The issue I’m have with the “needs an expansion” argument is that if they aren’t keen on adding a new profession, for example (which I believe Arena.net has gone on record saying they aren’t), I don’t see how packaging it as an expansion will make them any more inclined to do so. You’re just slapping a price tag on something arbitrarily, and still not going to get what you’re looking for.
The argument seems based on an assumption (that expansions give you [x], [y], and [z]), when I see very little reason to believe a GW2 expansion inherently would include those things. I’m just… willing to wait it out, I guess.
At issue is a matter of design philosophy. Those who are insistent on having a specific “role” are GOING to be disappointed.
The game is designed that for maximum effectiveness that you are expected to deal DPS, Support, AND control, depending on the situation you’re in. This has run into two issues…
1) Content that is so faceroll simple that only a small handful of people in any large zerg really need to provide anything beyond damage.
2) That BECAUSE of the expectation to provide all three roles in one character, there’s only one role that really increases substantially through gear, damage.
THAT type of expansion is what comes with a paid for expansion. new maps?…New dungeons? new zones? They can do that with an update for free.
Theoretically, that can be done with the Living Story as well. I’ll accept that it hasn’t (yet), but I see no reason why it’s impossible.
I mean, that’s why I have such a long leash with the LS, I think. There’s a lot it CAN do. The ability to add new skills, for example, HAS been done… just currently they’ve all been healing skills (I suspect because they wanted to test the water with something that wouldn’t break the precious game balance they are so obsessed with).
There’s really no reason it CAN’T add a new race (or even a new profession), except the limitations set by the developers. And frankly, if they aren’t keen on adding particular things, they likely aren’t going to be particularly inclined to do so as part of an expansion either.
Subjective listings are subjective.
Well, I suppose the answer to that is to say “I want [x], and let me present in a logical, reasoned manner why I think so…”
…
Okay, yeah. I get it now.
I just grow so tired of the “we” want…
Why is it such a problem to say “I want this”? Why do people feel the need to couch their opinion in some perceived group think?
Or maybe not, as they removed Raid on the Capricorn, and that map didn’t receive even a fraction of the ire that Skyhammer has.
As I recall, removing Capricorn had more to do with the underwater mechanics than the kitten of select players.
Or they can just leave it be because it’s not that big of a deal.
I like my option.
Then you need to accept what it is. You are the one excluding yourself from content.
This is Like going to the ballpark, and you get a regular seat, but other people have Boxes they rent by the year, which probably give them extra amenities, their own bathroom, the equivalent of room service with someone to go get them their snacks etc….
They pay for these amenities. The spectator that chooses to NOT rent a Box excludes Himself from that " content".
Just because he doesn’t wish to rent a box, does that mean Boxes should not be made available to those that wish to rent them? because his choosing to NOT rent it, means he excludes himself from that " content"?
I think we’re talking through each other at this point.
I am not against an expansion inherently. If Arena.net wants to do so, I will no doubt buy it. But at the same time, if they claim they can do the same sort of thing, for free, through the Living Story, I’m certainly not going to say “No! Gimme a box and charge me for it!”
I’m more patient with the Living Story because of it. If I was being charged for this, I’d be more demanding, I suspect.
So the issue for you is not so much that it divides the player-base, but that what divides the player-base is whether or not the content costs money, mainly because, maybe you do not wish to spend it?
Me personally I have no issue spending $39 + on an actual expasion, with all it entails. People forget MMO’s are still One of the cheapest forms of entertainment.
Let’s see, even if an expansion were to cost $60, after 2 years that comes out to $2.50 a month. To me, $2.50 a month doesn’t seem to be a major financial hurdle.
My issue is that the Living Story doesn’t particularly divide the player base to quite the same severity that not buying an expansion does. A person who somehow misses and decides not to buy the episodes STILL can access Dry Top and take part in the events there, for example.
But yes, I tend to be a little more lenient of details when my money is not a required part of the transaction. Is that a poor attitude? Maybe… but it is what it is.
But without any real communication and only evasions and token PR efforts, how many players still have any trust left?
Well, I’m only speaking for me here, but my trust is pretty much irrelevant. I already know this. Whether or not I “trust” they’re doing something awesome isn’t going to change their development one whit.
They aren’t going to talk about that background development until they are ready to do so, no matter how much you or I or anyone complains. As a result, I’m not particularly inclined to raise my blood pressure raging about it.
I suspect swimwear fell by the wayside when the entire concept of Town Clothes was scrapped.
Ironically, I also suspect that Town Clothes such as these would have probably made the money that Arena.net or NCSoft was looking for from said Town Clothes.
Well, what IS true is that not EVERYONE in the company is working on the Living Story. Arena.net has said that much. And I can PROMISE you those people aren’t just sitting on their collective kitten doing nothing.
So SOMETHING is being worked on behind the scenes. The question is… what?
On the dividing up of the player base, isn’t that happening now with Living Story? What I see in game is everyone farming Dry Top or just logging in long enough to do the new LS Ep and not returning until next update, rinse, repeat.
While this is true to some extent… you’re also not being charged for it, either.
The problem, at the end of the day, is that especially when it comes to open world content, the vast majority of players WANT faceroll easy content. Otherwise they complain endlessly that the content is “too hard” and “not fun.”
It really does seem like this feature pack is targeted more towards new players rather than ones who have been sitting at “endgame” for over a year.
That’s not necessarily BAD, mind you, but for those “endgame” players, there understandably hasn’t been much to perk their ears.
My feeling on expansions is… why pay for something if I don’t have to?
Arena.net is committed to the idea of providing an “expansions worth of content” through the Living Story. They haven’t done that… yet… but I’m more than willing to let them run that road to the end before I start demanding an expansion.
Then again, I’m a very patient sort.
Well, it has to do with how many people are near the spawning point of the mobs. You may only have 3 people in the party, but if say 10 people are running back to the front line as they spawn, you’ll see champions.
5 just tends to be a good number not just for champions, but to limit the numbers of elites that spawn.
Point is if you can’t take a bit of harsh critisicm from internet warriors, you are in the wrong industry. Man up and continue talking, doesn’t matter about getting your feelings hurt as a company lol. Theres plenty of ppl out there who still value information.
That’s really the long and short of it. Is the behavior of some fans appropriate? No. But it’s GOING to happen, and you can’t let that behavior run you off and give EVERYONE the silent treatment.
And here we see the problems with changes.
Because I personally LOVE this change. I’ve had FAR more dungeon runs end because the dungeon “owner” DCed or rage quit (more than I can count) than end because I was kick scammed (never… and I main a ranger).
I would LIKE to know what’s in the pipeline, because I’m a curious sort that doesn’t pretend to hate spoilers.
But at the same time, I don’t feel that I NEED to know the roadmap, because I hold no delusion that the fans can save the game from itself if we would just know what “mistakes” they are about to make.
Oh lord these forums. I knew something would come up with a defense for trolling from an Arenanet employee.
Nice generalization first of all. Some of the people were rude, some not. You can even see the chat and some are asking him kindly multiple times to move. Some are harassing him.
Second, everyone and their mother knows that that place is used for GvG, so when someone stands in the way for more than 10s you can assume he’s there for trolling and purposefully disrupting the match.
You know, like the “you are violating my game mode” guy was doing.
Since you probably don’t know, my feeling on the matter is that the Arena.net employee in that case crossed the line when he popped his tag. He was not in the right to act in that way… then again, neither were the GvGers really. Both sides behaved inappropriately.
The point I was getting at is that I quite frequently see in these sort of threads a complaint from a player that rather conveniently leaves out information that doesn’t exactly cast them as an innocent victim, either… just like in that famous WvW abuse claim.
If for some reason, an Arena.net GM decided to force a player to disconnect (which would be a really odd way to resolve the situation and more rationally explained by simple coincidence of the ol’ Internet), I am merely curious as to what the accuser ISN’T telling about the story (because by my experience, they always do).
The number of authority abuse apologists on this thread is frightening.
Probably because
1) This sort of story is hardly new, and almost always conveniently leaves out details that would cast the accuser in a less than innocent light.
2) The supposed “power” that the dev wielded isn’t one that makes much sense, and is more easily explained by simple, non-malicious means.
3) Some people don’t immediately presume guilt and malice after only hearing one side of the story.
I have generally found whenever someone posts about how an Arena.net dev was “abusing their power”, that what you hear is a carefully edited portion of everything that happened…
Kinda like the WvW link provided earlier, the one that conveniently leaves out the portion BEFORE the Arena.net employee pops his tag, the part where the GvGers were harassing this seemingly normal player for daring to be in the same area as their attempt at GvG.
(And bear in mind, the GvG incident proved to be much ado about nothing. No one was banned or reprimanded outside of the incident).
There’s other unanswered questions about this story as well, as have been mentioned earlier in this thread. I don’t want to judge, but as of right now, I’m not buying the OPs tale at all.
As much as it does seem like the forums are an endless torrent of poorly developed thoughts and random brain dumping of complaints… these sort of response threads help even less.
These forums ARE here for people to voice their opinions and suggestions, even if they can go way overboard doing it. My suggestion for people who think the toxic, negative forums are too much… walk away from it, and play the game you enjoy.
How about you bring us a list of what you think the current hot topics are based on the last couple of months of community feedback.
This would show that you have been paying attention, “reading and listening” as Colin said in his OP. If you manage to hit at least half of the major issues on the head, it would illustrate that the perceived disconnect between player and Dev is a non-concern, that, in fact, you guys really do get it.
The problem with that is that you are assuming a consensus in the player base that doesn’t exist. In fact, it’s a big problem I see with this forum as a whole… the assumption that any one person represents anyone more than themselves.
Some people hate the gem store focus. Some people want more 5-man dungeons. Some people want instanced raids. Some people want Tengu. Some people want Mesmer buffs. Some people want a new pet AI. Some people want more challenging AI period. The list of wants and desires goes on and on and on.
Your challenge would be one that Arena.net simply couldn’t hope to pass because it would be a constantly moving target. That’s horribly unfair to expect, don’t you think?
The game isn’t being designed with dungeon runners as their focus.
Wait… this is news? There hasn’t been a new dungeon since the last Fractals update, they’ve even SAID that their dedicated dungeon team was disbanded last year at some point.
The writing had been on the wall for some time… if you’re looking for challenging small or large group instanced content, this was not/is not/will not be the game for you.
This “news” is much ado about nothing.
We do not want first-person view for combat.
See… the reason you may want DOESN’T have to be the same as the reason a developer decides not to implement it. I’m sure they understand quite well what players want to use it for, but they decided that the problems it CAN cause in OTHER areas wouldn’t be worth it, at least at this point.
Perhaps a solution can be found later (like an auto-kickout of FPV when in combat), but as of right now, that solution isn’t in the code, and they don’t want to just force it in.
Just because you don’t LIKE the answer given doesn’t mean it’s not a valid answer.
/snipped for brevity
I’m not entirely certain exactly what your point was in all that, but let’s try this again.
I fully believe that yes, there exists a group of gamers who their sole purpose is to be trolls. They refuse to be content with anything in front of them, and are the very definition of “entitled brats.” Nothing will ever be good enough for them.
These players also tend to be very, very loud with their (often irrational) venting and “criticisms” (if I wish to use the term loosely). They care little about potential consequences of what they want, just that they want it and to hell with anyone else.
I understand a company simply not wanting anything to do with those players. There’s literally nothing that can be said that will mollify them, so why try?
However, that opens up an entirely different problem… that group is a VERY small percentage of the players, and by going silent, you don’t punish those brats. That’s actually how they “win.” The people who get hurt when a company walks away from the table is everyone else. Now THEY are denied the dialogue that makes a company and a game better due to idiots that shouldn’t be given even a cursory response.
My view is that BOTH the players AND the developers have a responsibility to the environment that forms between them, and that NEITHER side is completely innocent for the acid levels in the pool.
Arena.net SHOULD have continued with their initial roadmaps, been more active in the CDI threads (even though it seems pretty clear they were still listening just by looking at the changes in the game over the last year), among other things. They shouldn’t have let the “YOU PROMISED CRAFTABLE PRECURSORS (even though you didn’t)” crowd push them into silence.
And now, with all that said… just because maintaining good communication is a good idea, it does NOT mean a company is OBLIGATED to do so. There is no special relationship between developers and players. There is no partnership. You are just a customer. You paid money for a product, and you have received that product. Anything you get beyond that is a courtesy, and should be treated as such.
It is perfectly okay to stop supporting a company for not affording the courtesies you want, and in fact it’s the greatest power in the business. I’m not sure when, “If you don’t like [x] then leave” became a derisive dismissal, because it isn’t. It’s earnest advice to invoke your power as a customer. It’s the biggest weapon you’ve got. You should use it if it you feel a company isn’t respecting your business.
Let’s try this:
1) Intentionally causing events to fail so that you can farm drops IS an exploit of the game mechanics. I don’t care how justified you think it is (drops are so crappy, rewards are so lackluster, etc), playing the game with the expressed intention of failing because you know a follow up is quickly coming IS exploitative.
2) Players who intentionally seek to complete the event for the sole purpose of breaking the chain ARE griefing by the spirit of the term. However, the people from Group 1 aren’t going to get terribly much sympathy from Arena.net because at least Group 2 is proceeding as the game is intended. Reporting Group 2 for griefing will fall on deaf ears, and it should.
3) People who proceed to play this game the way it was supposed to be because (gasp) they want to play through the meta chain of events. Yes, they do exist!
Both groups 1 and 2 are pretty kittenish. The Blix exploiters, just like the ember farmers before them, do not have the high ground in terms of despicable behavior when they didn’t get their way.
And no, it’s not as simple as “farming areas” and “non farming areas”, because Arena.net has repeatedly demonstrated they do not support “farming” in the sense that MMO players have embraced.
I’ve already tried to compose this five different ways to remove any hint of combativeness. This is the best I can hope to do:
I (and I think most people here), understand why the current gunshy communication policy exists. We know you tried to be open and cordial with your game plans, and a handful of entitled little kittens decided your statements of intent were actually promises, and were hellbent on making the following year absolute hell on anyone trying to engage in discourse.
The problem, and I continue to believe this, is that your company responded in the worst possible way. You gave EVERYONE the silent treatment because of the trolls. Your company let the Ranger CDI thread (for example) go for roughly 30 pages because of the echo chamber. Same with the WvW thread. Mesmer bug threads go on for months without a peep.
We CAN understand if you don’t have an answer. You CAN let us know this. IGNORE the trolls that can’t.
Going silent is the worst possible thing to do. You folks can control the discourse if you want to. If you are willing to invest in this community, and not let yourself get run off by the perennially kitten, the community WILL respond.
But it’s going to take a lot of time now. The pool is very, very acidic, and a lot of the people who would have normally given you the benefit of the doubt have been poisoned by the legitimacy you gave the trolls when you walked away from the table.
Simply put… this CAN’T be your last word on the matter if you HONESTLY want the forums to represent the respectful environment the policies here claim you want.
I have been absolutely shocked by how people have treated some of the Anet employees here. No one deserves to be treated like that.
What you, and Arena.net, has to realize is that those tools are an insignificant minority of the player base. Yes, they seem like more because they tend to be very loud and very aggressive with their antics.
But as a company, at the very least, you HAVE to ignore them if you want to maintain a good dialogue.
It seems that there needs to be more hearts to complete to earn more better gear and be more stronger. Because when I play, I finish all of the hearts in the starting area. I go to the scout to discover more, but they are way above my level. I did huge amounts of dynamic events, and still I struggle.
You’re actually encouraged to do more than just the hearts in your racial starting zone. Personal story and other starting zones are fairly easy to get to if you’re having trouble meeting level requirements.
Simply put, while it’s all well and good that 40+ people are gathering together for a common goal, when that common goal defeats the intended purpose of the game… uh… the appeal falls flat.
I’m sorry, but Arena.net is never going to consider playing the game as it is intended (completing events even if the majority want the event to fail) as griefing. And I don’t think they’ve made that stance unclear.
Armchair devs
I felt like I was the only one thinking about the programming involved, but I’ve only gotten the barest of tastes of programming. So I figured maybe some of these people have an idea of what they’re talking about and are just impatient.
Feels good to be validated.
Well, I’m sure there are a lot of people on this forum who have a pretty good idea of how games are made (I have some experience on the creative side, not so much the programming side). I’m sure there are a lot of experienced developers who bounce around here too.
But as a general rule, when someone on the forums says, “This is terrible! Do [x] instead!”, I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to the guys with the code in front of them as to what they think is the best decision.
Another thing is when a player says “This is terrible” what he’s really saying is “I don’t like this.” Which is fine, but to pretend that he/she represents some sort of majority opinion rubs me the wrong way.
And yes, to be fair, Arena.net makes some really head-shaking decisions… but I have also found that they DO correct them (and quite quickly) when they decide it actually IS a bad decision (the Flamekissed armor and the Commander Rainbow are two examples now).
Simple speaking communication is a double edge sword and unfortunately us as a community as a whole (generalizing here of course) showed them that we cannot handle it. Ultimately we created an environment which makes it hard for Arenanet to communicate at all.
No. Anet handling communication with community very badly is what created that toxic environment.
It’s a little bit of both.
Both Arena.net AND its players contributed to the environment. Yes, a very small group of players who are hellbent on being angry and insulted overreact to everything, and makes it very difficult for earnest, candid dialogue. Just because those people are going to exist does NOT make it acceptable behavior.
On that same token, the answer is NOT to walk away from the table and give everyone the silent treatment. THAT is on Arena.net and that remains their continued mistake. Let’s not excuse one side OR the other for the poisoned well. We’ve all contributed to the acid in the water.
1) Anet announces their plans.
2) Armchair devs who have no idea what they’re talking about kitten like entitled brats.
3) They implement them anyways, adjusted to take REASONABLE criticism into account.
4) Armchair devs rage, then are forgotten about two weeks later.
Obviously, to reduce player negativity, the correct step is to go to the root of things and remove step 1). Right?
Fixed your BS for ya. You’re welcome.
(edited by chemiclord.3978)
Ah, so Star Citizen is the next “golden child” of MMOs, I see.
(yawn) We’ll see in a year after release when the locusts abandon it in droves for not giving them everything they want and nothing they don’t.
See also; every other MMO in existance.
Well, to be honest, some of those people are griefers (meaning, they do complete those events only to cause grief to other players, not because they are interested in the event itself). This does not change the fact, that completing events is the natural, expected gameplay. Failing them in order to farm is not.
By the spirit of the term, yes… they are “griefing”, in the sense that they are deliberately interfering with how someone else wants to play the game.
However, Arena.net will NEVER consider playing the game as intended to be “griefing”, and will not give anybody intentionally failing events sympathy if someone else is disrupting that fail train.
So yes, DeWolfe is 100% in the wrong. He, and other CS farmers are effectively exploiting the Plix event, and Arena.net has said repeatedly that is not an approved method of play. They are far more likely to look at the people intentionally failing the event as the griefers than anyone trying to complete it.
Maybe it’s because I rarely visit more than a few days at a time, but is the forum really all that bad? You guys make it sound like it’s an unmoderated image board.
If you had logged in last night to see the front page literally spammed with “SAB OR RIOT!” threads, and redundant threads demanding “Arena.net is out of touch” or “GW2 is now officially dead”, you’d see how bad it can get… and it can take hours for moderators to clean up the repeated droppings left behind by the rabid dogs.
So yeah, it really can be all that bad.
I was guilty of being swayed by the toxicity. I guess Sony just kind of spoiled me in terms of how much they communicated on their forums. Would it be nice if ANet came back to the forums to talk about issues, concerns, ideas, etc? Absolutely. The mob mentality would need to dissipate first though. A person is not really open to communication when he/she is upset. Add in a bunch of people, and no one’s really listening. That’s why people generally cool off before talking through an issue.
At issue here though, is that the mob mentality ISN’T going to dissipate. The trolls have been allowed to set the tone for FAR too long for it to dispel on its own. This pool is already poisoned, and it will NEVER be clean unless Arena.net really imposes their will on these forums.
There are one of two ways they can do this.
1) Accept that the Internet is the Wild West, and let the posters rough each other up a little. You can certainly set a line (racial slurs, excessive vulgarities, physical and emotional threats), but that interaction such as “You’re stupid, your idea is stupid. Shut your stupid mouth before you look even more stupid” would require far too much effort to police effectively.
The concept of “every poster should respect the opinion of other posters” is a nice idea and all… but to use a real world example, if someone tries to tell me to respect the opinion of an anti-vaccination disciple as valid and worthy of my time my response will be, “Uhhh… NO. Because their opinion is stupid and not supported by any real scientific evidence.”
Very similarly, if someone says, “I haven’t played in a year, but this is what’s wrong…” I’m going to tell them, “Then your opinion is not valid, because things have changed. Shut up.” Disrespectful? Perhaps. But it’s also true.
The forums will be rough and tumble to be sure… but managing the extremes is a LOT easier and doable than trying to enforce “respect.”
(Personally, I think this is the most viable option, because…)
2) Get the manpower to be able to police the thin line Arena.net’s policies have already drawn evenly AND fairly. You CANNOT rely on forum goers to police themselves with the report button, because what happens is you get trolls (on both sides of an argument) who post solely to incite, then hide behind the report button knowing there is no way the limited moderation on the forums can hope to follow the context of every dispute.
You can see how it doesn’t work on these forums… with long hateful back and forth screeds going on for pages, while one snarky comment in an otherwise genial thread will get infracted. The moderators have to pick their battles because they simply can’t keep up with all the mud being slung back and forth.
(There’s simply no way Arena.net or NCSoft would be willing to invest the resources to clean up their forums in this fashion. It would take far too much manpower and thus money.)
(edited by chemiclord.3978)
At the end of the day, I just wish Arena.net (and most game companies) would understand this:
You guys are right. Laying out the roadmap won’t stop the vile, bitter, acidic, toxic kitten from the loudest of entitled brats. It won’t really change the most vocal and combative elements of the player base.
But NOTHING WILL. They exist on these forums solely to kitten. And they will ALWAYS kitten about anything. They will FIND a reason. They will MAKE UP a reason if they have to.
You ignore them. You ban them. You DON’T run away from them.
Keeping the lines of communication open help the rest of the player base, the ones who are only raising their voices now because your silence gives the entitled brats legitimacy. It’s easy to buy into the rage because you’re not giving the rest of the players reason to think otherwise.
You’re also right that when all is said and done, the thing that matters most is action, and that if you deliver, nigh everything will be forgiven. If you’re willing to take the heat now for the payoff down the road… okay, I can accept that. But a little bit of active dialogue NOW seems like a small price to pay AND keep the payoff at the end.
It really is, in my mind, a matter of tone.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to know the direction a company wants to take. It helps a customer make an informed decision. And it often IS in the best interests of a company to at least keep the lines of communication open if for nothing other than the good will it engenders.
Where this forum (and gamers as a whole, really) goes too far is the EXPECTATION of being kept up to date. You hear the sentiment that there is a “special relationship” between developers and players, and as a result of that “relationship” (that I have actually heard compared to marriage), that players are ENTITLED to know what a company is doing, and become violently abusive when they don’t get it.
The second approach is 100% wrong, and I laugh and ridicule every entitled brat who thinks it’s acceptable to behave that way.
Arena.net’s problem has been and remains letting that second group set the tone and the environment by walking away from the table. THAT is ALSO 100% wrong. Make no mistake, BOTH sides, developer and player, bear their own failings for the toxicity that plagues this online interaction.
And both sides seem hellbent on refusing to acknowledge that, the players especially having the gall to claim their rage is justified. News flash for you: It’s not. EVER.
(edited by chemiclord.3978)
Oh, I understand that, but what you’re describing is something that is present in ALL MMOs, to varying degrees. Sandboxes tend to be on the most time consuming, to be sure, but they ALL really require some degree of significant time investment if you want to really get “into” the game.
GW2 is definitely better than any I’ve played in keeping that required time investment down if you want to feel like you’re progressing, but it’s still there.
Most sandbox games so far seem to require a bigger commitment. Most people don’t have the time. The age of the average gamer is going up.
Well, let’s be honest… that is true for ANY MMO, themepark or sandbox. The more time you commit to it the more you get. Those who have the “biggest shinies” are the ones that can commit 8-10 hours a day, and that is pretty much universally true.
GW2 has kept that discrepancy down better than most, but it’s still there in spades.
DeWolfe.
Listen to me. Read these words very slowly if you have to.
It doesn’t matter what they say as long as they are not obscene. They are playing the game AS INTENDED. You (and your farmers) are NOT. They are not, and never will be, considered griefing for playing the game precisely as it was intended. If anyone is griefing, it is YOU, for trying to intentionally fail events.
You are in the wrong. And Arena.net will show you no sympathy for that very reason. Just stop while you’re behind.
Customer interaction is always a minefield, especially when you have millions of customers. Arena.net really fails not just in navigating that minefield, but not even giving it the attempt.
Problem is, that only gives the aggressive trolls opportunity to lay down more mines until there’s nowhere a company can step.
A lot of who you would want to bring depends greatly on what dungeon you’re running and the rest of the composition.
For example, there are paths where you can bump Ranger over Thief and Engi because Frost Spirit and Spotter along with Warrior’s buffs create a freakin’ buzzsaw of damage along with a couple eles and a guardian.
Other paths (like Arah) can have bosses like Lupicus melt in seconds with a good Mesmer in the party.
It’s kinda funny in that regard, how there’s kinda a meta within the dungeon meta.
You can’t fight inflation and have capitalism at the same time. The only way to stop inflation is to put a cap on how much can be charged for a person’s goods, otherwise someone will think their materials are better and sell them for a higher price. What would help to take some of the gold out of the market is to not allow people to buy gems and convert them to gold. By allowing it to happen this injects free money into the economy that isn’t earned. There’s not enough mats or hard assets to back up the gold. That in turn devalues the currency because everyone for the moment is rich. That drives the price of mats up to match but when that influx of money stops, mats will be still high with no money to bring things back down. This throws the balance of supply and demand way off and cause a recession or in a worse case scenario a depression.
The next way to take gold out of the game is to stop nerfing farming spots, open up more zones (new content) and remove the diminishing returns on loot. When you have DR on loot, people have to move onto another spot. Just so happens that other people are farming that spot too, so the place becomes crowded. With new zones opened up there are more places to farm and it relieves the pressure. It allows the gold to be made easier and thus spent easier. When you nerf a farming spot with the idea that if there’s less gold to be made there will be less gold to spend. That’s true, but you also run a very high risk of people not farming/working – Unemployment.
I sometimes wonder if people actually know how an economy works.
That only works when you’re dealing with a closed system though. The GW2 economy is an open one, where new wealth is added by the minute. If wealth is not taken from the system at a reasonably equal clip, what you see is what you’re seeing here… prices constantly going up because the resources grow increasingly less than the gold in the system.
You CAN combat that by increasing the resources (i.e. drops), but then you have the problem we’re having with precursors, which by all accounts Arena.net LIKES being where they are at. They WANT those (and other items) extremely rare, so increasing the supply really isn’t an option.
I think we need a little bit of both, something that takes a chunk of gold OUT of the system WHILE increasing drops, at least of things not intended to be super-duper rare. But regardless, 300g for a commander tag color isn’t the way to do it.