Guild Wars 2

So I was playing our Borderlands last night and we managed to organize a pickup group to storm Etheron Hills and take our orb back. Enemy had 40 guys up at Godsword, but we managed to get about 30 people together, enough of whom brought supply to get 3 rams built on each gate, took the keep in about 5 minutes, before the enemy could respond, it was beautiful. I digress.

So, we captured the keep with full supply. Right before it shifted to our control, we had myself and about 10 other people all shouting in every available channel “Please don’t take supply from Eth, we need it for upgrades if we want to hold it!” et cetera. But, inevitably, in the minute after we took control the supplies dwindled from 500/500 to the mid-200s. Wall construction stalled at 30%, enemy started constantly attacking trying to get the place back, pandemonium. Controlled one supply camp almost constantly and had it upgraded, but the second the Yak would arrive the 100 supply it brought in evaporated as people spammed poorly-positioned siege or just picked up supply and ran off. Fast forward 3 hours later, walls are still only up to 90%.

Common situation we find ourselves in when working with pickup groups, I know. Had about a dozen solid people running supplies in from Garrison or the supply camps to build siege, but we were still losing 90% of our supplies in the pile to people who more often than not wasted it. Things like arrow carts out in the open in front of the gate, et cetera. Went to sleep after 3 hours of not a single upgrade getting done, and apparently we lost the keep half an hour later with the walls still only at 95%. I’ll stop now, because you get the idea and the memory is making my blood boil.

Anyway, what would you guys say to a way to allocate supplies in a keep or tower? Say, for example, that your guild has the keep claimed. Would you be in favor of an option to set who can take supply from the pile? Say, “Everyone,” “Guild Only,” and “Workers Only” for example? Not the most elegant solution, but I’m fairly sure everyone has had their carefully-laid plans to fortify and hold a location sabotaged by people who, despite trying to be helpful most of the time, end up screwing the whole team over by wasting all your supplies?

Walls and gates were upgraded, not fortified. And yes, we were getting damage numbers. Far as the corner pieces, etc. we were hitting in either the center of the destroyable portions or, on the second treb, right at the base. Since I’ve seen trebs do damage to walls when they hit as farkitten 10 feet from the base, this is surely close enough. Not to mention that these trebs were in the same place, down to a foot, as we had some last time, and they were doing damage then.

Was just playing on my server’s borderland, sieging the bay keep. We had a couple of trebs up, hitting the walls from long range. The shots were landing right on the wall, and all the treb operators were seeing damage numbers pop up. However, the walls were not taking any damage. Switched to the gates, same thing.

Wasn’t a matter of the walls being repaired, the keep had 0 supply and even if there were 100 people running supply you’d still see the bar go down a it then up again. They stayed full, completely, no matter how much firepower we threw at them. Has anyone else experienced this bug?

Got 250 from my first 1k kills last week, probably had 50 or so left to rot as well. Today? 250 kills, 12 badges.

Just had a thought. If Orbs were changed to give a magic find/gold find bonus OUTSIDE of WvW for their home server, then yes, yes, a thousand times yes. It wouldn’t confer a specific advantage to the people fighting in WvW, but it would still give a major incentive for taking and holding them. It would have to be significant, though, like +10%/25%/40% for 1/2/3. People would be climbing over each other to get those orbs, and it wouldn’t unbalance WvW play.

ONLY if the orb magic find bonus was server-wide, and not just limited to WvW. People would be tearing each others’ throats out to get those orbs, then.

TBH, I think they should just remove repair fees entirely from WvW, like waypoint travel. It basically punishes you for being aggressive. As if siege weapon BPs and control point upgrades weren’t enough, I’m spending anywhere from 30s to 1g on repair fees for one day of PvP, depending on how hard the fighting is, and not making nearly that much back from successful attacks/defends. Toss on top of that the average 1-2g I spend on the aforementioned BPs and upgrades I spend in a hard day of PvP and I find myself having to farm crap in Orr every other day just to be able to afford to do WvW.

Not living in ’Merica… exploit o.O

I think it’s more of a deep, satirical criticism of all the nerf-crying that’s going on. Bravo, sir, bravo.

I’m behind this 100%. Now, I’ve worked with great commanders who knew what they were doing and were absolutely hero-status when it came to organizing people and getting the job done. But for every one of them, there’s a bunch more who don’t know what they’re doing and just shout random orders at people because they have a blue chevron on the map. This makes it very hard for the good commanders, as everyone who sees someone with a commander tag just dismisses them as a windbag who spent a lot of gold to feel important.

If you made it based on badges, then the players in question would at least have to participate in WvW for a long enough time to both become a known face and get enough experience with how WvW works to know what needs to be done. As it is… anyone with a lot of gold can just buy a book to look important, even if they’ve never even been in WvW. Saw one a while back who didn’t know how supply worked, no joke… /facepalm

EDIT As far as the commander title being a luxury is concerned, it’s not. The ability to make and manage multiple-party squads and place map markers is an extremely valuable tool for managing large-scale WvW operations.

I don’t think the orb bonus of 15% health and 150 to stats is enough to make you suddenly 3x as powerful as most people are stating here. I’ve killed 3 or more people without any orb buffs, and been killed 1v1 with full orb buffs. A lot of it depends on who you’re fighting right at that moment. If it’s 3 level 2 guys wearing starter armor, I’ll probably kill them in 2 crits apiece even if they have the orb buff. But for a level 80 player with good gear, 150 to all stats is kinda minor to be honest. I already had 3k+ armor before the buff, getting an extra 150 doesn’t do much for me. Same with power, crit chance, etc. It would make a significant difference for a low-level player equipped with grays or blues, but we’re increasingly seeing more and more level 80s or at least 70+ in WvW, a trend I expect to see continue. I honestly, fervently believe that one side dominating is much more a result of matchmaking than orbs. If this proves to be untrue further down the line, then so be it, orbs should be toned down, but until the WvW scene has stabilized I believe we should wait and see how it all plays out before crying havoc and letting slip the bats of nerf.

As far as changing it to not be a direct performance enhancer goes, if you do that then there will be little reason for anyone to focus on taking orbs. Magic find and gold find? If you’re farming mobs in WvW you’re doing it wrong, in my humble opinion. If it increased badge drop, maybe, but it should definitely give a distinct advantage on the field or it will become irrelevant. If you changed it to decrease repair/upgrade costs, increase supply capacity, etc. I believe that would honestly make WvW MORE unbalanced. Either way, it has to give benefits that in some way that gives a benefit in battle to the team that holds it or it will be a wasted mechanic.

Orbs are fine. At most, remove the 15% health buff since it already buffs vitality. Orbs have been changing hands back and forth on my server constantly, it’s not an I Win button. If your team is getting steamrolled, it’s not the orb buff that’s doing it. If you are losing that badly, even giving you the orb buff and taking it away from the dominating team would not change a thing. You would still be getting dominated. Bad matchmaking, pure and simple. Let the system run for a few more weekly cycles so it can get enough data to accurately match servers up with good opponents. I have been on both a dominating team and a dominated one, it’s not the orbs, it’s the players. Enough with the scapegoating.

I haven’t seen this myself, but I’m hearing a lot about it and similar things. It’s really putting a damper on the fun I’m having in WvW. Between siege weapon exploits, queue bots, and this which I thankfully haven’t seen, it just seems like you can’t get anywhere by playing legitimately. Since I’ve already done all the PvE content… my choices now are basically farm gold for no real reason or do broken PvP. Might just have to re-install Skyrim until this stuff gets fixed.

I don’t think there’s an honest-to-God alliance between TC and Mag, but it seems the majority of my fellow EB players do. It’s interesting to see how much it affects how the game plays out. Was on EB border tonight, and we were pushed all the way back to the garrison by TC on one side and Mag on the other, and it was pretty much all anyone was talking about, despite the fact that there were plenty of crossed swords between greenbriar and bluelake, and champ’s was changing hands every few minutes. Nobody wanted to do anything but fight over Astral and Arah’s the whole time, saying that we were fighting 2v1 etc, etc.

Finally pushed out and blitzed Eth Hills and the orb there, held it for a while until TC took Longview and I decided to get some sleep. But yeah, I’d honestly just chock it up to the two other sides going after us because the only place on the other side they could have attacked was the tower outside each others’ spawns, so all the serious attacks went after us in the hope of taking the northern towers to give them some depth against us for their keeps.

It’s a good fight, and I’m enjoying myself. That said, if two sides DID consciously decide to gang up on another side and not attack each other, that would be really, really weak unless it was one of those “one side controls 90% of the map monday through sunday” kind of deals.

Because a level 1 weapon can salvage for 1-3 copper each of which is valued at, last time I checked, somewhere around 18 copper apiece, and salvaging said weapon is literally all it’s good for?

Wolf, the main problem is them being AFK, yes, but the botting is being used to bypass the AFK autokick. If you’re just standing there, you get kicked, but since they’re constantly using skills, even if they’re not doing anything, they aren’t counted as AFK and can sit in your spawn all day long eating up your queue slots.

Anyone else notice how the Borderlands North towers (the ones directly east and west of Garrison) are constantly supply-starved? In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them fully upgraded. Both of them only get supply from the northern supply camp above the defender’s Citadel, and the route is painfully long. Even as the defender with an upgraded camp up there and little to no enemy activity hitting the camp or the yaks, it takes about 10 minutes for the fort to get supplies.

All the other towers and keeps in the borderlands, and to the best of my knowledge in EB as well, get supply from two camps. Shouldn’t these two towers also get supply from the east and west camps as well? Getting these towers upgraded is painful, and 90% of the time I see them sitting there with wooden walls, 0 supply, and a tier-1 upgrade 30% done, even when everything else on the map is fully upgraded or close to it.

Maybe add in a mechanic to auto-kick someone who stays in the same area for too long? Problem with that is it might drop people defending keeps/towers/etc. Maybe make it so if you spend too much time in one area without doing damage to an enemy player, you get kicked? I don’t know.

I do think they realized this would be something of problem because the AFK kick is so much shorter in WvW than PvE, but I don’t think they understood how rampant this kind of thing would become.

Meh, I’m all for PvP in the jumping puzzles but I’ll agree that siege equipment down there is kinda lame. There’s a difference between making a puzzle hard to get through if there’s resistance to making it impossible to get through. You literally can’t get through that part at combat speed without speed buffs, and can’t at all if crippled, so an Arrow Cart up there is an “I Win” button, especially if you can’t attack it from below. I don’t like I Win buttons.

Right now, there are free transfers because the game’s new and the Devs want people to be able to find a server they like and stay there, or to meet up with their friends. Since the 24h limit was put in, at least from my perspective on Emhry, it seems like there’s a lot less “let’s flee this server like rats from a sinking ship” the minute the server starts doing badly. This will become even less of a problem when server transfers cost gems. If someone wants to waste the equivalent of $10 US on a server transfer for WvW, let them, they’ll be a small minority.

The unbalance further stems from the matchmaking system and the fact that the game’s brand new. Simply put, some servers will always be better in WvW than others, whether it’s because of population, Guilds, etc. The matchmaking system is intended to put similarly-ranked servers against each other. The problem is that there’s currently not enough data to accurately represent those rankings, especially because of the massive server migrations I mentioned previously.

Give it a few more matches now that there’s a time limit on transfers. Once the matchmaking system gets enough data to accurately place servers against one another, you’ll see the amount of one-sided WTFPWNing dissipate very quickly. I’m on Emhry right now, and we were beating Fergusson’s Crossing and Borlis Pass very badly last round, this round we’re up against Tarnished Coast and Maguuma and just barely holding our own in a balanced, 3-sided fight. Just have to give it time.

So, we’ve got siege weapons. Arrow carts damage/cripple a bunch of people close together, Ballistae do a lot of damage to a single target, rams break gates, catas break gates and walls at short range, trebs do the same at long range, and siege golems aren’t as good at any of these things as the others but can move. Got pretty much all the bases covered there as far as offensive/defensive weaponry goes.

What if you could build other stuff, though? A couple things come to mind. Barricades I’ve heard thrown around, a little mini-wall you could build that enemies couldn’t move/shoot through until it’s destroyed, but can be taken down by a couple people without siege equipment. There’s one idea.

Or maybe something like a supply cart? Build it for, say, 120 supply, it becomes a “vehicle” like the siege golem, and when you use a skill it deconstructs into a one-time use supply pile with 100 supply in it?

Another thing could be a totem or shrine that grants a buff to nearby allies. Nothing huge, like 40 stacks of might, but something nonetheless useful. Maybe a speed totem that grants a 30-second swiftness buff? Plant it at a keep waypoint, for example, and get people to the front lines a little quicker.

Just wondering what people would think of this sort of mechanic being implemented. I think it could add a whole other layer of tactical possibilities and make PvP more dynamic and fun. Could come up with a lot of interesting synergy as well.

Aye, blitzing a keep can be pretty simple actually. Just harass supply camps and towers to get all the defenders elsewhere, then run in and either drop a bunch of rams or siege golem rush. 4 Rams can take down a reinforced door in a minute or two, easily. Especially effective on EB keeps that have two doors back-to-back, just have to keep the AoE up on the walls or one guy on the second oil pot will ruin your day.

Just have to keep up the pressure. Also, trebs are better against walls than gates, and walls take a lot more supply to repair. Don’t just hit the walls either, have someone calling your shots in on siege equipment. Even if they keep repairing the walls, they’re using much more siege than they’re taking in, especially if you have a small, skilled group picking off Yaks or taking supply camps. Even if you can’t hold them, you’ll at least make them have to wait and spend 100 supply on upgraded caravans, and in the meantime they’re getting less supply from the Yaks that actually do get through. A supply-starved fortress with no siege is a dead fortress.

This will hopefully become less of a problem when Guardian wards are fixed. Right now people just dodge through them half the time

I was actually planning to work up a ballistics chart for trebs based on elevation earlier in the week when my server had most of the map, but then we got matched with a different servers and I’ve been too busy fighting. But yes, elevation difference does have a significant effect on treb range, exactly how much that difference is, and a reliable way of calculating it, I do not currently know. WTB protractors and rangefinders in-game =p

Yes, we were deliberately letting them get killed but some good Samaritan would inevitably come along and rezz them so they could keep smacking air again >.<

While I’m not exactly glad that it’s happening on your servers as well, it has to suck for you guys as much as for us, at least it’s a problem we’re all experiencing and therefore, hopefully, more likely to get noticed quickly.

Have you guys actually noticed any of these bots being banned, or do the same ones keep showing up every day? I for one have reported one botter in Orr for 3 days straight now, and plenty of others have reported him as well.

All I can say is, Trebuchets are the great equalizer. Or in this case, un-equalizer =p

Not complaining about Maguuma or saying we would have had it in the bag if not for the bots. You guys were playing very well, dropping a lot of siege, and not letting our supply camps rest for a second, and overall I’m having a lot more fun fighting you guys than when we were holding 95% of the map most of the time against Borlis and Fergs. Just saying we’ll never know because we had 10+ guys in the citadel swinging swords around to bypass the AFK kick, when we could have had 10 guys defending DB. Problem affects all of us and the amount of fun we’re having, just talking about this incident because it’s one I experienced personally.

Side note, when you guys speed-built that treb on DB’s outer wall and started hitting the inner keep I had a definite Guild Wars moment. Remember just thinking “Ohhhh, SON!” the second that first treb shot hit.

Yeah, generally stagnation happens when everyone’s just running around aimlessly in small groups and not dropping money on siege. 20 guys who are well-organized willing to pony up the cash can really turn the tables on twice that number who aren’t, in my experience. Plus, assaulting a fully-upgraded keep with good defense is a LOT more fun than just zerging in, killing four guys and then taking the lord down in 10 seconds, again my opinion.

I’m on Emhry, and was playing our BL last night. I swear there were at least ten bots on our side, about 5 in the citadel and another 5 just hanging out north of Dreaming Bay. Just standing there swinging swords over and over. Me and about a dozen other guys all reported them, but they kept at it for hours. The only logical reason I can think of for this is to fill our pop with useless bodies that won’t get AFK-kicked, because I can tell you we were having some manpower problems despite us only fighting Maguuma at that time, Tarnished was barely there at all.

This is a serious problem, because our BL had a queue going, so that’s 10 players we don’t have, which can make a lot of difference. That’s also only the ones I saw and reported, heard there were a few more hiding in little nooks and crannies in the citadel. So we spent most of the time fighting 40-man zergs with 15 or less and despite some heroic effort we ended up getting stomped flat. Now, if that was due to our own incompetence or bad strategy or even just 6 guys ponying up the cash for siege golems to blitzkrieg our keep, I’d be fine with that. But a big part of it was a group of people deliberately, maliciously exploiting the game to reduce the number of players we could bring to the field. I don’t even want to play WvW right now because of this, and I think it’s the most fun part of the game.

I think the orb bonuses are completely fine. The problem with one team completely dominating all other teams (like 90% control at all times, everywhere) had more to do with matchmaking. I’m on Emhry, and we were absolutely dominating Fergs and Borlis for all of last round, but that had less to do with the orb bonus and more to do with what was brought to the table. We had a lot more people spending money on upgrades and siege. We had more high-level players with good gear (which does, and SHOULD make a major difference), and we were better organized.

This round, however, we are up against Tarnished Coast and Maguuma and the fighting’s been pretty even. Orbs have been changing hands, SM’s been taken and retaken a couple dozen times, and all in all it’s a lot more fun than when we were farming Borlies and Fergs for badges like they were mobs.

Now, I agree that Outmanned needs to give bonuses that make sense for PvP. Magic find? Seriously? That’s silly. But orbs are powerful objects that need to be constantly defended and are hard to get, while providing valuable bonuses to those who control them. You know what else provides powerful bonuses to the side that controls them, and requires teamwork and strategy to take? How about everything. Why not just get rid of keeps, towers, supply camps, etc, and just have one big field where we all run out and hit each other with sticks? No, leave orbs as they are. Maybe remove the +15% health or tone it down as they ALSO buff vitality, but no more than that.

Just give the matchmaking system more time to find out where servers actually stand. A few more cycles and we’ll have much better matchups, which are the real issue. Having three orbs is NOT an I Win button. Remember that in every WvW map, EVERY side is outnumbered 2 to 1. If one side is dominating both other sides, it isn’t the orbs’ fault.

Or the opposite could hold true, where as time goes by people develop more efficient farming/harvesting strategies resulting in even more oversupply. That’s another, opposite end of the spectrum I’ve seen in games where something is initially rare, but then people become more skilled at acquiring such things, making the price even lower.

As far as crafting materials go, especially for the lower-end materials, I have in the course of normal playing gotten MUCH more than enough of the base materials to increase two crafting disciplines with a ton of excess to sell. As of right now, there is absolutely no market for the vast majority of player-made goods except level 80 rares/exotics, and since each player is gathering much more than the amount of, say, Iron, than they need to level, the excess floods the market, where it sits, piling up, because there is zero demand for it. Occasionally I’ll buy up a few dozen iron on my main to make armor for an alt, but that’s pretty much the extent of my Iron use once I’ve leveled my crafting past that point.

You can’t just use the cop-out of “Oh, he’s just mad because he wants to sell crafting materials instead of craft,” when there is so much excess. I know for every discipline on every character I’ve leveled that the limiting reagent, if you will, was always the “fine” materials like scales or totems, which are performing quite nicely on the market. I had enough leftover copper/wood/iron/platinum to choke a horse, or in this case a market.

Well, I’ve been using the TP dozens of times a day and I only noticed it for myself this morning because of the volume I was trading in and the high turnover on that particular commodity. I was sitting there for half an hour wondering why my order wasn’t getting filled, when I deliberately overbid to get priority. Noticed that the other order was there as well, and saw the net buy order getting filled, but none of it was coming to me. I just figured it was a display bug at first and that there was actually someone outbidding me I couldn’t see, but then the second the total order dropped to 220 my order started filling again. But what it basically means is that you’ve got the same chance of getting your order filled if you post it at the current highest bid as you would for upping the ante one copper, because anyone matching your price in either case would immediately supersede you.

Would be even worse for sell orders because, as was said, you’d then risk losing your deposit if someone dumped a 250-stack onto the market at “match highest seller,” exactly the same as if they’d under-bid you. WTB FIFO model, or at least random selection.

Yep, goods listed at the same price follow a LIFO approach. If you’re the first to post at that price, pray your order sells out before someone else jumps on. Had this exact thing happen to me. Also seems to affect buy orders the same way. I put an order up for 250 of an item at 1c over the top buyer, had 30 sold to me, then someone else put up another 250 order at my price and I didn’t see any more until his entire order had been filled.

Occupy Lion’s Arch TP? XD

I generally deposit all the mats I collect when I’m out in the world, then sell them all off when I get back in one big transaction instead of 100 tiny ones just to save hassle… but when I’ve got 20 different item types I’m trying to sell, it usually takes me about 15 minutes to half an hour now. I call shennanigans.

Well, that has the same logic behind it as not being able to transmute a heavy armor with a light armor look. Can’t have a bunch of Warriors out there soaking up damage in a silk robe, can you? (Mithril Bikinis aside, of course… >.<)

That’s because Sigils, Runes, etc. are the only items that currently have any value at all. Everything else is so oversaturated that it’s literally post-scarcity. Can’t base your evaluation of the state of the currency on the price of items which are valueless. Look at iron ore, the price is the minimum above vendor, yes, but there are literally tens of millions of units for sale with no buy orders at all. Judging the overall value of gold based on that is like evaluating the value of the Euro on the cost of used candy wrappers.

Actually, from what I’ve seen gold spam and bot farming have been dropping off dramatically in recent days. Was in Lion’s Arch for an hour today and didn’t see a single spam message and then spent 2 hours in Orr without seeing a single bot, when there were about 30 there on Thursday.

Most of their gold doesn’t even come from farming, it comes from hacking accounts or cleaning out the accounts of people dumb enough to give them their password and verify them for “powerlevelling” (AKA Take My Real Money, Then My Fake Money Too!) and in addition to this, the way Gem value’s shooting up there’s almost no profit incentive for them anymore since to undercut Anet they’d have to sell for next to nothing.

Finally, out of the estimated 2 million players we’ve got, only a very tiny percentage are actively involved in gold farming/selling for profit and would have an almost negligible effect on the economy. All we’re really seeing is growing pains.

Maxter, look at Gem prices and the prices of valuable items. Watch the price history of precursor weapons since launch, or vanity items such as Abyss dye. They’re all skyrocketing. The reason that prices for low-value items such as basic crafting materials are dropping is simply that the devaluation of these commodities by oversupply is outstripping that inflation.

I think the problem is being somewhat oversimplified. Firstly, overall I actually see gold undergoing massive INflation. I’m basing this off of both Gem prices and the price of big-ticket items on the TP. A week ago, 1 gold bought you 350-450 Gems depending on when you bought in. This week, the highest I’ve seen is around 270, with the lowest being 200 and an average of around 260. Since Gems have a value fixed to real-world currency, which is much more stable, this trend shows somewhere in the ballpark of 35% inflation in one week as compared to the US Dollar.

In addition to this, the “top priced items” have skyrocketed. A Dawn of Rage was roughly 15g a week or two ago, they are currently moving at around 80g. This can be partially attributed to there being more high-level players wanting to pursue Legendary weapons, but at the same time more high-level players should at least somewhat mitigate this by increasing the number of players actually able to obtain the weapon to sell. Abyss dye might be a better benchmark to use since it is available at all levels and, as a vanity item, the demand should be fairly constant as well. It was 3 gold and change last week, and is now nearly 6 gold at the time of this posting.

As far as bulk items go, we see a reverse trend. Crafting materials in particular are rock bottom, with base materials selling for only slightly above vendor cost in most cases. This doesn’t fit the inflation model we’re seeing, but this can be explained by oversupply. I’ll give a generous estimate that 90% of items crafted are made only to raise crafting level. There is simply no demand for crafted items aside from top-tier exotics at the moment, and everything made is either done so for the purpose of raising crafting levels to 400 or simply to gear yourself.

Now, in my own personal experience on my characters, I can say that without a doubt the limiting factor in my crafting leveling was rare materials, not basic ones. I was constantly selling off an oversupply of things like soft wood, copper, iron, mithril, etc. If that experience is shared by everyone at the moment, where nothing crafted from these materials is valuable except for leveling crafting, and each player gathers far more of these than they will use for this purpose and sells off the rest, then we can see why the market is so saturated with these items despite the inflation, and why they are usually selling for a copper above vendor price. The excess a player gathers is quite literally valueless. Only the top-quality materials are being used for anything but leveling the associated skill. This has gotten to the point where I don’t even mine anything but Orichalcum when I come across it, nor do I salvage anything but level 80 drops because they are more valuable when sold to a vendor than the sum of the materials they could possibly salvage to. For example, if a level 28 item can sell to a vendor for 36 copper, or could be salvaged for 1-3 iron, it makes no sense whatsoever to salvage the item as it will yield on average 2 iron each valued at about 7 copper, for a net loss of 22 copper not counting the salvage kit use.

Now, hopefully the economy will stabilize somewhat with the nerf of dungeon rewards (formerly the #1 preferred method of farming a ton of gold quickly), as well at the earlier nerf of WvW escort rewards which were the previous #1 problem. If that doesn’t work and there is still more gold flowing into the economy than being removed, we’ll have to be prepared to either accept further nerfs to gold gain or more gold sinks.

I think the simplest solution would be to allow you to modify your existing orders without cancelling them. That way, you pay to post the item, but if you want to change the price you don’t have to pay the fee a second time unless you cancel the sale.

Side note, Fluffy, if you’re saving the ore, save 500, because legendaries require 250 ingots

The reason the economy’s getting screwed up is gold inflation and oversupply. Basically, a lot more gold is coming into the economy through DEs, vendor sales, personal story, map exploration, etc. than is being removed by things like fast travel, repair fees, sales tax, and vendor purchases. Thus, gold is devalued. In addition to this, items are also oversupplied because in general, eveyone’s going to loot a LOT more Tiny Fangs/etc. than they will ever use for crafting, so the market gets saturated with these items at near-minimum price.

Placing buy orders and reselling for profit doesn’t add any gold to the economy, only takes it from the person buying from the reposted sell order and giving it to the person who posted it. In fact, since each of these transactions is subject to the 15% sales tax, this behavior actually REMOVES gold from the economy and helps control inflation. The real issue needing to be addressed is market saturation.

Might want to check out Explorer gear for the magic find bonus. Get some decent accessories and a full set of Sup Traveler runes when you hit 60, along with Magic Find food, and you’ll be up to at least 100 magic find, which means a double chance for rare drops and therefore more money. Even without the 50% boost from the gem store you can get over 200% and triple the chance, though I’d wait for level 80 to aim that high, with a dedicated farming set. Shouldn’t see much if any decrease in survivability, as on my Guardian I found the PvE content almost laughably easy right up until Orr, and you’ll have more money saved up for level 80 stuff, before which you honestly shouldn’t be worrying too much about your gear because you’ll outgrow it so fast regardless. Better instead to just get some armor on that makes you more money from just doing the content so you’ll be able to get the really good stuff when you hit the level cap.

I simply don’t understand people who say Guardians are weak in WvW. I play a Guardian, and I’ve only lost once 1v1 to a very well-played Mesmer, and can generally take 2v1 and sometimes even higher quite well, depending on who I’m facing.

Primary weapon for DPS is Hammer, which, with Judge’s Intervention allows you to more or less lock down a single target long enough to ruin their day. Judge up, hit them with Zealot’s Embrace, follow up with Mighty Blow for some good solid damage, then Ring of Warding to keep them in place while you get off a good chain. By this time most squishy classes are dead or close to it, and even Warriors are starting to get worried. When the ring expires, hit them with Banish (also very good for launching people off of walls/cliffs, as well as knocking people off of downed enemies trying to heal them) for the knockdown, dodge up (which heals with the trait), and finish them.

Using an almost-full set of Whispering armor from Orr, still working on upgrading my accessories to Exotic though. Amulet’s still a level 62 green, for shame… but right now I have over 3k armor and 20k health which makes me very hard to take down. Power’s only about 2k with a 28% crit chance currently, so DPS isn’t bad but is more than made up for in tankability.

Where I’ve found I really excel is gate breaches, either defending or attacking. When defending, pull out your staff and Line of Warding the breach. The whole enemy zerg will rush in, fall down go boom, and by then you’ll be in swinging with your hammer hitting multiple foes and causing much fire while the people behind you spam AoEs. Once LoW drops, throw down Ring of Warding. This way you’ve got pretty much the whole enemy force all occupying the same narrow space for over 10 seconds getting clobbered. It’ll be even more effective when they fix the skills so you can’t dodge through them, but most people either don’t know about that or don’t notice them through the massive amount of particle effects that are covering everything.

Finally, Guardians, in my experience, make the very best siege operators. I’ve had 20-30 enemies trying to take me down on a cannon and not get me below half health. Rams, even better.

If you’re attacking while not operating a ram/etc, staff’s decent. Not going to be doing major DPS, but the healing and might from Empower helps. Can do some minor damage to people on walls/oil/cannons with Orb and SoS. I’ll usually be on the gate bashing it with my hammer, though. This does absolutely negligible damage to the gate, but it helps keep people trying to repair it back. Once the gate’s down though, you’ll be the first in. I pop Judge’s to get into the enemy back line, cause a little confusion and generally soak up damage while friendly squishies rush in. Gold every time.

Anyway, sorry for the novel. Still working on the build and upgrading gear, but so far I’ve been extremely effective. tl;dr: Max the crap out of toughness and vit and hit people with a hammer.

So, I’m sure everyone’s aware of the current economic issues we’re experiencing. A quick look at the gem store history tracker will show you that the value of gold relative to gems (and therefore real-world currency) is dropping like a stone. This is bound to happen in any situation where money is created infinitely and is not removed from the economy (No Real World Examples, Please! =p). What is happening now is that a ton of money is being brought into the economy, and then just floats from player to player., with only a small amount being removed from things like fast travel, repairs, skill resets, vendor purchases, etc.

What this results in is valuable items becoming more and more valuable. For example, a week or so ago a Dawn of Rage was going for about 15 gold. Yesterday, I saw one for over 50. This is terminal inflation and can’t be sustained. Now, steps are currently being taken by the devs to limit the amount of gold entering the economy, such as nerfing the gold rewards for dungeon runs and disabling the caravan escorts in WvW, as these were some of the chief offenders. One of the problems that still remains, however, is removing gold from the economy.

Now, everybody hates gold sinks, but you can’t deny that thy serve a purpose. Now, instead of adding a dozen more gold sinks, I’ve noticed a few that already exist that seem to be under-utilized. The main one that comes to mind is control point upgrades in WvWvW. In fact, my server’s held Stonemist Castle for almost a week now and it’s still not fully upgraded. These upgrades are fairly expensive, and some of them only provide a marginal benefit to the defenders, and confer little if no personal benefit to the one who upgrades it. So, how do we get people to spend more money on upgrades? Simple.

Achievements. If we learned anything from GW1, it’s that a player WILL spend hours upon hours getting killed over and over by a level 6 spider in pre-searing Ascalon so that it will level up to the point they can kill it for XP and hit level 20, as long as there’s an achievement involved. Just toss in another WvWvW achievement for how much gold you’ve spent on control point upgrades, and wealthy players will be racing each other to upgrade them. Set the top tier, and of course title (Call it “Ultimate Bankroller,” possibly? =p), to something like 100 or even 500 gold, and there you go, a massive amount of gold being taken out of the economy, improved WvWvW gameplay, and best of all it’s through a voluntary mechanic. Toss in another one for buying siege weapon BPs for even more fun and gold being removed.