Guild Wars 2

How about a guild with 25 or less members with only 10 online gets a tracker that pings the location of the bounties? This way at least they don’t need the sheer numbers it takes just to hunt most of them down.

The more you all speak of is the hit you take on fees. If you’re crafting an item and not gathering the mats you’re going to lose. It’s up to you to decide if your time is better spent doing something more lucrative. How many hours will it take to gather up a couple stacks of powerful blood so you can craft rares, turn them into ectos and sell those?

Ooshi.8607:

I think they got a city in America that revolves around that exact same concept.

Ha, several actually, gambling is everywhere. This game the base salary of everyone in game is so low, it’s like how popular gambling is in the poor neighborhoods here in the US (the lottery). They feel at least they have a chance to get out of the poor house.

There was a point in time when crafting rares was profitable after salvage, but the material costs have went to the dogs.

Yeah, I just used the feeling of being unfair with the guy sitting at a slot machine for 4 hours and losing, then someone walks up next to him and drops a jackpot on first pull. It feels unfair for sure and definitely will kitten most people off, which is why i question it as a game method for earning a skin, when you know the majority of people are going to feel like losers. Not really something you want your players to feel like.

Nice try Anthony. Yes, keep making the event harder so that smaller guilds have literally no chance at success. This coming from a person in a larger guild that has very little issues doing these. What was the logic behind making them no longer stoppable? Adding more bounties (some can take us the entire 15 minutes to find btw), why was that needed? Like i said, i’m in a large enough guild that can do these (accept when we trigger a bounty that another guild just killed and we have to track it down again) but i can see the OP’s point.

I thought he/she was saying that regardless of hours played RNG sucks and is unfair regardless of time spent in the game. Even though if you had that many hours dedicated to making money in the game you’d have a better chance if you used in game gold, but that’s not really the case since you can buy the keys with cash too. I guess i don’t perceive that as entitlement, more like common sense. Maybe i’m just misunderstanding.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

You make a valid point, but you would also need to take into consideration the cost of creation as well. I haven’t checked, but I would guess that the price of rare greatswords is much higher than the price of rare tridents since there are two highly demanded greatsword precursors.

Edit:

You’d also need to look into crafting materials due to the fact that it may be less expensive to craft those greatswords instead of buying them to throw into the MF.

Being an avid mystic forger and using it actually make money, and a person that watches the TP, and has all his crafting professions, I can tell you that with very few exceptions it’s always cheaper to craft rares/exotics than it is to buy them, simple due to the listing fee. In the cases where it’s cheaper to buy the item i ALWAYS buy out as much stock as possible and flip them past the fee (or toss them in the forge if it’s a short bow) since i know it’s going to settle there eventually. This often happens when mats get scarce.

Edit: BTW, i’m only going for the lover for my wife, i’m not even in the running when it comes to getting a legendary any time soon.

Actually, I think more of the wanted precursors move more as the supply could be higher due to, just suggesting here, people attempt to forge the higher demanded items to make more money based on the same forge rate as the lower demanded ones…. Which you would think would actually bring the costs down :shruggs:

Charismatic Harm.9683:

You’re mistaken in your view that RNG is making it take longer and cost more. RNG, in this case, is intended to keep an item rare by a very low drop rate or chance of creating one via the Mystic Forge.

Your friends who farm 10 hours a day aren’t necessarily “getting lucky”….they’re increasing the probability that RNG will be in their favor with each enemy they kill that has the possibility to drop a precursor. They aren’t the entitled ones. They’re the ones working toward their goals. The entitled ones are the ones that think they too should have an item because other people do.

Entitlement is defined by Merriam-Webster as (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entitlement):
Definition of ENTITLEMENT
1
a : the state or condition of being entitled : right
b : a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract
2
: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program
3
: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

In the case of video games and this discussion, the definitions stated in 1b and 3 are most applicable. So many complaints about precursors and Legendaries are rooted in a players “wants” or what they think they deserve because they purchased the game….not what they actually deserve.

Thanks for you’re opinion on who’s acting entitled. Back to the original point, precursors aren’t legendaries and in my view and MANY others (i won’t use majority anymore) think the method of acquisition is horrible. Anet already knows it and have yet to divulge a solution, so apparently they agree to some extent. For example both those people i mentioned actually got their first from the karka chest and the second one he bought off the auction house the day after the event as the prices plummeted.

No one i know is saying they deserve it more, maybe you perceive it as lazy people acting entitled, which is why i said your view of entitlement is skewed, not the actual definition (thanks again for that btw). A fair method of acquisition in my opinion would be an arduous quest that spawned a chest at the end of it that had, oh lets say a 10% chance to grant you a pre. At least then it would be fun and more equal for everyone. Maybe mix it up a bit depending on which pre you were going for.

Makato.3517:

So looking at the market and i saw a huge spike on April 3. It looks like some one bought out almost all of the scales and then sold only 43 at a set price. …

Maniuplating the market once again ftw

My bad.

They could have fallen down the rabbit hole where all the crystaline dust went.

I’ve gotten 2, one from the BLC dye pack and one as a drop. I might have more in that stack of unid’d dyes i have sitting there for the gift of color.

BTW Raf, you win, since you have 3 lvl 90’s O_o

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Your entire argument seems based on the fact that you want a precursor / Legendary, you want it right now, you can’t afford it, and you’re not willing to put the work required into getting one. That’s called entitlement.

My guess is that you and all of the other entitled players that continue to cry because you don’t have your pretty shiny will eventually make ArenaNet cave and start handing out precursors like candy. When that happens….how quickly will you start complaining that Legendaries are now too easy to get, everyone has one, and they’re far too expensive for how commonplace they are?

You’re ruthless about this entitlement deal. Precursor isn’t a legendary, it’s one of many ingredients it takes to make it. The simple fact it’s based on RNG, is an artificial way to make it take longer and cost more. Regardless i know 2 people working on their second or 3rd, of which play the game close to 10 hours a day and farm, get lucky, then farm more. So those people are more entitled? Because they got lucky? Your view on entitlement is skewed.

Nachtz.4930:

Rashka.7304:

Orangensaft.7139:

Rashka.7304:

Rashka.7304:

Currently i am at 508 rares (19 exo back) and 1408 exotics, no precursor yet.

Up to 624 rares (28 exo back) and 1472 exotics, still no precursor.

both of you spent over 1400 exotics ?

thats like 3000 gold which is like 5-7 precursors depending on which one…

That is naive fallacy because you are not taking everything into account. So far my loss in gold is smaller than the cost of the precursor on TP…

Up to 700 rares (29 exo) and 1476 exotics btw. That was a bad streak of 76 rares and only 1 exo back.

As far as I have been told, the 4 weapons you have to throw in the Mystic Toilet have to have the same stats between eachothers. At least, that’s the only way it worked for me (already got 3 precursors for less than 80 gold, working on my 4th now). It has not been confirmed by any official statement, but that’s what my experience (and my guildies’) say, I may be wrong though. So in your case, what did you throw in the forge ?

This is actually statistically impossible, no matter how lucky, no one is getting 3 pre for 80g… Check your numbers again.

I actually get better exotics back for mixed stats than i do for same stats, on average. But then again i can go awhile and not see an exotic either.

My results are consistent with the BLSK results posted by Geo. For the same item, i get 25%-30% more ecto than items salvaged as if it were clockwork. 200 of the same item will yield me 250-260 ecto without fail. Any larger sample size would probably pin it down to about 27.5%.

Pretty sure i’m in around 200, i may have posted this before. However, people getting chest are buying them off the TP right?

Well, they are for sure making money off me… I’ve spent more than 3 years of WoW sub fees in the gem shop since release. All really based off the assumption that i get what i pay for. Sad really, i want to support this game too.

The tickets should be tradable IMHO, this way i can buy it on the TP for gems i traded for G, win win. They way they cripple players earnings in this game is laughable.

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

And what happens when the majority of your players expectations are out of whack?

I’m not sure why you insist on implying your opinion applies to the “majority” of the playerbase.

I’m not trying to insist on anything really, i still enjoy playing the game and as i mentioned before, i personally don’t have an issue with the OP. I think at this point it’s just an argument for the sake of wanting to be right. I’m only really concerned with the future of the game,

I run a website of about 400 or so members, 90 of which played the game and from that 3 still log in on occasion. Of that 90 the majority of those had long term experience with MMO’s and rpgs of all sorts of flavors. The biggest complaint, it just doesn’t feel very rewarding to play. Another reason i can logically assume this is that anet themselves said (and i paraphrase) “we need to make the game more rewarding for players”. So they patch up rewards from certain chests, which isn’t even the heart of the problem. Ergo, why i’m saying it.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

@munkiman
snip…

Any way you look at it……it’s the players expectations that are out of whack…..not the systems in place currently. While they could probably be adjusted slightly, they aren’t SO broken that they need a complete overhaul.

And what happens when the majority of your players expectations are out of whack? You know the ones that supplement the income of the game by buying gems?

Blame the players all you want instead of the design, i’m sure that’ll get you to the 2 year mark you set up initially for the average player base you lost a year ago.

Hopefully you don’t represent anets outlook. That’s all i got.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

You compare buying things from NPC’s to buying things from the Trading Post. Those are two COMPLETELY different animals.

Increasing your earning potential in game will allow you to more easily pay NPC’s for their goods and services…..so long as those prices aren’t increased by ArenaNet as well.

Increasing your earning potential in game will NOT allow you buy goods from the Trading Post.

While your idea may help the casual player get some of the things in the game, like Cultural Armor, it will not put them on a faster path to acquire things like Legendaries and will actually create a larger disparity between NPC offered items and items from the TP.

You actually touch on the point I’ve been trying to make this whole time. High valued items are valued that way for a reason…..players want them. You say you don’t want to have to get a second job (CoF P1) to pay for them……well, you don’t have to now. All you have to do is extend your timeline for the purchase. If you want it NOW….get a second job. If you’re willing to wait for it….play normally.

You’re starting to sounds like the “who doesn’t want 50% more cash back baby” on the credit card commercial. But seriously, i don’t want to play a job after my real job and if my progress toward my goals are infinitesimal, i won’t be here in the 2 years it takes me to earn a legendary that will be most likely outdated. It’s very un-creative to artificially create this ridiculously long journey based on the fact that the major of your player base is simply to poor to afford it in shorter terms. If i’m feeling rewarded for my efforts (i’m progressing toward my goals), i’m more inclined to stick around.

Most of my working and even non-working guildies that are around my age simply don’t want that non-sense and we are actually the people buying gems to support the game. You can say what you will about the time it takes to earn a virtual item that sparkles, but people that actually value their time and money simply will not be around to support the game in the 2 years it takes to get to complete their goal.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

@munkiman

I fully understand your examples, but those only address the day to day costs of playing. There are a LOT fewer people that complain about those than complain about the pricing of items on the Trading Post.

How would increasing your earning potential affect that? What would the price of precursors, Legendaries, Charged Lodestones and other high end items look like?

People don’t complain because the underlying issue is transparent. If you look at just the cost versus what you have in your account right now, your not going to see immediately that it’s your earnings that’s the problem. No one in game gets a paycheck and obviously people income varies wildly depending on what they do in an average play session. So what do you do, you find ways to earn more money per hour of playtime, but if your base salary goes up and your costs stay the same, that desire to increase your hourly take in is drastically diminished. No longer do you have to work a second job (i.e. cofp1 farming) to earn enough to buy the stuff you want in a more reasonable amount of time.

In going off the base salary of an in-game economy, you can completely ditch the cost increase of goods and services simply since you don’t have to pay npcs more money to create them. So the market that is player driven doesn’t incur the added cost to fabricate these item. If a player is actually earning more per hour as a base, but rarity, cost to manufacture, etc. doesn’t increase or decrease you are left with more items being moved since people can more easily afford them now. If Joe has 100g in his bank and i have 10g the disparity between us isn’t going to increase the cost of goods he or I sell on the TP. Sure the market will go up, but not exponentially, since the entire player base just got an increase in what they earn per hour.

Pandemoniac.4739:

munkiman.3068:

I also mentioned the TP will adjust, but the margin of player earnings versus the set cost to play the game would be higher, increasing overall wealth and bringing a better balance to the TP.

No, it wouldn’t. It would just make things more expensive. If everyone has more money, but the supply and demand remain the same, prices go up.

If every player received 100G for completing their daily, what would happen? No-one in their right mind would sell an item that required a lot more effort than completing a daily for 100G. I know that’s an extreme example, but I don’t think the message would come across in a more realistic example.

The market in GW2 is much more efficient than the market in any other game I’ve played. Things settle out to their real value really quickly for the most part. You can see it in the complaints in the crafting forum that it makes more financial sense to sell the materials than the crafted item.

Making it easier for everyone to make more gold will not get you what you want. The only thing that will bring down precursor prices is to make more supply available, either by increasing the drop rate, or adding a recipe that guarantees a precursor.

Again, and i’m sorry it’s not clear, I’ve made no mention to reducing or increasing the price of TP items on any scale.

There’s a big problem here, people are equating a real life economy with workers and costs of materials which isn’t present in video games, i doesn’t cost the developer more money to repair your items or sell you virtual goods if they increase your earnings. If your base salary goes up, you earn more money, versus what it cost you to play the game, period. Sure the cost of items will go up, but not exponentially. You’ll have more base salary, giving you a higher margin to cost ratio, it’s not rocket surgery.

Let’s take your example 100g for dailies…
Yet the cost to play stays the same, say 50s. This gives you 99g 50s left over after the cost a typical play session focused on making your dailies and logging.

Previously you earned 55s for dailies…
The cost to play is the same 50s. This gives you 5s left to play with.

You see the difference? And no these aren’t realistic numbers, obviously. If you look at the numbers more realistically, you’ll see that the TP prices aren’t going to go up exponentially either, since the cost of the goods hasn’t changed.

“This is where our differences lie.

“I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards in the LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME POSSIBLE.”

This is different then, “I must farm CoF p1 to earn my rewards. Period.”

The first is true. The second most definitely is not, and there is a ton of anecdotal evidence that contradicts the second statement."

I would change your first statement to a “reasonable amount of time” I didn’t even use the second statement.

“You are arbitrarily applying your own time scale of what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable.” Just quick glance at the requirements of a Legendary (250 each of t6 mats? Incredibly rare precursors?) gives you an idea of how long Anet wants the journey to be."

I also mentioned the journey is unreasonably long and far to long to ask of the average casual player. This not to mention the RNG attached to the legendary. when you artificially increase the time it takes to reach a pinnacle of success, most people may not even bother, it is a game after all. Anet has recognized this and have adjusted some things to make people feel like they are progressing toward whatever goal, it’s a a start, but a shallow one. I’d rather have the rare guarantee (off world event chests) to go back to what it was if they increased the average earning potential. it’s like increasing the minimum wage since people cant pay the bills and buy that 50" flat screen, pretty depressing and not something i play a game for.

“You also constantly try to lump the Legendary process with everything else in the game, and that is incredibly misleading. You mention them yourself: Wp costs, repair costs, skill book costs…Those are expenses VERY easily covered by doing anything in the game really. If you want to mention these however, it further dilutes your arguments because these costs are incredibly negligible to an average player.”

I didn’t mention they aren’t easily covered, i said specifically the margin of earnings compared to the cost to play the game are too small, that doesn’t dillute anything. i wouldn’t say VERY easily covered for the average player or that the cost to play is negligible, however. I’ve also said that this really doesn’t have to be about precursors or legendaries or the price of TP items. I think some people take the game and relate it to life standards, people don’t play games (especially fantasy games) cause they want to struggle financially.

I’m wondering if you read my post or all my previous posts. The disparity lies in anets price to play the game versus average player income. This includes WP costs, repairs, costs of handbooks, skills resets, kits, etc. There is a pretty long list of items that are set prices by anet, this is the cost to play the game. When the cost to play margin is narrow, it impacts overall health of the economy and you get reactions like “TP prices are out of whack”, “I have no money”, “i must farm cofp1 to earn for the not even that lofty goal of attaining a set of tier 3 armor for my toon”. I also mentioned the TP will adjust, but the margin of player earnings versus the set cost to play the game would be higher, increasing overall wealth and bringing a better balance to the TP.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

@munkiman

So….what you’re saying is….due to the unrealistic expectations of some of the player base regarding the costs (price and time) of a Legendary, or any pretty shiny, the game developer should fix the prices, methods, or time required to acquire the item so they are easier for everyone to get?

Don’t think of it as easier, think of it as time spent to earn. I’ll give an example of a fix to karma post release. It used to be an exorbitantly long process toward buying karma armor that consisted of farming plinx ad nuseum, but after the introduction of karma rewards anet basically cut the time to acquire to almost 1/3. It didn’t trivialize the content, or make it easier per say, it made the time to acquire shorter. It was really a fundamental flaw in the karma exchange system and I can certainly agree with the change and it actually made the game funner for me. It’s the same with g accept for the TP, prices will eventually increase, but i’m not arguing that the prices in the TP are off. They definitely reflect the game in almost ever way. Since the drop rate on crystaline dusk got the nerf bat, which is far too steep IMHO, you have a similar situation of frustrated players that can’t acquire this widely use crafting material, compounding the already fundamental flaw of the earnings ratio. Anet seems to continue to buff and nerf at almost a random pace never really addressing this fundamental flaw of overall player earnings and every time they do it, it kitten es people off.

They could actually keep this drop rate as is if they just gave us odds. Right now it’s like playing the lotto only they can randomly add or subtract a digit from the draw.

@Charismatic I’ll do the same with the quoting thing.

The disparity between earning potential and cost of product is too far apart. I’m not even talking about legendaries (even though i think 2 years and RNG is ridiculous and an artificial way to keep players playing long term). You can blame player money management issues all you want, it’s like saying the poor are poor because they just don’t know how to manage their measly earnings. Being this is a game, it can be fixed and no one is going to drop dead or be homeless. It’s really that simple and it’s a very common complaint.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Essence Snow.3194:

Pandemoniac.4739:

How would it be different from the listing fee being a percentage of the sale price?

The 15% we have now is a proportional tax…ie…it’s fixed. A progressive tax increases as value of whatever is being taxed increases.

Ah, luxury tax. The oak trees are pollinating around here and it makes me a little slow.

I’m not sure if it will have the effect you want though… If you raise the tax rate too high, more folks become interested in avoiding the tax. You might just end up pushing folks off of the TP and into dark alleys of LA, which will drop the supply, which will raise the price.

Economics is a tricky business. There’s no straight cause and effect, just a bunch of systematic interactions. You poke the market in in one spot and things in six other places change. And then three days later, that one thing you didn’t anticipate sneaks up behind you and bites you in the tookus.

Edit – and one more thought… you can’t change the cost of a precursor or legendary through taxes. You only change the cost of selling it. The cost of creating it remains the same.

I think the thought here was to hamper market manipulation further on high priced high demand items, not in actually changing the cost of the precursor immediately.

There is market manipulation, i’ve seen it done on low cost fast moving items. You can fairly easily artificially increase the value on high moving items for a short period of time simply by buying enough stock and reselling it off at a higher margin. You have to be quick though since high moving items settle just as fast.

Basically you buy enough stock, post some of it at a fair, but higher market value and sell off the lower end, undercutting yourself. This can be seen with the ecto market almost daily, by many. Most of the time it’s not even intentional, people just know it’ll sell eventually since the market moves so fast.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

munkiman.3068:

Would anyone think that the cost of a pre should take the average person almost 2 years to get? Now remember this is just the precursor weapon, not the legendary.

That doesn’t sound unreasonable to me because during the average players quest for a Legendary, they’re going to need to run some dungeons, play WvW, do map completion, and several other things, which in the long run should get them the other things they need to craft their Legendary.

munkiman.3068:

How about say a visions of the mist, a much more reasonable goal at a about 100-150 days?

Again….this doesn’t sound too far off to me.

munkiman.3068:

I’m pretty much saying the average player guild wars 2 caters to is going to look at that and say “no way”. Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Then the goals of these average players outstretch what they are actually able to accomplish. Setting lofty goals is not a bad thing….but setting goals so far out of your reach versus the time you’re willing to spend trying to achieve them is.

Having your eye on “the highest prize(s)” in the game does not automatically give a player the right to “have it”. They’re going to have to work for it. These things we’re talking about aren’t for the faint of heart. They’re for the most dedicated of players. Also, just because other players have it, that doesn’t mean everyone should have it….no matter their method of acquiring it.

Again, this is actually quite unrealistic to expect from the majority of your player base, and generally speaking this game seriously caters to a casual player base, even if you just account the one time cost of the box. I pretty much have given up getting all the achievements in FF13, simply because it felt like a chore and really not worth my time. It be different if it was fun getting there, but the time it took far exceeded the fun value. You may say, so what? its not an mmo… But it’s a game and even anet wouldn’t contest the pure fact that they, even more so than any single player game need to take some of this into account to keep people playing and buy crap off the gem shop. That not to mention even being interested in buying an expansion sometime down the road.

Pandemoniac.4739:

munkiman.3068:

Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Well the folks that see the end game as getting a shiny will leave as soon as they get that shiny or realize it’s unobtainable. Making it easier to get won’t keep them in the game. This is true of any goal that someone perceives as being the win condition for the game. Once you’ve won the game, why continue to play it?

This is solely the responsibility of a developer to provide these carrots to keep people interested in playing their game. If they want new stuff or to try new content then it’s not the players issue in the least. I’m not even suggesting making them easier, but i think we can all agree the earnings of the average player are very disproportionate. The larger a perceived gap is between what someone wants and the reasonable amount of time and effort it takes to get, the less inclined they are to even bother sticking it out at all.

I personally don’t have a goal of legendary any time this year, maybe some time down the road and by then, who knows maybe they’ll develop a skin that i just must have. But, so far i’ve made 2 visions of the mists which actually seem pretty unreasonable cost wise versus what it takes the average player to earn enough to make or buy one. That in and of itself is a developer issue, not a player having too lofty of a goal. The game is actually designed around the shiny, and players do want that, a pretty large majority. So not only does your content need to be fun, your achievements need to be at the very least, realistic. Again, and i can’t stress this enough, this is a game. This isn’t anyone wanting a jaguar on a honda budget. There are plenty of ways to balance these things more toward a reasonable time frame to acquire. It’s a fundamental flaw in the design of the economy, no ones going to starve if anet increases drop rates of g across the board or increase the return on vendor trash. Also realize i’m not really even talking about the market, it’s 100g just for runestones and that’s a fixed price, among many other things like tier 3 weapons and armor, these aren’t even “legendary” type items. Not to mention that if you’re an achievement hound and not a hard core player, the tier weapon/armor achievements are basically impossible.

I’m actually going to give an example of about 20 people i surveyed (i know small amount but still) I think it would be safe to assume that the average player in about 3-4 hours a night, after school or work, earns no more than 1.5g, just “playing the game the way it was meant to be played”. I’m using that since it’s a fairly supported argument.

Would anyone think that the cost of a pre should take the average person almost 2 years to get? Now remember this is just the precursor weapon, not the legendary.

How about say a visions of the mist, a much more reasonable goal at a about 100-150 days?

I’m pretty much saying the average player guild wars 2 caters to is going to look at that and say “no way”. Once they played to the game to the point they are satisfied the “end game” content the shiny stuff, is just so far out of reach, that it completely discourages continuing. I think that is the crux of what I see.

Pandemoniac.4739:

munkiman.3068:

I’ll restate what i’m saying to both the above. What’s broken is the margin between what it cost to play versus what the average player earns.

I’ve given a ton of examples that it’s not broken. I can afford everything I need to play and I probably put less work into earning money than the average player.

munkiman.3068:

It’s not rocket surgery. There are a few things i mentioned that could be changed to help bring this more in-line

But you have yet to convince me that it’s broken. I earn plenty of gold to play the game without doing anything special. I actually waste a lot of money because I don’t want to be bothered to think about the most cost-effective way to get what I want.

Are you annoyed because you don’t have a big pile of gold, or are you really saying that you can’t afford the cost of way points and repairs just by playing the game?

No, it’s the little things that annoy me. Like i mentioned.

I’m not trying to convince you, i see it all the time, the difference is that there is a clear goal for a pretty large player base and that is high ticket items and those require an average player to earn higher margins (versus a reasonable time frame, before they feel as though they aren’t even making progress) which in turn forces them into x to increase those margins. Being this thread is about pres, you can kinda see that these much smaller margins for actually playing the game is causing people to get tired of it. They’ve actually made those margins worse in many ways (DR, only looting a boss chest once a day per toon, among others).

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

these people can obviously afford a loss

Assumption.

munkiman.3068:

buy orders and sell orders are almost 100g difference. It’s staying there since those few people (there aren’t many to begin with) are keeping those prices that high.

Yes, and certain dyes have almost a 100% difference between buy/sell orders. The gap between buy/sell orders is frequently seen in items with low trading volumes. Another assumption you’re making.

It’s okay to not like high prices on the TP. But to blame it on certain specific forces will remain purely speculation, and your argument for it will remain incredibly weak unless you have some substantive evidence supporting your hypothesis.

The difference in a dye that sells for 5s versus a sell order that lists for 10s isn’t a high end margin, the cost to loss ratio is next to nil. We are talking about hanging 62g out on the market, knowing full well it’s going to hold prices high and being able to play in the action end cause you can turn them quick cause it’s a deal. I do it all the time in much lower margin items. It basic economics. Can you afford to hold out an item in a top tier like 62g or more like a few thousand items at 1g margins? There is a big difference there. It doesn’t even matter if only one person is doing it.

I’ll restate what i’m saying to both the above. What’s broken is the margin between what it cost to play versus what the average player earns. It’s not rocket surgery. There are a few things i mentioned that could be changed to help bring this more in-line, like raising the vendor values or making many of the seemingly illogical account bound items on acquire, like kits so i can send my buddy a kitten kit in a dungeon or a orr zerg so he/she doesn’t have to pay a WP cost just to get a kit to salvage their junk to make more room for more junk. Silly things like that are frustrating annoyances that make the game less fun to me on top of costing players their earning margins.

I’m definitely not denying Charismatic you’re not going to please every playstyle and not every playstyle should be lucrative, but if the very base of the economic system’s fundamental flaw is it’s balance, your going to see this more often than not.

Vol.5241:

munkiman.3068:

Interesting, what’s wrong with it? It’s a game, the goal of anet was in fact to enjoy the game, but look at this forum section alone. How many posts are about the money? Or how screwy the economy is? Is it anets goal to have a community of poor players? Sure seems that way.

I’ll give you an excellent example too, the borderland series. Not once did i ever worry about revive costs, i always had money and could simply play the game and not even worry for one second about what it’s going to cost me to die. If i WvW and don’t make up my repair costs, that’s an issue. One super basic thing that would help is increase vendor return, more silver per item would float the population without touching costs of WP’s, repairs, consumables, etc. It might even make crafting a little less hard hitting to the wallet.

Again, it’s a game, to use all these analogies to real life economics and social classes just shouldn’t be the case. I can quite a game, quitting life on the other hand isn’t really an option.

Borderlands is not an MMO, it’s as simple as that. They don’t need to worry about the economy in that game.

Borderlands is a game and the devs could have easily made the margin between the cost of bullets versus the sell price of weapons be much tighter, therefore forcint the player to actually worry about the cost of paying revive bills, restocking ammo and buying upgrades. There’s nothing in my argument that states borderlands is an mmo therefore it should be compared as such.

Ursan.7846:

munkiman.3068:

It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru).

No. This is an assumption you are making. As I stated earlier in this thread, you cannot possibly gauge just how the activities you describe actually impact prices.

By high end i mean the highest seller prices, these people can obviously afford a loss while you can look at the data that they aren’t moving as the difference just in the price of dawns buy orders and sell orders are almost 100g difference. It’s staying there since those few people (there aren’t many to begin with) are keeping those prices that high. I’m not poor but i could barely afford to even list a pre at that price let alone buy one.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Pandemoniac.4739:

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

This brings us full circle to….“There’s nothing ArenaNet can do about it.”

I say this because right now, Anet has players threatening to leave the game because certain things are too difficult to obtain. On the other hand, I’m sure a LOT of people WOULD leave the game if Anet made these items too easy to obtain.

I’m sure they’ll take the “threat” of players leaving the game over players ACTUALLY leaving the game anytime.

I’m going to explain, in my eyes how we got here from your OP of “nothing wrong with the supply and demand on pres” by restating that unless the data supports the “hidden” transactions of the sell to the highest bidder, it’s fundamentally flawed. It’s quite clear that the cost of pres at least on the high end are controlled be a few and they got there by playing the game a very specific way that’s been funneled into a very few things (ie farm cof p1 ad nauseum, buy gems, buy g illegally or be a trading guru). I’ll also restate that this is a game and as a game people tend to gravitate toward the goal of achievements and those are set by the designer of that game, along with the gold sinks versus what it actually cost to play. My argument points to the fact that there are a lot vocally of poor players and a lot of complaints about how unbalanced the economy actually is and it’s only getting worse. If your game (and these are just random numbers) has 400 uber rich and 10,000 uber poor, you’re game is not going to be fun anymore for either of those player brackets.

Pandemoniac.4739:

I’m not poor, and I do neither X nor Y, so I disagree with your underlying assumption that game mechanics are keeping players poor. GW2 is different from the other games you listed because it includes a simulation of a real economy in it. You have to have gold sinks to siphon off all the gold that materializes out of thin air when a player kills a mob and gets a drop. What’s the point of having a huge pile of gold if you aren’t going to spend it on something? Am I poor if I only have 10G in the bank, but I’ve got a bunch of characters outfitted with rare gear?

When desirable items are rare, they are expensive. There’s absolutely no way around that. If you make it easier for players to earn gold, the rare desirable things will just get more expensive. If you make them less rare, then the folks that enjoy expending the effort to get the rare things won’t have anything to work toward and the game will get a lot less fun for them.

I’m not poor either really, I’m also not arguing for or against the rarity of items and their inherent values in the global economy, I’m saying the balance is off, and i’m pretty sure anet knows it.

The idea of getting a legendary isn’t on my priority list of things to do, i’ll get there eventually, so i’m not even arguing over the costs of them. I personally think they should be bind on acquire and just because you can afford to buy gems to get enough G or farm your face off daily, shouldn’t be a factor in the acquisition of them. The focus is on legendaries for a very large player base because that achievement is literally in your face every time you switch toons. It’s not for everyone, but nether is PVP, in no way am i even suggesting that.

Are there people that suck with money? sure. That’s not even the point, the point is the economy is designed as such to basically funnel players into a certain play style or suffer for it. If the player base is earning toward their goal, no matter what style they choose, you wouldn’t be seeing as many threads about it. If RNG wasn’t the only factor in getting pres you wouldn’t have kitten off players. There are admittedly very poor design choices at work here.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

munkiman.3068:

Interesting, what’s wrong with it? It’s a game, the goal of anet was in fact to enjoy the game, but look at this forum section alone. How many posts are about the money? Or how screwy the economy is? Is it anets goal to have a community of poor players? Sure seems that way.

The point of those threads are NOT about money in general. Those threads are about the money it costs to buy the prettiest shinies in the game….the luxury items. They never talk about not being able to afford WP travel, repair costs, or things like that. If they did, then I might incline to agree with you that the money generated by playing the game normally is out of whack. It’s not though. A player can earn MORE than enough money to fund day-to-day costs. When those same players play recklessly and die a lot causing higher repair costs, or travel around using WP’s to chase event chains…..they’re simply not spending their money wisely. That too is not a fault of the economy or the developer. That is the fault of the player.

Edit: After posting, I noticed you replied to a post of mine, but everything I stated above also applies to your reply.

Guild treks are a good example of very unprofitable returns, you have a time limit and have to WP to get nothing in return. Sure you can sit there and farm some mobs and make up for it. Will people? Prolly not, since they don’t want to have to think about it. I spend enough time in real life thinking about money.

In any case, maybe you haven’t been around the forums long, but there are actually a great deal of threads complaining about WP costs, repair cost, money sinks, etc. There are also plenty of threads about how people only have 8g and how can i make money so i can gear my toon out in exotics (or earn enough to get a craft to 400). It’s a rat race and there are a good number of people way behind, many simply just quit altogether. That’s absolutely reflected in the recent patches (guaranteed rares from boss chests among others).

Keeping in tune with this supply and demand deal, it’s all about the economics of it, people aren’t playing games to not show off their accomplishments in it. And, yes you should absolutely have fun getting there, its a game after all. The way it’s designed can be changed, the actual economy can be fixed, cause it’s a game! There are far too many people completely sick of RNG, completely sick of the cost of crafting, sick of the cost of mats, etc. That shows to me that there is something wrong, even though i’m not in total agreement with it either.

Every game (and you can google it) that’s available in Vegas (or anywhere really) have instantly calculable odds (even blackjack you can ask the deck count and figure out the odds). In many cases odds are posted right at the table or on the boards. Even the lotto has odds, they are horrible odds, but they are readily available ones.

So yes, odds here are a complete unknown, literally.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

Pandemoniac.4739:

The problem isn’t that players can’t earn gold fast enough. The problem is that the majority of players don’t know how to manage the gold they do earn.

This is an EXCELLENT point!!!!

Part of earning money is not spending it the second you earn it. If more players would put their purchases on hold for the time being, they’d see their bankrolls expanding to a point where they probably COULD afford one or two of the pretty shinies they want. Will they get everything they want? Probably not. SHOULD they get everything they want? Again….probably not. They WILL get everything they need, some things they want, and with diligent saving….a few of the things they covet most.

In no way am i talking about the speed of earning, or even with arguing over the cost of pre’s, my beef is with the flaws in the system that keep players poor unless they do x or y. Honestly, this is the only game (mmo or not), besides simcity (which is all about earnings and keeping a tight budget) that i’ve actually spent time thinking about the financial aspect of a game, not even GW1.

Interesting, what’s wrong with it? It’s a game, the goal of anet was in fact to enjoy the game, but look at this forum section alone. How many posts are about the money? Or how screwy the economy is? Is it anets goal to have a community of poor players? Sure seems that way.

I’ll give you an excellent example too, the borderland series. Not once did i ever worry about revive costs, i always had money and could simply play the game and not even worry for one second about what it’s going to cost me to die. If i WvW and don’t make up my repair costs, that’s an issue. One super basic thing that would help is increase vendor return, more silver per item would float the population without touching costs of WP’s, repairs, consumables, etc. It might even make crafting a little less hard hitting to the wallet.

Again, it’s a game, to use all these analogies to real life economics and social classes just shouldn’t be the case. I can quite a game, quitting life on the other hand isn’t really an option.

You’re all really forgetting the point here. I’m not talking about being middle class, I could easily spend a thousand bucks on gems right now and have plenty of money in game. I know plenty of hard cores that are basically always broke (or almost always). Anet did start buy offering better rewards from the big chests and that’s a good start. But this topic being about supply and demand, you’re seeing some pretty wealthy people posting precursors, and many that might even get one (this middle class casual), may not even have the listing fee and is forced to play outside there normal zone of play just to get enough to list it. It’s downright silly. There are plenty of discussions about how to fix things, they aren’t broken per say, but there are far too many things in the game now that disparage even modest wealth. I’m not really belly aching about it at all, i do fine with it for the most part. But, there are some silly things that are in the game currently that really make trying for them a waste, since you’re just never going to get there unless all you do is grind/farm. You’re right, you can easily play most content with greens… Not sure how that’s even a point to be made. This game focuses on skin acquisition and for the majority of the player base to miss out on the main focus of the game seems pretty irrational. Do you not think tier 2-3 gear is a bit overpriced? how about the priory/vigil/whisper skins?

There’s one thing i’d immediately change, and that’s the logic behind what’s account bound on acquire and what’s not. Why are unused kits and harvesting tools account bound on acquire and legendaries not? Why can’t i send my buddy a kit in a dungeon? Is it better he pay waypoint costs just to fetch one or buy a merchant off the Gem store? Let’s not even talk about the exuberant cost of gems now….

Should the wealth be able to afford a legendary as an option? Seriously? But i can’t send a kit to someone…

I have about the same results as you with the chests. Although i did manage to get 2 pink quaggen, which made it feel less icky. I have so many boosters now, it almost feels like they are multiplying…. Stack of tonics, yup those too.

While i completely agree with you, there is a pretty big disparity between the wealthy and the poor. The game really doesn’t have solid ways to earn a living, so to speak, which is why there are complaints on the costs (ectos are pretty crazy right now). There are an extreme amount of money sinks in the game (crafting, waypoint costs, repairs, consumables, etc) that the average and in many cases “hard working” players really never break the 100g barrier, many not even the 40g one. 100g in this game is measly pittance really when you take in the account of what it cost to play the game and acquire the goods you want to keep you playing. Instead of a gear treadmill, most players carrot on a string is entirely based on RNG, which in my opinion is a million times worse than running some uber elite dungeon for better gear, over and over. There are a lot of complaints on this, yet Anet continues to add more and people keep buying gems, which basically says, it’s ok to do it this way. I too buy gems, because i do support the game, but not as much because i agree with certain aspects of how it’s dished out. But, i can tell you i won’t do it for long.

I bought keys, both with G and with real currency. I’m sadden by the extremely low drop chance on the tickets. I realistically assumed if i bought a stack of chests and a stack of keys i’d be kitten certain to get one, but that’s simply not the case. Luxury item or not, that’s a lot of bucks to shell out for a skin that only has a very slight chance to drop. Basically disproving any faith i might have had in the system of these chests. This is gambling really in every sense of the word and it’s definitely not something i want to be doing with my money.

Another thing i did was buy a crap ton (over 50) BLSK when gems were low (under 90s) and i’m still turning tons of profit off them. I also, even now, buy keys and sell off skins (backpacks mostly) and get more kits as a small bonus. BLSK’s are probably the most profit margin you can earn if you get the kits dirt cheap. I won’t say how exactly but i turned about 16g using 3 kits (which is about 30g something to buy right now). Obviously buying them outright is a loser and mystic kits, if you get supremely lucky will net you a much smaller margin. There is a fairly high risk involved here, but i can guarantee you can make some good dough off a BLSK, especially if you get them for free.

Orr farms and Plinx for both karma and money are still quite profitable, although i haven’t run them in a long time. But you’re all correct in as much as the cost of these weapons far overcome the even higher than average income of the player base. What we have in GW2 is similar to what’s going on in American economics, there are just too many poor players and very few middle wealth players. I still don’t doubt the high wealth players to be either extremely lucky (won the lotto) or extremely well versed in trading practices. The ones that actually “labor” basically have a tough time, financially. It’s pretty much a world problem and it’s very similar in this game.

Astral Projections.7320:

They did say rare. But there’s rare and there’s RARE. They should let the buyers know the odds. It’s one thing to gamble for 1 in 10 odds, another for 1 in 100. People are entitled to know which it is before they spend their money. It’s odd, and somewhat suspicious, that ANet refuses to let the buyers know what the drop rate is.

Pretty sure everything in Vegas has known odds (or at the least calculable), not sure why we can’t get the same treatment. People are spending money on some unknown chance (i’ve gotten the pink quaggan backpack at least). Saying rare chance just doesn’t cut it. Pretty sure i’ve opened close to 200 chests, that’s umm more than rare. I’ve tossed 200 short bows in the forge, is it THAT rare a chance? What’s more rare than rare? Obviously rare means a lot of different things in this game, rare items that are guaranteed to drop from world event chests aren’t really that rare anymore.

Tossed in another 50 short bows this morning and nada. Although i did manage to make a fairly good chunk back selling off the exotics it’s still a total bummer.