What I don’t understand is why the standard supply and demand curve doesn’t apply to the non-cash gem market. Maybe I’ve missed something so if I’m wrong here, someone enlighten me.
The gold to gems and gems to gold markets shouldn’t rise together, according to standard supply and demand models. John Smith says there is a finite amount of gems (most likely gold to gems) which should demonstrate that if we’re sucking the gems out of the “finite” gem pot (with gold), the price for gems to gold should drop. Obviously this isn’t happening so the cash to gems market does cause the “finite” gem market to fluctuate. If this is truly the case then the adjustments made to the cash to gems market should affect the gold to gems market and vice versa, but this isn’t happening. Both are on the rise and not with any parity that I can see.
The issue I have is that, while I’m not ultimately concerned with the exchange rates, brand new gamers who pick up their first copy/licence to play are being put out by this outrageous market. ANet needs to adjust some calculations or artificially adjust the exchange market to keep it fair. At the rate we’re going those gamers who don’t have access to cash may never buy anything from the market. Even those of us who do cash to gems aren’t seeing a real win here either as the gems to gold market is also poorly orchestrated.
I really don’t understand what you said.
Think of gems as a commodity, like for example Dusk. The less Dusks there are the more each one costs. If you want a Dusk you pay lots of gold. If you have a Dusk it sells for lots of gold.
Gems work the same way. As the pool of gems gets smaller there are less gems so each one is worth more gold. If you want gems you pay lots. If you have gems you sell it for lots.
I really really don’t understand why this system is so hard for people to comprehend. Odds are the algorithm they use is something like:
(Original Number of gems in the exchange) \ (Number of gems in the exchange) + (base price) = (Gem price)
Suppose there were 5,000,000 gems in the beginning when gems cost 20 silver per 100 gems (spidy is down and I’m pulling that number from memory) so that’s 20 copper per gem (base price would be 19 copper in this example).
So it looks like this:
5,000,000 / 5,000,000 + 19 = 20 (20 * 100 = 2,000 copper/100 = 20 silver)
Suppose there’s only 200,000 gems left in the exchange:
5,000,000 / 200,000 + 19 = 44 (44 * 100 = 4,400 copper/100 = 44 silver)
Obviously in this example the price wouldn’t get very high unless the number of gems got ridiculously low. If however the initial supply was 5,000,000,000 instead with 200,000 left:
5,000,000,000 / 200,000 + 19 = 25,019 (that’s 2.5 gold per 100 gems).
Then there’s the formula for whatever selling gems gets you which would just be X% of the gold -> gem price. I can’t remember what the variation is but that’s obvious stuff anyway.
I’m sure they probably have a slightly more complicated system but that simple formula would produce something roughly equivalent to what they have now. There would be a set minimum price (19 copper per gem) and a price that is perpetually changing based solely on the amount of gems in the exchange at the exact moment of purchase.
Edit: Obviously there would have to be more variables to account for the exponential inflation that would occur at extremely low gem values (like 5 gems left gives 1,000,000,019 or 100,000 gold per 100 gems) and to avoid the dividing by zero if the exchange ever ran out. A simple cap on price and some code that boils down to “If number of gems in exchange is greater than 0 fetch price. If number is 0 return <insert message saying no gems available>” would work but my guess is they use a much more complicated algorithm that just operates in roughly the manner I described.
Edit 2: [X / (Y + Z) + N] should produce roughly the right results.
X = Original number of gems
Y = Current number of gems
Z = A constant to prevent exponential inflation at low values of Y also effectively putting a cap on the price. Also avoids dividing by zero.
N = Base price
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
Honestly Cleric’s or Apothecary is better for defense.
Our base ~16k health is more than good enough and the +healing power will give you way more staying power than vitality ever will unless you somehow get hit with one really big hit.
Healing Power + Toughness gives you staying power. Vitality + Toughness makes you die slower.
With Cleric’s or Soldier’s your personal DPS will be pretty bad though. 30 in BM for pet DPS is basically required if you go that route. Apothecary you can actually do alright damage because condition damage doesn’t really need the precision and crit% that power needs to be great.
Edit: skimming is not my friend… missed that this is primarily about fractals. What I said is still true, but Durzlla gave a better answer for your specific question.
I like how GW is called a violent game.
Well, technically most of our characters are guilt of mass murder, if not genocide.
Can’t be genocide… those kittens just keep respawning…
“Players can spend considerable time and effort building characters – gaining experience, weaponry, armour and in-game money to become more powerful.”
Not Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 in any way, shape or form.
Awww, you beat me to it. That was my favourite part that clearly illustrates the horrible sensationalist nature of this article that is clearly written by someone who can be bothered to fact check. Which essentially calls in to question every single other “fact” in the article.
Call me petty but any article which contains one obviously false statement which could have been avoided with simple fact checking loses all credibility for me.
This is a slight exaggeration. What you posted is out of context and also almost entirely about d/d bunker eles. Not sure why that is relevant to rangers.
If you actually listen to that VOD there’s no reason to believe anything is happening to rangers. They acknowledged that trap rangers seem to be doing really well but they also acknowledged it’s a new build (in the meta) and people haven’t learned to deal with it yet.
Edit: Also, rangers haven’t been nerfed since beta so the “yeap again” from the title is rather misleading. Admittedly the beta nerfs were hard and the ranger never really recovered from them.
Watch the video, Jon specifically says they want to “bring them down a little bit” in reference to both trap rangers and d/d (i think) elementalists.
I did watch it. They also said something more like they were ‘watching them’ to see. If you also pay attention to their reactions to what Java said about trap rangers being nothing special and not requiring any special counter it seems more like they are just going to ‘wait and see’.
They also said they don’t want to do what they did to spirit rangers again. There was also the part about preferring to create more build diversity before going after the few builds that actually work.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if in several months traps get some small nerf or something but I think rangers will get a few more patches of small buffs first (we can only hope they are useful small buffs…).
I’d buy a new character slot before I deleted a character. Then again I spent a good part of beta planning out the 8 characters I wanted and created all 8 on the first day of headstart.
I also have this extreme paranoia about deleting characters because of GW1 and character birthdays. I deleted a few characters before I realized that was a thing and I don’t want to make that mistake again.
This is a slight exaggeration. What you posted is out of context and also almost entirely about d/d bunker eles. Not sure why that is relevant to rangers.
If you actually listen to that VOD there’s no reason to believe anything is happening to rangers. They acknowledged that trap rangers seem to be doing really well but they also acknowledged it’s a new build (in the meta) and people haven’t learned to deal with it yet.
Edit: Also, rangers haven’t been nerfed since beta so the “yeap again” from the title is rather misleading. Admittedly the beta nerfs were hard and the ranger never really recovered from them.
Ok, please post your best pvE spec so the rest of us can see where you are going and then tweak for our own use.
pvE specs are VERY hard to find on the net, and it’s still not easy to find one for spvp or wvw. Every other profession has a billion websites, this one doesn’t even have enough to help many Rangers.
There’s tons of specs hiding in these forums. The thing is they are all almost identical. There’s really 3 specs with some slight variation:
Trapper (Condition Damage and Precision are main stats):
0/20/30/0/5 (decide where you want the other 10)
Glass Cannon (Power and Precision are main stats):
20/20/5/0/5 (decide where you want the other 20)
Bunker/BM (Healing Power and Toughness are main stats):
0/0/30/10/30 (there’s variations, I use a 0/0/15/25/30)
That’s about it really. The traits you take are the obvious ones. There’s really no questioning which traits are good and which are junk for those specs. You can also mix and match between those to get things like a Trapper/BM hybrid.
Although generally speaking every ranger spec starts with 0/0/5/0/5 then you decide where the other 60 points go based on weapons, are you using traps, and whether you want to be glass or bunker.
Edit: Here’s a basic frame for a longbow ranger:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQBgAY9AgA7rLgpAAG/CA
If you want traps the last 10 points goes in Skirmishing for Trapper’s Expertise (or I guess potency if you prefer), otherwise I’d drop it in WS for the protection on dodge or BM for faster pet swapping (more quickness). Depends on whether you want the defense or offense really.
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
With the “horn autoattack” i think he means the fact that, if you use horn 5 with an enemy nearby and autotargeting, you automatically aggro that enemy and start attacking it.
On the good side we are now kings of underwater combat….thats……something, right?
Yeah that is the Horn bug i meant.
Why is that, what did they do with underwater combat?
It’s a joke as much as anything. We had that first patch where nothing happened with ranger (October 22 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-October-22-2012) and were promised “substantial changes” in the next patch. What we got next patch was 150% more damage on Harpoon auto and some other minor tweaks to greatsword (November 15 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-November-15-2012). This lead to lots of jokes about the ranger being Aquaman (marvel superhero reference for those who may actually not know). We’re pretty good underwater but once you get us on land we’re not so useful anymore.
December 14 (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012) we got a fairly long list of changes but none were really useful changes. They were all ‘nice’ changes but they didn’t make or break any builds except the Lick Wounds change (still buggy but more powerful when it works). Unfortunately most of the changes from this patch can be described as “changing the awful and useless into mediocre and useless.” This really includes the melee pet hitting better and the arrow flight speed changes. What was awful and useless is now mediocre.
January 28 (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-January-28-2013) was just some bug fixes really. Again nothing bad but the only reall changes were condition stats applying to Entangle (finally!) and Drakes actually using Tail Swipe (this is pretty good actually).
And that brings us to today. I don’t have high hopes for the 26th (next balance patch) but I suppose it’s possible something good will happen.
Basically the answer to the OP is since December nothing noteworthy has changed. The ranger plays exactly the same as before. What worked before works now and what didn’t work before still doesn’t work.
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
I’m sorry you don’t like the game. I hope you enjoy your next game more.
P.S. Formatting is awesome. At least put * on either side of your titles so they are bolded, it goes a long way.
Well, it certainly seems like the goal is to keep the exchange rate at 2g+ for 100 gems because every time it dips below that something else goes on sale.
As for purchasing gems for real dollars, the last time I did I got burned by their no refunds policy (which incidentally was not stated on their refund support page). Until that changes they won’t be seeing another cent from me.
You won’t buy gems because you can’t get a refund? Call me crazy but I’ll bet Anet is okay with that.
As for the other thing, 2g for 100 gems is actually really high for the games life. Right now is really the first time the average has even been as high as 1.98g for 100 gems.
The average price for most of the games life has been roughly $1 = 1 gold. Right now it’s floating around $0.77 = 1 gold.
As I said in a previous post in this thread, gems have not reached their equilibrium yet. The gems → gold ratio is pretty bad. When that gems better more people will start selling gems for gold and once that number meets equilibrium with those who buy gems with gold the price will stabilize. My guess is that will be somewhere between $0.25 and $0.50 = 1 gold.
So yeah, that means you should expect 100 gems to cost you around 3-5 gold eventually. You have to remember that in spite of the intermediary (the gem exchange) you are effectively buying gems from players. Players need to feel like the amount of gold they are getting for their real money is worth it. Right now most probably don’t feel it’s worth it (you obviously don’t).
I’m merely trying to show people how their discount got “lost”.
I think your analogy/explanation has been great (I do have to argue with the USD is limited claim but that’s a long debate about imaginary value and not relevant really).
My only really relevant issue with this whole thread is that the only reason this is a problem is people are viewing the gem store as a system that is Gold -> Gems first and Cash -> Gems second.
I guarantee Anet views is as a system that is Cash -> Gems first and foremost… and it happens to have a Gold -> Gems option.
Any and ALL sales they put on will be aimed at the Cash -> Gems market. Any and all products/features added to the gem store will be aimed at Cash -> Gems. I doubt there is much, if any, actual consideration given to the Gold <-> Gems system beyond the fact that it’s there and working as intended. Especially when considering sales and other ways to generate revenue.
The Gem <-> Gold market is entirely player driven. Unless Anet specifically steps in and alters the algorithm and/or messes with the current rates directly (which there is absolutely no evidence they do or have). As far as I can tell they use a modified version of what they used in GW1 for all the material, rune, and dye vendors. Eventually things reach an equilibrium based on real supply and demand.
As it stands now I don’t think gems have reached their equilibrium. The Gems -> Gold rate is still pretty low. The Gold -> Gems rate actually gets ‘better’ with time even if the actual exchange rate remains constant because the average player is relatively richer than they used to be if for no reason other than they want less stuff. If a player wants less stuff but continues to gain gold that gold has a lesser value to that player. I know when I first started and was leveling my first character 2 gold for that level 60 training manual was a big deal. Now 2 gold is a drop in the bucket.
Point is, Gold -> Gems is a nice feature but you should never ever assume Anet does anything with the gem store with any consideration for that at all. All your gold isn’t going to pay their bills. They are generous enough to give you the option but they still want you to spend real money and you can’t honestly blame, or fault, them for that and still be considered reasonable.
Hard mode.
I also rather enjoyed the fact it was completely soloable with heroes/henchies but I don’t think that really has a place in GW2.
Keyboard and mouse??…and yes I and many others dont mind chilling on the couch at the big tv with a keyboard and mouse…may not be a lot but Im sure its a decent ammount
I dont feel like lugging my PC into the living room lol
just my opinion lol
If that’s something you’d really like to do I’d suggest:
Wireless HDMI + wireless mouse + wireless keyboard = PC on your TV regardless of where your PC and TV actually are physically.
It’s actually very easy to set up. Although unless you have a really expensive TV the resolution is utter garbage compared to average monitor resolution. People don’t notice on consoles because consoles (currently) can’t put out high resolution anyway.
But as I said above, if they decide to make GW2 for consoles, great. I just personally don’t want it and if I did I’d just use my current setup.
Why did I have to open this thread!
You broke my fantasy world where I believe exotics don’t drop because it makes me feel better about my luck… Exotics are made not found!
The biggest problem has always been controls. I gather GW2 works okay with a controller but there are some features that simply require a mouse and/or keyboard.
One of the major selling points of consoles is actually the controller instead of a mouse and keyboard. Controllers let you relax on a couch or really any position you want as long as you can put your hands reasonably close together. Keyboards are rather clunky things that require your lap or desk/table and a mouse requires a reasonably large flat smooth surface that doesn’t move around.
Console gamers are just a very different group than PC gamers and hardware is not the reason MMOs haven’t made it over. I’m 99% sure the 360 or the PS3 could run WoW without any problem if you hooked up a keyboard and mouse. There’s just no market for it.
I don’t really care in Anet wants to put GW2 on the PS4 I just don’t think it will work out very well (in sales figures) and be worth the time and money spent porting it.
Sure i would not mind that but make loot apply to how many toons are in the dungeon.
I have to question which way you think the scaling should go. My guess is you think a full group of 5 people should get better loot than a solo player.
My question is, why?
Doing content with a group is easier for each individual than it is doing it solo. If you are in a group there is someone there to cover for your mistakes. If you are solo and screw up you pay for that mistake. There is no one there to save you. There is no good argument for why a group of 5 should get better loot than an individual assuming proper difficulty scaling.
While I personally would like to see soloable dungeon modes I’m not sure it’s in the best interests of the game as a whole. People hate PUGs. If you make PUGs unnecessary then there are no PUGs. No PUGs no social contact with new people. The fact is when people aren’t forced to group with strangers they don’t (generally). This has significant effects on any possibility for a community.
Ok, and the counter-point… was?
Feature Creep. It’s a thing.
But, I guess I’ll spell it out for you.
New games have less features than old games. As games age they add stuff. Guild Wars 2 is a new game. They are adding stuff in the order they feel is right for their game. Important stuff first, other stuff later.
Patience is awesome.
It’s funny that WoW is nowhere on that list.
Scroll up.
A) I was typing as that conversation happened.
B) Those posts contain nothing relevant to the rest of my post which contains actually relevant points rather than just something I found amusing.
It’s funny that WoW is nowhere on that list.
Rift didn’t have player housing for 18 months after it launched.
LOTRO took 6 months after launch.
Wildstar isn’t out yet. Housing also ‘fits’ in Wildstar as opposed to just being a tacked on feature to make people happy.
Everquest took 11 years to get around to making player housing.
New games just generally have more important things to deal with than making player housing. Anet has said maybe one day they’ll get around to it. With luck it won’t be 11 years. It might even be less than 18 months, but it’s obviously going to be more than 6 months.
Feature creep. It’s a thing.
Edit: Also LOTRO’s player housing was really just the ‘walk in closet’ of bank tabs. It was really kind of bad when I played. I haven’t played the other games when they had player housing though I’ve heard great things about Rift’s player housing.
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
But that shouldnt excuse anyone for not adding DE metas , permanent ones not holiday events. I still haven’t seen a new one since launch. Just the dragons. sigh
There’s at least one meta event in every single zone.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meta_event
Honestly the dragons everyone is so obsessed with are some of the most boring meta events in the entire game outside of the awesome visuals that dragon fights have.
First, I don’t play as much as I used to. I tend to play in spurts. Right now I’m not playing, haven’t logged in for a few days because I just don’t want to and I’m having more fun with other games. I also took about a month and a half break after the Lost Shores patch playing a bit over Wintersday and then picked it up again from the start of January to last week. My breaks are partly a result of what the OP is talking about.
The thing is, I’m okay with that.
The kind of content the OP is talking about is finite and always will be. The development time required to make that kind of content is several times greater than the time it takes players to consume that content. It’s simply unrealistic to expect to have unlimited story driven content. Even if you only play 1 hour a day they just can’t make new content fast enough. It takes longer than an hour just to write the dialogue.
I’ve never really understood why people think MMOs need to be a 24/7 365 days a year game to play. It’s simply not a realistic expectation. No MMO has ever succeeded in making a game that anyone can play a couple hours a day 365 days a year without repeating content.
The biggest difference with GW2 is the fact that, unlike other MMOs, it’s not filled with unnecessary time sinks designed to waste your time. They just took out (most of) the time sinks because there is no subscription. They don’t need to needlessly drag out simple tasks to prevent you from making progress so that the next monthly subscription fee comes due before you finish what you want to do.
Crafting is perhaps the most obvious example. Did you ever stop and ask yourself why sub based games make crafting a items take so long? It’s not for a ‘more realistic feeling’. I can’t remember the name of the game now but I remember one MMO I played that when I needed to do a lot of crafting I went afk a lot because it literally took 20 minutes to refine stacks of materials. GW2 I just alt-tab briefly or go get a drink because it takes ~2 minutes to make 250 of something.
Another example of time sinks in other games is raids. There’s a reason why the best gear in most MMOs drops one piece at a time from raids that take 15+ people that you can only do once a week. It’s simply because that way if those 15+ people all need a specific drop from the same boss and it only drops 1 of the items they need at a time that’s 4+ months those 15+ people are paying $15 a month. That’s also part of why it’s RNG instead of fixed drops. Again, it makes sure it takes longer because odds are at least one run an item no one needs will drop off a boss and that’s another week 15+ people are paying… errr, “playing” the game. Especially since they can’t even try again until the weekly raid reset.
This is just what an MMO is when you pull out (most of) the useless time sinks designed to drag out the experience needlessly so you will pay $15 a month for longer. What you’re left with is a game you play because it’s fun or you stop playing. You can always come back when there’s new stuff. It is free to do so since you already bought the game.
That’s so funny…fraps is now a verb whose definition is not a direct reference to the noun fraps.
This was pretty much my thought.
“What do you use to fraps gameplay?”
“Ummmm… Fraps?”
And yes, I use fraps to fraps. (that sounds dirty….)
That’s a nice little recounting of what happened but you left out a few points:
- Anet acknowledged the possibility of a problem.
- Anet felt the existing thread was insufficient and wanted more data. This doesn’t mean they ignored the thread they closed, more is well… more not the the same stuff they have.
- They created a stickied thread with an Anet post to start it to make it more apparent, official, and hopefully get noticed easier.
- After declaring it an “X-files level conspiracy” they kept working on it. Seriously, think about that for a moment. The problem they found didn’t jump up and slap them in the face after they gave up. No, they kept looking in to the problem.
- Once they found a problem (may or may not be ’the problem) they were big enough people to admit it publicly. Again, think about this. They created another sticky post to say “Hey, we were wrong. There is a problem. Sorry about that.”
Just the fact they made a post to say “We were wrong” is more than you ever get from most companies. Heck it is more than you get from most people.
Sorry but if you’re going to talk about what happened you have to give credit were it’s due and Anet IS due some credit here. Sure they aren’t perfect but the way you tell it it’s like they covered their ears screaming “LALALALALA” until the code jumped out and slapped them forcing them to fix it. Which is obviously impossible and it’s disrespectful to the hard working people at Anet to ignore the time they put in to checking and double checking loot tables and lines of code to hunt down what amounts to a bug.
-snip-
The reason why we ignored your post is because you unintentionally advocated us. There’s a reason why the people who went to argue your reasoning were the people whose side you were on. I don’t see how your points go and benefit the side that says Precursors lolomfgneed2beasier
I suppose I am arguing a slightly different point than most.
I’m not opposed to the difficulty but rather the method of acquisition. I suspect that’s actually the problem many have and why there aren’t as many arguments over the other parts of the legendary.
T6 mats, Lodestones, Badges, etc… are all acquired incrementally rather than a binary system.
While the amount of effort required to get 100 Charged Lodestones might be roughly equal to the amount of effort required to get a precursor the method of acquisition is different.
You can easily get 1 Charged Lodestone a day and in 100 days you’ll be done. That’s a long arduous process but every day you KNOW you are making progress.
You can easily thrown 1 set of rares in the Mystic Forge a day and you might well get a legendary on day 100. That’s an equally long arduous process but every day you are not any closer than the day before. You KNOW you are NOT making progress. It’s just another day another failure.
I suspect the issue many have isn’t actually the time, or the gold, or the work required. Rather the issue is simply the way it makes people feel while pursuing it. The pursuit of a precursor through RNG is a very demoralizing and emotionally painful process for a lot of people. The repeated dashing of hope is not something people enjoy experiencing over and over again.
Lodestones and such don’t share that same problem because of the incremental process. It’s the very reason so many people look to the TP instead. By purchasing through the TP they can use gold as a measure of incremental progress. Unfortunately the constantly inflating prices produces a similar sensation of dashed hopes because someone keeps moving the goal post.
Depending how fast you are earning money it’s entirely possible that the price is inflating at the same rate or faster than you earn money. This results in a feeling that no progress has been made or that the goal posts have actually moved further away.
People really want, or even need, to feel like they are making progress. Even if the actual amount of time, energy, and work remains the same under a new system people would feel significantly better about it if they could see their progress in an clear and substantial way (like lodestones).
So those advocating for the current system accuse the other side of ignoring arguments while ignoring arguments and attempt to derail the conversation is half statements and my little pony pictures….
I don’t really want to repeat my large post on page 2 which has gone without reply but I’ll add something:
There’s a big difference between a 33% chance (mystic clovers) and a 0.01% chance. Specifically 33% is 3,300 times greater.
One individual can easily see a 33% chance of something happening average out across their own personal trials. Statistically you shouldn’t have to do it more than 5 or 6 times to see one success. Eventually it will average out to 33% but one individual is not guaranteed a success at an exact rate of 1 in 3 but greater than 1 in 6 is statistically improbable over even as little as 100 trials.
It IS statistically probably for someone to run 20,000 trials and never see a success with a 0.01% chance where another person sees 2 or 3 successes in 10,000 trials. Obviously a 0.01% chance will average out eventually with a large enough sample size. Unfortunately the sample size required is so astronomically high that one individual cannot be reasonably expected to run that many trials.
As an example I’ll use Light Bags of Skritt Shinies. These have a roughly 1% chance of giving a Silver Doubloon. I’ve opened somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 of these (didn’t count might be more) when Silver Doubloons were selling for ~40s and the bags were around 50c (I made a sizable profit on this). Any given stack of 250 would give anywhere from zero to 4 Doubloons but it always averaged out to around 2.5 doubloons per stack. The thing is I could open 500 bags and get 1 doubloon and it wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was literally necessary to open several thousand at once for it to average out and show a profit.
The same thing applies to crafting and salvaging rares for ectos (when the market permits a profit with the 80%-90% chance of ectos). You need to make and salvage 200-250 rares to ensure the law of averages kicks in and you don’t lose money because of a bad run of salvages.
I don’t know that anyone really knows the rate at which precursors pop from the forge but the percentage is low and the cost per trial is high. The problem many people have is simply that the number of trials required for it to average out is too high for an individual and combined with the cost per trial it’s just painful to pursue.
Why the focus on the individual seeing it average out? Because quite frankly no one who is chasing a legendary gives to craps if combining their 500 failed trials with Bobs one successful trial produces a nice average of 1/250. All the individual cares about is that they tried 500 times and failed. The law of averages obviously applies when all trials by all players are taken in aggregate but the individual doesn’t care about the aggregate because that doesn’t help the individual in any way shape or form.
Have you played GW1? The super-shiny gear in GW1 were hard to obtain. I say this with the knowledge of your stance on that word.
It was a 0.01% chance at the end of a dungeon with difficulty equivalent to Arah Path 4. Meaning you had to do Arah Path 4 ~10,000x to get it.
Sure, some people got it on their first runs, and others ran it more than the allotted 10,000x without getting it at all. Even with that in mind, everyone who saw the weapon was awed and bowed down to the person wielding it in terms of GW dedication, even if they had no idea what they were doing in that game.
The precursor is not really that hard if you think about it. Instead of salvaging those rares you get, stick them in the mystic toilet. Instead of NPC’ing those greens you get, stick them in the mystic toilet. Instead of salvaging those exotics you get, stick them in the mystic toilet.
If you don’t like that method, run temples and world bosses, most servers do them daily.
If you don’t like that method, learn to save your money. If you’ve gotten ectos from salvaging your rares, don’t work towards making your infused fractal capacitor shiny, sell them on the TP to get your precursor. That lodestone and core you got from dungeon running? Sell them on the TP. Stop hoarding items and start liquidating your assets.
I’m sorry if you don’t understand, but it is SUPPOSED to be a long, slow, arduous process. If it was simply You put in X hours into this game, here’s a Legendary. it wouldn’t really be that amazing because everyone would get it after a few X hours of the games release.
Yes I played GW1, but that isn’t relevant. I’ve also played WoW, and LOTRO, and Rift, and Super Mario 1, and Final Fantasy 1 through 12, and Ultima 1 through 9, and a couple hundred other games. But that’s not remotely relevant either.
Your argument about GW1 is the same as saying something like “In the medieval times it’s was acceptable to murder, kitten pillage, and plunder and entire village. So if someone only does that to a single family it’s not too bad by comparison. We really shouldn’t be upset about it.”
Better than bad does not make something good. Terrible argument.
I agree completely that getting a legendary isn’t hard. That was the point I was trying to make.
I do understand getting a legendary is supposed to be a slow arduous process. My problem is with your statement:
“If it was simply You put in X hours into this game, here’s a Legendary. it wouldn’t really be that amazing because everyone would get it after a few X hours of the games release.”
That is exactly what it is currently. The fact that legendaries can be purchased on the TP makes it a case of “put X hours into the game,” or “put X amount of money into the game.”
Again if you remove the TP from the equation but treat X as a variable rather than a constant it is still the case that “put X hours into the game” is how you obtain a legendary. Unfortunately for some people ‘X hours’ is ten times or more the number of hours someone else put in. Bob might only spend 200 hours getting his legendary but Joe had to spend 2000 hours because the mystic toilet just gave Joe a giant middle finger for 1800 hours.
From the perspective you seem to be advocating Joe is far more worthy of praise and admiration than Bob. Bob had his legendary ‘handed to him’ whereas Joe really had to ‘work for it’.
Personally I’d rather see precursors dropped with something like a 5% to 15% chance at the end of something difficult to accomplish and be account bound than the current system. Examples of actual ‘hard content’ could include: The Clocktower (I found it easy so maybe it should be a longer and more challenging JP), a difficult dungeon like Arah explorable (not sure Arah explorable is actually hard enough), or taking Stonemist (lower chance here maybe, but you should be able to get precursors in WvW).
At least that way a legendary actually requires accomplishing something other than beating your head against a wall until it breaks.
I really wish people would stop equating RNG with ‘hard’.
Yes a very low drop rate makes something ‘hard to obtain’ but not in a way that is challenging. The only ability required to beat RNG is persistence. It is not ‘hard content’.
The current system for acquiring a precursor is ‘hard’ in the same way rolling a 20 on a D20 ten times in a row is ‘hard’. Any idiot can do it if he’s persistent enough but that doesn’t make it fun or a skill based challenge. I wouldn’t even call it ‘hard’ because it’s not. It’s just very, very, very unlikely you will succeed.
Precursors should be rewarded for achieving something a little more skill based than face-rolling around for long enough.
IF you’re trying to use rhetorical questions to make a point then ignore the following (I agree there is a problem).
If you actually want to know why:
Passion Flowers are a ridiculously rare drop from a single zone in the game that most of the player base forgets even exists because there is no reason to go there.
It takes 75 Passion Flowers to make a single trinket. If you tried to farm 75 on your own it would probably take you a few months of farming for each trinket.
Passion Flowers are also required for all omni-infusions so people running FOTM that want a particular stat on all infusions (e.g. precision in a defense infusion slot) are required to use 100 Passion Flowers per omni-infusion.
Basically it’s the fact that any player who wants Passion Flowers wants somewhere between 75 and 375 (5 trinkets) but the average player would be lucky to get a single passion flower every day.
The prices make sense because of the circumstances being what they are. It’s the circumstances being what they are that makes no sense.
You sound like the only reason you have to play games is to get some payout of pixels and if there is no pixel jackpot to be had you can’t see the purpose in a video game.
There’s nothing wrong with a ‘goal oriented’ mind set. Although many goal oriented people tend to forget to enjoy the journey.
I myself am very ‘goal oriented’ in video games but there’s more goals available than just getting better gear. I’m also capable of setting my own goals.
Some of the goals I have for this game include:
- Get all 8 classes to level 80 with 100% map completion and find builds I like to play for each.
- Get ALL the achievements
- Make all 20 legendary weapons. (This has about a million smaller goals required like 10 characters with 100% map, 10k Badges of Honour, over 20 million Karma, doing all the dungeons, etc…)
Those are really my long-term goals so each time I play I pick something that will help towards those goals and go out and do it. What I do depends on what seems like fun at the time. Some days I don’t leave WvW. Other days I just run around completing maps. The nice thing about having such lofty goals is that I can rest easy knowing there is absolutely nothing I can do that doesn’t help towards my goals.
It really helps to also enjoy the game itself and have fun while playing it. What bugs me is people who complain about how hard it is to get a legendary or about a lack of pixels to chase when it sounds like they don’t actually enjoy playing the game. The actual playing of the game is just that ‘chore they suffer through’ to accomplish their goal. That sort of ‘goal oriented suffering through the game’ IS bad (unless you’re a masochist then have at it), especially if Anet decides to cater the game to those people.
I could go for 100% … but why ?
I could go to do some more WvW … but why ?
I could train SPvP more …but why ?I can play for 2 years more ..and nothing will ever change, I will stay exactly strong as I am now …
I (and other ~70% of community) have no reason to play this game past lvl 80 Exotics…
This attitude about games just makes me sad.
Maybe it’s because I grew up playing games when games were still new (e.g. from around 1985 to present). Games didn’t used to be about getting the shinies or about doing things because the game gave you some reward like an achievement or something shiny. Games were about fun and/or challenge (often you made your own challenges).
You sound like the only reason you have to play games is to get some payout of pixels and if there is no pixel jackpot to be had you can’t see the purpose in a video game.
It’s always seemed obvious to me that Anet designs games based on old-school video game mentality (hint, GW1 is the same way, there’s tons to do but almost none of it gets you prettier pixels). The purpose of games is the journey and the experiences you have while play. The purpose is the fun of playing. Designing a game around destinations is actually bad design. It just fosters the mentality that everything before the destination is a waste of time and very often just a pain in the kitten you wish didn’t exist (e.g. WoW leveling that everyone just views as a giant time sink they wish would just go away so they could play end-game only).
I know I’ll probably never change your mind but the point I’m trying to get at (and the OP seems to be as well) is that the problem isn’t with the game. The problem is with you and your preoccupation with collecting pixels and skipping as much of the game as you can in your pursuit of pixels. If that’s all games are to you then that’s fine. There are games for you, go play one.
If you ever decide you want to play a game for the sake of playing a game and, you know, have fun doing it I’m sure GW2 will still be here waiting for you to come have fun.
@Unspecified
Why Drakes are broken? Broken as in OP or broken because some skill just don’t work?
I’m glad I don’t like them,they are clumsy and have 0 cool looking factor. :PDrakes currently don’t use any attacks other than their auto-attack. No blast finisher, no bite to self heal. I meant broken as in buggy broken obviously. If they actually used their skills they might be better but it’s hard to say.
Their F2 abilities also have some serious issues hitting but that can be overcome in various ways.
Umm… Drakes were fixed in the last patch. They will now regularly cycle through their skills on auto attack. (INCLUDING their ‘Tail Swipe’ which is indeed a Blast finisher)
They are awesome on mobs – that Tail Swipe alone can damage multiple targets for more damage than any of the birds do on a single target.
I agree with you Drakes are awesome now (probably my new favourite pet for most things).
However, I posted that before the patch.
If they added a sub I’d quit. It’s not the cost that bothers me though. It’s the hassle and the mandatory nature of it that bothers me. Any sub games I’ve played in the past I feel like I’m wasting money if I don’t play.
All classes are capable of running all current dungeon content provided they’re competent.
That said, I believe it goes to show the effectiveness of that party next to the cof1 farming standard. 13 min run from the door being blown up, to my guild’s 5 min from that same point. Even if we assume those rangers weren’t ideally built, I find it hard to believe it could break under 10 min. So best case scenario, half as effective time-wise? Seems about right from my experience.
This run is not really a great case study for your assertion.
1) Too many Moas and still not full fury up-time
2) Bear
3) Longbows and no weapon swapping
4) At least the person who filmed it made terrible use of their traps (or more specifically didn’t use them).
5) Burning up-time was terrible and should easily be 24/7
6) Lack of pet swapping for quickness
7) Dead pets not being swapped.
8) (edit) The person filming is also wearing a RARE helmet. Not exotic. Pretty sure there’s some DPS gains to be had.
The list goes on.
The point I’m trying to make is that even with sub-optimal choices and play they got it done in 13 minutes. I see no reason a group of 5 rangers couldn’t easily shave 3-5 minutes off that time.
(P.S. To those in the video please don’t be offended by what I’ve said. It looks you had lots of fun and thanks for sharing the video.)
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
I want the bunny-thumper back but I’m not sure I like the move-set you outlined. For one thing it really doesn’t represent what a bunny thumper was.
Where’s the knock-down followed by an animal ripping your face off?
You’ll find something. . .
I’ve been looking for ages. Hence the thread.
You’re not likely to get any specifics because people who play the markets know the second they post a specific thing here the margin/profit dies in around 10 minutes. I’m not joking, we’ve all seen it happen.
I will however be nice and give you a hint:
Look at material refinements. Like taking Copper Ore and turning it into Copper ingots and then reselling (I doubt there’s any money in copper). There can be quite a bit of profit sometimes in just buying raw material, refining it, and the reselling. Especially when a particular raw material is rising or dropping in price the things it is made into lag behind in price changes for varying amounts of time.
I think that part of the solution would be graded influence based on representation and guild size.
Attendance
The game checks once every 24 hours for members who have logged on and represented the guild during the previous 24 hours. [verification requested]
10 Influence per member for the first 20 members.
5 Influence per member from 20 to 50 members.
1 Influence per each additional member.
Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Influence
Overall I agree with your sentiments though.
Every time I see this debate (first time was around 2 years before GW2 launched) it seems to be relatively split down the middle between those who want it and those who don’t.
There’s really one thing that makes me think it shouldn’t be in.
If 50% want it and 50% don’t then 50% are unhappy. There are workarounds for those who want an inspect feature but don’t have it. There is no workaround for those who don’t want it if there is an inspect feature.
Seems to me that not having an inspect feature is the most fair solution.
@OP
It sounds like you picked the wrong profession for your play style, and you’re about to do it again with the warrior.
Each profession plays quite differently in my experience. So far I’ve got a ranger, guardian, and thief to 80 with 100% map complete and dabbling in other areas of the game. The other professions I’ve played a bit.
Some professions focus heavily on positioning (Ranger and thief) others are more focused on skill timing (guardian) while others are very focused on good rotations and/or correct utility for the situation (elementalist or engineer).
From what you describe I suspect you would enjoy Elementalist, Engineer, or Mesmer the most.
I wouldn’t worry so much about starting over. Every other MMO I’ve played I was more like you. I had my main and I couldn’t stand alts because I felt like I was throwing away all that work on my main. In GW2 getting a character ‘capped out’ in levels and gear isn’t such a hardship so having multiple fully geared characters is reasonable. There’s also notable benefits to having multiple 80s (e.g. more Orichalcum farming per day).
tl;dr The game does play quite differently with each profession. If Necro doesn’t do it for you try something else. I strongly suggest Elementalist, Engineer, and Mesmer (in that order) based on what you said.
Icelin, have you tried entering the Chantry of Secrets in Bloodtide Coast as Hazteur suggests?
As for the little gold star, note that you won’t see it yourself, so you’ll have to ask someone else if they see a gold star on you.
Good luck getting your world completion rewards!
I just finished 100% map on my third character and got nothing. I went back to the Chantry of Secrets because I read this thread and recalled back around launch a lot of people saying you HAD to go back to the chantry even if you’d been there before.
I went back and it worked. I suppose it’s possible I’d never been there but it even said PoI 1/1 on the loading screen so who knows. Either way, give it a shot if it’s being buggy for you too.
(I now have 6 Gifts of Exploration, now to continue working on getting 20 GoE)
Edit to Clarify: I’ve never had to go back to the Chantry before. Both of my other characters I got the Gifts of Exploration on the last zones I did.
(edited by Unspecified.9142)
Looks promising for the PvP crowd. Not really anything that makes me personally excited though.
I guess the Guild missions might be interesting, that remains to be seen though.
Running jade maw a lot? Don’t be that Ranger who only has bows and insists on shooting themselves in the face when facing perma-reflect mobs. Equip a sword or gs or at the very least stop shooting…
Jade Maw: Pet Fetch
If nothing else you can use your pet to pull the colossus things (w/e they’re called) to where your group is camping out by crystals (F1 to Attack then F3 to call back once it has aggro). For obvious reasons parties want to hang out where there are crystals on the ground and not be running off to go get another thing to kill for a crystal. Your pet can’t pick up crystals anyway so make him good for something and get more crystals near your designated camping spot.
First I want to say, I love you for making JPs a part of this game. My absolute favourite so far is:
The Clock Tower – I had so much fun with this during Halloween. I do think a holiday event and limited time only was a poor choice but something like this (or many somethings) as a permanent fixture in the game would be amazing!
Apart from that (in no particular order):
Fawcett’s Bounty – Because I grew up watching the Goonies a lot.
Chaos Crystal Cavern – I know it’s relatively simple but I had fun with it because of all the random effects.
Weyandt’s Revenge – I just enjoyed the story as I went through it.
Goemm’s lab – This was my first JP. I spent about 4 hours on this during the second day of headstart. I don’t think I’ve spent so much time or died so many times on a JP since. I guess it was good training…
(Haven’t done Hidden Garden or Scavenger’s Chasm yet. Those are planned for tomorrow along with Hexfoundry Unhinged which is the only other JP I haven’t done yet.)
I would agree with you if, and ONLY IF, the amount of effort required was relatively equal. With the current implementation I could farm for years and spend hundreds of gold on exotics to throw in the MF and never see a precursor. Bob could come along and throw in 4 junk rares and get a precursor.
And you expect that someon else who has done this should turn over the results for anything less than a fortune?
The more you point out the processess of acquiring them is dificult, the more it justifies the astronomical price for a successful outcome.
I don’t think I said anything about people should sell them for less or the current prices being unjustified.
My issue is that the current prices ARE justified. The system for acquiring precursors is broken (imho). The single biggest problem I have is the uncertainty, the randomness, the lack of guaranteed reward regardless of work, and the fact that some people have precursors handed to them while others spend months struggling and still have no precursor.
The main reason I don’t play other MMOs is experiences like running a dungeon 58 times to get a single item. I’m thinking of a specific trinket in Rift I farmed for, one dungeon run a day for 58 days before it finally dropped. This wasn’t a particularly rare item and I knew 8 other people who had it, all in less than 10 runs. This type of garbage system is how precursors are handled.
There will always be that person out there that just gets the yucky end of the RNG stick. Call me an idealist but it really should be relatively ‘fair’ for all players. At the very least there should be some safety net in place for those who have been throwing things in the MF constantly so they are guaranteed to get one eventually.
I bet one of the most interesting parts of getting a legendary was going into the WVW maps and leading your server to take keeps for the world completion.
and also going and killing enough enemies to get 500 badges.
Most people jump their way to 500 badges. It’s kind of sad but the most efficient way to get 500 badges by far is once a day show up in the EB JP and get a mesmer port to the top. A level 80 gets 10-20 badges a day (level 60 is 10-12, a level 2 gets 1 badge). You can also do BL JPs for another 15 per day (5 per JP).
World completion is more a waiting/timing game for a lot of people. I imagine a lot of people also did what I did. I transferred to a server that was dominating (+680 or more points) and ran around on all my characters. I have level 5 characters with WvW maps complete and no hearts done. (Note: Not bragging or ‘proud’ of this I just saw a potential pain my back side coming and solved it before it was too late)
As for the “Are Legendary Weapons Symbols of Achievement”…. Yes, to a degree.
The trouble I have with legendaries is I know the person who has one achieved something, but I don’t really know what he/she achieved.
The biggest variable is the precursor. Maybe they threw 5 random rares in the forge and BAM, precursor. Maybe they played the Karka event and got lucky. Maybe they put in their credit card info and bought it. Or maybe they spent dozens of hours farming mats, crafting weapons and throwing them in the forge and after hundreds of failed combines finally got lucky and got their precursor. (Or maybe they abused one of the exploits and got it back near launch).
I know it sounds bad to say be the fact that some people all but had it handed to them does actually depreciate the work put in but others. No one will ever know if that guy with Eternity over there worked his butt off, abused an exploit, got it through pure dumb luck, or just spent a bunch of money on gems (or gold from a third party site… rage filled rant goes here…). That uncertainty taints the achievement for everybody.
(Still working on my own legendaries because I do it for me, as many do, and not bragging rights or kitten)
Or you could just work harder like the other people who have their precursors/legendaries. You are not a special snowflake.
I would agree with you if, and ONLY IF, the amount of effort required was relatively equal. With the current implementation I could farm for years and spend hundreds of gold on exotics to throw in the MF and never see a precursor. Bob could come along and throw in 4 junk rares and get a precursor.
I’m all for making precursors take work to get, but that work needs to rewarded. Currently no amount of work actually guarantees you will ever get a precursor unless you do buy one from the TP (which has problems because of inflating prices outpacing the earning potential of many players).
RNG is RNG. It’s the gamblers fallacy to assume someone who consistently fails to get a precursor from the MF will get one if he/she just tries a few more times. Your odds don’t get better the more money you flush down the mystic toilet. They remain forever terrible.
The worst thing about this dust spike is that it makes T5 -> T6 material conversions in the mystic forge worthless, and also affects the viability of the core -> lodestone conversion; people have been crying out for more ways to obtain lodestones affordable and we have the new “binding agent” available for laurels, but the cost of dust now negates the value of this addition.
T6 dust either needs increased drop rates or a boost in the output of T5->T6 dust conversion.
I hadn’t thought about this but it’s a great point. Crystalline Dust spiking this much really effects a good chunk of the T6/exotic/legendary market in a very bad way.
Swoop + Entangle / Mud, that’s the role of a GS ranger (as I see it).
More or less this if we’re talking zerg warfare. You’re job is to get in there and make a mess. If it’s too dangerous at the moment send in a canine to mess with some squishy in the back and pop F2 while you plink away with a bow of some sort (better than nothing).
If you’re going to do this though you pretty much have to be running full tanky stats so you don’t die horribly (I’d suggest cleric’s personally).
Wait… People actually have to intentionally TRY and go out of their way to get the dodge daily?
I get my dodge daily done just through normal play, usually working on the other dailies. I can’t for the life of me understand how standing around letting something try and hit you is efficient. 5 events = dodge daily done. 60 kills = dodge daily done. 13 kill variety = dodge daily done. Running around to gather = most of dodge daily done. etc….