Guild Wars 2

Actually, the problem is the player. If you decide not to participate in events that give loot, then you don’t deserve the loot. So there’s nothing wrong with certain players getting everything, and certain players getting peanuts.

People need to play smart. You don’t have to zerg to get loot. Dry Top is the perfect example. Bring AOE skills and high MF, and you can mow through Dust Mites for Charged Lodestones solo. But of course, there’s already an artificial cap on loot call Diminishing Returns. So the more you farm, the less you get over time.

I think the heart of the issue here is that you’re anti-Capitalism. Anet, as a company, offers optional vanity and convenience items that can be bough using real money. This revenue stream is fed to the mother company, NCSoft, who in turn pays Anet employees to develop more content for us to enjoy, for free. Non-paying and paying customers all get to partake in the additional game time that paying customers are responsible for.

Because paying customers have the additional feature of exchanging purchased microtransaction currency for in-game currency, you feel that this is a sin because non-paying customers don’t have access to it. This isn’t a moral issue here. This is straight up jealousy. Someone willing to spend hundreds of their own dollars to buy virtual goods in game get what they pay for. They sacrifice real money for virtual pride. What has the non-paying customer done to deserve the same perks?

The key to the success of the Gem Store is that Anet allows non-paying customers to enjoy some of the same perks that paying customers have. They can exchange in-game Gold for microtransaction currency. By doing this, a player can go through his entire GW2 lifespan without spending any additional real money, and still enjoy the game extras. I know of people with thousands upon thousands of Gems, and never spent a cent beyond the purchase price of the game.

One more thing, the Gem Exchange was created to counter RMT Gold Sellers. If people are willing to pay for Gold in games, why not sell it directly to the players? By cutting out the middle man (RMTs) and becoming the supplier, the company can enjoy the additional sales. From a business standpoint, it was the smart thing to do.

Ohoni.6057:

No. Definitely not. I have absolutely no trouble with ANet collecting money, but this would be a particularly dishonest way of doing so. If they want to sell Legendaries for Gems then they should just be up front about it and put them on the gem store like the various other weapons and armors.

Not sure what your problem is with Anet. You complain about RNG about Precursors, yet you claim to be one of the lucky few who won the Skritt Foil Wrapper lotto. You’re ok with Anet having a microtransaction store to bring in revenue, yet you’re not ok with them using it to allow players to exchange Gems for Gold. You say GW2 is a P2W game, because you loosely compare “winning conditions” to anything that the player considers a victory (I have a Job-o-Tron backpack, I beat the game!). You say you want Anet to make Legendary crafting easier, so non-wealthy players are able to short cut the process faster, and feel TP prices should be brought back down to what they were in the beginning of the game.

I think we can all agree that you’re basically grasping at any straw you can find, because all your arguments have been shot down multiple times.

Back on topic, Precursors prices are falling fast. You can now get one for 65 Gold on the TP.

Allow me to pick apart all the places where you’re wrong.

Ohoni.6057:

Gems should be used primarily to buy gem store items, not to convert to gold to buy large scale purchases with.

While this is your own opinion as to how GW2 should function, consider the fact that you aren’t the producer and designer of this game. Anet allows players to use purchased Gems to get in-game cosmetics or convenience items, as well as use them to trade for in-game Gold. If you want to make large scale purchases to convert to enough Gold to buy a Legendary, what successful business wouldn’t want all that revenue? Anet lets the players choose how to spend their optional Gem purchases. I know of a player who spent tens of thousands of real life dollars on microtransactions in another game.

Ohoni.6057:

And the counterpoint is equally simple, there are no luxury goods in games.

Luxury goods in real life exist because the materials or craftsmanship used in their construction are naturally scarce, and therefore supply is by necessity lower than demand. In a game, supply is whatever the devs say it is, scarcity is always artificial. No item is necessary, no item is a luxury.

Not sure how any of us can explain how Capitalism works to help you understand. You take a highly demanded item that’s hard to get, couple that with other players willing to pay large sums of Gold for it, and you have yourself a perfectly working market. Supply and Demand. Every single highly demanded skin in this game is a luxury item. As with real life, you can still get to the store in the same amount of time driving a Toyota as you would a Ferrari. Your creditcards are held in place the same in a generic Walmart wallet as it would be in a Gucci one. And my crafted Pearl Broadsword does the same amount of damage as Dawn. The only differences is the looks or function. I don’t need to look good driving to the store, I don’t need to have a wallet that no one knows I have until I take it out of my pocket, and I don’t need to craft Sunrise to beat the game.

Luxury goods have always existed in games. In fact, it’s more important in Asian gaming cultures than anything else. Having status in game is extremely important in the Chinese and Korean markets. That status can either be extreme skill (which actually pays off with sponsorships in competitive circuits) or best looking weapons/armors. That’s why P2W games thrive in Asia. Players are more willing to spend all their disposable income buying the best gear in an MMO than their US or European counterparts.

shaktiboi.5194:

Also, IMO it’s lazy design to make an encounter “challenging” by basically increasing TTK with a metric crap-ton of interrupt mechanics.

To chime in on this, would you prefer LS bosses to be more like the Maw or Shatterer fights? Just stand in one place, pressing “1” over and over?

One of the TTS leaders started it. The TTS Taxi was available in the early days of the Teq runs.

Truth be told, there are those who will never understand how Capitalism works. This applies to both virtual worlds like GW2, or in the real world. The same person complaining about desirable Precursors being priced high would question why a Ferrari 458 Spider costs $250,000+. And the same argument would be made when saying they want Precursors and the Ferrari cheaper so everyone could afford them.

As mt stated above, you’re paying a premium price for instant gratification to get something everyone wants. If you’re unwilling or unable to pay the price others are willing to fork over, then you have other options. Pray that RNG has the item in question fall in your lap from mob loot, or feed Zommoros items and pray for RNG. You can increase your RNG odds by using lv 80 Exotics, or get even better chances when tossing in the same weapon type. I got a Chaos Gun from using 4 random lv 80 Exotics, and Spark from using only Daggers. Took a while, but that’s the downside to playing with RNG instead of buying it directly.

There are good debates and bad debates. I think the RNG thread John started is a great way to discuss the pros and cons of the RNG concept. Feeling Entitled to getting the luxury good for a price that you can afford isn’t a valid argument that can be debated seriously. Not caring about the health of the economy collapsing just so you can get your way isn’t a valid direction to take either. You play in a game with other players. If you’re so adamant to push an idea or suggestion who’s main point is to only help yourself get what you want, at the expense of balance and enjoyment of the rest of the population, then perhaps MMOs aren’t for you.

Ohoni.6057:

And you believe that if I put a buy order for Dawn at 250g or less, it would be filled within a reasonable amount of times, a few weeks at most?

Sure. As long as you play a game with no dynamic, player based economy with concepts like Supply and Demand, then you should get your Dawn in no time. On a similar note, if there’s no one else with the same desire as you to purchase Dawn, and isn’t willing to pay more than what you value it at, then you should have no problems.

Ohoni.6057:

~100 gold is far from cheap. ~250g is quite expensive. If you’re looking for adjectives, you could at least go with “affordable.”

If you played the content that Anet provides you, 250 Gold would be maybe a week or two worth of game time. World Bosses, Dungeons, Fractals, LS chest runs, Maize ambient farm, etc.

Heck, the Maize farm got you 90 Silver worth of ToT every couple of minutes. You could walk away with ~20 Gold profit per hour, just by selling ToT bags to other players playing RNG for the mini wolf.

Ohoni.6057:

Also, you still haven’t said where I can find a cheap Dawn.

You can follow Wanze’s advice, or you can simply put in a Buy Order for a Dawn that’s cheaper than the listed price.

Edit – On a side note, you do know that Apple’s profit margins on their products is close to 70% right? Make for $200, sell for $650.

Afya.5842:

Malganis.7468:

Evon is selfish, self-centered, and only cares about himself and his money. Yes I know that sentence is redundant.

I still stand strong by Ellen Kiel.

Plot twist: Kiel is brainwashed Scarlet, let her sneak in the Crown Pavilion. Provide scarlet watchknights for alteration. Lead scarlet into LA and wake Mordremoth up. Scarlet finished her goal and not needed anymore so Kiel let us kill Scarlet leaving no evidence behind. She then grabs all the donation to LA and sails in her luxury airship.

^^^ sounds very plausible.

Just remember this – John works for Anet, and is responsible for the health of the game economy. He was hired for his expertise in the areas of business and economics. So things he says are not merely his personal opinions, but rather sound logical reasoning from years of experience and education. If something is wrong and needs changing, he’ll be consulted to see what the best course of action is.

If you have a broken arm, you don’t go to your school janitor for medical advice. You go to the school nurse, or to the hospital for expert help. It’s the same with taking economic advice from someone who doesn’t understand the economy, or the repercussions of decisions that impact global markets.

Ohoni.6057:

Yup. I am in no way shocked that the game’s resident economist believes that the economy is a vital aspect of the game, but I firmly disagree with him and will never have any respect for players that make their fortunes through the TP.

I’m really jealous that Apple made fortunes in business with innovative products. But you’ll never hear me complain to my Senator that the government should take over private businesses, so that luxury goods can then be spread evenly to the whole population for a “reasonable” or “fair” price.

Evon is too busy fighting Tyria’s other great evil, Kiel.

Ohoni.6057:

While I think we can agree that you shouldn’t make a ton of gold by spamming 1 all day, why should you make any more gold than that by playing the markets without ever even leaving town? At least someone spamming 1 is playing the game.

In response to that:

John Smith.4610:

This is a great thread.

A few minor thoughts:
The TP is part of the world of Tyria and spending your time interacting with it is just as legitimate a play session as dungeons or jumping puzzles or any of our other fantastic content.

/spoiler

It was Scarlet. Confirmed that she’s not dead and will be an integral part of all future Living Stories.

<3

I warned you all about this last year. Also:

John Smith.4610:

You didn’t elect Evon, expect no sympathy from him.

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

This can’t be a L2P issue, since Anet designed the instance to teach you how to beat the boss. If you forget mechanics that you just played through, then I’m not too sure what any of us can do to help.

Ohoni.6057:

A lot of players would find it difficult to make gold as the only reliable source would be those methods which produce gold directly (e.g. dungeons).

That’s how people SHOULD be making gold, off the game, not off the markets. People making gold off the markets is the problem, not the goal.

People already DO make money off the game. World Bosses, Fractals, Dungeons, Silverwastes, etc. There are so many options that I’m surprised that people still complain about not having opportunities.

The problem here is that there are Entitled players who want easy Gold and easy luxury items with no effort. If you could farm the same amount of Gold mindlessly by spamming “1” as compared to smart TP players researching trades, this game economy would fail faster than D3. Currency would be devalued so badly, that Ecto and T6 mat prices would cost 300 Gold each. 1 million Gold would be considered the “Middle Class”. But lucky for us, we have John to prevent that.

If you want cheap Precursors, I’ve already shown you where you can do to get them. If you want Gold making opportunities, try the suggestions in my first paragraph. Combine these two together, and you profit.

I honestly think that we should have a policy where only people who understand economics and business are allowed to debate. Claiming “monopolies” because Anet owns the game is political spinning the definition to fit one’s argument. It’s like people just Google’d the word, took the meaning, and sought similarities to try and attack BL traders.

Sirendor.1394:

What arenanet should learn is that something like this (high endgame cosmetics) should not be put behind a paywall. Everyone who played for example 1000 hours of this game should be able to get a legendary, because if not a legendary is worse than a full time job and nobody wants that whilst they’re playing a game.

What if I want 5 Legendaries? That means I have to play 5,000 hours. No thank you. I’ll just go to the BLTP and buy one for less time that it takes to blow my nose.

On another note, I’m not too sure you know what a “paywall” is.

Greetings all. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and had this idea that I wanted to suggest. With how loved Taimi is because of her disability, I thought it would be a wonderful option to give your characters some type of impairment option. The idea came from a friend who was born with a clubbed hand (if that’s the right term). He lives life like anyone else, and doesn’t let his disability slow him. With some type of optional character mods, perhaps he could make a character that reflects his real life self? I also have a friend who lost her leg.

Imagine the possibilities here. If a character is missing a leg, he could walk around with crutches. Or if both legs are missing, he could get around using an asuran wheelchair, sorta like Professor X (wheelchair mount?). While these would require a lot of new animation coding, there are some options that can use existing animations. Take for instance a “little person” (trying not to be offensive with the “M” word). With this option, you could make your character race shorter than the available height option on character selection. You could have a norn that’s shorter than a human, that runs like an asura. This would use existing animations, albeit on different races.

Some people use video games as an escape from reality. Some use it as therapy to cope with reality. Just a thought for Anet to consider.

FYI – The mods normally delete pointless threads.

Essence Snow.3194:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

John Smith.4610:

No.

We love this John. Please give us more!

No.

I’m not sure we’ve all agreed that’s a problem.

Money is not everything, so the unhappy partner should understand they’re not Entitled to optional luxury purchases. Just because you can’t get the new Mustang convertible, doesn’t mean the relationship should end over a used Honda Fit.

Making players happy while sacrificing the health of the game is counter productive. It’s sorta like a situation where you have a family that can barely make ends meet, and their child wants that Xbox. The child cries for the Xbox, not caring that his parents have to work 2 jobs to pay the rent. But the parents know better, and while they can’t make their child happy in that moment with an Xbox, the family is better off by focusing on their long term goals.

John Smith.4610:

No.

We love this John. Please give us more!

What part of “the large majority of every part of the game’s economy runs incredibly efficiently” sounds bad?

Your preexisting biases are what’s causing you to see negativity in John’s quotes. For those of us who understand economies and businesses, we see a well mannered employee trying to explain complicated concepts to laymen.

The issue not just about how to implement any type of Precursor crafting and/or Scavenger Hunt, but also with what will happen to the economy should that happen. The delay here is probably due to factors that us BLTP lurkers have foreseen, which is a very big shock to the market.

The system can’t just be to satisfy most players. It has to satisfy most players while not breaking economy, while still adhering to Anet’s internal vision of the game.

John Smith.4610:

wwwes.1398:

1) Is precursor crafting something being held back because of technical concerns or because of economic concerns, ie a massive surge in demand for certain types of materials? I know you’re limited in what you can speculate, but I have a theory that the crafting is largely being held back because legendaries and precursors are possibly the biggest driving force of the economy and a change in how they function could cause massive waves. Wanted to know if I was correct in this.

1. All I will say about this is that any discussion about precursors, that I’m involved in, involves a discussion about the materials and markets involved.

They should hire you if you can make code changes so easily.

I live in Hawaii, and had to walk through 5 feet of snow, up a lava flowing mountain, through humid forests, and across a river to get to my bank so I could make a withdrawal for another game. Thankfully I hit rock bottom, and got help before it was too late. Now I spend all my money on my wife instead of gambling.

tolunart.2095:

I think raising a child would be a better example. Parents have different perspective than children. If you give in to every demand you end up with a child who eats nothing but cake and candy, stays up until midnight every night, never goes to school or takes a bath, etc. The child doesn’t understand the importance of a balanced diet, proper hygiene and getting rest and education, he is focused only on what he wants now and does not appreciate the big picture.

Likewise, if Anet gives players what they want right now they will quickly become bored with what they have and want more. So devs will need to either introduce a gear treadmill to keep players distracted by the new shiny or see the game population dwindle because they already have all the shinies.

To add to your post:

Ohoni.6057:

And yes, I don’t care about the impact.

This sums up all the arguments for change. Some players feel they deserve everything NOW, regardless of the consequences. There’s a term for this, but it escapes me at the moment…

Terrasque.8735:

I did actually have a look at that code earlier, I did change it, and I did verify that it worked with different values. As a proof of concept, I bought 10 gems for gold.

The UI showed properly, the exchange rates were correct, the preview was right, the lists and message boxes were showing correctly, and even the cute little “counting up your new gems” animation worked perfectly.

So yes, it’s indeed a one line change.

I’m not so sure you understand what you’re talking about. Unless you’re saying that you’re part of the Anet QA team testing the new code, so you have first hand knowledge of the in-house dev tools being used?

Essence Snow.3194:

Imagine if we took that stance for everything. Yikes that scary! No reason to improve on a bad thing if it works. We’d never get anywhere.

To quote JS

John Smith.4610:

I’m not sure we’ve all agreed that’s a problem.

John Smith.4610:

I don’t agree. The best result for the game and therefor the best result for ArenaNet is for the markets to work as efficiently as possible (usually). Fortunately, the nature of the trading post provides a lot of natural force for markets to work efficiently. While nothing is 100% perfect, the large majority of every part of the game’s economy runs incredibly efficiently and we put a lot of effort into making sure that they remain that way.

Ohoni.6057:

Nothing offbase about them supporting a system they designed and implemented. There is little point making suggestions that go completely against the things they value.

Of course there’s value in it, as ultimately they are creating a consumer product, not a pet project, and if the consumers fundamentally disagree with the things they value then it would behoove them to change the things they value. I’m not saying that my views definitely represent the majority, but they should at least consider that they might, and try to determine if they do.

You can’t use random opinions by a few players as the basis for change. Even if a majority were to back a push for “free 1k Gold to all players”, doesn’t make it a smart idea. To compare your thoughts to real life, in the United States, women didn’t used to have voting rights, and slavery was seen as being acceptable. Was that ok? No, but a lot of people thought so. When women earned the right to vote, and when slavery was abolished, a lot of people fundamentally disagreed with it.

I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Chris Cleary for the 2014 Anet Employee of the Year. My endorsement did not come easy, as I’ve been a fanboi of Gaile since the days of her GW1 LA trains, and her commitment to the GW2 player base is unparalleled. I’m also a huge fan of John Smith, with his dedication to providing a stable in-game economy for all of us to enjoy (and battling Entitlement since 2012).

I got to know GM Chris from his time running with us in TTS Wurm Raids. He’s a fair, but strict Anet representative, sharing his personal time outside of work to discuss the “do’s and don’t” of security issues with us in Team Speak (note – none of us use macros, we swear). He’s a genuinely nice guy that we all liked, but one thing recently happened that pushed our respect for him into the stratosphere:

Chris Cleary.8017:

9 Accounts, Manually Controlled, Ok, lets do some Bearbow math.
It’ll take you ~1 second to move between each client
1 second to initiate a command (assuming you only want 9 characters to do 1 skill and then auto attack)
Thats 18 seconds for 1 action across 9 accounts with 0 movement, so 3.3 (repeating of course) actions per minute per account.
Technically speaking, you could pull off a 3 Rapid Fires on your Bearbows per account per minute with 6 seconds to spare between switches. A normal Bearbow can do 7.5 Rapid Fires per minute, and throw in 2 Barrages (but that requires targeting, something you don’t have time to do), upping damage to equal roughly 9 Rapid Fires.
Your 9 Bearbows are roughly equal to 3 real Bearbows. It seems if you wanted to be effective, you should be multiboxing only 3 accounts rather than 9, if my Bearbow math is correct.
That is unless you are botting, or have keys bound to multiple clients, either way, that’s gonna fetch a ban…like it did

Chris Cleary.8017:

Truth be told, using bearbow math (an unproven system that may or may not lead to random photobombs…see below) isn’t always going to be exact. However, this player did not need to use bearbow math as they violated the laws of bearbow science and used a 3rd party program which is not allowed. Thats why they were banned, not because they were bad at bearbow math.

Greatest post by anyone in Anet since Chris Whiteside started the Raids CDI.

#BearbowMath

Point 1 – I’m taxed higher in real life because my taxes go to social programs that help the unfortunate. There’s a reason for this. In a virtual game, there’s no reason to punish players who are smarter with their money.

Point 2 – Guild Wars 2 is already a great MMO. I suggest we all go out and buy Gems to show our love to Anet.

#TeamGnashblade

Labjax.2465:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Also, unpopular Precursors have the same drop rates as popular Precursors. How could they not? They’re all Precursors. The main difference here is Supply and Demand.

2nd paragraph: Um, duh? Exactly no one is contesting that point.

This basically goes back to the whole point of this thread. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Precursors in this game. Nothing wrong with the RNG to get them, and nothing wrong with the prices they demand. So if it ain’t broke, no need to fix it.

Sarrs.4831:

Why would you want progressive taxation? It looks like plain-faced envy to me. “This guy’s not doing as poorly as me; tax him!” Who cares if other people get what ultimately winds up being a higher video game score?

To some players, fairness means if Player A has good stuff, Player B through ~~~XYZ needs to have the exact same thing.

Essence Snow.3194:

Let players regulate themselves in other aspects of the game and we’ll be in business.

You want your cake and eat it too. You can’t have it both ways. If you can’t handle a dynamic, open market that’s run by players, then you should consider stepping away from this MMO and playing some single player games with cheat codes. Remember the up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A? You got unlimited lives. That, in essence, is what happens if you let players regulate all aspects of the game.

Labjax.2465:

Obtena.7952:

Besides, the whole point of this thread is that a legendary weapon is VERY accessible. There isn’t a cost barrier to it; it’s simply a matter of doing the work.

Factually inaccurate, unless you’re going for a very strange definition of cost and accessibility.

The facts are:

A few different types of precursors (most of them rather unpopular) are relatively cheap to acquire in relation to the rest of the precursors. And in fact, it’s easy to see that they are relatively cheap precisely because most people don’t want them.
There is a cost barrier. (In what world does cost mean something that doesn’t involve work/effort expenditure of some kind?)

There’s only a cost barrier if you decide to buy every required mat from the TP. Otherwise, you can do some good, old fashioned hard work by farming for all items.

Also, unpopular Precursors have the same drop rates as popular Precursors. How could they not? They’re all Precursors. The main difference here is Supply and Demand.

Essence Snow.3194:

Sounds like you feel Entitled to keep the status quo.

The status quo works just fine, so why would you want to change it to make it worse? Proof everything is working as intended is in the pictures I posted in this thread. If you want something valuable and in high demand, you pay the prices. You’re not Entitled to getting it cheaper or for free just because you desire it more than other players. If you want a cheap Precursor, you don’t have to look very far.

Labjax.2465:

What that price ends up being is markedly less important and quite beside the point.

This is why we’ll never see eye to eye. Price is more important than everything else. Price of the Precursor, price of the T6 mats, price of the T5 like Large Bones or Mithril, etc. You can only think about the end result. I’m thinking of the consequences to the different steps of the journey to your end result. In other words, the price of your happiness does not equal the price of a collapsed economy.

Essence Snow.3194:

Why is it so hard to explain why not creating anything is justification for being unregulated when everything else is, even when they don’t create anything.

I’ll give you a hint…….it’s not b/c it doesn’t create anything….lol That’s like trying to answer why something is blue by saying b/c it’s blue…ie not a valid answer. Evidently this is a hard concept.

I get the feeling that you do understand the difference between faucets and trade profits, but you’re just trying to grasp at straws hoping to find a justification that fits your arguments.

Just in case you really are in the dark, I’ll point out that all items on the TP are already regulated. You see, each and every item for sale on the TP came from a faucet. These items didn’t exist until the faucet created them. By putting additional regulations and/or taxes for highly active players, you’re attempting to punish them would a double hit. An item that had a 0.01% chance to drop, is now going to be hit with 15% tax + an additional 15% tax if you got your way. All in the name of fairness. It was punishing enough just to spend 200 hours to farm the item, but now you want to punish the lucky player even more.

In this case, “fairness” to you means “If I can’t get that drop, then Anet needs to curb the profits of those who do get it”.

I hear Black Gate is beautiful this time of year.

Paradox.1380:

OmniPotentes.4817:

Pro tip. Take a break. I skipped a day of play and got an Endless Bat Tonic from a single stack of ToTs after just a few minutes upon my return. Deminishing returns is bound to kick in. Whether your farming the laberynt or just standing around in LA opening bags all day.

Bags do not trigger Dimishing Returns. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

It only appears to be DR to some players, because the more they click, the more their brains tell them they should have gotten something good by now.

Labjax.2465:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The Supply vs Demand concept may sound simple to many non-business minded players, but it’s more complicated than just “1,000 players want Item A when there’s only 10 available”. Many factors play a role in determining demand for an item. This is where behavior research comes in to determine how to create more demand. Making an item rare may increase demand on some items, but the same strategy isn’t a “one size fits all” solution.

Anet, as with any company, can help to influence demand. They cannot create it outright. Just as they can influence value, but not determine it. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise doesn’t understand how businesses work.

Each person sees an item differently. Just because one player feels Dusk is overpriced, doesn’t mean that Anet should alter the entire economy to make that one player happy. Some items were meant to be rare. In the same breath, some items that were meant to be rare get a drop buff. Monocles and Mini Monkey Kings were super rare, and had a value that matched the rarity and demand. Anet comes in and buffs the drop rates with insane amounts, thus making the item less valuable. Yes they have the power to increase Supply, but it’s not something they should do with Precursors.

I like how your pedantic post about supply and demand concludes in straight up opinion.

Also, ascended crafting. Cough. Pricey to acquire and much less subject to supply&demand cost disparity. In fact, the disparity is almost entirely caused by the supply of silk and the disparate amount needed for each armor class (e.g. very little influence from players themselves).

For someone who is talking about how much goes into supply and demand, you seem to be ignoring how simple it is to make a system that isn’t so easily skewed in cost. It’s not about Anet making precursors easy to acquire. It’s about them making the cost to acquire them relatively balanced, instead of letting them be completely subject to the player market.

I see your business economy and raise you game design.

Hope you’re not bluffing.

I’ll go all in with common sense.

Everything in the TP economy is interconnected. Sorta like how the real world works.

• Natural disaster in Asia caused hard drive manufacturing output to stop, thus leading to an increase in price to available hard drives, which lead to increase priced in PCs and/or downgraded specs to maintain price points.

• Large car manufacturer on the verge of closing due to a bad economy, putting panic on smaller suppliers who provide key parts to the vehicles. If the car manufacturer goes out of business, they take all the smaller suppliers with them.

• Dusk availability increased, leading to a mad rush to collect necessary mats from the TP. Dusk gets cheaper, but all T6 mats triple in value. Market panics, and John goes home early with a headache.

If Anet wants to provide an alternate method to get Precursors, that’s fine. But the problem here is also balancing what happens after such a mechanic is released. Some players don’t think beyond the “make it easier to get” argument.

Side note – to truly control the costs of high demanded items, you would need to eliminate them as drops, and just sell them for Gems in the Gem Store. 8k Gems sounds like a good price point.

IPhyton.2348:

Im to the point that im ready to stop gambling wars 2 and looking for a new game unless i see a positive future.
Thank You for your hard work, even though it is very hard to notice sometimes.

Ahem

Mark Katzbach.9084:

It’s also worth pointing out that some people use claims of quitting the game as an attention-getting tactic, when in fact they are still quite active.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

I asked why was that valid..not what is it.

Didn’t read penguins post b/c I know is says entitlement b/c he feels entitled to do so.

Its valid because it doesnt create anything, why is it so had to understand the fundamental difference of rewards that are created out of thin air through a faucet and items/gold traded through the tp between players?

Counter question:

Why do you think its not valid?

He knows I speak the truth, and can’t stand the fact that he’s basically asking for Easy Mode to get drops he wants.

Edit – Easy Mode is in reference to his desire to have more drops to offset faucet nerfs, which kinda don’t make any sense since drops are faucets. The tax on rich people is just another attempt to punish players due to jealousy.

The Supply vs Demand concept may sound simple to many non-business minded players, but it’s more complicated than just “1,000 players want Item A when there’s only 10 available”. Many factors play a role in determining demand for an item. This is where behavior research comes in to determine how to create more demand. Making an item rare may increase demand on some items, but the same strategy isn’t a “one size fits all” solution.

Anet, as with any company, can help to influence demand. They cannot create it outright. Just as they can influence value, but not determine it. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise doesn’t understand how businesses work.

Each person sees an item differently. Just because one player feels Dusk is overpriced, doesn’t mean that Anet should alter the entire economy to make that one player happy. Some items were meant to be rare. In the same breath, some items that were meant to be rare get a drop buff. Monocles and Mini Monkey Kings were super rare, and had a value that matched the rarity and demand. Anet comes in and buffs the drop rates with insane amounts, thus making the item less valuable. Yes they have the power to increase Supply, but it’s not something they should do with Precursors.

Essence Snow.3194:

mtpelion.4562:

The trading post isn’t “regulated” because it isn’t creating anything.

All it is doing is allowing players to trade their unwanted items for a wanted currency.

This suggestion would only hurt the economy in general and would not achieve any of the goals of the suggestion.

Once again, progressive taxes are used in the real world to fund social assistance programs. We argue that the negative impact on the economy is worth it in exchange for preventing starvation, death by exposure, etc. amongst the poorest members of society. We have no such programs in this game, primarily because permanent death is not a factor, thus there is no need for a progressive tax.

Why is “it doesn’t create anything” valid? It creates a wealth gap, artificial demand, artificial supply, and quite a bit of resentment.

How would it hurt the economy? Why wouldn’t it achieve efficiency and the ability to introduce more rewards?

Equality/fairness is a huge factor in games. I believe that alone should be basis for not having stand alone aspects. Much like profession balance. If one profession were way beyond all the rest, what would it matter? Everyone could just play that class. It doesn’t create anything. Just try to apply the same logic used with the tp to professions.

This is one of the reasons why certain players will never be happy with the Trading Post. The fundamental misunderstanding about how the economy works, esp. in relation to the difference between faucets and trade, will never be resolved.

And with speaking to equality and fairness, Entitlement is not a solution to any type of perceived imbalance. Suggesting something that would make you feel good, while being bad for the game, is still bad for the game.

coffen.5471:

Everyone has been hating on ANet recently, but for good reason. My question is, is it worth playing Guild Wars anymore. With no new content, Halloween was a disapointment, and there seems to be no content that people actually like in the game anymore
. Ive been thinking of leaving the game. I assume most other people are to right?

Ahem

Mark Katzbach.9084:

It’s also worth pointing out that some people use claims of quitting the game as an attention-getting tactic, when in fact they are still quite active.