Any method besides random drop of ascended needs to include dragonite, bloodstone and empyreal. Those are what makes ascended something you earn via gameplay. They also need to make the other pieces require as much effort or more as earning 10 to 12 times 4 gold (cost of the buyable crafting mats) + an ori imbued inscription.
That said, I do feel ascended was introduced rather mechanically, with no lore or place in the world. Yes they must consider the economics, but also the rpg element.
I agree the current gear situation doesn’t really eork if you play different builds. I reccomend they add a charachter bound stat unlock system, maybe you can only access it in specific places, and it may use some high end items like bloodstone bricks. But, it needs to be done. The gearing system is blocking horizontal progression, experimentation and playing different game types
I call BS. Because again, Teq IS NOT HARD. The difficulty comes in the DPS check, and the AFK check.
The difficulty is not based on any kind of mechanics, jump spamming when waves come and not standing in kitten is not exactly rocket brain surgery.
“Hard” or not is relative really. You may not find it difficult, someone else may. Others may consider only the required coordination to be the hard part. Either way, Teq is no longer a ‘stand and spam’ boss. You have to have reliable people on the turrets. You have to have decent players defending those turrets. All in addition to having people beating on him. You then need to have reliable communication to split to defend the batteries.
No, it is not rocket science. It is not brain surgery. Hell for some people, they might consider those things easy in comparison. It’s different for each participant.
And you don’t see a problem with making a world boss like this? “Fun and open content for all players” was the idea that Anet put forth.
It’s no longer true for Tequatl. Looking at the site posted by the guy above, some servers have only killed it ONCE. That kind of seems like badly designed content to me.
except fun is different for different people. For a lot of people auto win events arent really fun, they just do them because it gives them loot. Also for previous posts about difficulty, no tequatl isnt kitten an individual level, but it is difficult on a group level.
You need your defenders repairing and defending making sure as little collateral dmg as possible happen while fighting in the right amounts.
you need your turrets properly rotating skills and keeping poision off the dps zerg
you need your dps zerg placing mass amounts of revives and heals, while jumping waves and burning down.
you need to properly defend the laser cannons when that event happens.
you need everyone to smash him as hard as possible when he is weak, then get back into their standard roles in between.
It takes organisation, which is difficult. It takes a community to work together. It is actually, in a community way one of the better things they have done. Even though it doesnt get beat as much as old tequatle, people must band togther every day to succeed, they see new people and interact with them, pug players who actually want to win are welcomed and instructed on how to win the fight. People said they couldnt and wouldnt have any open world content that was difficult, or required more to win than getting a massive amount of people to AA, this proved that wrong.
Dont get me wrong, i dont think all content should be like this, and while I personally dont find being a single cog in a massive machine that entertaining, i can see that some of this huge organizational, work as an army thing should logically be in the game. And it really is better than afk shooting.
Id like to see future events for large groups making use of different mechanics, perhaps having multiple big enemies to fight at once. Perhaps creating a support/survival focus instead of a dps focus. Pehaps some events not built around 1 mega boss in an open field, but a large number of people organizing to capture a castle/enemy strong hold(in pve)
anyhow, i think the biggest problem with tequatl is the current level of pre waiting it requires, you essentially have to sit around for 1.5 hours in a specific zone to do the event. part of this is due to lack of a pre event.
Personally, I’ve seen a fair few people wearing Phoenix armor, an occasional person wearing Krytan armor, and a rare few people wearing the other types. This absolutely pales in comparison to the number of people I see wearing Temple Armor (all armor classes,) Gladiator Armor, Citadel of Flame Armor (all armor classes,) Duelist Armor, Tier 3 Human Cultural Armor (Always female, of course, light or medium,) Order of Whispers (Medium) Armor, Conjurer Armor, pretty much any female crafted armor, and light Arah armor. And those are just the really common ones.
Point is, the idea that the best armor sets are relegated to the gem store, and that masses of people are paying for them in a “pay to win” scenario is, in my evaluation, ridiculous. The gem store armors are a small part of the full set of armors in the game, and a small portion of the armors that seem to get used the most. Could it be because they’re expensive? Maybe, but a lot of people don’t seem to have trouble coughing up the dough for cultural armor or flashy weapons that cost more than multiple gem store armor sets, whereas relatively few people even seem to like the Aetherblade suits.
If people being able to purchase items with real-world money somehow devalues that item for you, I think you’re putting too much stock in “exclusivity” of whatever it is. There are a ton of flashy items (high-end weapons, titles, dungeon armor) that can’t be practically bought with real-world money by most people, so I don’t see why it’s so absolutely necessary that all new armor sets, armor sets that were not in the game at the time of purchase, be exclusively un-buyable for real world money, either.
the main issue is that they havent really added too many cool new looks, even counting store armor, you really only have 5 sets, 3 of which have the same theme. the side issue which is related, is that they have added nothing in game. The real thing developers should take away from the OP is
he feels like we havent had much new armor, and that he enjoys looking forward to new armors that he can get while doing new interesting things in the game.
I feel similar, i really dont have beef with some TP armor, i even have one set, but i dont think that most armor should be introduced by TP alone. The world is enriched more by having things that are created within it, from game activities. Getting a lucky drop, earning though mass killing, finding in a hidden area, creating out of component pieces, makes the game feel richer. This is subjective of course, mathematically it doesnt matter how its obtained, or whether its source is a random drop/token/craft or what you buy with real money, but it just doesnt feel the same for a lot of people. Doesnt make them want to play more.
With the ability to purchase gem shop armor with gold earned in game I am not certain that the distinction between in game armor and gem shop armor holds up. You can get armor skins introduced after launch by playing the game.
many people find armor obtained mostly through gold not to be as entertaining. This is why the best armor in games tends to be crafted/drops/gated content. Because it enriches the world, its not so much just the gold angle but thats all there is to it. Also lets be clear, only 5 armor sets have been added via gem store after opening game. 3 of them have the same theme, soooo still not really growing much in terms of new appearance options
the key is armor is supposed to be part of the progression of your charachter according to developers, something you work towards. They definately have poor tools for this type of content (no wardrobe inventory issues, stat issues) but their implementation post launch has been pretty poor for this type of progression armor wise.
Tiererd armor was essentially a gold grind, each teir gets higher, and the achievement or progression here was essentially about, how much extra gold can you get? Not really my cup of tea, but even so it would have been better if they also tied it to the world/story/npcs as i said.
dungeon armor represented which dungeons you played and how much you played them. Or dungeon progression
karma armor was based on dynamic event participation and karma gain, or exploration and open world involvement progression
level 80 drop only armor was based on either luck, or trade post value the players decided
Gem store armor though, doesnt really represent any progression, the gem system is designed to adapt to the amount of gold people generally have, and how much they value gems as a whole. So the price doesnt really represent the rarity and desire thing that well. Its not tied to any ingame activities so it doesnt reward most game play. Im not saying it shouldnt exist, im merely saying it doesnt work as a progression mechanic as the game said they wanted to have.
look at gw1 elite armors, they required you to get to a certain point in the story, gather rare items from that expansion, a certain amount of cash etc. They were tied to specific npcs, or even factions, where they made sense to be. You get norn armor from progressing to a certain level in norn areas.
yea they need more armor, and they need it tied to progression in the game.
I am nostalgic in a way that it was really cool to 2 man this dragon. I also have never hit a group that took off more than 25% of its hp. I am glad that there is a large co-ordinated target for those looking for it, just wish I could get the luck to join in such an event.
the tequatl forum had people organizing for it, i think they need to return the sub forum, or designate one for similar types of content
ok some things people may not know.
tequatl is not a gear check beating the timer is more about coordination/how well you execute the fight than gear.
its highly probable that it could be beat by 60 people. I say this because some groups have now beat it with up to 8 minutes left, since i believe each map only holds like 130 people at max, that means best case scenario they probably could do it with less than half that, or 65ish people.
tequatl is not designed to need a focused guild, in fact, when people beat it regularly, they often have many non guild people there, the key difference is, the people need to want to win, and they need to listen to instructions.
The truth is, all you need for tequatl is about 5 people who will lead, and a bunch of people who will follow. This is how arena net wanted it to be done. You take your guild of say 20, you tell people you are going to do tequatl, you tell people in the zone, in LA, etc. You have your 5 officers explain the fight and lead the event. Now people are pulling together, interacting socially, and doing an event focusing on tasks. People are getting introduced to new people etc. This is not the type of thing that should be only instanced. It really fits the idea of a “world boss” well, especially in GW2 way, since all people can work together, without being in a party, or a guild. The experience is not something you duplicate in an instance, it not even something you duplicate via a guild, because this is open to anyone there.
now they have some issues, they dont have a strong world announcement system for these type of events, the event should have a pre event, or should stay ready until the event is actually attempted, since its on a 15 min timer you basically have to be there right as it happens, remember anet you didnt want people to be waiting around waiting all the time.
The game really does need more of this in the open world, not necessarily the same set up, but something that involves the coordination of the guilds, and the normal populace to defeat. Things that push players to play better and evolve. That said it shouldnt be everywhere, or super common. It may have been better if this was designed into new content, but there is something to be said for the most feared and unbeatable things that lore wise have eliminated armies to not be one of the actual easiest encounters in the game.
After reading this part of the forum, it all seemed like nearly everyone loves the new Tequatl: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/tequatl
What has happened?
Somehow it seems that those of us who has found new Tequatl unfun were right…
got to remember different people have dif opinions, some people hate it, some love it.
backpacks get in the way, new animations required for pulling it, and that picture shows an armor graphic, he never actually used those weapons. highly unlikely/unfeasible
Southsun and Halloween both had shoulder skins, and I seem to remember Southsun having aqua breathers and some kind of tiki mask.
It might be more accurate to say that armor sets haven’t been added to the game, although I think Fortus raises a good point about gem store armor costing substantially less than tier 3 cultural armor. (~36 gold for new gem store armor, 119 for a cultural suit. Yeah.) You have to apply the gem store armor skins to a separate set, admittedly, but if you’re dropping 119 gold on armor, you’re probably going to transmute it onto something exotic anyway, rather than just wear rare-level stats that may not fit your build anyway.
I’d like to see more in-game sets added, of course, but there’s already a decent selection (in my opinion) and adding new, complete armor sets is relatively expensive, so I see why they generally end up in the store, while in-game pieces end up just being pieces, rather than sets.
That said, look at the reaction the ascended armors seem to be getting. At least on the board threads I saw, the reaction was largely negative, so it bears keeping in mind that just because new armor gets added doesn’t mean any individual player is going to like that new set more than the ~37 alternatives they already had when the game shipped.
That’s only counting the options available to a character of a particular race and gender. Subtract two order sets if you’ve already picked an order, add 4 cultural sets if you haven’t picked a race. Throw your hands up in the air and abandon efforts to count easily if you want to count armor that looks different between genders. Six new armor sets have been added to the gem store, along with the three that are already there. They’re not always considered to be “in-game,” but, I might repeat, they’re still 30% the price of tier 3 cultural armor, and even cheaper for the Legacy sets.
i dont think cultural armor is introduced into the game that well, it should probably have been tied to some type of story/lore/location/npcs to make it more interesting and enhance the world.
Here is my concern.
Normally we would be looking at an expansion in the works or possibly close to release. This would probably give us a variety of things including new armor in the game. (Not gem store, but earned in the game)
We’ve seen a few skins with achievements, aqua breathers, set of gloves, and shoulder piece. Ascended whenever that hits. (next month I would guess) I do not consider back pieces to be armor, they are accessories to me. We’ve seen a lot if not too many of those released.
How many new armor pieces in game would you expect to see in an expansion?
I am not sure, but I would expect more than 4 skins and 3 aqua breathers. These aren’t even full sets but pieces.
Can the living story provide these things outside of the gem store?
I am not sure that it can. Or that they will. I understand that armor takes up a lot of resources to produce. Six pieces per set, they have to fit all the characters etc.
Players would be or are ok with them in the gem store. At the same time give us more to earn in game. Earning gold to convert to gems isn’t nearly as exciting as getting an armor drop, or even a token system. Dungeons in general are very lacking in the area.
With the recent exception of TA (possibilities of new weapons). The other dungeons don’t drop anything. You get a bag that is under whelming. Perhaps I am too WOW ingrained. I kill a dungeon boss and I know he is going to drop something cool. Might not be for my class but he drops something. (fixed loot table)
Each of those dungeons have a token system. Why not have that armor drop and have it account bound?
there should probably be around 8 new armor sets a year. And yeah getting something from normal game play is generally more fun than spending gold or rl money for a lot of people.
Yay shoulders, aqua masks, helms, gauntlets and backpacks that generally don’t mix well with anything else (kind of like the chaos gloves in GW1).
However, gem store armor, for anyone who played GW1 think about that : if you wanted a 15k you had to farm. 60 k + mats didn’t miraculously appear in your storage without farming. Just like 800 gems don’t. My main complaint (aside that I don’t really like what was released) is that you have to buy the whole sets even if you are interested in only one or two pieces.
But then, when I see what we are going to get…Yep we’ll have new armor sets, too bad they don’t look good.
yea, the design on ascended seems to be largely unliked by most. This is why i think they need multiple people producing more armor. they say armor is costly, and we end up wasting that time and resources on an armor no one really likes.
I reccomend they set up some in game voting systems, tie it to the black lion trading post, since that appears to be fairly web based. Every couple of months players could vote on the best concept designs. They can also add new unseen armors so everything isnt predictable, and also not just the most popular, but at least 1 set during a time frame would probably be appealing to most players.
I seem to remember gauntlets and shoulders you can get from achievement points, gauntlets from flame and frost, shoulders from the Scarlet invasion, and armor in the cash shop.
So not zero.
so we can say 0 sets from normal game play?
the point is really they have not expanded peoples visual appearance options much since launch, while armor does take longer, i think they should realease more than 0 new appearances.
Also i highly reccomend they make a visual appearance tab, where you can unlock armor and freely change appearance, they can tie it to transmutation stones, but the current system is very unwieldly, if you like two armor sets visually you have to carry around/store 6 pieces, and you cant choose you appearance even if you do, because each look will be tied to certain stats.
They should basically revert Tequatl back to how it was, but add the new version as a “guild raid”, which you can enter like a “guild rush” or “guild puzzle”.
does there really need to be another faceroll press 1 afk world boss? we already got like 10 other events where the only thing you need to do is show up and you win. Nothing is really gained by having another autowin boss. You really need 1 more rare that badly? If they revert it, all the rewards and achievements to go with it would as well, so no one would really even want to do it except for an easy rare
As I’ve said in other threads: I’ve been doing world bosses since they had like a .001% chance to even give a rare, just because they were fun. If there actually were ‘press 1 afk’ people playing them, they were the people I’d have to res at the end of the fight because they were doing it wrong. The change to Teq has basically removed an event that I had fun with…oh yeah I could jump through procedural hoops to wait an hour to try to fight him on a server that can beat him, but I’d rather have fun with the limited time I have to play the game rather than stand around to wait for a fight that’s actually very easy mechanically.
you still have the vast majority of those events, and while in small groups, with 5-10 people doing these events its entertaining, almost all of them become incredibly boring with 40+ people there. Shatterer is a prime example. afk fight almost completely.
The game world is enriched by having a greater variety of content, of varying difficulty. Now i dont think every world boss should be like tequatl, but some of them should be tough fights in the world, that need coordination.
yea they need to get the armor design guys rolling, and they probably need to release multiple at once, because looks are subjective. I fully understand the amount of work they have to do with clipping and whatnot, but yeah, its been a year.
As far as having to design for multiple races, i think everyone would be ok if they started making more racial gear. while its nice to have a version of armor for every race, people like having more options more than having less options that everyone can use. Not to mention for charr and a lesser extent asura, most armors that work well for them dont work well for other races, and vice versa.
Also they should look to add more variety. medium needs more gear without a big trench coat or tail, or long coat.
They should basically revert Tequatl back to how it was, but add the new version as a “guild raid”, which you can enter like a “guild rush” or “guild puzzle”.
does there really need to be another faceroll press 1 afk world boss? we already got like 10 other events where the only thing you need to do is show up and you win. Nothing is really gained by having another autowin boss. You really need 1 more rare that badly? If they revert it, all the rewards and achievements to go with it would as well, so no one would really even want to do it except for an easy rare
The difficulty isn’t the only problem. It’s the reward. I’ve done him half a dozen times (not on my own server mind you, I had to guest) and have received nothing of any value. I’m not doing it again when I can capture 4 towers or kill 4 champions and get equivilent loot for MUCH less effort.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t a traditional MMO. There isn’t a real gear treadmill in this game. There’s no reason these things shouldn’t have a near 100% chance to drop loot with a rare chance of the unique tequatl skins.
These bosses need to be removed from the real world and placed inside a instance. It may require a UI rewrite and some actual effort, but there shouldn’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind that Tequatl was a complete and utter failure. Just like a lot of their most recent changes.
Tequatl… failure.
Bloodlust… failure.
Oct 15th balance patch… we’ll see.
what good is removing it from the game world? people who play mostly open world content have been hollering about 1 afk play for months. truth is open world people need to learn that they are pretty bad, and need to improve. The fight really comes down to coordination, very simple stuff.
main zerg dps/heal/revive
small teams protect the yurrets
gunners follow a rotation to keep armor down, remove poison, damage
tequatl isnt unbeatable, or even really that hard. Its mostly about organization. As for the number of people required, i think they said its 80, after that i think scales up to like map limit.
the people who want to beat it now, are spread out among different servers and all meet up, this means, many servers populations of people who want to do it, do it elsewhere.
the biggest error i feel is having a timed event without a pre event, and also now they dont even announce tequatl. The overflow issue isnt optimal, but its probably the best solution, i doubt many servers have 100 people at the same time that want to do a difficult event they may fail very often, when you take the 24 or so NA servers, you can probably field 4-5 overflows at peak time.
However i think its a lot better for the game to have some hard content, Some things should be a little harder to achieve. In one year people still havent learned sometimes its better to waypoint than to stay dead on the floor for 70% of a fight. The only way people will get better is if some things in the game require it.
while i wouldnt make the whole game like this, having a few events on this level is good for the game i think
tldr:
gems to gold arent the real problem
anets new content tends to fail at being an rpg
gem store or not, most new additions are very poorly connecting and developing the world.
whether they make an expansion or not isnt the real issue, they need to get better at delivering content.
No I did pay for the game and I am willing to pay for the expansions. I do not pay for a cash-shop and I don’t like the bad influence the cash-shop focus has on the game.
Gold-driven system.. gold is imo to important in this game. I want to be able to go out in the world to get the items I need there, but farming for gold works better, however is for me less fun. A very gold driven system however means there is a bigger reason to buy gem to convert to gold. (You see my connection here).
Mini’s. I like (well in other mmo’s) to collect mini’s. Do dungeons, find them in the open world or in a few cases even farming the hell out of one type of mobs and even NPC’s all over the world that sell them. You have a reason to go to them and you even get a connection because you remember them (WoW example because most people here will know that. The snake selling NPC in the back of Orgrimmar that walks up and down the road. I remember him only because he tunred out te be selling snakes) In GW2 there are only a limited amount of mini’s in the open world but many in the gem-store. And then there where mini’s in RNG boxes you could buy in the gem-store and so on. They know some people want mini’s and they need to make money so they put them in the gem-store. Once again you see the connection I am seeing.. even if you do not agree.
Now this hairstyle for example. Personally I don’t care that much about them. I have some transfer kit in my bank and won’t be using it but I do think this game would be a better game if there would be barbers in the game where you can change your hair and some new hair-styles ones in a while would be a nice addition to that. Of course they focus on gem-sales so they need to make money on the hair so no barber where you go all the time and sometimes notice new haircuts. No, gem items that allow me to change my hair.
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Im not disagreeing with the idea that arena nets handling of how they put content in the game is sometimes poor, but im not sure how related it is to the gem store. The problem is you see gems as real money items, when in fact they are a mix. You can get gems with gold, so what gems become, is a different type of currency, whose value is based on the desire people have for a few select goods. You can think of it like, japanese yen, if you want to buy some things, you can only get in japan, you have to change your dollars to yen, and how many dollars you get is based on the percieved value of japanese items versus the percieved value of american items.
The real point of my explanation is, it doesnt really matter if some people can buy these items with real cash, as long as you can change gems to gold. (As long as the ratio in earnings doesnt go crazy) You do get a situation where people with vast quantities of ingame money may be setting your prices, but this is not different than normal, the most wanted items in an mmo, are often determined by the people with the most gold.
Now the real issue i believe is two fold, i agree with you, this game is extremely gold centered, almost everything in the game can be achieved through gold, and those that cant, usually have a tie in to gold. This does benefit the cash shop, but the biggest benefit comes simply because in this game, even minus the gem shop, gold has value. Its value is fairly stable, and time spent earning gold therefor has real value, This means people want in game gold. The problem is, while its a really strong in game economy, it makes a lot of content feel meh. When you analyze it, your usually better off farming than doing anything yourself.
The other facet, and i think this is the big problem, anet has been really bad at putting their new content in the game world in a fitting and interesting way. I dont think this is really tied to gems, they seem to be missing the middleman between the content designers and the world/lore people. Most of the content added after release is thrown in without much context or world interaction. Why is there dragonite/ empyreal/ bloodstone bricks? what does it represent? What do these new ascended items represent? are they just a better made sword, or a mystically imbued item? like you say, why arent certain barber npc hidden throughout the world. This is not a gem issue, such npcs could charge gems(less gems than bltc for the inconvience) and be heart like npcs, who only style you if you meet certain conditions, and if the dynamic events are in a certain state.
The only problem I have with Scarlet is her motive. She’s been behind so many things, and the only motive we have is “she’s crazy”. That just doesn’t cut it.
We haven’t revealed her motive yet. I can understand the confusion and/or frustration surrounding that so we’re looking at ways to accelerate the plot and implement some features that will make it easier to track Living World content. The first phase of that system will be implemented before the end of the year.
Whether it be her, or the players or the npcs, no one is showing compelling reasons for anything. As of now, its more of a police effort, we are fighting her because she is breaking the law, thats about it. I understand not wanting to reveal all her cards early, but you really have to establish some sort of conflict/desire in the players, or npcs if you want to reveal some larger parts slowly.
and for the bits you do show, you have to make them more compelling as well. you guys dont seem to use the story telling tools you have that consistently, The moving comic like cutscene you used for lord faren and queen jenna with the queens gauntlet worked well, but you used that for a strictly comedy piece. While it did amuse me, and effectively showed the action and feeling, you could also use some of this type of thing for other things that need better story telling than your budget can spend on full blown 3d cutscenes/animation.
i know its difficult and the company is trying to adapt, but you guys really need to work on storytelling and fitting things into the world more. Most of the living story stuff feels very contrived, and forced in to the game lore/world. It definately seems like the content is designed, then the writers have to figure a way to fit it into the world with a few 40 second dialogs.
keep trying to evolve, but the primary focuses of story telling dont change much no matter the incarnation. Establishing the a driving force for the plot is something you almost always must do early. If we dont know scarlet’s reason, we need to know somebody’s, and it needs to feel worthy of wanting to go farther to find scarlet’s reason.
For those who think that these new hairstyles should be included in character creation now and be free.
That’s fine for all the new accounts or for old accounts who want to make a new character. Otherwise, old accounts are going to have to purchase the kits. Don’t you think that people who have already have level 80s wouldn’t complain about this? The forums would go ballistic if new people got these for free and old accounts didn’t. They can get these for free with ingame gold now and people are complaining.
So what would ANet have to do to make the complainers happy? Mail out kits for every character slot you have? After all, you might want to change each one. And why about when/if more hairstyles come out? Or new faces? Should ANet mail out additional hair and total makeover kits each time they make more options? To everyone that has ever bought the game and one for each character slot?
ANet is offering a non essential vanity upgrade. An upgrade that was not included in the initial purchase price. If it was your business, and you included a vanity upgrade on an item would you give your work away for free to every one of the millions of people who had bought the basic package a year before? What would you say to a customer who told you that you should have done this work a year ago and in addition, it should be free now?
Everyone of course wants free items. I want free items myself. But you have to consider it from the point of view of the business. its not reasonable to expect a business to do work and then hand it over for free. I very much doubt that many of the people complaining here works for free on a regular basis.
So what would ANet have to do to make the complainers happy?
Put a barber in the game-world where you can go to change your hair for 15 silver.Income can then come from expansions.
so would you be happy if they put in for 15 gold, imagine these hairs are not designed as newbie hairs, but advanced hair, like tier 3 armor.
the big difference here, is this hair is not supposed to be a basic option for newbs. Its supposed to be the special boutique hair.
and you replied to me earlier, im not saying gw1 expansions were crap, i was just using the word crap as a general term for stuff, the point is:
in GW1 by and large you got no new content for a year while they developed expansion. If you only bought factions, the content stayed the same for like 5 or 6 years. no new gears, no new armors, no new bosses. Same with elona. Only prophecies had content added, and that was essentially stuff they intended to have with ship, but took more time.
If you didnt buy the next expansion you had no access to any of the content, the faces, the hairs, the armors, nothing. you couldnt play with people who didnt have the same expansion as you.
so the option you present as better, is that you wait 1 year for all new content, no one who doesnt buy the expansion has any access to any of that content, everyone must buy.
Now i didnt mind gw1, i enjoyed factions and elona and eye of the north. But to say that it is definitively better and more value for the customer is honestly a lie. I have a friend who has bought literally no gems at all in the game. He has backpacks, uses exp boosters, and black lion kits, can play all the content i can play, etc. Its a different business model, but overall it gives even more bang for your buck.
My main problem is not the business plan, its the execution of new content. The thing they are currently not handling well with the new plan is not cosmetics such as this, which is handled pretty well, allowing every one access through in game gold, but the actual content itself is pretty poorly implemented and fitting into the world and story. factions and elona and eye of the north were way better in that respect.
(edited by phys.7689)
If there is to be a cashshop, this is what it should be. Cosmetic luxuries. Skins, hairstyles, minis, and other in game luxuries like bank slots, inventory slots, additonal character slots…..thats what should be in there. Its absolutely nothing you need in any way to play the game. Noone can gain any advantage from cashshop use.
And there’s going to be a cashshop no matter what. Even if they did pay expansions, the cashshop will remain. Anyone who thinks they’d introduce expansion with a fee and drop the cashshop entirely is kidding themselves.
Its there to stay and a mainstay in a vast majority of MMO’s. What you would prefer in it? Being able to buy endgame gear? Lets just put Ascended and Legendaries directly in the cashshop. Fractal backpieces too.Saying the cashshop stuff isn’t available in game isn’t true either. I have the new hairstyles free twice from free makeover kits. You can also farm and exchange in-game currency for gems.
Willing to farm exotics via whatever method or Ascended or Legendaries or Ap’s every couple weeks, but farming a few gold to buy this is too much?I’m honestly surprised that the complainers are surprised that there is a cash shop in game.
It’s as if they are patiently waiting the day when Anet announces that they are not going to be continuing with the gem shop. I really wonder what their expectations are.
I haven’t seen those complainers to be honest.
I think what he is basically saying is that everytime Anet puts something new in the store, something not needed for the game at all, and people are complaining that it is in the store instead of giving it for free.
I don’t think that is true. You can have a select few mini’s in there, you can have unlocks like character slots and bank slots and you can have many more things where people will not complain about. People complain about thinks they think that should be in the game world or that are limited or that are RNG.
If they would have a focus on expansions for income they would be less forced to put these items in there but because they are focusing on cash-shop income they are forced to.
So I totally understand why Anet basically has to put them in there.. I am mainly (and have been for a while) complaining about the reason behind this.. And thats the F2P model that generates income with the gem-sore in stead of a B2P model that generates income with expansions.
they would be putting all the extra crap in the expansion, and how much new stuff you get outside of an expansion would be fairly limited. keep in mind GW1 had only 1 major content update outside of expansions for most of its life, it wasnt till the cash shop got more robust that they started doing the free story addition winds of change.
what I SAID is that if they gave them away free to new people then the old accounts would complain about that.
And instead we have new accounts, or old accounts making new characters, complaining about it. The only way to make everyone happy is to make them free for everyone, which doesn’t make them any money at all. The option they did go with ends up double-dipping on character slot purchases, and to new accounts to a lesser degree. A new player to the game might be a bit disappointed to find that a hairstyle they had no option of selecting during character selection is stuck on a cash shop option.
That type of option might be expected in other non-subscription MMOs, but most of those games don’t require an upfront $50 purchase.
actually, there is no other buy2p mmos that dont have cash shop. In fact the kind of content you are talking about are often sold in offline games these days, its called downloadable content.
Its fairly common these days to pay a box price, and an additional price for alternate costumes. All in all i think anets execution of these new hairstyles is in good faith, mostly due to the fact you can trade gems for gold.
They don’t call it the Ca$h $hop for nothing. And at a rate of 1g = 18gems, what a steal.
cash shop value is determined primarily by the demand of the players. Essentially players right now want cash shop items, so gems are more valuable. Prices would be this bad or worse if it was an ingame drop or in game materials were needed. Its really just an economy issue.
Did you honestly expect free styles for new characters?
Considering that a new character already costs me $10 (or over 40g), yeah, I do.
new charachters are part of in game purchase up to 5 of them. Like i said, why should new charachters made today get more options for free than new charachters made the day before?
Like i said, i wouldnt mind if new charachters did get more options, but its not really more fair/just/righteous that they do. In fact its less fair to every pre existing charachter.
You will be charged no matter how you slice it, either subscriptions, cash shop, or new boxes. Instead of discussing how they shouldnt charge money for anything, discuss how they can get money in a way you find more palatable. Also recognize, the high volume sales on desirable items gives money to the whole entire game, to pay for the things they are not charging for.
There are plenty of items in the gemstore that are perfectly fine. Some of us find issue with this particular item, but that doesn’t mean we should have to suggest other items for the gemstore. There are already plenty of them.
Do you think if a year after i drew a picture, someone wanted me to go back and create a new hairstyle, i would do it for free?
Ha ha, no.If you care about your charachter so much, you should be willing to pay something to alter its appearance.
I’m willing to do so, and I have bought makeover kits in before. I’m sure there are plenty of people with existing characters that are paying to get these new styles on them. So why not offer them with the standard character creation? I already have to pay $10 a pop if I want to make a new character, and now they want even more money for character appearance options.
Charging for hairstyles on new characters is essentially double-dipping on character slots.
wouldnt be the end of the world if they were available on new charachters, however. If i was doing this in a different business model, id probably have incorporated some hairstyles into the game as a progression/world/lore mechanic. IE charachters have to do something/get somewhere/see something to unlock some hair options. So in my world it still wouldnt be available at char creation.
The reason why i say this, is for all intents and purposes, it still wouldnt be available for new chars, even though it wouldnt be tied to money.
Also consider this, every charachter who gets new hairs, will have had to spend the same money no matter when they are created. The guy who made his char a year ago, will have paid the same price as the newbie. In this respect its actually pretty fair to the people who made charachters long ago.
While i would not be mad, if newer charachters got more options just because the games been out longer, its not something i feel has to be a right. after all you get a makeover kit for 5000 achievement points, you get random chances from dailies, and you can spend in game money to get the hairs, (like 15 gold) might seem like a lot, but thats not too different from teir 3 armor prices. These hairs are a prestige item, even if they werent gem store, they probably be from gold or trade
i think templates would be a plus, but they d probably need to not be an anywhere anytime thing. Ideally they d also need to change armor, which would be a bit more complex.
But i think to make it work well, they d first have to make armor stats into unlocks, so templates dont require heavy armor/item management. (also makes builds less of an inventory/annoyance issue) and more of a progression issue. Of course that too requires a lot of work, but i think it would be more beneficial to the game in a number of ways. Perhaps available any where you can repair armor, outside of dungeons.
I dont think standard templates or whatever they use to solve the problem should be gem shop only. It should unlocked through some in game events/activities/story, and possibly more templates can be purchased after for additional gems. The functionality kind of needs to be available to all, if its available to anyone
Anet themselves made big deal about how important our characters and their appearance are to us players. To go and lock certain aspects of that behind a cash barrier is a slap in the face to their own supposed ideals and principles.
This is the kind of stunt I expect from a free to play game, not title I had to pay an AAA price for.
the cash shop was always meant to sell cosmetics, it was supposedly prefered over selling powerful items. People have to be paid at companies, that requires money, and profit.
You will be charged no matter how you slice it, either subscriptions, cash shop, or new boxes. Instead of discussing how they shouldnt charge money for anything, discuss how they can get money in a way you find more palatable. Also recognize, the high volume sales on desirable items gives money to the whole entire game, to pay for the things they are not charging for.
Think about this for a second, i am an artist, if someone told me i should work for them for ever because they bought 1 piece off me, i would laugh in their face. Why do you expect anet to do something you would never do? Do you think if a year after i drew a picture, someone wanted me to go back and create a new hairstyle, i would do it for free?
Ha ha, no.
If you care about your charachter so much, you should be willing to pay something to alter its appearance. The biggest problem i have with much of the cash shop, is it takes away good tools for progression, world enrichment, and lore. Some of these things would be nice to see/find/place in certain contexts. Because these tend to be shop items and they want to make the accessible, they are generally fairly disconnected from the game.
Actually, I’m sorry about your wasted sarcasm because I’m all in favor of a more important role for support and boons. It’s the 5 dps and go set up that I find cheap and more appropriate for a 5 dollars indie game than a triple A MMORPG.
Sorry about your wasted wall of text. Keep reading next time, don’t quote in the middle of a thread.
Nothing wasted man, I love to read threads where PvE carebeargods come down insulting everyone and demanding their opinion is considered a fact even though it has no more validating data than the 200 opinions posted before.
I’m sorry but the reality is that most people struggle with endgame pve (aka frac 40-50 and not loldungeons) and actually need a Guardian to Prot them up, reflects, etc – so there is already a lot of use for pieces of PVT/Cavalier in that content zone.
Just FYI normal dungeons can be solo’d, including Arah; they are mid-game content not meant to need more than a 5 DPS casual team or 1 good player.
i dont disagree that game difficulty is part of the reason, but note, the purpose of PVT even in those instances is to help the average player. Once you get really good, you move up to berserker, with maybe slight toughness here and there.
Essentially you are saying gear is more about setting the difficulty of the event, and less about builds, or playstyles. Its an interesting perspective, but is that the what gear should be?
people in this thread are getting distracted, they are arguing about builds, when the issue here is gear stats.
By using a variety of skills and coordinating with other players you can in fact make encounters easier, and more entertaining, Team play is there.
Though hard and fast only one guy can do X Y or Z is not, having hard roles is not the only way to teamplay. Its simply easier to manage and optimize players for. However, a team of skilled people with many abilities can also play with incredible teamwork
back on the topic of stats, regardless of where you stand on roles and teamplay, the prob is stat wise, at high level of play, there is no benefit to stating other than dps. There is benefit to making your build more than dps focused, but not your stats.
berserker gear can
dps way better
CC the same
Support to the same magnitude
use all defensive abilities just as well
for example, a support focused mesmer may have traits and skills that focus on support, giving boons, and interupting enemies.
the best gear for this playtype if the player is skilled? berserker, because no other gear set makes much impact on what he is doing anyway
as any other set. As long as this is the same, berserker will always be the elite option
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Theres nothing wrong with zerker. It’s the condition cap and the “dodge this or die” nature of the game that needs modifying.
Whats wrong with having to dodge. It makes the game interesting. Undodgeable attacks or having low numbers and wasting time on bosses is not fun. Would you rather perfer just standing and taking hits? or is there some other thing you want.
Maybe because dodging is incredibly one dimensional compared to how the game would be played if it weren’t in the game? Making sure to properly time blind/weakness/protection/etc. Managing heal cooldowns. Letting different players trade off taking hits then backing off to recover. Now it’s dodge or die for the most part. This eliminates many potentially valid builds as well as class mechanics (see Death Shroud) that aren’t usable because Berserker + dodge is the only valid option.
without changing what each stat does, and making more stats effect abilities, the berserker will still be best at it. If you work as a team with a balanced skill bar, you dont need duration increases, berserker has access to the same number of blocks and blinds as a tanky charachter.
like i said its, not that there is not other important things, and roles, its that gear doesnt help those roles nearly as much as berserker helps offense.
berserker can give you the same number of might stacks
berserker can CC just as effectively
berserker can deal with conditions as effectively as anyone else
etc.
right now, all other gear sets are basically the newbie sets,
cant coordinate fast enough to make good use of boons? get boon duration
cant dodge/block/react to damage or stand in the best place? get toughness/vit
any one can CC as well as any other.
stats can make hundred blades 300% more effective, stats cant do anything for might, endure pain, knock downs, etc.
aside from making other stats effect abilities, the only solution would be to have a lot more unavoidable damage, but i dont think that makes for better game play.
Without Holy Trinity it is gonna be hard to make all the stats viable, any body got any ideas?
The problem with thier stat system is that they made beserker and condition sets the only sets that actually modify abilities
the game is designed where ability use is the most important thing.
they reduced the amount of guaranteed hits (skillfull play involves minimizing damage through position, evasion, and preparatory skills like blocks, dmg cancels, etc)
this is why beserker is the best, its not because there are no other factors besides DPS, but you can avoid/prevent/reduce damage, support, and CC virtually the same as anyone else no matter what gear you are wearing.
on the opposite side, 70% of your skills are less effective if you dont have berserker.
as long as this is the case berserker will always dominate the game.
the only other sets that matter ability wise, are condition, and boon duration sets, however, a skilled team can already get max boons when they need to, and do like 50% more dmg without using any boon duration. Condition sets also matter, but conditions dont work very well on bosses, and work very poorly in events with more than 8 people.
the best solution imo?
make other stats effect abilities, and other game play related things.
toughness could effect damage mitigation/prevention stats;
endure pain could have a maximum damage blocked, or have its duration effected by toughness, or vitality for example.
vitality could reduce condition durations or mitigate condition damage, and effect some evasive skills
healing should be changed to an overall support stat lets call it newhealing;
new healing could give a buff to the effectiveness of all boons, and give everyone in the party a bonus as well.
say self bonus maxes at 20% bonus to boons and an overall party bonus to boons. A fully support focused player would make the other 4 players in his party get more power from might, more protection from protection, as well as buff himself.
these are just ideas, but the premise is that the abilities and skills you use need to be effected by more than just power crit dmg, and condition dmg. a berserker can support, avoid/prevent damage, and CC as well as any other geared player. Thats really the problem
Items like legendaries and ascended items give addicts, like myself, something to do. Adding time gating, grinding, etc. are necessary so we don’t just get the latest shiny within a few hours of its release. The stats are irrelevant – the shinies aren’t meant for the mainstream, but the OCD’s who want more more more more more. I’m happily part of that group, and I feel it’s OKAY that ArenaNET makes so much of this content that it’s darn near impossible to get it all without completely giving up your real life.
Do you have EVERYTHING in the real world? Probably not. If you did, I suspect you’d be getting your thrills flying your Lear Jet, not playing Guild Wars.
I suggest tempering your own expectations. If you feel that you HAVE to spend all of your time playing to get ALL of the achievements, it’s time to evaluate their importance in your life.
The worst part about this game is the constant trash talking on the forum.
You want a challenge? Stop playing PvE! No AI will ever give you the challenge of an organized PvP team.
ArenaNET is staying consistent to their original vision by limiting the progression opportunity in the game. It’s ridiculous that there are seven pages of bickering over whether players should have everything handed to them or WORK for it.
To meet the wide variety of player types, ArenaNET must offer a wide variety of options that appeal each. If you want something that is in the “wrong category,” it’s YOUR problem, not the game’s. Once you are past that, you will have the choice to enjoy the game or move on.
I bet you all that the time spent on this forum has a bigger impact on the game’s attendance than dailies.
PLAY THE GAME!!!!
It’s not about not working for it. It’s about how you go about working for it, by play time or by play frequency. The argument is play frequency levels the acquisition rate while play time would mean fewer players will have in the same amount of time. Basically you will be penalized for having a life outside of the game.
first of all, you arent penalized, because they arent taking anything away from you. No more than you are penalized by not getting paid for the hours you dont work.
The problem with most the daily mechanics they introduce, is they dont enhance the world, or the game experience. They arbirarilly ask you to do some things, most likely at least 1 of which will be annoying. They dont follow any narrative, or really gameplay.
the best item implementation they did is fractals
you got a challenge element, get up to 10 difficulty
you got a time lock, one per day you can win a ring
you got a method of getting psast the time through skill/effort, get to the next 10 levels you can gamble another time per day.
It is the best amalgam of the methods.
the time gate should be soft bottom, and hard cap,
the actual method should enhance the reward from doing normal activities.
heres how i would handle laurels
1st name the avchievement tiers in multiples of 1000, (so 0-999 is starter, 1000-1999 is known, 2000-2999 appreciated 3000-3999 town hero 4000-4999 local legend, etc)
for each tier of achievements, you can get 1 laurel per day, but each laurel gets harder to get per day.
so first is given for a daily (recreate daily to be closer to, you did stuff today rather than random pick with about 20% being hated by most players)
second requires you to do 3 lauded activities (like complete a jump puzzle, finish one of the area event chains, gain X amount exp, kill X amount of monsters etc)
third requires 6 more lauded activities
fourth requires 12 more
fifth reequires 24
so the idea is essentially you can work harder to get something, or just chill, playing 30
min will allow you to achieve something playing an hour will make you get faster, going beyond that you ll be spending more total time for less reward, but you earn it.
But now, there is reasons to run different dungeons, do jumping puzzles, etc. You can also skip the daily and just do 3 lauded things.
also more point in higher achievements, and slightly less harsh on alts people.
I like that example, but imagine if Travelocity.com came along complaining how it was unfair that Priceline.com made more money than them faster because they were able to flip the flights/hotel rooms/car rentals faster due to more people wanting to pay them since they were somehow cheaper or maybe they just liked Shatner (at the time) better than the Gnome (at the time) so in order for their company to be competitive and reach equal footing with Priceline.com they needed a judge to place a profit limit on them.
Outside of some very, very rare and specific circumstances that would not happen.
The proper analogy would be that the presence of multiple companies such as Priceline and Travelocity increase competition and thus makes the business itself less profitable. Same with flippers. More flippers = overall less profitability for themselves.
Or hotels and the travelers who work other jobs complaining that Priceline/Travelocity make more money then they do.
But then this goes back to my explanation of wealth inequality in GW2 vs real life. Wealth inequality in GW2 is in itself is not a big problem as people try to make it to be. It does not impact a significant portion of the population, as the Bartles chart shows (Explorers will still explore, Killers will still kill, Socializers will still socialize, and Alligators will still alligate without access to Legendaries or Pyre dyes, and a good portion of Achievers may not even care about some of the specific limited-time items)
And you have to weight the significance of the perceived “problem” with several factors such as player inconvenience (not every flipper is wealthy) and developer man-hours. And my conclusion is it’s not worth it.
I’ll get back to ya in the morning. Although I agree with you on a few things, I disagree on most.
There is nothing to disagree. Regardless of how you want to define specific words, I’m simply explaining to you why this phenomenon occurs and giving you real-world examples of it. And how, if you dislike it so much, you can take the steps I described which will lead to flipping to be less profitable.
the problems with the economy are not as simple as just the money distribution. But it is there, Essentially the more time passes, the more the wealth disparity will grow. Right now, the big thing is legendaries, and they are out of reach, but coming soon, it will be materials, whats the prices on those gonna be when it stands between everyone and ascended armors?
charged lodestone prices for teir 5 mats? (used to make teir 6 supposedly) that will put exotic prices up some numbers.
once some real high demand items hit the streets, or really rare, then you start to see the disparity matter. People can laugh off cosmetic legendaries, but will they be upset if ascended costs them like 200 gold? which is a pittance for the wealthy, but an insane amount for the regulars.
now perhaps the time gate they want to put on them will mitigate rise in value of some high end mats, but the problem is still there.
The larger the disparity in wealth, the bigger problems anet will have introducing any high demand, or high rarity items. And then all the player types will be pretty upset.
Its a problem, the market has a number of them, now maybe they wont want to solve these problems because, hey people are still playing. But the problems you dont deal with dont go away, they just stay around till they blow up in your face.
Efficiency is for hardcore players, if you play casually you have casual goals. Legendaries are not a casual goal, nor is obtaining limited items like F&F dyes and other drops from past Living Story content. If you’re not willing to play hardcore, don’t set hardcore goals.
This is exactly what I’m talking about – why do you think you should have these things without putting in the work to get them?
why do you think the only hardcore player that should matter is the TP flipper? do TP flippers work harder than 10 hour farmers?
do they work harder than master explorers hitting every jump puzzle in a day?
do they work harder than people speed clearing arah?
do they work harder than the crafter who actually has to do a lot of the TP monitoring, but has to actually create an item some one can use and has the desire to buy?the problem is not that you have to work or play well to get things, the problem is one style of play rewards money at a different mathematical order than other types of play.
Which one would you rather reward then? Do you want to say the farmer of CoF1 should make the most money? more than any other player? Or should it be the crafter, who just as much as the TP flipper has no need to even step outside the city?
My point is, this is a bad argument to say the TP flipper shouldn’t exist. The TP is part of the game, designed to be in the game. Spending time on the TP is an intentional part of playing, yes, playing the game. Some people make this an “art” and they make money from it. Yes, the rewards are good. But that’s why people do things anyway, because either, they enjoy the activity inherently and rewards don’t matter, or they enjoy the rewards.
As with most things in life, the rewards aren’t always proportional to the effort involved, but that’s a choice people make. You choose to farm CoF1 (by all accounts an easy run that can be done in less than 20 minutes) … is that really harder than flipping a few items on the TP? Can you honestly say they work harder? Even if it is, there’s a reason you chose to do this over flip the TP, right?
TP flippers put in the effort to monitor a huge market. Why is this not considered effort? They have to watch for fluctuations, need to calculate profits and losses, get their timings right etc … not to mention the fact they needed to have some sort of capital to even begin with (that they may well have earned through farming or through endless runs of CoF1).
I see the point you’re trying to make, but essentially, it seems that most of the things you are placing value on are subjective, which necessarily detracts from your argument.
I would either try to create reward systems that can reward good play in more wealth earning activities, or i would have to alter or limit the profit obtainable through the unmitigated one.
I would honestly prefer the first option. Then you have a situation where there are many paths to success. As far as placing value subjective things, you realize everything is subjective, most especially in a virtual world.
Now as for the people who say creation of money is an issue, there are means of dealing with that.
Phys,
I understand what you are saying. However:
Anet created the game.
Anet hired an economist to run the TP.
The economist runs the TP the way it currently works.
You don’t like the way the TP works.
He is not going to change it, because it works the way it is supposed to work.I recommend you find a new game.
and said economist said he is interested in the feedback of players, anet itself said its interested in feedback. I honestly dont play the game as much now(probably a few hours in the last month havent even picked up all my achievement chests yet), so maybe in some way, you have won?
for me the game will probably become interesting again when i can achieve some goals that dont make tp playing the best way to go about it. But i fully recognize anet is doing well and doesnt particularly need me specifically.
yes, this is what i realized many people here believe, find the best way to do something and do it a lot and well. problem is that type of game design doesnt fit well with a game that wants players to have real choices.
You dont really believe in balance.
Warrior OP for dungeon? play warrior if you do a dungeon
Guardian OP in SPVP play a guardian if you want to spvp
TP flipper OP for wealth earning, play the tp if you want money.the designers though cant be satisfied with that ideaology for this game though, i just wonder if they even realize that
Your analogy is TERRIBLE.
Flipping earns more money simply because less people do it. Similarly, farming T1 mats doesn’t earn much simply because everyone and his grandmother kills mobs all the time.
Minimal competition in flipping – more profit for flipping. Lots of competition in farming – less profit from farming.
There is no need to balance flipping with anything, this is completely unlike class balance. Most people believe that doing stuff is more fun than sitting on tp all day – their reward is measured in fun and some loot. Flippers want to get rich, so they flip – their reward is measured in gold.
no flipping earns more money because flipping rewards people based on how much money they have. competition can lower the % gains, but over time any % gain system that can take% of its own gains will always eclipse one that has a set amount.
would you rather get 5 dollars a day for a month, or would you rather get 1 penny the first day and double your total each day.
the answer is the penny.
As long as you are making any profit at all, over time you will eventually surpass and destroy a linear earner.
even at 1% a day, you will eventually obliterate some one who can only earn X gold an hour over time.
flipping is a playstyle, this idea that people should suffer to succeed in a game is a bad one. Succeeding at a game is supposed to be fun, they are supposed to reinforce each other.
the problem is not that you have to work or play well to get things, the problem is one style of play rewards money at a different mathematical order than other types of play.
Huh?
I’m not sure why any reasonable person would expect that every individual gets the same results from playing the game in different ways. It’s just not going to happen. If you want X, you do what is required to obtain X.
yes, this is what i realized many people here believe, find the best way to do something and do it a lot and well. problem is that type of game design doesnt fit well with a game that wants players to have real choices.
You dont really believe in balance.
Warrior OP for dungeon? play warrior if you do a dungeon
Guardian OP in SPVP play a guardian if you want to spvp
TP flipper OP for wealth earning, play the tp if you want money.the designers though cant be satisfied with that ideaology for this game though, i just wonder if they even realize that
What you’re asking for simply will never happen. It is not possible. People will ALWAYS seek out the best, easiest, most efficient way of doing things.
if the difference in efficiency is within a certain range its fine, but the potential earning with interest based systems (IE you can earn a % and then a % of that etc) versus linear systems (like 8 gold an hour) is one that gets worse and worse the longer it goes on. It is simply to great a difference, and over time will become even more skewed.
Your goal in balance isnt to get everything exactly the same, your goal is that things are actually somewhat competitive with each other. Then many people will tend to choose playstyle over just top tiering.
why do you think the only hardcore player that should matter is the TP flipper? do TP flippers work harder than 10 hour farmers?
do they work harder than master explorers hitting every jump puzzle in a day?
do they work harder than people speed clearing arah?
do they work harder than the crafter who actually has to do a lot of the TP monitoring, but has to actually create an item some one can use and has the desire to buy?the problem is not that you have to work or play well to get things, the problem is one style of play rewards money at a different mathematical order than other types of play.
The people exploring, doing jps and doing dungeon runs et al. Well they are actually getting something other than gold out of that activity. They are doing said things because they enjoy them, gold/loot is an additional byproduct.
The people flipping on the other hand, they are doing it specifically for gold gain. There isnt a load of fun pvp, pve or exploring thrown in on top. It is all about making gold.
So why exactly would you expect a similar earning potential? Why would someone running around doing jp’s be expected to earn the same amount as someone trading?
Moreover, given most of the activities you cited involve zero competition and pose little to no risk to the players involved. Again, why should there be a similar earning potential given trading activities involve both competition and risk?
the argument that it isnt fun, isnt right, many people in this thread and others have said they immensely enjoy flipping, John smith said its a playstyle.
Also remember this is a game, i think its flawed to build a reward system that most rewards activities even people who do them think of as being the least fun.
As far as competition, and risk, i was thinking about that and i would be all for them adding some of these elements to other parts of the game.
they could have daily challenges where people who place at the top get rewards
they could add a skill based minigame to crafting certain items that can fail
they could allow duels and self gambling
they could make a survival mode area where you have to pay an initial fee, but if you last long enough rake in the profit.
they could add dungeons that require skill points to get into, and if everyone dies you fail. If you succeed you get better rewards, and if you succeed with a high rank, you get additional rewards.
an area where each time you succeed you can choose to continue for greater reward, but if you fail you lose everything.
there is any number of ways to add risk and gain.
Im not saying success should be easy, im saying in a game, they should use reward to enhance the experience of playing the game in multiple ways.
I dont think its a good game mechanic that people do something they hate so they can get what they want.
the problem is not that you have to work or play well to get things, the problem is one style of play rewards money at a different mathematical order than other types of play.
Huh?
I’m not sure why any reasonable person would expect that every individual gets the same results from playing the game in different ways. It’s just not going to happen. If you want X, you do what is required to obtain X.
yes, this is what i realized many people here believe, find the best way to do something and do it a lot and well. problem is that type of game design doesnt fit well with a game that wants players to have real choices.
You dont really believe in balance.
Warrior OP for dungeon? play warrior if you do a dungeon
Guardian OP in SPVP play a guardian if you want to spvp
TP flipper OP for wealth earning, play the tp if you want money.
the designers though cant be satisfied with that ideaology for this game though, i just wonder if they even realize that
Efficiency is for hardcore players, if you play casually you have casual goals. Legendaries are not a casual goal, nor is obtaining limited items like F&F dyes and other drops from past Living Story content. If you’re not willing to play hardcore, don’t set hardcore goals.
This is exactly what I’m talking about – why do you think you should have these things without putting in the work to get them?
why do you think the only hardcore player that should matter is the TP flipper? do TP flippers work harder than 10 hour farmers?
do they work harder than master explorers hitting every jump puzzle in a day?
do they work harder than people speed clearing arah?
do they work harder than the crafter who actually has to do a lot of the TP monitoring, but has to actually create an item some one can use and has the desire to buy?
the problem is not that you have to work or play well to get things, the problem is one style of play rewards money at a different mathematical order than other types of play.
blame is irrelevant the issue is this.
Why should tp flippers have the advantage?
why is it actually impossible for any other playstyle to compete at the top level.The best dungeon runner in the world who can solo a whole dungeon without getting hit cant come close to TP earnings.
The most masterful crafter who knows every single recipe, and what anything in the game can be transformed into cannot compete.
The insane farm master who kills more monsters per hour than anyone else in the game.
The master explorer who knows every knook and crannny, who has seen things most dont know exist, who can do jumping puzzles in record time, and knows every treasure chest and how to get it in minimal time
none of these other types of playstyle even have a slight hope of competing with TP flipping mastery in terms of actual reward. Why is that good game design?
Because the TP “flipper” class isn’t something one designs into a game. It evolved naturally out of a system designed to let players sell unwanted goods to other players and to buy wanted goods from other players, all the while also acting as a gold sink. That’s like saying a “farmer” class is designed into the game.
Economics is a science and one of the best understood aspects it examines is a free market. And in a free market there are inefficiencies between matching buyers with sellers. This is where the “merchant class” comes in and that’s what flippers are.
You seem to be obsessed with the fact that they have more coin than you do and feel the need to punish them for it. It’s not like they are Scrooge McDuck with his money vault. That money is being used on bids allowing players to get more for their drops than what an NPC Vendor will pay for it. Because that’s what most of them are, player run vendors, aka the merchant class. Punish them and we can all go back to selling dropped rares for 2g.
In this case the TP flipper was very much designed into the game, Im sure it was part of John smiths expectations. The problem here is the merchant class outweighs all other classes at obtaining money, AND all other methods of obtaining money are closely monitored and limited.
normally the middleman is not the only rich one, you have manufacturers, stars, athletes, inventors, high level administrators, gamblers, rare resource suppliers, marketers, land owners, leaders.
In this current game structure, the rewards are designed to cause people to have to go to the TP to get money, and go to the TP to get desired items. The middlemans dream, where everyone has to constantly trade even if they dont want to.
I dont really care that they have more money than me specifically, im more concerned that any item that can be bought, the best way to obtain it is to flip on the tp. all other gameplay types cannot compete. Im also concerned that the disparity is growing with every day. right now, via hardcore farming you can compete with the amount of money tp flippers are willing to spend, but what about a year from now? What about if anet wants to make any highly desired item tradable?
What if anet wants to use gold as a currency that shows how much/well you play the game, thus allowing people to trade value for different playstyles? As long as the best way to get money by far is to flip on the TP, it will only show how well you play the TP
Why is it such a threat that I suggest that wealth disparity may not be good for the game?
Why do you think that I am threatened by an irrelevant opinion?
Why is it irrelevant?
Because neither you nor I will affect the way the TP is run, and that is appropriate. I am confident that JS is a knowledgeable professional and is keeping an eye on things to make sure the TP runs the way it is supposed to run.
My own point is that things are running the way they should be. Wealth accumulates over time as a natural result of playing the game. Hardcore players accumulate it quickly, casuals accumulate it casually, with occasional bumps from lucky drops like my Dusk.
Human nature is such that people want what they can’t have. Give it to them and they won’t want it. So the game NEEDS things that people want and have to work for – BiS gear is irrelevant because it can be obtained simply by playing the game. So fancy skins take their place as the hard-to-achieve goals. Skins are sold in the TP, given away as rewards for doing content, drop randomly – nothing is unattainable in this game if the player is willing to work for it.
Compare to a game where BiS gear can only be obtained through 20-man raids, or items are sold through the cash shop that are better than anything that can be obtained through playing the game. This game is far more casual than most MMOs, but it won’t stop people from demanding that things be handed to them for no effort.
nothing is unattainable in most games, just the methods of obtaining them are limited. similarly some things in this game, the only way to get them efficiently is to buy them on the tp, which means you need enough money to compete with the other people who want the item.
honestly i took myself out the tp game awhile ago, just wasnt the way i want to play, but in doing that, i have to say good bye to the legendary hunt until there are other means for precursors. I also say good bye to most rare drops, like rocket backpack, specific highly desired dyes as well. Of course, with lack of goals to attain, i play a lot less.
hopefully the new skill progression/ascended armor/weapons isnt heavily tied to the TP, and more based on adventure.
Second, almost any increase in a gold source will result in a corresponding (and larger) increase in the money to be made on the TP. This is because each gold piece introduced into the market is spent many many times. Each time it passes through the TP (without a buy order being placed) a flipper is taking 10-50%.
Love to know how you come up with that number.
I’m going to keep saying this until it takes, a flipper isn’t holding a gun to the head of players who sell cheap and buy high, he is merely taking advantage of the fact that those players don’t want to be bothered putting in the effort to sell/buy for a better price. If more players did, then those “evil flippers” wouldn’t have the supply or customers that they make their money on.
For me, I rarely sell to highest seller. I take a moment to check out the price range of the current items for sale and many times price mine at a higher value than the lowest seller because I can tell that the current low sell price is an anomaly caused by someone who is ever so slightly less impatient that your average player who simply accepts the highest bid. Or that the price is churning within a range and I price my item closer to the top of that range.
But the energy drink swigging twitch gamer with the 2 second attention span doesn’t want to do that and it’s that lack of effort on their part that are making traders and flippers rich. So instead of blaming the traders and flippers for their accumulated wealth why not blame the lazy players who don’t bother trying to get a better price for an item, buying or selling, that allowed traders/flippers to fill the niche created by these players.
blame is irrelevant the issue is this.
Why should tp flippers have the advantage?
why is it actually impossible for any other playstyle to compete at the top level.
The best dungeon runner in the world who can solo a whole dungeon without getting hit cant come close to TP earnings.
The most masterful crafter who knows every single recipe, and what anything in the game can be transformed into cannot compete.
The insane farm master who kills more monsters per hour than anyone else in the game.
The master explorer who knows every knook and crannny, who has seen things most dont know exist, who can do jumping puzzles in record time, and knows every treasure chest and how to get it in minimal time
none of these other types of playstyle even have a slight hope of competing with TP flipping mastery in terms of actual reward. Why is that good game design?
so in your opinion, you can balance having a class that is guaranteed to out perform others by making it undesirable to play.
So you think people would be fine in SPVP if there was one class that 95% of the people didnt want to play, but they were guaranteed to lose everytime they fought them?
you are missing the problem, this means that if the game ever had a tournament in that state, everyone in the tournament would be that 1 class. Only the 5% who are that class can compete for the top level rewards.
This is the exact problem, the TP flipping masters will be the only ones who can compete for the most valuable things that can be bought with money. everyone else can get their left overs
but i think your general idea is that you think that is an ok game mechanic. I dont think thats what they should aim for.
First, the TP players have the LAST shot at top items because all top items are dropped or created. That means that the player who got that Super Sword of Super Swordiness decided to sell it because he didn’t want it. He had first dibs and decided to convert his dibs into gold.
Second, your analogy is way off. Players with money are not a different class from players without money. They are better at their class than the other players are. A better analogy is that players who spend a lot of time getting good at being a ranger should be able to beat a player who just started playing today and doesn’t even know how to use his auto attack.
no, my analogy is accurate. TP flipping is a totally different playstyle of money earning.
you have grinders, who enjoy endless killing
you have hunters who prefer hunting rare hard to kill things/challenges
you have crafters who prefer creating items for use
you have gamblers who enjoy taking large risks to win big
you have tp flippers who enjoy knowing prices, mathematics, spreadsheets, etc.
there are farmers whose knowledge and skill in their chosen baliwick is just as great as the knowledge and skill of a tp flipper.
all of these styles require specific skill sets, and offer an overall different playstyle. They are essentially different professions.
As far as the last to get things, you would be right, except most of the things in the game you want to get, you cannot get on purpose.
One person may hate super adventure greatsword, but thats what he randomly got the first time he did SAB, that goes to sale.
This is how item generation tends to work in this game. Most items are created by random chance when you werent intending on it, you then have to sell it, then you buy what you actually want.
The current system doesnt allow much for people to specifically obtain a specific thing, and the times it does, its usually outweighed in supply by the random ways of obtaining it.
If your solution for balancing an APEX PREDATOR is that everyone should be an apex predator, then you dont have a balance.
There’s no solution needed because there’s no problem.
Most people obviously don’t think that the gold they can get by flipping is worth the time spent. Thus people that do that are rewarded accordingly highly.
Everyone ultimately plays the way he wants.
so in your opinion, you can balance having a class that is guaranteed to out perform others by making it undesirable to play.
So you think people would be fine in SPVP if there was one class that 95% of the people didnt want to play, but they were guaranteed to lose everytime they fought them?
you are missing the problem, this means that if the game ever had a tournament in that state, everyone in the tournament would be that 1 class. Only the 5% who are that class can compete for the top level rewards.
This is the exact problem, the TP flipping masters will be the only ones who can compete for the most valuable things that can be bought with money. everyone else can get their left overs
but i think your general idea is that you think that is an ok game mechanic. I dont think thats what they should aim for.
I think you missed the point here, the whole flipper thing isnt about whether they offer anything to the game or are a legitimate playstyle. The issue is, tp flipping can make much higher money than any other playstyle, not only that, but the gains are heavily related to how much capital you generate, which means the more money you get, the more money you can get. (i understand there are limits, but these are so far out of the range of other gold earning abilities as not to be relevant in comparing the two)
The tp lets you make as much money as you can make, nothing else in the game does this.
So the problem becomes one of poor distribution of wealth favoring one playstyle. Im sure many say, then people should just adopt that playstyle, but this is not a game that was sold as great economic simulator, its supposed to be an adventure.
Either find a way to limit the growth of wealth through tp play, or come up with a way to give other playstyles the ability to earn wealth.
I would prefer the latter, but i figure it might be hard because gold obtained in other ways is usually created, while tp wealth is redistributed.I could brainstorm of possible ways, but it would dilute the post.
essentially, its bad for the game to reward one playstyle more than others, especially a playstyle that is niche to the genre.
Flipping is naturally limited by available competition. It doesn’t let you make a lot of money if there are enough competitor flippers.
As long as people are not willing to sit in front of the NPC and flip, the existing flippers will make more money than people that do other activities. As soon as the number of flippers increases, the profit made by any individual flipper is naturally reduced.
The system is working fine.
If your solution for balancing an APEX PREDATOR is that everyone should be an apex predator, then you dont have a balance.