potential buyers, being a mentally tangible cut-off point for ‘trying your luck’.

So really, the weak data gathering has to be massaged with both a look at the psychology of the sellers and the buyers, and then all of that dropped into some basic game theory on “is this a strategy worth pursuing?”

Do you want a fusion skin badly? Then forget aboout it. You can’t have one.

Do you want a fusion skin a little bit? Great! Crack 10 chests and move on. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Maybe because the cats don’t have huge breasts – her first priority was getting those strapped down so they don’t cause trouble. To her alien eye it seemed like a central issue…

Cross-racial clothing design is bound to include some ‘oops’ moments .

fabipm.4359:

Nike.2631:

The new guild skins are not particularly single-check RNG.

Particularly ugly and easy to obtain.

Funny.

A: I like ’em.
B: they are essentially impossible to obtain for a small guild player like me.

Indeed it does. I have stacks of some of the older tonics that dont’ drop anymore.

EPS – Extreme Packrat Syndrome .