Guild Wars 2

I’ve made 3 and sold 2, i like the skin.

While you can get caught with listing fees, it’s not a bad mechanic to have them. I do think however the listing fee should be negated for buy orders. Let the buyer pay the listing fee when i sell it instantly. That’s all i have to say about that.

As part of the topic of this thread, work pertaining to compensation is pretty much where we are. I would use the term chore, in a very broad way when thinking about working in a video game. If you’re working toward something, but it’s a chore to get there, it shouldn’t be in a video game. It’s interesting how literal people can get when arguing a point.

Gold is worthless outside of the game, which makes all these other currencies even more worthless, since they have next to no gold value. It may sound pessimistic to view it that way, but i certainly wouldn’t want to work at a job for this type of compensation, i definitely don’t want to do the same in a video game. No one should be asking for a handout, it’s not about free stuff without effort, it’s about versatility in currency.

Short answer is, no.

D/D ele is a powerful support role, along with conditions and constant pressure. The patch didn’t affect it enough to really kitten that build. Staff eles aren’t nearly as supportive, most of the heals take too long to cast and have silly CD’s. Healing rain is useless IMO. Staff is great for staying out of the fray, dropping aoe.

Vol.5241:

munkiman.3068:

If i don’t want to play a certain dungeon, but want the skin i shouldn’t be forced to play it.

What kind of reasoning is this? Why doesn’t Anet just give you a lvl 80 and a full exotic gear and several legendaries for logging in?

You need to work (play) for your items and if you don’t want to invest the time to work for them then you don’t deserve it

Yes, please continue to make work and play interchangeable, that’s a good goal for a video game. Arah can take up to 3 times as long as CM and is actually more fun to me, yes i’d like to buy CM armor with an Arah token exchange. I’m not asking for stuff just because i play the game, save your ridiculous comparison logic for yourself.

Pretty sure it was a visual bug they fixed.

I actually expect a change in lodestone drop rates… If not, go out and play RL, instead of farming your face off.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Some fun ideas in here, we’re also actively discussing ways on how we’d best like to alleviate having to make players choose between having better stats, or using magic find. It’s not a choice that’s great for game play and there isn’t really anything that fun about it, even more so when group composition is taken into account. Ideally we’d also like to keep the ability to slowly build your magic find over time, but doing this at the cost of using better stats isn’t the right way to do that.

No ETA on any changes here, just want to point out we agree there is an issue here that goes against what we want Gw2 to be, and is something we want to address.

There’s been some suggestions on making it a group effort (similar to diablo) and could work like the current MF buff from boosters or food. If you run a booster it triggers a party wide MF @ say 10 or 20% which builds on vet or champ kills. Basically using the already given boosters a purpose which simply triggers a mf system. When the boost runs out it resets, but if another player pops one before the group wide runs out, it stays. Death could be another reset mechanic too.

I’d much rather see a token trader… If i don’t want to play a certain dungeon, but want the skin i shouldn’t be forced to play it. There really isn’t a good reason for all these currencies other than forcing people to play content they might not enjoy. I get the wvw badges however and the glory. But, pve gated stuff is silly. I like the concept behind it, just not the implementation. If i run Arah because i enjoy it, why can’t i get CM stuff? CM takes 1/3 of the time to run.

I went to see the prices and did about 500 loot bags this weekend. A loss of about 2g, if i were to sell all the t6, lodestones, cores…

I have a double click set on my mouse, only half as many clicks

Behellagh.1468:

So if they are already at a disadvantage with a flat cash to gem rate, one that grants bonuses for larger cash transactions will put then at an even greater disadvantage.

So, where’s the fault in my argument Firebaall?

I won’t speak for firebaall. But, it seems to me if you give players wiling to put more gems back into the exchange a bulk rate reduction, it would favor players paying for gems with gold. I’d think a discounted rate would accomplish that somewhat, at least to the advantage of people buying gems with gold. If i understand how the exchange works anyway.

Vision of the Mists, been up for about a month. I won’t sell it under what i put into it. If it doesn’t sell fairly soon i’ll just keep it on my mesmer.

I don’t play around MF (it’s just a panic button anyway) so the change doesn’t bother me. RtL means less go real fast in 20 second bursts, plenty of speed ups for a d/d, again not a deal breaker for me. No QQ here.

With the increasing demand for active players earning influence and working through guild missions, i’m requesting a merger for smaller guilds into one. The following are my proposed offerings for merger into LIPO http://beautifulpeoplesclub.org/index.php/groups/1-guild-wars-2-lipo/ :

1. Have fun.
2. All casual players are welcome, low levels, pvx, wvw groups, etc.
3. Must be mature (18+). Maturity in this sense being able to joke around, swear, etc. and not feel offended unless there is good cause.
4. All cost are fully covered by [LIPO], website, development, voip (both mumble and teamspeak options) bandwidth, name renewals and upgrades.
5. Guild mergers DO NOT require disbanding your current guild, nor does it require all your roster members to move. Requirements to rep however will be negotiated.
6. Organized events, event leaders and give-away offerings weekly for all participating members.

About LIPO (liposuction, ala the Family Guy episode). I have run our site for over 10 years, we’ve played many games across many consoles together, but things have quieted down in Guild Wars 2. The community and it’s site is robust and currently handles around 400 members (not all guild wars 2 people obviously).

If this makes sense for you and you’re tired of recruiting members, feel free to PM me here or whisper me in game.

SplendidDust of AncientSuns.8453:

Crystalline Dust drops from bags like the bees knees for me personally. Open those things up son.

Agreed, however i’d rather not drive up the price either. As long as they stay under 3s it’s fine. I usually put in buy orders around 2.60 -2.65. I need the mats anyway and after selling off the stuff i don’t need it’s cheaper than buying them outright, especially when i get cores and/or lodestones off a stack.

Zellax.7821:

12g sounds low for 1250 bags and high for 250.
im confused which one is the correct # of bags opened.
last i remember as of last week i had 750 bags which i could sell for a new 21g odd.
I opened it to get items worth 25g Gross (21.25g net) so turned out to be not really worth the time.
well in my case i had farmed up all 750 so didnt really matter… but dont buy these to open for profit.
Also Moldy dont have a chance to drop a lodestone. instead they have a chance to drop 2x T6 mats when they do.

It’s the same with loot bags the x2 on t6. Just saying if you’re going to open bags at all, for high level mats, you mine as well go with loot bags.

I convert over my excess gems to gold after i buy the items i want from the gem shop. I’m not sure about “most people”. But the exchange has been somewhat stable, which might indicate there are more people than one might assume converting to gold.

In my experience loot bags are the least risk (i’ve never lost more than .5g). Considering how many different colors of dyes there are compared to what most of them are worth (if you can even sell them).

There are less items that are worth as much that comes out of moldy bags for the same or close to the same price as loot bags. If you’re going to do the opening bag game, loot bags are the way to go. 12g for about 10 minutes worth of work is pretty decent. I have lost money to (or gotten close to break even), so it’s a gamble no matter what.

All games have a chance for loot that is random, however in this game decent loot is so random and rare it’s not even close to comparable. IMO the market could stand to shed a few pounds off the rarity scale.

There literally is a huge problem with the rewards. One thing for certain however is with the new dungeon, it’s actually not only fun to play, it offers some really nice rewards. Let’s hope we see more of that in the future.

If you get lucky and get a couple of expensive lodestones, loot bags are better. There’s also Giant eyes that drop from moldy bags, which are about 60s. All in all i did the opening of over 1250 loot bags and made about 12g. Sadly it’s not a regular thing anymore.

Rising Dusk.2408:

munkiman.3068:

If people want to pay for the skin, let em… There doesn’t seem to be any hard proof that it makes them more money doing it the RNG way. The only reason i see it being done this way is to keep them more rare.

I can’t say for sure it makes them more money than the alternative, but I can say for sure it makes them a ton of money. There are way too many testimonials in this forum alone of individuals spending hundreds of dollars and not getting what they want. If that is indeed the case, as it appears to be given the posts of people complaining, then ANet is inevitably going to continue the trend.

While I agree, since i’m one that spent a good chunk of cash on keys (not that i’m complaining, i’m using every item i got), I can say for a fact i won’t do it again. So while it may be good for profits in the short term, it does make it look like a cash grab in the longer term, which leads to unhappy players. I certainly hope they don’t continue it, it put’s them in a much different light to me and i’m definitely less likely to spend money in the future. There is already 3 items in those chest worth a ton of gold anyway. People that want to gamble, can go ahead and do that for those perma kits.

I’m sure it would affect the price, but it might actually help the exchange rate in the favor of players. Meaning more people willing to spend more on the exchange of gems to gold. You may have a point, but i’m really finding it hard to see it hurting less fortunate players.

If people want to pay for the skin, let em… There doesn’t seem to be any hard proof that it makes them more money doing it the RNG way. The only reason i see it being done this way is to keep them more rare.

void.6705:

if they are your friend click on the name and click the slot where it would say send gift. just like when you invite people who are friends to a party i never type out their name

That’s a great solution or if you hit the gift button it pops up with a list of people in your friends list (much like steams gift option). There are quiet a few good ways to aid the fudge factor. I’ve often wanted to gift my wife things from the shop.

Indeed. I was surprised not to see a discount on higher purchases. It’s just such a standard thing in RL. Buying gems with cash is already putting players that can afford to do so at an advantage financially. I takes me about an hour to earn 100g in real world currency, i for sure could not make that playing for about an hour. If you were a person that couldn’t afford gems with cash, you’re already at a disadvantage. If it was that important to a person that could only spend 20 on gems, they could wait and save up to buy the higher bulk rate. People do that all the time in RL since it just makes sense.

John Smith.4610:

There are some really good points here, but my original intention was to talk about what the real world gets from us participating in this game economy, rather than what real world models were used in game economies.

In essence what can we learn here from the GW2 economy that we can have application outside of GW2.

An example I might think of is: Does players selling to highest buyer instead of waiting for a better offer show that people are not “Profit Maximizing” entities as basic economies assumes?

I won’t really touch too much on the “Profit Maximizing” idea, But, i will say that GW2 basically forces players to think that way. In many cases the player earnings are dismal, and taking a sampling of people willing to post on forums is obviously not a good yard stick. But I constantly hear of people with very low earnings that just play the game, most of my guild mates from other games have left mostly due to this. So, poor players and tightly wound earnings, check.

As far as what can be learned from the GW2 economy, one thing that stands out is the plethora of “currency”. It’s really not a good idea in real world markets to introduce alternative forms of payment (that aren’t tied directly to actual currency). One example of this lesson learned was Star “bucks”, it was a miserable failure and most of those ideas end up being really bad promotional choices. They simply hold no market value. Sure it works out ok for the regulars, but in the case of GW2 it pigeonholes players into aspects they may not care for participating in. So, too many “currencies” that hold no market value, check.

Voluntary, is another key component to video game economies. Regardless if we like it or not, our earning potential is tightly tied to our global, national and local markets. Our participation in most cases really ends there, at our salaries, but it’s a required one. The completely voluntary and, in most cases, less serious (outside of the hard-core folks) makes the market tumble about. I’d venture to guess most players will simply just buy items for asking price and not bother waiting to win at the best offer game. So time spent versus savings/earnings, check.

In closing, (and i emphasis this a lot on here), it’s a game, it’s meant to be fun. If playing the market is your thing, great, enjoy. But, the second it becomes a laborious task, there’s the door, take a break. I personally want to play the game and get the nice shiny stuff in a reasonable amount of time, if i keep getting held to the fire of running CoF p1 just to get there or become a TP guru, i’ll simply take my leave. I can think of at least 10 different ways you could make these goals work over time and still keep players interested. Sorry, went a little off topic there.

Basically, this is why i don’t buy skins, they are a complete waste. It’s bad enough with the picks. There is no reason players should put up with these expensive items for a one time use. And let’s not forget the labeling of some of these items (this one being a perfect example). When i first read the description i thought, “oh look they are actually reading the forums, they made this a multiple use skin.” Glad i didn’t get suckered into that one, i was waiting for someone to complain before making a move.

Funny, even the stuff you spend gems on really don’t seem all that rewarding either.

Calae.1738:

You people have a very serious problem.

You’re throwing your money away. You’re throwing it away for nothing in return. If you don’t know the probabilities of winning you can’t calculate risk. Why would you invest your money without knowing the risks involved?

It’s stupid.

That’s kinda the point… Why continue down this path as a company? There may be a sucker born every minute, but there’s also “fool me once…” It’s just bad form.

I have tier 2 cultural on my asura guardian. Sadly i think it only looks good on heavy armor.

Goloith.6349:

John Smith.4610:

In another thread someone brought up the question, “what basis is there for considering the world of video game ‘economics’ has anything to do with ‘real world’ economies.” I thought it was an interesting question, can we learn more about our real world economies with more finite virtual economies?

Opening the floor.

A great starting point is to look to Eve Online’s economy. That games economy is renowned across the world as the best player driven virtual economy in existence. I understand that the cruelty of “player-death” in Eve Online is one of the biggest money sinks that drives it’s economy, but GW2 could do the same without such high consequences.

The other big thing that Eve Online does is it has an easily convertible exchange rate between all commodities (ore, ship parts, salvage, Isk=$$$). GW2 lacks this and everytime you create a new currency you are taking the exact opposite direction. What GW2 needs to do is make everything liquid like Eve Online’s “Isk”. This would require crafting materials, Badges, Karma, and gems to be all converted into whatever currency a player wants. Whenever you try and dictate player behavior it has negative impacts just like in real life economies. Ever wonder why the U.S. economy has has been the most prosperous these last 200+ years? Your answer is market freedom.

Pretty much a big +1 from me. There was an earlier discussion somewhere about how the alternative forms of “currency” are practically valueless. So i’d like to echo this. It seems like it’d be fairly simply to put a “banker” NPC in that does currency exchange. Have 5000 Arah tokens you want to trade for CM tokens, sure no problem, you want gold for those, sure here’s 10g … It would be an amazing change to the market and one i could get behind 100%.

Geesh i’m up to 1000+ short bows and at least 500 staves, and nada…

It’s 30 ectos for an armor set, just correcting that for ya.

Calae.1738:

Free markets without regulation tends to put our selfish genes into the spotlight.

We’re hard wired to survive. We will be greedy, we will be selfish. Create a virtual environment without regulation, without controlling inflation and just watch as this virtual economy eats itself like a cancer.

Well in games like this, the control is in the creation of items (ie drops, increasing resource node spawns, etc.).

Trolling is the act of making outrageous claims and not being able to back them up with facts. Anyone savvy enough can make money on the low end without inflating prices on the high end. Many items move so fast that all you really need to do is be quick about it. People are lazy and will buy whatever the going rate is and people that are savvy take advantage of that.

Also, clearly you aren’t even reading post, therefore acting smug. I made no mention to walmart.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ munkiman.3068

Has nothing in being smug, just I see how a group of people are poisoning the market and just wondering why Arena-net wont do anything about it.

Also why are you holding the legendary?

I would use it… Clearly you are trolling or you’re not that smart. No one is inflating the price on legendaries just to make a profit on the low end, learn something about trading. In order for someone to make a profit on the low end by inflating legendaries, they’d have to make a killing, which isn’t happening. Look at the actual cost of goods, before making such grand imagined ideas.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ munkiman.3068 @ Ursan.7846

Oh my… I seemed to hit the Red Alert button for some people. I hope I dont force the idea of removing Legendaries from the Market or Arena-net stepping in putting “their” own version of what the value of the item can go for.

That would so… ruin a lot of profit plans wouldn’t it?

If i get a legendary i won’t be selling it. I agree these items shouldn’t be sold or traded, but i’m not screaming how lop-sided the market is based on gems versus the cost of legendaries either. These are player set prices and no one is buying. Go be smug somewhere else.

Sorry if you look at the history of buy to sell prices you’ll see there have been maybe, at best 12 sold and all far below initial asking price of 9500g. If there is anyone manipulating prices now, they are out of their minds.

Your math isn’t wrong, however you cannot use gem to gold transfer as a basis for worth. And the asking price far exceeds the cost, even if you buy the precursor outright. Gems aren’t the basis on which the games currency standard is balanced.

Wow that’s crazy… and salvaging a legendary only to get 1 t5 wood, seems insane.

Nexun.6932:

Me and my girlfriend have both just tried to buy gems on the gemstore (two different debit cards), but keep getting a “Card failed” error message.

Both cards are in credit etc etc so no problems there I guess.

Is anyone else having issues?

It’s a random issue, i’ve had that when the store is super busy.

Yes, they are a one time use, you can transmute them, but only for one character they are soulbound to. It’s actually a pretty crappy deal IMO. At least with mini pets i can use them on any toon as often as i want.

It’s a WvW staple, it’s going to go wild quiet often.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

I just got the fused skin ticket with one key.. I wasn’t even hoping for it, just waiting until after the patch to make use of the key .. Just in case something new came along..

So either I am ridiculously lucky or you might want to try one key now to see if it’s bugged

My condolences to everyone who dumped tons of cash into the RNG vacuum.

After opening 270 chests before getting one, i got a key for a zone clear, opened one chest and got another ticket. Pretty sure it wasn’t bugged. Not complaining, mind you, i knew what i was in for, plus i got both backpacks, tons of dye and some makeover/name change kits.

PurveyorOfDoom.3746:

Saturn.6591:

PurveyorOfDoom.3746:

A bit worried how the inability to block certain projectiles will effect FoTM game play but I guess we will find out soon enough.

I guess people won’t block the agony-inflicting spheres of that crazy Asura anymore with the help of Guardian skills.

Yea my main is guardian so I want to be relevant! You reflect the agony attack of the grawl boss with the reflect wall and spirit shield helps with old Tom among other things. Time will tell what exactly is unblockable :/

Pretty sure it has to do with the arrows in wvw, it was a tactic to protect siege from arrow cart fire. I’m going to venture a guess that it has little to no affect on most pve situations.

Most games i’ve played that have this type of exchange have bulk pricing. I guess i can see both sides of it, but it does motivate players to spend more to earn more. It’s pretty much a proven thing given the popularity of places like costco. I’d tend to agree being one of those players that tosses some of my disposable income at the game, but i can live without it.

Well if you do that in the trade gems for gold section it doesn’t let you if you’ve waited to long, gives an error, it doesn’t just correct the exchange and give you the current value.

Why not allow both? Seems like a pretty simple solution.