Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

It’s cheaper and more convenient than Master Salvage Kits, it is more expensive than Mystic Salvage Kits if you forget about the Mystic Stones needed for the Mystic Kits, it is just the convenience at that point never running out and takes up less bag space and has even more added value if put in the free Shared inventory slot provided with HoT now

In 3.5 years, using all types of salvage and running 1000s of tests for science, I’ve never managed to run out of mystic stones or need more than 1-2 mystic sal kits/week. I buy rares and exotics to salvage, I salvage ecto for dust, I test mystics versus basic on various items to see if there’s an economic advantage…and I still can’t see any need for silver-fed.

What are you guys salvaging with mystic|master|silver-fed that silver-fed offers any sort of convenience over mystic?

I would say that using 1-2 mystic salvage kits / week is a hassle, but your mileage may vary. Plus, I like to save my mystic stones for forging weapons.

One thing that irks me is that mystic and crude kits look identical, as I buy crude kits to salavage with. It’s less of an issue if you use copper-fed instead.

Safire.9143:

YOU JUST TOOK THE VERY LAST BIT OF PROGRESS OUT OF THE GAME THAT WAS LEFT…. and i dont know if you realize that anet. You are promoting your game as a “big living world full of dynamic events” and you are basically taking it away from the new players…
Its okay giving it to the players who alredy have an lvl 80 character, but giving it to the new players ???

So because you bought the expansion you get to automatically skip everything and become max level instead of having to work for it and put the time into doing it yourself…What is this WoW now ?? What a better way to throw the entire world you created in the garbage. Why would I leave LA now except for guild missions??
It removes the entirety of what GW2 is.. exploration and discovery.

I just feel that i have nothing in this game, untill now i was like “okay i have level 80 i accomplished something in this game”… cant say that after this patch anymore…

I cared about this game but im not going to anymore… im sick of watching stupid decisions pass in anet like that… im a little sad about this cause gw2 was my fav game. R.I.P.

Absolutely no exploration or discovery was removed — map completion is still there. They can experiment with and discover new builds.

The main issue is with people coming from other MMOs who see level as the main form of progress and gaining levels as the main point of the game. It isn’t.

If you want a mount, go buy one from the gem store — a flying carpet or broomstick. If Anet sells enough, they will almost certainly make more.

Looking at the tool, I can see how people are making money. The hard part is finding the cheap brown dyes, which is hard to do by hand. With a tool, it’s easy and you could maybe get up to 50 gold a day by doing this, but that would be a lot of work.

You could still get 5-10 gold a day with significantly less work.

Brown pigment was expensive before because of the way ink sets nested, but they were going down as people were giving up crafting. Now, there’s a surge because lots of people are trying scribing again. Eventually, that will fade and the market will resupply. Most of the profits do seem to be coming from brown dyes to brown pigments.

I still don’t see how you can make more than 5-10 gold a day without having to constantly update 50-100 buy listings.

I tried, and it was a lot of work for 5-10 gold. Mind you, it required very little capital to start and gave very reliable income, so it’s great for people without a lot of money to burn.

As for sell listings, those look like they get picked clean fairly often.

The market won’t start to stabilize unless people create more pigments than get used by scribing.

Oh, and a tool would make the process much easier. I just made a quick search of the usual suspects and found one had been added in the past month.

Xbon.9086:

should be noted green dye doesn’t have profit, also there’s a site which using the api is always updated with latest prices for salvaging dyes and price you get back from them. (not sure if advertising sites is allowed here), and you can often times make 90-150% roi, I’ve used all my gold to 1g, and got back up to 300g in a day using dye salvaging.

People name 3rd party supporter sites all the time (just not gold sellers). That’s what the API is for — letting 3rd party supporters do that work so that Anet doesn’t have to provide those graphs internally.

I stopped playing the dye market when HoT came out. Before then, I would forge cheap dyes to get new dyes. I would unlock the ones I didn’t have and sell/forge the rest. I was doing this more to fill out my dyes than to make money.

When HoT came out, cheap dyes skyrocketed in price. Right now, it looks like it is better to forge green dyes and salvage the others — not taking the sales price of dyes into account, since that might be better than either for specific colors.

Looking at sales listings, the cheapest dyes are all green, then purple — not surprising, as those are the cheapest pigments. The cheapest non-green sales listing is periwinkle (a purple) for 3s73c, and then salvage for an expected 3 purple pigments, with a sales listing value of 5s85c — a return of 33% after TP tax. That’s a very nice return rate for something bought on a sales listing. It would be far better if you could buy on a buy order, but the issue may be volume. That is, the percentage is high, but the total return is low, on a volume of ~40 dyes sold per day. So, that’s under 1g profit/day. However, that’s only for 1 dye — there are a whole lot, but it’s also work for each dye you try to buy. At the same time, that’s assuming nobody else is outbidding you.

Of course, on the other end of the spectrum are rare brown dyes. I’m having some difficulty finding the cheapest rare brown dye, since there are so many cheaper rare dyes of other colors, so let’s randomly choose cocoa dye, with a sell listing of 2g28s95c and an expected return of about 2g73s sold on a sale listing. With TP tax, that’s a little more than 1% profit. This means that enough people know about this to set the sales price of rare brown dyes. There’s still profit for buy orders, but you’re competing against other bidders.

This looks like a lot of work with a small buy-in and a quick turnaround of a guaranteed profit for small amounts back. So, it looks like something good for someone who wants to get started making money on the TP, since a good stream of several guaranteed gold per day can be nice, but the exact amount would depend on the amount of work you’d want to do and how quickly you can tell if a dye is green or not. (I’m terrible at telling blue from green, personally.)

It has potential — since the game is giving a financial incentive for people to generate pigments scribing needs.

Anything you think I got wrong in my quick armchair analysis? (To be honest, it’s not uncommon for armchair analysis to miss something vital, so I’m genuinely asking.)

The problem I have is that it is hard for me to measure expected profit. I’d have to know the expected salvage rates. I’d have to figure out which dyes count as which colors (because salvaging green dyes is not useful, but you should be able to still forge them into non-green dyes).

Do we have stats for these (salvage rates, and pigment color of each dye)?

TheGrimm.5624:

Ellie.5913:

Wasn’t key farming done away with? how do you still key farm?

Sadly yes, that’s now the slowest way to gain them at once per week per account. But there are other sources like PvP reward tracks, now WvW reward tracks and such.

How do you get them once per week per account?

I’d really like to keep the following two issues separate:

• Anet wanting to be paid for their work.
• Elite build power creep.

Crying about the first isn’t going to get a lot of sympathy, but the second is a valid issue. Of course, locking the more powerful elite builds behind a paywall does link the two issues, but this discussion will make more sense if you think about the two issues separately.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

So.
I want to try a few different sigils on condi engi,
Such as bursting Vs earth vs geomancy vs malice ( since i am too cheap to run toxic crystals all the time in raids).

Only I don’t want to make another asc viper pistol..
And I don’t want to spend 10g /pop on the bursting sigil I’d have to replace.

So this raid dps trials thing makes me want sigil swapping even more!!
But I can’t try things out without spending a huge amount of gold.
:(

Or the dps trials could have a pvp-like system where you can try out different runes/sigils for free.

I’m at 92% map completion and deciding which one to get — I’m thinking of Predator. In the meantime, I’m trying to finish up Treasure Hunter, so after that, I can get the money I need to finish a legendary.

The OP speaks like a GW1 fan who is in shock at just how different GW2 feels from GW1.

And it’s true… GW2 feels very different. It’s not about the specific nits the OP chose to pick. It’s more that it just doesn’t feel like a sequel and is a disappointment for anyone expecting GW1 but better.

It’s not. It is its own thing, with very different pros and cons. If you can’t let go of your expectations of it being like GW1, you’re not going to enjoy GW2.

However, reaching max level and full exotics isn’t all that hard or take all that long, especially compared to other MMOs. I’m not convinced it’s any slower than hitting level 20 in GW1 — maybe it’s more that the time seemed to fly be in GW1 while you’re not feeling it in GW2?

GW1 did have equipment restrictions by class too, just different choices. And you can buy dyes from the TP and apply them easily. The main difference is that they are not 1-shots and don’t take up inventory space — changes I’m personally happy with.

No, it doesn’t do everything that GW1 did. However, unless you make a decision to let go and forget about the comparisons, you’ll not be able to appreciate the good points, like not having to run around fallen logs (I hated that in GW1).

I’ve been in that sort of position before, and I learned to go with it and eventually enjoy myself. I’m hoping you can do the same.

So, how does it work? Is there a single thread and people comment on it and the devs respond to comments?

As a secondary question, is the main difference between the function of these forums and reddit that the forums are chronological and that reddit is hierarchical by reply?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Unfortunately, that’s not happening soon. Changing course of a major MMO’s development is like turning around an aircraft carrier — there’s literally tons of momentum and it cannot happen quicker because the Commander in Chief wants it to.

Actually, it can happer quicker if the Commander in Chief abandons current projects (like new legendaries) and puts them to work on higher priority content (like Living World content).

No, it’s still not instantaneous, but it does speed things up if the game director thinks it is taking too long.

Jaken.6801:

Nike.2631:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

Two weeks ago I posted that we were starting integration and final testing for the Spring Quarterly Update. It’s been two busy weeks. The quarterly update is through QA and looking good. We’re going to announce the release date tomorrow.

As we prep for release, you’ll notice that we’re not doing the series of advance blog posts that we had done for some prior releases. Hopefully that’s not too surprising; I’ve written a few times since taking this role that I think our job is to delight you with what we ship, not with talk and promises.

With everything prepped now, let’s have some fun together and see some hints of what’s coming, and then we’ll see you in the game on release day.

So, your take away from all the previous release day mishaps like changing how karma potions work without forewarning, having to change them back so people could cash out properly, then changing them AGAIN is that “really, my team can do no wrong.”

You want to find out about all your problems face first when it hits Live instead of giving your content even a brief review by the larger playerbase… Strap in, cause I’m MASHING THAT “COMMIT” BUTTON.

Ok. Sure. I’m game. Lets see how this plays out.

History says “Badly, duh.” But what does history know?

Comunication, they try and then try not.

It`s confusing to be honest.

In my opinion they should post a blog with all changes, let us speculate and if things go too crazy, they should communicate their train of thought.

Don´t duck, cover and try to sit things out/fix things that they broke without aknowleding these things.

If any, we need more AMA, or communication channels, in which we player are able to get and give feedback with the devs responsible to certain parts of the game.

Not everyone, because the internet is a cruel place, but something like 1-2 hours of the persons daily work to interact with us.

A plattform, where we can praise, critic and get some answers. Moderated and fair if possible of course.

We need more behind the szenes stuff. More Why is something happening.

You’re assuming they know what will be in the patch. They don’t. Not 100% sure anyway.

Things change. Features change or get pulled. It’s a work in progress.

Imagine if there was a critical bug in SAB and they couldn’t release it after announcing it — everyone would go wild.

I’ve seen more outrage over features that they didn’t release or features that people speculate that they are or are not working on than over features they released badly.

So, why should they communicate, if it will only make players angry when things change (and things do have to change sometimes)?

Redenaz.8631:

Elite Specs make recreating a character with tomes less appealing, I’d imagine. Even if you’re swimming in the things and gear up with account-bound equipment, you still wouldn’t fully unlock your elite spec for a good while.

Not to mention that resets your birthday counter.

Actually, it doesn’t reset your birthday counter — each character gets their own birthday counter independent of the others.

When will we know more?

Kings.7491:

ekarat.1085:

Time limit:

• Do not force a maximum limit on me. I will rage and start an angry thread if you do. This takes away something I can currently do. 3-4 weeks is not long enough for me. (I want to see what happens when Wanze sees this thread.)

Please keep the diskussion at an appropriate level. No need to start threatening people around you just because you disagree. Who is Wanze?

“Start an angry thread” is the appropriate level. I’m not threatening you personally. I am saying that, if implemented, this would be worthy of complaint on the forums.

GW1 and GW2 are totally different games that appeal to different people. There is a problem if a sequel is good but appeals to a different fan base than the original.

That said, I personally enjoy GW2 more than I enjoyed GW1. Other people will be the other way around and will miss the glory days of GW1 — there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not me.

zenleto.6179:

ekarat.1085:

Caveat: It is possible people mean something different than I do, so feel free to clarify what you mean by Trinity if you think my example doesn’t fit.

This is what I thought DGraves was getting at in his post. I thought it had become something of a reality in HoT. The next round of elites may change it again.

I think that the druid elite is a healer version of the ranger. A different ranger elite might be better with a bow, but we’d still have the druid, which is mutually exclusive with the new elite. Eventually, all classes would have an elite for each role.

Well, gold sellers have been getting around gold transfer limits by buying arcane dust on the TP. They need an item that does not trade often (typically by there being no more of them) and has a high price (typically by there being no more of them).

Time limit:

• Do not force a maximum limit on me. I will rage and start an angry thread if you do. This takes away something I can currently do. 3-4 weeks is not long enough for me. (I want to see what happens when Wanze sees this thread.)
• There are no old market orders because they can still be filled (with the exception of the buy orders that cannot be filled because they are lower than the minimum price and predate the enforement of the minimum — feel free to cancel those). If someone listed an item 3 years ago — I can still buy it, and it sets a limit on how quickly prices can jump. Similarly, I can sell to a 3 year old buy order (modulo the exception mentioned before), and that limits how quickly prices can fall. So, your suggestin would destabilize prices.

Edit current orders:

• Eliminating (or reducing to virtually zero — 5% of 2 copper, really?) the relisting fees is controversial, and I’ll have to think about what effect that could have to the economy. I’m initially negative, but there is no fee for upping a buy order, and that’s okay. I need to ponder this.
• Ignoring the fee issue, it would be convenient to edit an order rather than delisting and relisting. I’m not sure it’s convenient enough to warrant programmer time, but I would find it useful.

Graphs in game

• Bloat — as others have already said.

Summary:
I think you confuse the TP with an auction house and don’t realize the advantages this system has over auction houses. Other than EVE, I can’t name one other MMO with a better developed economy, and the economy is EVE’s thing.

Kirschsahne.2081:

ekarat.1085:

Why do people want more maps?

Imagine a huge map. Now cut it into 9 smaller maps. Is that any better? You started with 1 map and ended up with 9. More is better, right? Not in this case? Then you really can’t compare on map count.

What about empty maps? People don’t like empty maps. The more maps we have in the game, the more spread out the population will be, so the remaining maps will get pretty empty. How is this better?

What about exploring? Everybody likes exploring, except for the people who really don’t. Tangled Depths had a lot to explore, and to be fair, some people did enjoy exploring it, but for most people it was a pain. How many people just joined a train to complete the map and then didn’t bother exploring after that (except to complete it with another character). Okay, this is my weakest point, since a lot of people like exploring, but many of those people will abandon the map after, creating empty maps.

So, why this obsession with map count and the number of maps?

I will assume you never played GW1.

1) Just more maps is A-Nets assumtion what player wants

2) If you deliver quality maps where people just have a wonderfull time to follow their hobby people could care less the map is empty or not.

3) People don’t want more just more maps.
They want the continent complete they thought they pay for when buying GW.
On top they want they beloved Cantha and Elona back.
So we are not talking 9 maps here we talk maybe 50 or more.
Couple that with the quality they delivered in GW 1 and we start talking.

4) An MMO means massive multiplayer and this is mostly misunderstood.
You CAN play with other people but you DO NOT HAVE TO.
A-Net is absolutely underestimating how many people actually do not wish to play
in big groups.
They would like to !!!! adventure !!!! with 3-4 of their friend NOT zombie zerking with 50 others. People want adventures and exploring back not close combat on purposely tiny areas

I don’t even have words for how far you are off the topic with your assumption
of 9 maps or what you said in general

I did play GW1, and I think the GW2 maps are far more interesting than the GW1 maps. So, I don’t want to return to flat, empty maps where I have to go around because I can’t jump over a log.

Also, the maps in GW1 only worked as well as they did because they were instanced, which encourages small maps. GW2 was designed with larger, dynamic world maps instead. It’s a completely different system. Maybe some people do want instanced maps, but it’s way too late to change that in GW2.

I think we have “gone Trinity” already, but nobody wants to admit it.

Form a raid group, and people will ask for a Chrono tank and a Druid healer. So, yes, I think we have a Trinity now.

Caveat: It is possible people mean something different than I do, so feel free to clarify what you mean by Trinity if you think my example doesn’t fit.

I have more than enough tomes to bring a character to 80 as soon as I am done with the tutorial.

Actually, I consider leveling to be tutorial of sorts, since you really should have enough tomes after a couple of months to raise new characters to 80 whenever you want. Unless you obsessively create a new character every time you hit 80, you shouldn’t have to keep doing it.

reikken.4961:

Why on earth would you reduce the number of levels? That would be an extreme amount of work for no benefit. Changing the level of every single item, of every single npc, in addition to all the rebalancing and changing every damage and stats formula. It would be much easier, and more effective—who doesn’t like leveling up?—, to simply increase the amount of exp gained, if you want people to reach level cap faster.

Thank you for saying this for me. I was about to, but I’m glad others have already realized this obvious flaw in the OP’s plan.

Why do people want more maps?

Imagine a huge map. Now cut it into 9 smaller maps. Is that any better? You started with 1 map and ended up with 9. More is better, right? Not in this case? Then you really can’t compare on map count.

What about empty maps? People don’t like empty maps. The more maps we have in the game, the more spread out the population will be, so the remaining maps will get pretty empty. How is this better?

What about exploring? Everybody likes exploring, except for the people who really don’t. Tangled Depths had a lot to explore, and to be fair, some people did enjoy exploring it, but for most people it was a pain. How many people just joined a train to complete the map and then didn’t bother exploring after that (except to complete it with another character). Okay, this is my weakest point, since a lot of people like exploring, but many of those people will abandon the map after, creating empty maps.

So, why this obsession with map count and the number of maps?

Beldin.5498:

Crise.9401:

Something that could potentially see re-use, like I don’t know, maybe game mechanics, monster AI, animation rigs etc.

Oh yeah .. i have a vision of new “challenging” content with new mechanics,
instead of perma-stunlock and pushing you to the ground, mobs now learn
to play Badminton with players. Flying through the air until your dead each
time you meet a mob .. wouldn’t that be great challenging fun ?

They’re already in the game — they’re called gravelings and are in the first dungeon.

Crise.9401:

Dondarrion.2748:

The argument that not leaving it in is because they would need resources to make sure it works with every future patch… but honestly, you’d think it would require less effort if you continously ensured it worked with new patches being put out than leaving it derelict until such time some dev stumbles over it and they want to bring it back – at which point so much work might be required they just can the idea and then it’s gone forever.

This is absolutely true, btw. the reason SAB was so badly broken apparently is most likely because it is content that has not been part of the game for a long time. Code that is not maintained tends to rot like food… not because it is any worse than it was when it was originally written but because things around it keep changing. This is usually called code or software rot.

There is a another kind of code rot as well though, and that is when there is too much forward change and not enough maintenance, which means that the code becomes brittle as it evolves because more and more things in it change and not enough attention is paid in keeping the code at a constant quality level. I suppose if one wanted to differentiate the two, one would be rot that affects functionality and the other rot that affects quality.

I am positive that HoT broke more existing content than just SAB, but because most of that content was actively part of the game it got pro-actively prepared for HoT to become a thing, which means if something broke when HoT released addressing it would be easier (I believe Grab Toss, for example had some issues… potentially some other activities that are now resolved if I am not mistaken).

Edit: sorry, as someone who has had to deal with both kinds of code rot I couldn’t resist extrapolating on it a little.

As a programmer myself, I believe it is easier to let it languish and fix it all at once than to fix it each time you patch. There are two reasons for this.

First and foremost, you only need to do comprehensive testing once rather than each time you patch. Testing can be more involved than just seeing if it builds and loads. What if just the eagle didn’t work? You’d need to test enough to see that, rather than just seeing if the levels load.

Second, sometimes later changes cause you to undo previous changes. When you do it all at once, you can see a bigger picture and can rewrite sections of code that you would be tempted to write a quick fix for a smaller patch.

So, I do think it is less work to dust it off and fix it up once a year over leaving it in all the time.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

@ekarat
Quote about Issomir: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Issomir

Sadly, the wiki fails to state where that comes from. (Not your fault. I’m just curious where that info originally comes from.)

Ticky.5831:

Ashen.2907:

A drought does not mean a complete absence, but rather an insufficiency. I live in an area that has been in its worst drought in over a thousand years, but we still get rain.

I do not think that the existence of raids means that there is not a content drought.

Well, raids are pretty much the only thing MMOs(in general) are expected to come out with between expansions.

So by the general standards, either it’s not a content drought, or MMOs in general are in a constant state of content drought.

I believe that MMOs in general are in a constant state of content drought — it takes far more time to develop content than to play through it, unless you make it especially grindy.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

ekarat.1085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They lied to my Norn warrior about being the mighty Slayer.

The story is, my Norn went and killed a giant ice wurm on her first day. Which was true enough. But when you check the details, the story is different.

Issormir is a giant Ice Wurm which was captured by Knut Whitebear and Eir Stegalkin from Lostvyrm Cave.

Knut Whitebear: By my own hand, I have brought the mighty wurm, Issomir. He waits above, in the plateau, for one such as you to challenge him

Those 2 went to the cave where that wurm was, captured it and got it all the way up those stairs into that tiny enclosure. Then they left it there, probably without food or water until the “Great Hunt” when they pointed it out to my warrior and told her to go kill it. Basically, she killed an animal fetched for her by someone else and staked out in a pen. For that she got the title of Slayer of Issormir.

• You were level 1. What do you expect?
• Norn have a tradition of bragging and exaggerating — it’s all part of the rite of passage. Norn are supposed to lie about their great deeds. This was your starter lie.

They LIED to her. She was TRAUMATIZED when she found out she had killed some poor animal that had been captured, put in a pen with no food or water for no telling how long, and staked out for her to kill.

To make it worse, it wasn’t even an aggressive, dangerous wurm.

Issormir is a giant Ice Wurm which was captured by Knut Whitebear and Eir Stegalkin from Lostvyrm Cave. It is used as the main hunt for The Great Hunt in 1325 AE. It appears only after becoming enraged at the deaths of its hatchlings. After its death, Issormir’s Body remains, frozen, as norn nearby figure out how to clean up the corpse.

You see that part, he only appears after you kill his hatchlings. This was just some poor wurm dad doing babysitting duty in his cave, not bothering no one. Just chillin and thinking deep wurm thoughts. He’s there to protect and defend his babies. So, he was just sitting there and he and his babies get kidnapped, hauled up the stairs and dumped in a pen. Then murdered.

This was an awful event in my warrior’s life where she was lied to and undue peer pressure was exerted to kill some poor, innocent wurm dad and his babies. They gave her that title then I bet they went off to drink beer and laugh their butts off at her.

Real Norn don’t cry after pointlessly slaughtering an innocent creature — they lie about it and make that innocent creature into a threat, and then go drinking! That is the Norn way.

PS Where is the quote about Issormir from?

Crise.9401:

Ticky.5831:

They also got it with the increased difficulty of the HoT zones.

I believe ArenaNet specifically said about challenging group content before launch that they do not consider anything in the open world to be a part of that.

I don’t consider this relevant. They said that that was not what they meant when they were teasing about challenging group content — the meaning in context is that there was another feature that was not yet announced (namely, raids). We are talking about people who wanted more difficult content. The former is a reference to a specific teased feature. The latter is a general interest that both the increased map difficulty and raids satisfy.

Put another way, Anet’s “definition” is completely irrelevant to my point, as I was not referencing it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They lied to my Norn warrior about being the mighty Slayer.

The story is, my Norn went and killed a giant ice wurm on her first day. Which was true enough. But when you check the details, the story is different.

Issormir is a giant Ice Wurm which was captured by Knut Whitebear and Eir Stegalkin from Lostvyrm Cave.

Knut Whitebear: By my own hand, I have brought the mighty wurm, Issomir. He waits above, in the plateau, for one such as you to challenge him

Those 2 went to the cave where that wurm was, captured it and got it all the way up those stairs into that tiny enclosure. Then they left it there, probably without food or water until the “Great Hunt” when they pointed it out to my warrior and told her to go kill it. Basically, she killed an animal fetched for her by someone else and staked out in a pen. For that she got the title of Slayer of Issormir.

• You were level 1. What do you expect?
• Norn have a tradition of bragging and exaggerating — it’s all part of the rite of passage. Norn are supposed to lie about their great deeds. This was your starter lie.

Redenaz.8631:

Maximus Delion.8719:

~snip – pricing schemes that don’t include the current expansion~

Speaking for myself, I would like to see expansions include all previous expansions, because I want them to build on each other. If you assume all players have access to, say, gliding, you can continue to use mechanics like that in new maps and gameplay, instead of just leaving it as a one-off mechanic that gets used in Magus Falls and nowhere else.

I’m not saying the new zones need to be littered with bouncing mushrooms, but I think there’s a benefit to knowing what people have access to, up to a point, and being able to utilize all the game mechanics they’ve added so far.

I can’t see the next expansion not requiring HoT. HoT included a lot that the new expansion will be building on, so you really couldn’t play it without HoT.

Not to mention that supporting people who have the new expansion but not HoT involves a lot of work they clearly want to avoid, not to mention potential bugs.

I fully support the new expansion requiring HoT, and it should be coded accordingly.

I think people need to qualify what they count as “content”.

• Some people want more maps to explore.
• Some people want to advance their character and have their exp go to something — they are largely waiting for more masteries.
• Some people want challenges to beat and achievements to score — hopefully, the third raid wing will make them happy.
• Some people want more story — they are waiting for LS3.
• Some people want shinies to achieve and show off — they were waiting for the new legendaries and want them to be released without the collections — perhaps as rare drops.
• Some people want more collections, with or without the shinies at the end.
• Some people want to play WvW — they are waiting for that to be fixed.
• Some people want sPvP tournaments — they are waiting for MMR matchmaking to be fixed.

Not everyone on this list will be happy, but MO seems to be trying to make a lot of them happy. There does seem to be some prioritization going on, so I am cautiously optimistic.

As for SAB (the original topic), a lot of people (including me) are sick of it already.

I would pay $60 for that. More than that, I would possibly balk.

Good luck. I recommend getting the waypoints and then hero points so that you can upgrade to a reaper, which has amazing survivability.

LS2 might be tricky for you, though it might be easier once you have a reaper.

In order to get what the OP asks for, you need a situation where you can get 100s or 1000s of gold for a drop that is not that uncommon. Well, other players on the TP aren’t going to do it, so here are some suggestions:

• Add a vendor who will give you 100s of gold for each rare and 1000s of gold for each exotic.

• Inflate the currency with a lot of gold (perhaps coming from vendors who overpay for items), so that players have to spends 1000s of gold to get the gear they need to play standard difficulty content (ie exotics).

• Complain that so many exotics are going to vendors that there aren’t enough to equip yourself with the stats you want, so you just use the stats that randomly drop.

This is the world the OP wants. These are the consequences of such a world.

This has got to be a bug if you can’t use them without gliders.

Manuhell.2759:

Healix.5819:

It actually does. Consider how often patches break something in the game that had nothing to do with it. If SAB was permanent, they’d have to fix it every time it was broken, compared to only once a year as a festival.

It also means they won’t have to spend much time to fix it once april comes next year.
I mean, the reason why we couldn’t have it back before is exactly because it ended up totally and utterly broken. Fixing bugs once some issue arises would be simpler than piling them up and ending up with a ton of bugs all together (that may likely create other unintended consequences, and make the whole debugging all over more difficult).

No, actually, it doesn’t. It’s much easier to fix it all at one go and test it once rather than test it again for every single change.

Actually, I think quite the reverse. MO seems to be doing triage on the game — fixing the problems that will have the most impact and bringing us things that the most people want.

He’s brought bunny ears and SAB back. He’s pushing to get the living world rolling again. These are things that will keep the player base here / bring players back again.

There are upcoming WvW fixes — though they’ve now decided to fix things in pieces rather than trying to fix it all at once (because that was taking too long). There are also upcoming changes to fractals in about 2-3 weeks. Supposedly, HoT changes are coming too, but I don’t know if it will be in this update or not. Also, they should be finishing the first raid by putting out the third wing in a few months.

What we aren’t getting seems to be legendary weapon collections (despite being promised them), world 3 of SAB, and season 1 of living story.

All things considered, they do seem to be prioritizing what will get them the most goodwill back. No, they aren’t doing everything I would like, but they are doing good things.

Lacuda.8543:

Gaile Gray.6029:

SAB is back. It’s Super Adventure Festival time! Check your in-game mail and head to Rata Sum to take part!

Enjoy.

Hey is there any new world to go along with this? I would really love to start working on a Red super set of skins or a Purple set!

There is a red set.

DaikonSamurai.6714:

ekarat.1085:

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

That’s pretty much exactly how I imagine what happened — MO took over and had to make hard decisions about Colin’s promises, and that’s more or less what I read into the tone of his message.

I would caution from assuming this is Colin’s fault, but yeah, it could be a possibility.

Fair point. It genuinely might not be Colin’s fault, but it is how I imagine it to be.

As for them talking to us, I think they would be more willing if we didn’t go into full outrage every time they can’t follow through on something they previously said. Under those circumstances, I can’t be too surprised that they would be tight-lipped about what they are releasing until it is pretty much done.

Here, they didn’t follow that pattern, and they promised something that they couldn’t deliver, but that they were trying to deliver instead of fixing the bigger problems. So, I would expect them to be a lot more conservative about telling us what they have in mind for later.

The collections themselves do count as content — it’s not just the skin at the end. Yes, for some people, the collections are just meaningless busy work (not to mention the crafting expense) that you have to do to obtain the skin, so the collections aren’t really content.

By the logic, raids are just busy work you tolerate to get legendary armor, and fractals are just busy work you tolerate to get a legendary backpiece. No, I don’t believe that, but I am pointing out that the collections themselves are content, just like raids or fractals are.

Not everyone likes doing that content, but not everyone likes raids, or fractals, or jumping puzzles. Actually, I think jumping puzzles are a good thing to compare against. Not everyone likes them (I don’t), but some do. They are content.

So, the audience here is not the number of people who have legendaries, but the number of people who have unlocked the collections, and I don’t think that audience is any more niche than the audience who likes jumping puzzles.

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

That’s pretty much exactly how I imagine what happened — MO took over and had to make hard decisions about Colin’s promises, and that’s more or less what I read into the tone of his message.

Palador.2170:

bluemaize.4368:

Person: Anet, do you have trouble making up your mind?

Anet: Ummm…hmmm…Yes and No?

Gee, you’d almost think ANet was more than one person, trying to please a crowd of people with differing opinions.

Now, as for if we’ll ever see the other Legendary weapons: Yes, we will. The art for them wasn’t the hard part, so I’m sure they’re several weapons ahead, if not done with the whole set on the art side. There’s no reason to NOT make a simplified precursor quest and add them in later, they just want to focus on other things first. Maybe while considering what form a simplified (for them, at least) precursor quest should look like.

As for the Alpine/Desert WvW borderlands? Someone at ANet had to (willingly or not) swallow their pride for them to go back to the old maps so soon. They thought they’d have time to make a way to change maps back and forth with little effort, and so they were not really ready to do so. It’s not “flip a switch” easy to do it right now, so it’s a sudden addition of work to the pile. The April update is top priority, and for good reason. It’s not like the need to design a whole new map, though, and I’m sure we’ll see the old map back soon. As for the new one? Well, they’ll either rethink it to attempt a fix on it, or they’ll find another use for it.

Look, everyone. I’m perfectly willing to gladly and gleefully point out ANet’s many shortcomings. They’ve given me plenty of chances to practice, too. But this? This is them finally admitting they’ve got issues, and starting to address them. Address them openly and publicly, at that. Not everyone likes how they’re going about that, of course, but at least they’re trying. We don’t have to give them our praise, but can we at least cut down on the venom long enough to see if they’re able to pull it off or not?

I mostly agree with you. They are addressing the most important issues first. People want new content, and while new legendaries technically are new content, it’s not going to drive people to keep playing the way the living world will. I’m a little grumpy that they are keeping the raid team but not the legendaries team, even though they are about the same size, but I admit that finishing the third raid wing and legendary armor is probably more important to more people than legendary weapons. That said, the legendary weapons were more important to me.

There are a number of reasons not to just add in a simplified precursor quest. One is that it is probably nearly as much work as actually finishing what they were already doing. Second is that it isn’t easy to add more stuff in later for the same precursor. Third is that adding the rest of the legendaries in a different way is hard to reconcile with the previous ones.

I am disappointed by this announcement, but I see a lot of things that need work and don’t see how Anet can do it all at once.

The legendary collections were my favorite part of HoT. Please consider resuming work on them once you finish the third wing of the raid, or Living Story season 3, or fix WvW, or revise fractals, or… Yeah, there’s a lot to do, but please consider resuming work on them at a later date.

maddoctor.2738:

RoseofGilead.8907:

flog.3485:

Stat-swapping for ascended already exists…..

Except it’s not the same thing at all. With legendaries you can just swap your stats at any time, anywhere, as long as you’re out of combat; there’s no need to buy anything, craft anything, or make your way to a mystic forge. You also don’t lose your upgrades when swapping on a legendary.

Yes but you still have to buy sigils so they work with your new stat combination. Stat swapping alone isn’t exactly useful, in a normal situation you will change sigils (and runes) more often than stats on gear. Now if/when we get legendary runes and sigils it will be a different story altogether.

As a counterexample, a healer might want to adjust between keeper’s vs magi’s vs cleric’s to have tradeoffs of dps vs healing or lowering toughness below the tank. However, you would still want to keep the same runes and sigils.