Guild Wars 2

The gathering tool product line is a humunculus. If harvesting buffs were offered as a separate product, most of the complaints would disappear and players who are invested in the aesthetics of their existing infinite tools would be able to maintain their aesthetic.

With the gem/ gold exchange, gathering tools with buffs are no more P2W than any other item in the game that can be purchased with gold.

Ayrilana.1396:

Psientist.6437:

Ayrilana.1396:

Lokki.1092:

Ayrilana.1396:

Lokki.1092:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m not mixing them up. You’re focusing solely on one aspect of them, which may or may not matter to someone over the visuals, and claiming it to be better because of it.

Not claiming. It is a fact. The new tools are objectively, demonstrably, better.

When you focus solely on the bonus UM, while ignoring everything else, they are. When you include everything else, that’s not necessarily true as it’ll vary from person to person.

I have no idea how else to explain this.

They are functionally better, gathering more units in less time than the other tools
They are mathematically better, having faster animations than other tools
They are mechanically better, gathering extra materials than other tools
They are cheaper, costing overall less than other full sets of tools.

These are not opinions. These are measurable facts.

You can call the same thing however many different ways that you want but that is just one aspect to the tools which goes towards its value.

You can obfuscate as much as you like, but it is clear that a tool with a gathering buff is functionally superior to a gathering tool without. Given the choice between two similarly priced tools with the same cosmetics, one with and one without a buff, a rational consumer would choose the one with the buff. Your focus on player value finding rings hollow. You are defending a product line that makes it harder for the player base to find value.

Except neither have the same cosmetics and different cosmetics appeal to different people. There are people that hold more way to the aesthetics of an item to its functional value just as there are people that hold more value over it’s function than its aesthetics. You then have people in between.

You obviously are on the side that values functionality over aesthetics and are making a claim that other items are inferior. I’m arguing that that claim is subjective. You can take objective, subjective, or both qualities and and form a subjective opinion about the value of an item.

Please stop. Competitive free markets work because rational, informed consumers find value in better quality products, more productive products, more productive product lines. Your argument is of that corrosive to reason type; that opinion rules all.

You are correct that the new harvesting buffs don’t make existing tools without a buff necessarily obsolete to everyone. Instead, the buffs make something more important obsolete; the freedom to choose an aesthetic and maintain optimal harvesting tool productivity. In case you don’t recognize it, the freedom to choose an aesthetic is the quality that you keep mentioning is an important way players find value.

In general, I do value function more than aesthetics. If you ever saw me and how I dress, that would be obvious. That has no bearing on my argument here. My criticism of the harvesting tool product line is directed at how features are bundled.

A gem shop salvaging tool that separates a harvesting buff from its animation priced the same as a stand alone buff would preserve the freedom to choose an aesthetic and maintain optimal harvesting productivity. If a high gem cost, limited time offer is still necessary; then perhaps bundling buffs and skins would serve.

Hermit crabs received their shells from their god, the exalted Agoraphobia.

Ayrilana.1396:

Lokki.1092:

Ayrilana.1396:

Lokki.1092:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m not mixing them up. You’re focusing solely on one aspect of them, which may or may not matter to someone over the visuals, and claiming it to be better because of it.

Not claiming. It is a fact. The new tools are objectively, demonstrably, better.

When you focus solely on the bonus UM, while ignoring everything else, they are. When you include everything else, that’s not necessarily true as it’ll vary from person to person.

I have no idea how else to explain this.

They are functionally better, gathering more units in less time than the other tools
They are mathematically better, having faster animations than other tools
They are mechanically better, gathering extra materials than other tools
They are cheaper, costing overall less than other full sets of tools.

These are not opinions. These are measurable facts.

You can call the same thing however many different ways that you want but that is just one aspect to the tools which goes towards its value.

You can obfuscate as much as you like, but it is clear that a tool with a gathering buff is functionally superior to a gathering tool without. Given the choice between two similarly priced tools with the same cosmetics, one with and one without a buff, a rational consumer would choose the one with the buff. Your focus on player value finding rings hollow. You are defending a product line that makes it harder for the player base to find value.

Obtena.7952:

Here is the funny part about this thread.

3 years ago we got the Sprocket mining pick and all the complainers made the exact same arguments, going so far as to say the thing should be removed from the game, even at the cost of lost gems to the players. Anyone with a shred of common sense knew that such an item wasn’t going anywhere and if Anet was smart, they would release more.

So be rest assured that if you have a problem with “paying 2 win” or whatever other far out argument you might have against these kinds of items or trying to get a refund/exchange, it’s impact on the devs is very low to absolutely nothing.

The studio should release more buffs for harvesting tools; players obviously want them. Doesn’t change the fact that this product line is poorly designed. Bundling the buff with cosmetics makes it more difficult for any given player to find optimal value in the product line. As currently designed, the only players that find optimal value are those whose cosmetic choice and buff choice align with how the studio chooses to bundle them. It would be a shame if that argument made no impact.

Ayrilana.1396:

Something is only ‘better’ if it’s desirable.

Admittedly, this quote is taken out of context but I don’t think it matters.

Plenty of people desire cigarettes. Are cigarettes ‘better’? Heroin? Slaves?
In economics value is defined as the amount someone is willing to pay for something, or more accurately how much someone is willing to work for something with currency used as abstracted work. It is tediously obvious that some players will find value in a product or product line no matter how that product is designed or the product line is organized. We live in a world were people are willing to pay for objectively inferior products to the extreme of paying for products that shorten their lives. Do not take the above as a position on regulation or the mentioned products as analogs for gathering tools. I am just demonstrating that there is a distinction between value and rational self-interest.

Gathering tools have become more complex, there are objectively more features available. In the context of player value finding, there are theoretically more ways for players to find value; more possible paths when navigating the gathering tool marketplace. How those features are bundled describes how willing the supplier is to limit the number of possible value finding paths. There isn’t a formula to objectively measure how many paths should be available. Imo, the number of paths a supplier makes available describes the supplier’s personality. Imo, a supplier that holds a monopoly on innovation, production technology (recipes) and sells to ‘fans’ who are more willing to accept terms than the general population, is always operating close to the threshold of having a manipulative personality.

Imo, the combination of available gathering tool features and how they are bundled describes a supplier personality that values retail strategy above variation in player value finding. I understand that it is possible to unintentionally end up in that situation. Increasing the number of features pushes you towards that situation.

How a supplier communicates its value proposition is also a personality trait, perhaps more.

Astralporing, you’re claiming the studio made a formal statement to the effect that there would be no more gathering tool buffs. Can you or anyone else provide that statement?

Gathering tools, as a type of gear, have a lot of potential to deliver monetizeable variety and function. Imo, their evolution has resulted in a homunculus.

The NPC marketplace for unbound magic is quite rich and players will be able to find persistent value in the currency. As well, where unbound magic intersects with gold (magic-wrapped packet), it is more resilient to changes in the overall game and UM will maintain its gold value better than snowflakes or sprockets. So far so good.

Harvesting tools that provide the UM buff can be had in game, eliminating the potential for P2W. All good here.

Infinite gathering tools without a buff only provide a convenience. That’s good too.

Combine them and it gets a bit uglier. Buffed tools that provide a currency bonus and are available in-game, combined with a rich reward marketplace to spend that currency will decrease the demand for any infinite gathering tools without the currency buff. Dear studio, you spent months in that position and players spent months debating whether to use the infinite gathering tools they already had or using the karma tools; or debating whether ‘now’ was the right time to invest in infinite gathering tools.

Imo, if the studio wants to gain more from infinite gathering tools, they will have to rework how they are designed, or every time we see something new added the humunculus will wail, “Retail Shenanigans!”

mXz.4512:

The reason I’ve bought the older tools, and have no qualms about buying these is because the different looks and themes. The fact that the sprocket mining pick gives sprockets or that these new ones give unbound magic make zero difference to me.

I make my characters according to themes/styles that interest me, and I definitely don’t rage over something that supposedly gives an edge over something sold before. I find all this raging “Oh these are gonna make everything else I have obsolete”, “Why bother buying any other tools?”, “Make new tools with infusion sockets…”; obnoxious and very childish.

Seriously, just stop. The reason my ele charr uses my molten tools it to complete a flame legion theme, I could care less that it doesn’t give bonuses. My Engi or any asura character uses the ‘O-matic’ tools, and druid uses the cosmic tools. Get the point?

So all this bickering about extra harvesting bonuses needs to stop, its getting kiddish.

No you stop!

It is unreasonable to demand consumers weigh only one feature of a multi-feature item because it is irrational to ignore all features.

It is immature to insist that all consumers should place the highest value where you find greatest value.

It is counter productive to advocate putting minimum or no value on the new feature the studio has rolled out in the effort to promote retail sales.

psst……use kitten lol

Welcome. Silverwastes ‘occurs/exists’ in season 2 of the Living World story arc. So far for story, we have the personal story from the original game, LW seasons 1 and 2, Heart of Thorns story and we are currently in the second to last episode of LW season 3. If being lost means you don’t know the story, then I would do your personal story. Unfortunately LW season 1 isn’t available but LW season 2 and past episodes of LW season 3 can be purchased from the gem shop. Whether to lvl a new character is up to you. Your max lvl character will be scaled to the content you are doing so you won’t ever feel too overpowered.

I agree with Astralporing, item progression in the gem shop is a slippery slope. It is the studio monetizing their role as the sole source of innovation and their superior position in a pronounced disparity in information.

The new UM buffed tools aren’t the exact equivalent to the Sprocket buffed tools because there are UM buffed tools available in game; players who use the gem shop do not have an advantage over players who do not.

mtpelion.4562:

They should have created a basic “Unlimited Tool” for each type that had a medium cost attached to it.

Then they should have sold the skins (and the affiliated animations) separately allowing your basic “Unlimited Tool” to become any of the new tools as you desire (just like buying an outfit).

Finally, they should have added an “enrichment slot” to gathering tools that gives you a % chance to obtain a specific bonus item (sprockets, Azurite, UM, snowflakes, etc.) when it is equipped in a gathering tool. Unlimited versions of these enrichments could then ALSO be sold on the gem store.

This system would have not only permitted players to have significant control over their customization and convenience, but would have resulting in MORE gemstore revenue for ArenaNet.

In context of egalitarian design and player agency, this approach to harvesting tools is superior to what we have now. However, I am not certain that egalitarian design and increased player agency means more revenue.

Wolfey.3407:

It’s been suggested before, even by an Anet Developer.
According to the AMA a long time ago, he was laughed at for bringing it up.

Sadly, it seems that ANET will never take that as a serious idea…
Shame really, it’s a feature I really enjoyed in other MMO’s.

True genius is often laughed at.
That is how I explain all the laughter.

As much as I want fishing, I also realize it doesn’t fit the studio’s aesthetic. They take their credo, WWMBD? (What would Michael Bay do?) seriously.

Grimwolf.7163:

Menadena.7482:

Grimwolf.7163:

Psientist.6437:

Grimwolf.7163:

I have like 20 points left to go on my leatherworking that I can’t reasonably complete, because each item I craft costs roughly 20 gold. It would take about 200 gold to finish.
Most of them only sell back for ~6-8 gold, because idiots. And can take several days to do so due to low demand.

Could you expand more on the ‘because idiots’?

What would you call it when people craft something, and then sell it for less than it cost them to craft it?

The market rate?

It is odd. In RL adding labor to something increases the cost over that of the materials. The GW2 economy does the precise opposite of that. I am not sure how you would fix it at this point though.

Oh trust me, people do it in real life as well. It’s part of the reason why unions, minimum pay and similar institutions exist.
Hobbyists nose their way into a professional business because they enjoy it, and charge little if anything for their work, screwing over the professionals.
It was a large part of what crashed the mobile app industry several years ago (people still release thousands of apps a day, but can no longer reasonably make a living off it).
It’s just what happens when you don’t have any rules. People in general are either idiots or selfish.
Most people see minimum wage, for example, as preventing businesses from paying unreasonably low sums. But that would only actually work if someone were willing to accept that unreasonably low pay. And there most certainly would be.

I am sure you are smart enough to realize that you are arguing for the studio to make crafting less democratic. To achieve what you seem to be asking for, the studio would have to limit the number of players who have access to crafting recipes. Does that sound like something anyone would enjoy?

Pushing a button on a commonly owned recipe to make something you and most everyone else only want because it grants crafting xp is not labor.

Rauderi.8706:

Psientist.6437:

Endless Soul.5178:

I do fish.

I swim up to a fish and jab a spear into it until it’s dead.

Can it really be called fishing if it doesn’t result in fish meat? What you describe sounds more like killing. I think Tyrian fish flesh may be too delicate and can not survive interaction with heroes.

If we are too powerful for it, how will it give us buffs? T__T

Really though, having actual fish and actual swimming makes the idea of “fishing” seem obsolete.

But, I can always hope that Cooking 500 results in Quaggan sushi~

However much speaking in the third person annoys me, I can’t condone eating those that annoy me. Unless they cross a threshold of savory goodness.

There are fish and swimming people in the real world and yet some of us fish from the shore. I think it is difficult for non-fishers to understand fishers because we want to do something that isn’t especially productive. We aren’t particularly sensible. I have spent orders of magnitude more money on fishing than on what fish cost.

Skittish.4539:

Grimwolf.7163:

Psientist.6437:

Grimwolf.7163:

I have like 20 points left to go on my leatherworking that I can’t reasonably complete, because each item I craft costs roughly 20 gold. It would take about 200 gold to finish.
Most of them only sell back for ~6-8 gold, because idiots. And can take several days to do so due to low demand.

Could you expand more on the ‘because idiots’?

What would you call it when people craft something, and then sell it for less than it cost them to craft it?

Smart, because then they don’t have to sit on this item that they don’t need or want for who knows how long.

‘pragmatic’ or ‘realistic’, or ‘willing to accept the reality that not all Tyrian crafting will result in adding marketable value, especially items commonly crafted to increase crafting lvl.’, or ‘willing to accept that crafted goods have to compete with drops’

I refuse to admit any of you exist.

Grimwolf.7163:

I have like 20 points left to go on my leatherworking that I can’t reasonably complete, because each item I craft costs roughly 20 gold. It would take about 200 gold to finish.
Most of them only sell back for ~6-8 gold, because idiots. And can take several days to do so due to low demand.

Could you expand more on the ‘because idiots’?

Astralporing.1957:

That would be only a partial solution, as it would affect only the cases when the items are identical. That would be nothing more than duct-taping the system, and that’s something that generally should be avoided (as it leaves the mess that makes potential further changes much harder to implement, as well as making the whole much more prone to bug in some way)

I think the exact opposite is true and a complex and thorough filter would be an example of over-engineering. There really isn’t a problem to duct tape over. We are just talking about increasing MF productivity. The cases where items are identical represent the overwhelming bulk of tedious MF clicking and is where the greatest gain in productivity could be had. The code for the change I (actually both of us) offered would be very simple and much less prone to bugs than a complex and thorough filter. A simple duplicate recipe calculator would be less likely to create bugs with future recipes and would not require any updates to the dialog box. A complex and thorough filter would require updates to its dialog box/window. As well, at a certain point in a filter’s complexity, the filter will require more clicking and attention than what we have now. That could be limited by allowing players to save their filter, but that is an increase in complexity. A complex and thorough filter would also be more prone to user error and allow players to blame their user error on the complexity of the filter. A simple duplicate recipe check would be so much easier to use.

Endless Soul.5178:

I do fish.

I swim up to a fish and jab a spear into it until it’s dead.

Can it really be called fishing if it doesn’t result in fish meat? What you describe sounds more like killing. I think Tyrian fish flesh may be too delicate and can not survive interaction with heroes.

The thread title is very confusing since your topic had nothing to do with MF mobility. Perhaps change it to ‘Mystic Forging in bulk’?

Astralporing.1957:

Blek Lynx.8695:

No, you certainly did not understand what was being said. But I’m not surprised.

I’m not surprised as well. You certainly didn’t explain well what you had in mind.

I think, that we have to distinguish two situations here. One is forging using a certain recipe that uses stacked mats. Each forget uses up some of the mats, but the stacks remain. Another is forging using non-stackable items (like the gloves you show in your first picture).

First should definitely be repeatable until your mats run out (and should be able to use mats from bank as well – perhaps even via selectable recipe, crafting station style). Second is a much more tricky problem. You’d need a ton of selectable filters to make it really useful (like filtering by general gear type, weight category/weapon type, level range). It may be a bit too difficult to implement.
Though at least they should remove the final forge result accept button. It doesn’t really serve any function besides slowing you down.

Both could be handled the same way perhaps. Once all the items are loaded into the MF dialog box, the MF could calculate how many times the conversion could be completed based on what is in the player’s inventory and ask how many times the player wants to repeat the same combination. This method would not be as thorough, but it would handle the situations where using the MF is most tedious, like converting karma gear into salvageable gear and upgrading stacks of sigils and runes. It would be so convenient it would likely impact the TP.

If a mmo had fishing and I played that mmo, I always fished. Fishing was a way to unwind, something to do while chatting, and above all, made the mmo world seem more real, less one dimensional. Years ago, I posted ideas for fishing that included a skill bar based on the pole and bait choices, had pole angle controlled by the mouse and even offered the choice of dispatching the fish or releasing. Fishing can be fun and engaging.

That being said, there are some challenges to being a fisherman in Tyria. Namely, Tyria is crowded, there are not many places where someone could fish and not be easily interrupted by another player running by with a train of foes. That player wouldn’t have to be a troll either. Dynamic events would also have to be designed so that, if they move around, they do not interfere with likely fishing areas.

I also don’t think the studio believes fishing fits their design aesthetic. At this point I would just be happy to see the poor fishermen in Queensdale on Lake Delavan finally cast their rods and start fishing. They have been poised to cast for years and the fish are laughing.

Not sure why aquatic weapons are being brought up. Reads as though the OP just means new weapons, not converting existing aquatic weapons into land weapons.

There is nothing hard coded into the game that prevents the studio from adding new weapons. Since it is something players would be willing to pay for, new weapons would likely only appear in paid expansions. If we are going to Elona, we may see two handed scythes and one handed sickles or two handed pikes and one handed thrusting spears. In GW1 scythes and spears where the new weapon type added for the Elona based, Nightfall campaign.

Tekey.7946:

Ayrilana.1396:

Whether or not there are any events in the game that match what you want doesn’t mean that events cannot be created as such nor that events and quests are any different from each other.

So the thread title is false as events can certainly be made to match what you want. It just takes more resources.

This:

Tekey.7946:

• Personality. And that’s a major point. Do you remember which legion your Charr character belongs to? Which order you chose? Which god did your humans choose and what’s the back-story of your character? Where did you come from, who are your friends and enemies? Doesn’t matter, you’re doing the same events as everyone else, no matter if you’re a human, Charr, Sylvari, Norn or Asura. Defeat this enemy because he’s evil. Defend this ally because he’s good.
  You’ll never find out who your character really is, how he would act according to his backstory and whom he would help.

combined with:

Tekey.7946:

• Multiple choices. Decisions with a real impact on the story and your character + other characters. Decide whom you can trust, if you want to be honest, greedy or naive. The story will have a different outcome accordingly.

in an event that appears for every player (in the same map), that supports every single combination of choices of each player? That’s ridiculous. Tell me how.

Events can record our decision to participate in the event and whether the event succeeds or fail. What you are describing requires a decision tree that compiles our choices and events can’t contain this type of decision tree. The decision tree would have to exist outside of events, but participating in an event could produce change in the decision tree. We see this employed with some collections and it doesn’t always work well. Events don’t seem to offer much in the way of “personality choices” other than whether the player helps the event succeed or fail.

Perhaps if we had a Flux Capacitor we could figure out a way but unless you have one, bringing up the possibility comes across as arguing for arguments sake.

Bringing up the fact that not all mmorpgs have to conform to a standard is so redundant and obvious that it also qualifies as arguing for arguments sake.

Events don’t have to be the jack-of-all-trades that quests are and being the jack-of-all-trades often means being master of none. Spreading the functionality of quests among events, story, hearts, etc was a good decision because it allowed each to be the master of their function.

The personality decision tree compiler that was shipped on release hasn’t gone anywhere because dynamic open world events aren’t good at compiling those decisions and don’t offer that many sincere choices.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ashantara.8731:

I don’t think the OP was trying to say that they wanted events replaced with personal quests. I think the actual statement was that ArenaNet has been completely neglecting personal character development (as initiated by the personal story) in favor of events, which is never a good thing in a MMO*RPG* for the RPG part is completely being ignored.

Soon people will turn from MMOs to traditional pen & paper again, because they miss the excitement of adventuring and character progress.

Personal character development isn’t a requirement for RPG’s. Personal character development was only present during the second story arc of the personal story (level 20). Nothing else touched on the player character’s background history. GW1 really had zero personal character development in the sense of background story as well. Instead both stories centered around the player character’s involvement in the events going on within the games.

Offering background story or variable story choices is only one flavor of ‘rp’ and ‘rp’ is a subset of player agency. I would argue that GW1’s sandbox profession mechanic and hero mechanic allowed player agency to function on a fundamental level.

Ashantara.8731:

I don’t think the OP was trying to say that they wanted events replaced with personal quests. I think the actual statement was that ArenaNet has been completely neglecting personal character development (as initiated by the personal story) in favor of events, which is never a good thing in a MMO*RPG* for the RPG part is completely being ignored.

Soon people will turn from MMOs to traditional pen & paper again, because they miss the excitement of adventuring and character progress.

I agree. Imo, being Tyrian is like visiting Disneyland. You are shown so many incredible things, participate in great adventures; but the only way to include your personality is through the souvenir shop. There is something insincere about Tyrian agency. I always feel like a consumer of Tyria, not a builder of Tyria.

As others have said, the combination of events, hearts, collections, achievements, PS, LW, jumping puzzles, mini-dungeons, etc provide most of what traditional quests provide but with greater variety and depth. The exception being role playing. I think the superior quality and delivery of non-rp elements makes the lack of rp elements more pronounced.

With Home Instances, the studio has a way to provide and a place to put sincere role playing.

Labjax.2465:

Psientist.6437:

Labjax.2465:

Psientist.6437:

Labjax.2465:

I spent about five minutes thinking about scenarios where this wouldn’t be true and I already thought of one. Having mobs that are limited to what the player has could be a strong design choice for teaching the player about how their class works and what its limitations are. You make the players face themselves and they will get sparks of ideas from how the NPC plays and what strategies they use.

So that is already one design reason out of the “none” that you say exist.

You describe a genuine advantage of using conformist builds for NPCs and there are many conformist NPCs. This advantage shrinks as a player becomes more proficient.

Nonconformist builds offer a similar challenge or opportunity to learn. Nonconformist builds do offer the unexpected.

I don’t think the arguments for either is stronger then the one for both.

The person I was responding to said, “there is no design reason to restrict mobs from having non-player skills.” I gave a design reason why it might be beneficial in some circumstances. That was the point of what I said.

As for the tangent you’re going in, you’re missing the point of the point I was making. My point was, the player can potentially learn about their own class through seeing an NPC use it. Learning from an NPC that is much different from them is not the same kind of learning opportunity, even if it can be a learning opportunity.

Offering a challenge is something different. That requires more ongoing variety, sure. But the octovine isn’t exactly changing his mechanics each time either. So it’s not as though having unique abilities means the player will be presented with a unique challenge each time they fight the same mob. It just means there’ll be more mobs in the game that have unique mechanics.

I took your point to be mostly an opportunity to give yourself unearned applause. I won’t dwell on that point because if you really believe that conformist builds are “beneficial in some circumstances” then you also must believe “there is no design reason to restrict mobs from having non-player skills”, and we are in agreement. Do you need to make a point about the definition of ‘restrict’?

Your argument about the Octavine or any other NPC that doesn’t change its build or mechanics is a straw man. Failure to deliver on every possible way to make NPC encounters challenging is not an argument for the studio to restrict themselves to one way.

What are you talking about? Is there something in the tangle of negatives that is “there is no design reason to restrict mobs from having non-player skills" where we are comprehending it differently?

That statement, to my eyes, is essentially saying that there is no design reason why you would create mobs that only have player skills, abilities, etc. I’m saying that, no, there can be a design reason why you would do that. That it might be a beneficial approach in some circumstances.

As for the Octovine, the point of me saying that is that just because a mob has unique abilities doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an ongoing source of challenge or variety. That it’s the aggregate adding of new types of NPCs over time that helps create an ongoing source of challenge and variety, not the adding of unique abilities itself.

Consider that in the case of the Octovine, the variety lies more in the mechanics for removing its shield than any abilities it might have. So it’s not as if giving NPCs unique abilities is the only way to create new scenarios for the player.

That is a unique way to understand that statement, especially in the context of this thread, which is about restricting, in general, NPCs to conformist builds. I think you may have read it that way because your reading is easier to argue against.

Let’s change the topic but use the same language.

There is no “transportation” design reason to restrict automotive production to pickup trucks. Would you understand that to mean I don’t think pickup trucks should be produced?

No one on the pro-nonconformist side is arguing that conformist builds have no advantages or a place in GW2, just that NPC don’t need to be restricted to them. Are you arguing that NPCs should be restricted to conformist builds?

Meiko Isamura.6352:

The hope was to continue creating content in any one area of GW2 that allows for certain skills in the game to be used, and so continue to be relevant. The argument is that class and player skill progression make the game more fun and interesting to play and will help with long-term player retention. Players learning more of their class, different skills such as movement and blasts, fields, and positioning for fights make the game more fun for some players and it would be nice if there was one type of content done approximately in the style of core dungeons so players could continue to learn them. These are all skills and mechanics that existed in the game since launch and learning them was relevant and fun. Unfortunately they are now being lost from the player base as a whole, which you can argue is a bad thing and it would be an improvement for GW2 for Anet to develop content that helped players learn these fun skills.

You are not “That Elitist Guy” that some made you out to be. You may be “That Overly Optimistic Guy” though.

HoT helped break me from my play-by-route style and I am grateful, but many people hated and left for the very same reason.

I think Season 2 meta maps that required organized play were an effort to bring that dungeon quality to PvE, but there again we saw players complain about the difficulty level. Pushing a player to increase their proficiency increases the retention rate of a subset of players. It has the exact opposite effect on another subset.

Labjax.2465:

Psientist.6437:

Labjax.2465:

I spent about five minutes thinking about scenarios where this wouldn’t be true and I already thought of one. Having mobs that are limited to what the player has could be a strong design choice for teaching the player about how their class works and what its limitations are. You make the players face themselves and they will get sparks of ideas from how the NPC plays and what strategies they use.

So that is already one design reason out of the “none” that you say exist.

You describe a genuine advantage of using conformist builds for NPCs and there are many conformist NPCs. This advantage shrinks as a player becomes more proficient.

Nonconformist builds offer a similar challenge or opportunity to learn. Nonconformist builds do offer the unexpected.

I don’t think the arguments for either is stronger then the one for both.

The person I was responding to said, “there is no design reason to restrict mobs from having non-player skills.” I gave a design reason why it might be beneficial in some circumstances. That was the point of what I said.

As for the tangent you’re going in, you’re missing the point of the point I was making. My point was, the player can potentially learn about their own class through seeing an NPC use it. Learning from an NPC that is much different from them is not the same kind of learning opportunity, even if it can be a learning opportunity.

Offering a challenge is something different. That requires more ongoing variety, sure. But the octovine isn’t exactly changing his mechanics each time either. So it’s not as though having unique abilities means the player will be presented with a unique challenge each time they fight the same mob. It just means there’ll be more mobs in the game that have unique mechanics.

I took your point to be mostly an opportunity to give yourself unearned applause. I won’t dwell on that point because if you really believe that conformist builds are “beneficial in some circumstances” then you also must believe “there is no design reason to restrict mobs from having non-player skills”, and we are in agreement. Do you need to make a point about the definition of ‘restrict’?

Your argument about the Octavine or any other NPC that doesn’t change its build or mechanics is a straw man. Failure to deliver on every possible way to make NPC encounters challenging is not an argument for the studio to restrict themselves to one way.

Labjax.2465:

I spent about five minutes thinking about scenarios where this wouldn’t be true and I already thought of one. Having mobs that are limited to what the player has could be a strong design choice for teaching the player about how their class works and what its limitations are. You make the players face themselves and they will get sparks of ideas from how the NPC plays and what strategies they use.

So that is already one design reason out of the “none” that you say exist.

You describe a genuine advantage of using conformist builds for NPCs and there are many conformist NPCs. This advantage shrinks as a player becomes more proficient.

Nonconformist builds offer a similar challenge or opportunity to learn. Nonconformist builds do offer the unexpected.

I don’t think the arguments for either is stronger then the one for both.

Ponder the existence of the enemy NPC; commoner, abomination, ranked, or any other. Wanting only to fight a hero, they howl on their leashes as hero speed past. Must be a PoI is close! Offer them however many conformist skills and builds there are and the only ones they will want are ccs and surprise attacks.

If "players want more skills’ is a truism, then it is also a truism that the gap between player ability and NPC ability will always grow. Both truisms demand a design strategy and a studio asset allocation strategy.

If the studio intends to ensure that encounters remain challenging and interesting (not just “harder”), then giving common and named NPCs unique skills has advantages. A design strategy where NPC builds are limited to being a subset of the PC definition of professions will deliver a finite number of possible builds. As builds are consumed, the supply remaining will be more difficult for AI to play and more expensive to develop. As well, players become more proficient with professions and the bar for interesting encounters rises. This is most pronounced and develops fastest when like fights like, when a PC mesmer fights a NPC mesmer. The ‘NPC builds as a subset of PC professions’ strategy chases diminishing returns.

The ‘NPCs have access to unique skills’ strategy also suffers from diminishing returns but at a much lesser rate. This strategy allows any unique skill or attribute or PC nonconforming use, to act as a NPC build design multiplier, dramatically increasing the potential number of interesting or challenging encounter designs. This strategy also delivers a type of surprise and interest that the PC conforming strategy can not. Using both strategies lets each multiply the productivity of the other.

If the studio is working on an expansion and that expansion includes new PC skills, then the studio has more ideas for unique skills and combinations then they know what to with. There is likely no such thing as assigning studio assets to specifically design a PC nonconforming skill for NPCs, those skills are a byproduct of designing PC conforming skills. If I were designing new profession concepts, I would want to test those concepts in game. Nonconforming builds for NPCs may be doing just that.

And let’s stop comparing a game that had sandbox professions as a design pillar with one that does not. That pillar is the foundation of GW1’s profession design approach and holding GW2 to it is unreasonable and impractical.

Djinn.9245:

OriOri.8724:

It breaks immersion, hard. Here we have the PC who is the (now former) Pact Commander. A character that has taken down 2 elder dragons and fought side by side with some of the toughest characters in in-game lore. While the PC may not be the absolute best at their profession, they also are incredibly powerful. If they weren’t then all the struggles that we go through during the story would be meaningless, as literally anyone could have done the same thing.

So you have this character that is setup to be extremely powerful, and then some nobody, some mercenary comes up and we are expected to believe that they have abilities that the PC will never be able to master?

Mechanics wise I understand why we can never have these skills. But lore wise, this breaks immersion like nothing else does. If we are so kitten powerful, how come our PC mesmers can only cast a single mind stab at a time, whilst every white mantle mesmer can cast a solid 4-5 at once? How come the PC mesmers can’t have their illusions take the killing blows for them like every white mantle mesmer can? This just shatters immersion.

This is exactly my issue.

I think for the White Mantle, what Anet should have done is given them a “White Mantle Mastery Line” so they had some completely different powers that the PC can’t ever get because they were discovered / developed by the White Mantle. The White Mantle even has different Character Classes like the Cleric. So this would fit the story and still give the White Mantle powers that we don’t have.

Does it break Tyrian world and lore immersion or violate a type of player role playing narrative? I think it is the later. We don’t have any lore describing how profession skills are discovered/invented and then propagated to break immersion with.

I think this is a genuine weakness. I experience this absence of commoner, functional, every day lore as a lack of Tyrian genuineness that grows more pronounced the more top heavy and inflated the story gets.

Runiir.6425:

Named or not the named classes NEED to be 100% confined to the EXACT skills the players have access to. If they can’t create a challenging encounter with those skills, it is time to take a hard look at the class as to why this is.

As good as any other opinion.

I would prefer normalizing a NPC profession rogue type and a way to identify them in game. Increasing the productivity of destroying them would likely make them more popular.

I think lore is important here and I also think there are sound ways to approach NPCs with distinct skills. If the ability to use magic requires studying and practice then there are many ways to learn and use magic and weapon skills.

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Not more whining about Kormir!?!?!

New Rule!

If you bring up “Being Kormired” you have to explain how our characters could continue playing as gods in Tyria! We all role-play as employees of Arenanet? Our time spent farming for leather in Tyria is us taking a break?

Oh! OH! I know the right answer!
…Don’t make stupid story that doesn’t work in an MMO setting if you can’t ’un’stupid it. Or at least don’t expect people to just buy your kitten when you do.

Why doesn’t Kormir receiving Abaddon’s magic not work for an mmo? The only way I can see that being true is if mmo’s must put aggrandizing the PC above everything else.

You don’t seem to have any idea on what I am talking about, and it’s not my fault in the slightest. I hope you can do the math by the way of exclusion on that one.

Make your case. Why doesn’t the story work for an mmo. Why can’t mmo stories include our PCs receiving less power or shinies than an NPC?
Bluster isn’t an argument, it is just noise.

In short, I hope you got the chance to hear out my point, because It shall not be repeated for obvious reasons.

I don’t communicate well either.

Runiir.6425:

IndigoSundown.5419:

While I can see that it might be frustrating to see a mob which has a skill we cannot use, sometimes they need such advantages. After all, they cannot switch weapons, traits and utilities to counter particular player builds, while players can do so to counter mob builds.

This is irrelevant, you can’t swap on the fly in PvP either yet people do just fine with what they have.

Don’t be obtuse. The limits on weapon swapping in PvP are not the equivalent of never being able to swap weapons, a smaller skill bar, never being able to change traits, and most importantly, having a real brain.

The OP’s complaint is of the same type as the anti-Kormir, anti-Trahearne, that NPC got more applause, has a different shiny than my PC complaints. Dear player, the assumption that NPCs can not have unique skills is yours. It is not a self-evident, obvious extension of gaming, being Tyrian or being the Commandeer. If there is anything special about our Commandeers, besides us, it is their willingness to take the shortcut past a dragon’s teeth on their journey to punch it in the brain and convince our party that it is actually a shortcut.

That being said….

There is a glaring lack of lore explaining how standard Tyrians like our PCs train for professions and gather skills. We keep exploring what makes dragons and gods magical, but have no idea how the standard Tyrian is magical. What does a commoner have to do to become any of the professions? What are skills?

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Not more whining about Kormir!?!?!

New Rule!

If you bring up “Being Kormired” you have to explain how our characters could continue playing as gods in Tyria! We all role-play as employees of Arenanet? Our time spent farming for leather in Tyria is us taking a break?

Oh! OH! I know the right answer!
…Don’t make stupid story that doesn’t work in an MMO setting if you can’t ’un’stupid it. Or at least don’t expect people to just buy your kitten when you do.

Why doesn’t Kormir receiving Abaddon’s magic not work for an mmo? The only way I can see that being true is if mmo’s must put aggrandizing the PC above everything else.

You don’t seem to have any idea on what I am talking about, and it’s not my fault in the slightest. I hope you can do the math by the way of exclusion on that one.

Make your case. Why doesn’t the story work for an mmo. Why can’t mmo stories include our PCs receiving less power or shinies than an NPC?
Bluster isn’t an argument, it is just noise.

Grimheart.2853:

Psientist.6437:

Not more whining about Kormir!?!?!

New Rule!

If you bring up “Being Kormired” you have to explain how our characters could continue playing as gods in Tyria! We all role-play as employees of Arenanet? Our time spent farming for leather in Tyria is us taking a break?

Oh! OH! I know the right answer!
…Don’t make stupid story that doesn’t work in an MMO setting if you can’t ’un’stupid it. Or at least don’t expect people to just buy your kitten when you do.

Why doesn’t Kormir receiving Abaddon’s magic not work for an mmo? The only way I can see that being true is if mmo’s must put aggrandizing the PC above everything else.

Palador.2170:

Psientist.6437:

New Rule!

If you bring up “Being Kormired” you have to explain how our characters could continue playing as gods in Tyria!

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Version 1: A great amount of magical energy is stored within the character, but it’s far too much for them to access safely. Instead, they form a “seal” on it, becoming a sort of living bloodstone. This gives us time to deal with the magic safely and leaves the player character more or less mortal, while still putting the power into them. It would also draw threats to them, as any other would-be gods or Elder Dragons try to kill them to get at the power.

Version 2: We don’t keep the power, we spread it out across the known world. Maybe even across all of Tyria. Everybody Ascends, and everybody is just one small step closer to godhood rather than just one person jumping straight to the end. This also opens us up to taking a few more steps along that path, knowing that we’ll never have to worry about reaching the end by the time GW2 ends.

I should have been more explicit and asked asked for compelling ways for our characters to continue in Tyria as gods. (Please accept this as a jest made possible by your signature.)

Version 1 is a stalling tactic, we are still left with either our characters dramatically increasing in power or finding someway to be rid of that power.

A version of Version 2 wouldn’t be terrible. But, imo, it isn’t very interesting, it doesn’t make Tyria a more interesting more diverse place. It just makes everything a little ‘more’.

Cyninja.2954:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

what sort of sickens me in this whole situation is that seemingly everyone who bothers to write in this forum does not pay even remotely enougth attention to actuall story unfolding only to then jump to bashing it because something didn’t play out the way they expected and nearly no one actually putting an effort to try to decipher writer’s intentions about meaning of all of this…..

This.

The amount of missunderstanding and complaining can most often be attributed to people not knowing the most basic lore of GW. I will add though that this is in part also arenanets fault since not every player has played GW1 or been involved in its story throughout the entire process.

Persoanlly I love the new direction the story has taken (in my opinion away from the dragon threat towards a more GW1 esque scenario where the gods and the mysts become more important). I understand how some newer players might feel about the story resolution and I wish arenanet had placed some more pointers here and there (I’m still advocating some kind of lore book which players should be able to flip through and read up on GW lore ingame without having to run ti the wiki every 5 minutes).

I think it’s very clear that arenanet are trying to build more and more bridges between GW2 and 1 lore and story wise, which I am all for.

The story needed to evolve and with the appearance of B, it has. Hopefully, the story will be about a broader competition for magic within a broader environment for magic.

Lore books are stale. We have the Priory, Asuran labs, etc; give us scholars and teachers instead.

Not more whining about Kormir!?!?!

New Rule!

If you bring up “Being Kormired” you have to explain how our characters could continue playing as gods in Tyria! We all role-play as employees of Arenanet? Our time spent farming for leather in Tyria is us taking a break?

Kitten! CAT! even. If you want good story, don’t ask story tellers to deliver the impossible or ridiculous. If divine, dragon, or kitten magic must find a new home, it shouldn’t be with our characters. My guess, there will be a general reshuffling of magic, a new way to process magic that doesn’t involve dragons causing cataclysms, with Aurene as a catalyst.

We have defeated two dragons through two similar stories. I think we needed the story against the next dragon to exist on another more grand level. If that means a literal god among gods, then putting that god in a machine is less funny than our PC explaining themselves to Taimi. “It said” ‘eat me’, I said.

I don’t think the story of us casually helping Taimi develop an obvious doomsday weapon was strong enough to build a space for B.

If I may,
Right away, Taimi tells us the weapon is more of a world destroying bomb than a weapon to end all dragons.
We come to gripes with our casual cooperation. Why all the secrecy?
When B arrives even humans would have to get in his way, and would eventually say,
“WOW! B! that will blow up Tyria!”
B “Shmyria”
That scene would energize the journey through the zone. We would have made those spirits cooperate.
There are so many things B could have said during the final battle besides mumbling and Shmyria.

I gringe whenever I see someone from the studio use the term ‘hoard’, it implies irrational or malignant selfishness. I can understand a studio being frustrated by low rates of market participation or participation efficiency, but referring to the lower raters as ‘hoarders’ will not increase the rating. Imo, don’t talk about that mechanic or frustration if you have to use the term ‘hoard’ and look for ways to make it easier to search our banks with filters linked to the BLTP. Make it easier to understand the Tyrian gold value of our bank and inventory assets. Thank you for providing such a high standard of living without needing much Tyrian gold. It is easy to not care about gold.

I’ve never met an economist, but here’s my two cents.

TDLR The overall maturation of the crafting rewards marketplace will help Mystic Coins weather ‘asset valuation and currency’s ability to do work’ and they will remain a stable asset.

Yes, the Tyrian marketplace has an economic creator, it is a designed economy. The studio should be held responsible for how it manages the demand for Tyrian gold. The studio maintains the terms and conditions for an open offer on Tyrian gold and/or gems. It would be in the studio’s and the player’s mutual interest to maintain a stable Tyrian gold value, its ability to do work. I hope both want the marketplace to genuinely emerge from a democratic valuation of Tyrian assets.
Imo, the structure of MCs have a distinct contribution to that genuinely player emergent valuation. As a login reward asset, they measure the range for minimum player participation in the reward market place and maximum asset creation regularity. MCs have a small recipe footprint and most are being destroyed to make prestige gear. The prestige tier of crafting rewards sits upon a steeply inclined mountain of crafting assets. The mountain is obvious and so is the decision whether to climb. Mystic Coins are a square deal between those who are most willing to work for prestige skins and those not. The regular creation rate of MCs will heavily influence the production rate of prestige skins. As long as the crafting reward marketplace maintains a steady supply of players maturing through reward tiers and investing in prestige skins, demand for MCs will persist. Mystic Coins are designed to be very liquid, a consistently created asset with a persistent demand remaining accurately valued by the player base.

Is that value too high?
I think an accurately measured square deal is close enough to a square deal

Increase the supply of Mystic Coins?
The cost of MCs will influence production rates for prestige skins, but not by much and I don’t think a modest decrease in the price of MCs would create more demand for prestige skins. The difference in workload for the prestige crafting tiers is too great for a small decrease to cover many people. A similar number of people would be competing over the supply of assets. Increase the supply rate of a particular asset and that competition will resolve using less currency but a lot of the income competition will move to other materials needed for prestige crafting and the savings to someone working towards prestige skins would, I think, be in single digit percentages. A small increase in the production rate of prestige skins (the last crafting tier before maturing out of the crafting asset marketplace mind you) would produce a proportional decrease in the production rate of gear statistics and skins that share not-MC recipe requirements with prestige skins.

“We should have supply chains and each villages or hearts depending on each other and certain towns getting upgraded and offering things only if they reach a particular level.”
TheFibreWire

This is how I would like rewards for the Home Instance to be created.

Having the White Mantle attack DR likely means group content that requires organizing, something that has been absent from this season. Hopefully we do see a new zone bordering DR because it would allow for ‘wall defense’ game play. DR is a walled city and couldn’t be attacked using similar tactics from LA arc.

Will Lazarus make an appearance? He is a part of the White Mantle story. I predict that if he is against the WM then defending DR will be used as a way to demonstrate his motives but if he is for the White Mantle, his appearance will be the cliff hanger that precedes the next expansion. The video does feature someone in what looks like White Mantle necromancer armor and Lazarus is a necromancer…

I’m looking forward to the next LW episode. My time as a Tyrian doesn’t continue much outside of the LW episodes and it is time well spent. The studio is good at telling compelling stories within dynamic zones. I wish the reward meta compelled me to stay longer and I wish it didn’t look as though the reward meta homogenized the story zone telling.

My take on why a leather a farm and not a recipe change.

Hoarding? Any change that the studio makes to the supply or demand of leather will continue indefinitely and affect the equilibrium price of leather indefinitely. An increase in the supply of leather will move an amount of storied leather into the market place, lowering the price. The effects of that stored leather on price will last, likely only weeks. Discussions of hoarding may be sublimating the impulse to covet.

Play time and recipe workload are strongly correlated.

Playtime is described by diverse players, playing earning towards recipe specifics and a comparatively universal currency and the desire and devices to maintain the demand for and value of that currency.

Optimal monetization of the player base does not just describe all the sports cars in the studio parking lot. It also describes players finding value near their optimal playtime to reward workload exchange. The more complex the economic ecosystem becomes the more likely a recipe workload change will appear as a straight line and miss optimal monetization.

Reward faucets allow players to employ agency in value finding and the form and structure of the faucet contributes to the economic ecosystem.

Where a change to the amount of leather demanded by recipes would homogeneously change the distance to armor, a faucet allows player to adjust and change velocity towards armor. If optimal monetization is the goal, both would be required.

There is a lot of content and story potential within the home instances. Rather than entering into relationships with individual NPCS, I would prefer to be the mayor/benefactor of the home instances. With my help, those two humans who can’t afford to start a family could and the Krewe that was displaced by dragons could set up operations. I have been working on a broader description of what I mean and some day will get it on paper.

I have only done a single, simple play through of LW3 so far. Everything I know about this scavenger hunt, I’ve learned from forums.

Tyria is full of people who study and catalog magic items. The game world would support any number of NPCs who would be able to look at the ring and give the player some ideas about how to uncover its true nature and identity. Involving those NPCs would have added value to the scavenger hunt, reducing the expectations of value for the item.

Imagine trying to get help identifying the ring from Skritt in the zone. They could send the player on wild goose chases until one of them hit on the right process.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Behellagh.1468:

Ashen.2907:

Behellagh.1468:

Psientist.6437:

The gem exchange can increase the supply of gold (which isn’t the only factor in inflation). Players generate gold and anything that prompts players to generate gold will increase the supply and demand for gold. New gold generated specifically to buy gems is gold that would not have existed without the gem exchange and 1g taxed at 33% still leaves you with some silver.

Except it doesn’t. The exchange doesn’t create gold, or gems, out of nothing. The gold players get from selling gems comes from a “vault” of gold stocked by players buying gems with gold and the gems they are buying are from a “vault” of gems stocked by players selling gems. When the game launched the “vaults” were seeded but since then it’s all us pouring in and pulling out gold and gems.

He didnt say that the exchange creates gold. He said that some players do purposefully generate gold specifically to convert to gems. This is true. Some players do actively farm for the sole purpose of converting to gems when there is something in the gem store that they want.

True, my bad. But the exchange wasn’t meant to be the way to buy EVERYTHING you want from the Gem Shop, and sometimes it seems too many players think that. But I wouldn’t use the exchange rate as a gauge for overall inflation in the economy, just like I wouldn’t use Precursors, Legendary Weapons or Unlimited Contract Unlocks.

Also, farming is much more efficient if one gathers materials and sells them on the TP — incurring the 15% gold sink — as opposed to performing activities that are faucets. When I farm, more gold comes out of the economy than is created from nothing.

I can stop whenever I want.

Farming is efficient, but stable prices on the TP indicate it is not common. If farming and selling mats were the most common way to earn gold then we would see persistent deflation. For every one player earning 10 gold/hour, there are dozens if not hundreds of players doing daily rewards; players whose income is mostly new gold.

I am not arguing against the exchange, but that the exchange is just as good at moving new gold from a player’s wallet and into circulation as any other recipe or production goal. Depending on player demographics, it may even be a more common production goal than ascended gear.

Hi Khandro,

Imo, the mesmer requires a higher level of attention and faster reaction time to play effectively. If you’re main problem is with enemy density, I recommend a necro with a minion master build.

Since you have a go to partner, I would also recommend learning each other’s classes and developing tactics that take advantage of combo fields and shared buffs. The ranger or ranged attacks may not be the best option if your husband is a melee class, since you will be too far apart to buff each other.