Guild Wars 2

Buttercup.5871:

6 to 8 copper or 6 to 8 gold, it makes no difference. As a company, you don’t start with gold, of course. You build that kitten from the ground up.

That’s a pretty steep slippery slope you’ve got there… especially since you’ve only got a single data point.

If you’re looking for stability, you can’t get more stable than Black Lion Chests.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Forgive me on this, but I’m at work and can’t check in game populations ATM. But I thought all servers were “High” or “Very High” population currently. Now as for your rank in WvW, that’s not a clear indication for the general health of your server overall. It could just mean that your server has players who care to PvE more than WvW.

Take a step back and think about this situation. If a low population server was given free transfer to leave, wouldn’t that be an invitation to kill off the server? An alternate to this would be to offer “Very High” or “Full” servers a free transfer downward. But this brings more problems, because if you keep allowing players to transfer for free, it changes the dynamics of each Tier.

As an example, look at rise and fall of Kaineng. They rose quickly, then imploded due to server transfers. This could happen to Devona’s Rest too if there were free transfers, and I don’t think this type of stability issues is something Anet encourages. Part of the cost/fee for transferring is to provide Anet with Gem income. But that’s secondary to keeping the cost/fee high enough to discourage server hopping. If you want to move, there’s a price you have to pay. Then, you have real consequences for the decision you and/or your guild makes. If you can afford to pay the Gems, then by all means do so. But a majority of players (I assume) would hesitate to transfer unless there’s a very good reason to.

Yes, we care much more about PvE than we do WvW. That’s why we have about 15-20 people doing the Marionette each time.

The fact is, this is a problem that ArenaNet needs to fix because they were the ones who broke the servers in the first place when they added paid transfers.

High pop servers are doing just fine, but the emigration has caused many servers to DIE. Dead servers lead to players quitting, which is something that needs to be fixed and fixed quickly… by ArenaNet… since they created the impetus for the problem and the means by which the problem has manifested.

Nabrok.9023:

Server population is not related to WvW map population.

Never said or implied that it was.

Devona’s Rest is listed as “Very High”. We can’t get 20 people to ANY in game content for the ENTIRE server because it is dead.

Queensdale champ train? 15 people.
WvW? What’s that?
Marionette? 3 people per lane.

“Very High” is apparently measuring something that means nothing.

Nabrok.9023:

mtpelion.4562:

Aeolus.3615:

bwillb.2165:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Aren’t all server high population already?

They’re all listed as very high population, but the range for that seems to anywhere from almost completely full to a few dozen.

High population server means the total players on the server, WvW population sometimes is like 5 players.

High population server means high number of created characters. It has no bearing at all with regard to number of actual players online. The entire server could have 1 person online and it would still be a high pop server if there are enough created characters on it.

This is not correct, population is affected by number online. If it wasn’t, nobody would ever have been able to transfer into the “Full” servers. As it is, you could monitor the servers and wait for a full one to drop to very high.

Servers even organized “black outs” where wvw guilds would all log off at a certain time, and would request people in LA do the same, so that another guild could transfer in and these were quite effective.

In that case, “Very High” is anything above 20 players online, meaning it is just as meaningless.

We have 3-4 people per lane on Devona’s Rest for most attempts. If we want rewards we just pack everyone onto Lane 1 since we can’t even keep enough mobs out for Lane 3 to get a turn.

The only upside is that you can get your Daily Boss Thumper done in about 3 minutes.

Do you have a strategy for when you have 3-4 players per lane?

Aeolus.3615:

bwillb.2165:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Aren’t all server high population already?

They’re all listed as very high population, but the range for that seems to anywhere from almost completely full to a few dozen.

High population server means the total players on the server, WvW population sometimes is like 5 players.

High population server means high number of created characters. It has no bearing at all with regard to number of actual players online. The entire server could have 1 person online and it would still be a high pop server if there are enough created characters on it.

timmyf.1490:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Opposition isn’t the same thing as griefing.

Then we need a new term for people who enjoy killing players who have no interest in player-to-player combat.

Queuing up for WvW is proof that you have interest in player to player combat. If you truly have no interest, you wouldn’t have clicked on the button that takes you there.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

But then you get the question of “fairness”. If two servers are “high population”, but one PvEs more and one WvWs more, which measurement are you using to determine the free transfers? If you’re trying to satisfy PvE players, WvW will complain, and vice versa. Why should Anet offer the service for only one type of player?

Example: Offering the free transfer option to servers with low active PvE players, but has active WvW players, only invites bandwagoning to more successful WvW League servers. Those WvW players will take advantage of the transfer to go to a Tier 1 server, thus creating more problems for servers like Black Gate, who have queues hours long.

Going back on this, you make mention that you feel less people online is like a downward spiral. What if the servers are highly populated, but a majority of the players log in on an opposite time zone than you? If you live in North America, what’s to say the server you’re on has more Australians?

High pop servers wouldn’t get free transfers, only low pop servers. That’s the only fair way to do it because that’s the only objective criteria available. They also won’t be able to transfer to a high pop server for free, only to a medium pop. If you’re really concerned about WvW Tiers, then you could specify that you can’t use a free transfer to go to a Tier 1 server.

I don’t have feelings, I have data. Devona’s Rest is dead at any time of day. We peak in population during the hours of 7-9 EST. For reference, here is our WvW ranking:
https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw
Dead last since November.

Fact is, some servers are dying because ArenaNet opened enough to handle LAUNCH level active player volume. Now that those peaks are long gone, it is time for them to consolidate the dying servers before they lose players who want to play but can’t.

VincentDW.9376:

I can’t tell you how many times in WvW I heard people say, “get this PvE kitten out of my WvW” in regards to the toxic spore events. Just because something exists in a location where PvP COULD take place does not mean that it itself is PvP content. There is plenty of content in WvW that is primarily (and often completely) PvE content, because the only opponent you face is the computer-generated environment. Capturing a mercenary camp, in my experience, virtually never involves fighting an actual player. Likewise, upwards of 90% of the time the only enemy I see in a jumping puzzle is the jumps themselves. True PvP content means fighting other PLAYERS.

WvW is not PvP. WvW is a merger of PvP with PvE.
Sounds like those complainers in WvW need to be informed that they are playing the wrong game mode.

The first problem is that the server population is based on number of characters created, not on number of players currently logged in. My server, Devona’s Rest, can’t muster more than 25 players for anything (not even the Queensdale Champ train). I’d be surprised if Lion’s Arch ever peaks above 40 players at any given time. Yet it is listed as a “Very High” population server. The server originally had a lot of players, but is now dead thanks to the addition of the ability to transfer to other servers.

Anyone who has ever played an MMO knows how this works, as players leave the server voluntarily, the ones who are left behind are forced to make a decision:
1. Do I pay MORE money just to play the game I already paid for with other people (as intended)?
2. Do I stop playing since there is no one left to play with?
3. Do I continue to log in for an hour a day, play around for a bit, then log out because no one is online?

No matter how these questions are answered, the result is less people online which causes more people to ask these questions. It’s a downward spiral.

Personally, I think it is incredibly unreasonable for ArenaNet to charge people to move from a dead server to a live one. At a bare minimum, they should offer free transfers from the least active servers to some medium ones. Failing that, merging servers should be their top priority in order to keep the game from dying.

laokoko.7403:

Maybe the logic is don’t put pve content in pvp area.

Why do you want to wvw with people that don’t even want to be there?

Logic says that content added to WvW is NOT PvE. That means that this Living Story Update is not PvE.

Good news for you! You can simply ignore the achieves and go about doing PvE. If you start feeling bad, just remind yourself that 23 of the last 24 Living Story achievement categories required no WvW interaction at all on your part.

Good news for WvW players! They get some achieves for once.

sorudo.9054:

Wanze.8410:

sorudo.9054:

Wanze.8410:

sorudo.9054:

Jeroen PwN.9601:

sorudo.9054:

i would like to have more gems when i pay with real money, the exchange rate only gives you a loss anyway (when changing it to gold) so it will only make buying gems with RL money more attractive.
also, P2W only exists when you have an advantage over someone else, does a skin give you an unfair advantage?
no, it’s just something you want, an inconvenience, not P2W.

I had this plan in the beginning as well. Getting more gems for your 25 euro. That seems a pretty simple thing but to change all the gem cards in the ‘whole’ world is i think a bit harder.

it’s actually dead simple, all Anet need to add is a script code that adds X more gems when you register with a gem card.
they can eventually release cards that states the bonus gems, that only takes a bit of photoshopping.

And isnt just this ( gold to gems depens on people that buy gems with money) that shows that less and less people buy gems with money and more and more buy it with gold. For me the 8 gold per 100 gold is too mutch to handle. And that is to bad since i would really want to buy those skins. Other thing is that they overprice everyting as well. Like its a standard everything is 800 gems but yea…. So why not do something simple thats doesnt hurt anyone ( right?) Its not that they will sell legandaries for 80 euro or something…

maybe an alternative, the exchange still has normal gems but you can buy gold gems with real money.
so what happens now, everything you want to buy in the gem store is cheaper with gold gems.
so an item that is normally 800 gems is now about 500 gold gems (you could also call it platinum), so now the in-game rich ppl can stay around for free all they want while paying the full price while the actual supporters get more out of it, a win win all the way.

Its still basically just asking for lowering gem prices. Why would Anet do that?

not really, the gem prices will just be lower for ppl who actually spend money on gems, how it currently is doesn’t benefit Anet in the slightest, the new way does.
better yet, they can make high popular items on a higher price while keeping the gold gem price the same, this makes exchanging gold->gem less popular and the RL money->gem allot more popular.
more money->support for Anet->more stuff->profit

You are constantly ignoring the fact that every gem in the game is paid for with real money (bar the initial gems put into the exchange before release).

It is actually beneficial for the game (and Anet), if people buy gems with gold:

If you buy 800 gems with money and spend it in the gem store, thats 10 bucks in Anets pocket.
But if you buy 800 gems with money, then trade it with me for my gold and i spend the gems in the store, its still 10 bucks in ANets pocket, plus they sunk some gold out of the economy, which keeps inflation in check.

whether you or me using gold to buy gems, it’s not giving any money, that’s a free service.
regardless on how you do it, it benefits Anet only when you pay real money, buying gems with gold is nothing more then a loss on Anet’s part.
also, inflation in a game is nothing more then something what players make out of it, if someone is buying allot of items that (s)he exchanged with money->gem->gold then (s)he can damage your inflation just as much, no amount of inflation damages Anet, only the TP trippers.

you want Anet to benefit from the gem store, this is a solution.
be my guess and think of a better one, till now the exchange is hurting Anet allot more and champ trains are part of the cause.
more ways to farm gold->less money in Anet’s bank->less chance Anet benefits->loss in profit.

You cannot buy gems with gold unless those gems were already bought by another player with real money and then traded for gold. ArenaNet gets their money for EVERY gem that is spent (exception being the AP rewards), they just may not have gotten it from you.

I have no reason to buy the pick, so I won’t be testing it myself.

Currently, you can sometimes get an additional ore from a single hit of the node (not referring to the gem bonus item). So hitting the node 3 times will pay out 4 ores.

If they replace that 4th ore with a sprocket then this pick is going to be the worst pick of them all. If they are simply adding a sprocket chance, then this pick is going to be a 6c advantage over the other infinite tools, per use.

The only thing ArenaNet needs to clarify is if the sprocket chance replaces the extra ore chance because that makes a huge difference in the value of the sprocket bonus.

Ranger players as a whole are no more or less skilled than any other class.

Rangers as a class have some significant hurdles that must be leaped for the class to be effective, primarily due to the REALLY BAD pet design by ArenaNet.

Therefore, mediocre players who would have already mastered the other classes (with a few exceptions) will still be learning how to effectively leap the Ranger hurdles.

Adding to the problem, since the hurdles are related to something that every other player can see (the pet), it makes it easier to spot a low skilled Ranger (honestly, in a blob of action there is no way to tell if that Warrior is bad or not outside of noticing slightly different “SWING EVERYTHING” animations).

This means that Rangers are no different from other players, the skill level difference is just easier to see. Since it is easy for anyone to spot a bad Ranger and almost impossible to spot a bad [insert other class] without extensive knowledge of [insert other class], people form the incorrect opinion that Rangers are bad. Then confirmation bias sets in and the opinion gets cemented in their mind.

TL:DR – Most bad Rangers would be good at any other class (or at least not be noticed as being bad) because any other class is easier to not be bad with and harder to tell when they are bad.

Any White, Blue, or Green item that is selling for more than 2s is worth selling on the TP, otherwise salvage it and use/sell the materials. This applies for all level of items.

For high level (anything above 70) Yellow items, check the current price of a Glob of Ectoplasm. If the Yellow item sells for as much or more than the Glob then it is OK to sell. If the Yellow items sells for less than the Glob, Salvage it with a Master or better Salvage Kit.

Orange items usually sell for more than their salvaged parts will, but there are exceptions.

Pandemoniac.4739:

mtpelion.4562:

Flissy.4093:

Totally not true, people paying real money decreases the cost in gold only. They would still be purchaseable with gold if nobody bought gems -> gold unless ArenaNet changed how it works.

The gems available for purchase with gold are a FINITE supply, made available ONLY by players BUYING gems with real money and then trading them for GOLD.

The number of gems in the game is always equal to [gems put into exchange at launch] + [gems bought with gold] – [gems spent in store]

And they would become so expensive as to be practically unpurchasable before the pool of gems ran out if the algorithm works as expected. I’m sure I would be converting my gems into gold well before that point was reached though.

I think it’s a fairly common misconception that all purchased gems go into the pool instead of only the gems that are converted to gold.

To clarify: I said the number of gems in the game, not the number of gems available for exchange. That is a subset of gems in the game.

Niels.5396:

I’ve been waiting for a response for a while as well now, but for some reason they are not answering :\

A response to what, exactly?

Mckeone.9804:

(1) You don’t know what P2W means. Adding a chance to get a sprocket is not P2W.

(2) You’re way down a slippery slope with the precursor example.

Well, it would be P2W if winning was based on who had the most useless sprockets, but that would be such an absurdly dull game that no one would be playing it.

Flissy.4093:

Wanze.8410:

You keep forgetting that gems in general can only be obtained with real money.
For someone to buy some gems with gold, someone else has to buy those gems with money first and exchange them for gold, making your whole scheme moot.

Totally not true, people paying real money decreases the cost in gold only. They would still be purchaseable with gold if nobody bought gems -> gold unless ArenaNet changed how it works.

Wanze is totally correct and you are totally incorrect.

The gems available for purchase with gold are a FINITE supply, made available ONLY by players BUYING gems with real money and then trading them for GOLD.

The number of gems in the game is always equal to [gems put into exchange at launch] + [gems bought with gold] – [gems spent in store]

Talonblaze.3175:

mtpelion.4562:

Leaving out a bonus feature is NOT false advertising.

Well, its still not something that is allowed in common day marketing iirc, even if the technical term might be something else. It’s still omitting information that could affect purchases, be it for itself or others.

It absolutely is allowed. Omitting unnecessary information from your advertising is perfectly fine and happens all the time.

Early on your best bets are:

1. Selling all crafting materials.
2. Doing all higher level map completions and selling the stuff you get.
3. Running Dungeons for the daily gold payout.
4. Champion train in either Queensdale or Frostgorge Sound.

Talonblaze.3175:

The additional problem is, its also false advertising. The lack of such information makes people think ‘oh its just like all the others, no biggy’ despite there being an unwritten bonus. The fact this had to be mined and tested for such is a problem on Anet’s behalf.
They can say its a bug, given its the lack of description and remove said feature or they will add it to the description and still deal with the many not happy previous customers that will think twice about purchasing gems.

Leaving out a bonus feature is NOT false advertising.

Keep in mind that your poll results will be tainted by the lack of accurate sampling.

Thread Summary: Other people have more in-game stuff than I do. Please make it so that they can’t. KThx

She uses the Star Forge, obviously.

Keep in mind that we forum dwellers represent a minority of players. It will be the sales figures that tell them anything useful, not complaints here.

If this pick sells well, you can expect more in the future. If it does not sell well, then the experiment will end.

Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Most people already have unlimited use picks and the sprockets are fairly useless so I’m not sure why anyone would care if they dropped or not. If they actually add something useful or desirable that relies on sprockets in the future, then I reserve the right to amend my opinion.

The best games I ever played were devoid of animation.

This is a game we are talking about. How it looks should ALWAYS come after how it plays.

xarallei.4279:

NPC? You mean pets/minions? Don’t use them.

Minions may be a bad idea, but pets make this Warden cheese easy.

Tank and spank.

It’s like this fight was designed by a Ranger.

Making crafting ingredients account bound was a very curious (read: “wrong”) decision by ArenaNet.

At the very least they should remove the binding from the Vision Crystals and let us sell those.

The hunt has concluded. Thanks to all the participants!

The HUNT has begun! For the next hour you should collect as many centaur hooves as possible (the trophy junk items). Before the hour expires, bring them to Divinity’s Reach and link them in map chat!

In 20 minutes the hunt will begin. Be in Divinity’s Reach at server reset for instructions!

For anyone interested in joining us, Midnight Ravage will be having a Hunting Party at server reset on Saturday, January 25.

I’m keeping the details a secret right now, but there will be prizes (1st place = 5G, 2nd place 2G50S, and 3rd place 1G25S) and the hunt will last for approximately 1 hour.

If you want to join the hunt, please be in Divinity’s Reach at server reset.

If you have any questions, you can message me on the forum or send me an in-game mail.

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There are a couple of secret Charr mechanics hanging out near a blown out tank in a ravine somewhere in Ascalon. If you help them rebuild the tank they give you one of their warband bandanas.

They probably need to consider putting a vendor value on those skins. That would prevent people from placing 1c orders.

Gibson.4036:

I have a feeling it’s quite the opposite. Some of us search around for the best ways to make money, trying various things in game. Eventually our search leads us to the TP, and we find that the fastest way to make money in game is by flipping items.

Since we came to the game with visions of slaying dragons, we get disappointed that the easiest way to make gold is relisting items for people too impatient to appropriately price things.

We go defend villages against marauding beasties and get a few copper, and think, wow, spending that time standing in LA with GW2spidy on my other monitor would have rewarded me a lot better.

If you enjoy killing dragons or defending villagers, then the reward disparity wouldn’t matter to you. The fact that it does bother you suggests that you enjoy making gold rather than adventuring.

Essence Snow.3194:

I have nothing confused. I am well aware of the effects of our economy on this GAME. That’s the main kicker here. This is a game not a real life economy. The game is the number one priority, not the economy…some forget that or choose not to consider it.

If the economy of the game fails, then the game will quickly follow. I’d posit that in a game like this where there is no (or should I say very limited) power creep as a result of the lack of vertical progress, the economy becomes the most important part of keeping the game alive because the economy allows ALL players to participate in the horizontal progression.

Essence Snow.3194:

Economies (like the one we have in this game) by their very nature do not run smooth for ALL. They actually move further and further from that the longer they exists.

It is each individual’s responsibility to educate themselves and participate. I think you’ve got equality of opportunity (free market) confused with equality of outcome (goal of market control). In a free market, the “smoothness” is not illustrated by a lack of spikes and falls but rather in its natural tendency to equalize. In a controlled market, the goal is to limit spikes and falls because those allow people to profit and profit is contrary to the end goal of making everyone have the same number of things.

bri.2359:

I am pretty sure ‘economist’ is just another name for “someone who gazes into crystal balls and tries to dazzle the public with charts and graphs based on cooked up numbers and assumptions pulled out of their a*se’.

I’ll take the ancient Roman soothsayers poking around in chicken entrails any day over an economist. If they got it wrong, it was usually their last mistake …

In that case, you’d be quite wrong. Economics is a very old field of study. Sure, there’s the theory component, which, just like other sciences is focused on the exploration of the unknown and is thus subject to constant reevaluation, but there are also hard facts that have been laid out. It is not the job of the economist to market the idea of the economy to jealous, whiny players, it is the job of the economist to ensure that the economy is running smoothly for ALL players.

Bombsaway.7198:

Be a consumer scientist first and an economist somewhere much later.

I’m pretty sure “consumer scientist” is just another name for “someone who lies to the public for a living in order to convince them to buy something”.

I’ll take a free market economy over your proposed form of “feel-good” online poverty any day.

I agree that Ascended should be reworked.

Where we differ in opinion is that I believe Ascended should have the exact same stats as Exotic but have the infusion slot added.

I also believe that more content should be added that utilizes Agony.

Essence Snow.3194:

So nothing is required to play required aspects of this game. That is sorta neither here nor there. Optional aspects however are rather relevant since they are pertinent to most everything in the game. Hence the debate at hand.

This current chain of discussion is related to my repudiation of another player because they felt that an optional form of gameplay was unethical and they desired to have that form of gameplay removed/altered. The basic premise of my response was that if they felt it was unethical, they could simply not do it since nothing was forcing them to do anything. We’ve gone on a bit of a tangent since then regarding required/optional.

Essence Snow.3194:

semantics……you know full well the point

Important distinction.

You can argue that you NEED food to live. You cannot argue that you NEED filet mignon and lobster every day to live.

When you conflate need with want, you reach the conclusion that the Trading Post makes thing too expensive. When you correctly identify needs and wants you realize that the Trading Post is your best friend.

Essence Snow.3194:

Remember candy corn 20 slot pails…impossible (realistically) to gather enough candy corn for it. 300 charged lodestones…how many years will this game last? GL gathering 300 silk per day everyday to not miss out on time gates……etc etc

It’s not hard to find places where the tp is needed. All one needs to do is look.

The pail is not a good example as it is one of many ways to get a 20 slot bag, and it is still possible to obtain via candy corn from the vendor. Combined with Halloween being a recurring event and the candy corn node, the pail is not “impossible” to realistically obtain, it just takes a very long time if you choose to skip the convenience of using the free market.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Saying the TP is not required is pretty absurd imo… It is most certainly required if you want to accomplish even the most basic proficiency in the game.

I personally have no problem with flipping and speculating, but to argue that the TP isn’t required is certainly not one of the reasons why.

Personally I think there should be more skill based rewards, I don’t find it very fun for everything to be a show of how much money you have.

The TP is not required to play the game. It is a purely optional part of the content that makes playing the game MUCH more enjoyable.

If you are really opposed to the concept of free trade, you can play the game as a totally self-sufficient wilderness dweller. With that decision though, you will get to experience first hand why the division of labor is the foundation of all modern economies.

Note: “You” as used above refers to anyone who is opposed to free trade, not to the quoted user per se.

If you are still having loading issues, please ensure that you have configured your firewall to allow the Trading Post executable to access the internet.

GW2.exe DOES NOT include the trading post. You will need to also allow awesonium.exe (yes, that is the real name of the process).

Vol.7601:

To be honest, teq is not that hard. Players refusing to work together and utilize strategies is the issue when dealing with teq. Every server should have the capability of defeating him on reset.

If you do not want to do teq/wurm, then fine. There are plenty of less-challenging bosses out there that you can do. But for those that want challenging content and are willing to put the time and effort, we have our opportunities.

I know you aren’t one to usually make kittenumptions Vol, but I think you are seriously underestimating how casual low pop servers have become. For reference: the Queensdale Champ Train on Devona’s Rest peaks at 20ish players (30 on a good day).

That’s right… the mind-numbingly easy content with decent reward can only pull 20 players. Content that requires coordination and has a low pay off such as Teq doesn’t even get attempted on low pop servers.

They really should find a way to transfer guilds so that they can begin merging some of these ghost towns, especially if they are going to start adding content that requires people to participate.