Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Shockwave.1230:

To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.

You must be remembering a different game. First, it was very difficult to determine market rates because there was no global marketplace. The closest we had was an NPC who would buy or sell certain mats (and run out frequently).

Second, there was no craft as such. You collected mats and took them to various NPCs to trade. Some mats were easily acquired and some were not.

Third, armor stats were tied to prefixes and suffixes that were obtained as random drops or through NPCs. When build preferences (i.e. “the meta”) changed, the values of these prefixes & suffixes would dip or spike accordingly. When hero mercenaries were added to the game, for example, those prefixes/suffixes needed for the hero meta were priced out of reach, according to a lot of players.

There was an option to collect tokens to trade for gear, but this was a convoluted mess. I literally maintained a massive spreadsheet to identify which gear stats could be obtained via tokens, where the (usually sole) NPC was located, and the 1-2 foes that might drop the tokens.

It was great for power traders, since there were all sorts of ways to profit on the impatience of others. And with enough coin, it was always possible to afford any runes and insignias one might want. I had no trouble outfitting everyone (and their heroes) with multiple gear sets, but many of my friends had a lot of difficulty managing just a few characters.

In short, crafting was tied to the economy in GW1. The difference was that it was a lot less easy for people to interact with the economy, so more people just waited for RNG.

I’m not against the idea of making it easier to get non-core gear, at least in exotics. For zerker exotics, we have the option of dungeon tokens or reward tracks. Couldn’t there be something as simple for viper’s exotics?

However, let’s not confuse the problem of price with the existence of a global economy. It’s easier in 2017 to farm the leather for exotics — what’s harder is how long it takes to earn enough gold to avoid farming.

hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
no build in gw1 would take you as long to gear for as it would to get a build in gw2, or the eqivalent gold.
yes you hand random drops, but they were comparitively common. it might be hard to get a skin you want, but getting the functionality was easy.

that games economy was an afterthought, so they designed builds to be reasonnably obtained through normal play.
this games economy is forefront, so builds are designed to be one of the endgoals of a long investment in the game

basically like marketplace diablo versus market dead diablo.

for someone who wants to try different builds, this game needs a large investment.

vesica tempestas.1563:

agree with this ^^ personally i think the issue with the GW2 class progression is that its just to easy and quick to get any gear set you target bar legendary gear. If a skin is easy to get it does not feel epic and rewarding. On a positive, we are in a much healthier place than games stuck in a loop feeding players constant gear upgrades, orange is the new purple in that world.

class progression? or gear progression?
what does class progression mean to you, any examples?

Aeolus.3615:

Ashen.2907:

The best progression, in my opinion, is the player getting better at the game, not adding yet more powerful gear as a crutch to make the game easier.

better at the game can be tranlated as buy expansions “to get good” lol…..

this an interesting point of view that i didnt really think about.
gw 2 has a ton of grind, but what happens when the casual catches up? the ones who arent interested in getting better, or more skilled. They buy an expansion to get better, but not really to take on greater challenges.
this is where the treadmill usually comes in.

i guess masteries need to fill this role in gw, but do they feel enough like growth for these type of players?

Shortage.5427:

armaduras.8972:

I really hope not. I have 4,300 hours logged into the game currently with five sets of ascended and five legendary weapons. I am more than happy with the gear provided.. and it would appear that the model would be for new stat sets rather than armor sets. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get the ability to ‘Bless’ Ascended armor too.

Every tier of gear you add to GW2 only increases the stress on inpatient new people… and new players really are impatient. I’ve personally watched over twenty people join our guild, play the game for one to three months, progressively, and then simply quit once they start researching the time needed for ascended gear. Everyone wants the best, even if it isn’t needed. Legendary armor is going to be more than enough of a blunder in the same regard.

Yes but you also push away the people who wants this stuff. From my 60 in game friends and 30 followers only 3-4 are online. Also games such as BDO and BnS seem to have stolen lot’s of people from GW2 because it felt a “Waste of time” or rather “Too casual for me”. The more you restrict the people the easier the get bored.

Also it’s a MMORPG game. There is no MMORPG without some type of grinding or gear progression. It was fun till i reached 1600 hours and completed everything.

It all goes back in the box, and move on a diffrent game?

To be honest i saw the new expansion leak and it was amazing. But now i am wondering if it’s worth that much.

truth is bns and bdo are fundamentally different games than guild wars. Attributing the difference to grind, doesnt really work.
bns is an instanced based encounter driven game where the grind is always limited. it has treadmill, but its rarely that hard to progress. i think people who like bns like combat, and the only purpose of the rest of the game is to enhance that

bdo is an open world throwback with no real end to progression, but people play that for very different reasons.

i also dont think you d be any less bored of those games with 1600 hours. In bns you definately have hit cap long ago. and bdo, you might not, but you d probably have no enemies that need your level of gear.

they probably just took too long before offering you an expansion, worry not, its coming soon.

soon youll have new masteries to power up, and new weapons to make, and new builds from new stat distributions to chase, new sigils etc.

btw, do you have legendary armor? have you done raids?

Vayne.8563:

Labjax, it may be because you took a break from the game but I can assure you that people that play higher end content can survive the jungle in zerker gear. The people who follow the meta tend to get zerker gear, but I have plenty of people in my guild who use other options, because it’s a casual guild. They didn’t have to change their armor at all.

A lot of it really is just knowing the enemy to survive.

you can use zerker gear, but its pretty difficult. Not impossible, just more risk of death and waypoint back. Also, some times you get mobbed, some classes have better tools than others to survive without gear. basically you can use berserker, but you will die a lot when you are inexperienced with the level.

I’ll also say he is right about the masteries, its way easier to navigate with better gliding, access to mushrooms, and wallows. Early on its most difficult to navigate, at the same time you need the dynamic events that you dont know how to get to easily. When you have masteries, you can hop on a shroom, glide to an updraft, etc, but early on you have to take a longer roundabout path that is not nearly so obvious.

i’m not saying this must change, but i am saying that it is actually something where initially you hit a sort of bump, and you have to push through.

I will also say, the traditional method of finishing the whole map, that many people prefer, is not the best way to handle hot, you are better off going for easy things and dynamic quests you happen upon, and following/getting story exp to fill up mastery, than going for map completion in each place. This is because somethings are substantially easier to get to with masteries.
basically go through, complete story while doing moderate exploration and participation, then go back later and complete areas/focus on meta rewards etc. A couple of my friends front loaded their experience so it seemed more grindy and more like you have to grind to get stuff done.

Chasind.3128:

WE have aviator cap, but we don’t have raised goggles
there are several mmos that can work around hairstyles by giving us headpieces/hoods that don’t take away hair.
For some reason anet loves bald people & assumes we like it too hhaa

This isn’t a discussion on CAPS with goggles, it;s a discussion on goggles that keep your hair that are RAISED

essentially its because they dont like how its going to clip and look, with various hairs. they dont want to have to have to future proof either hairstyles, or headpieces.

its sucks a bit, but i dont think their is a cheap solution. they could probably make a hairstyle that includes goggles, thats probably about it.

yeeeah i guess the solution to headwear, would be more hairstyle unlocks, but you wouldnt always get a headpiece with your chosen hair style.``

Palador.2170:

Okay, I’ve seen it in game now. I waited, gave myself time to think it over.

The only, ONLY thing I can say good about it is that I admire the team for the epic level of trolling that is the Medium armor’s ability to go from “Finally, not another longcoat” to “Oh, look. Longcoat after all!”

The rest of it is just ugly, overdone, and counterproductive to the most basic functions of what good armor’s supposed to do/not do.

I think this is a case of everyone involved being so close to the issue and so invested in it, that nobody can step back and take an objective look at things any more. Actually, I think this is a reoccurring problem at ANet, and this is just the latest example.

Honestly, I think the time and effort would have been better spent getting capes to work. Sorry if that seems harsh, but it’s my honest opinion.

in their defense, no armor will please everyone, people have different tastes an desires.
Also they are some what limited in what they can do, you got back pieces, other armors, legendary effects/auras.

So basically they decided to make it transform from one basic armor to another basic armor.

they also appear to not want to create completely new assets, i guess it takes a long time to test/rig or something.

that said, they definately made a bad guess (imo) on fashion, you definately cant please all the people, but this one is only hitting a few people from what I ve seen. If i look at the most popular armors, these dont look like it.

also, while i understand the trouble with legendary effect interactions, i think that armors with specific particle effects could still have worked better.

anyhow, its done, they probably need to just make some legendary utility armors and people can skin them with thier favorite appearances. Then they can slowly experiment as inspiration hits them, on making armors/costumes that feel like something special.

Djinn.9245:

phys.7689:

3 is the major flaw, these maps are really good/funnest when are experienced with them. you can move around fairly quickly, but its not very boring, and a lot of variation within each map.

however the curve is steep and its very hard to achieve anything or participate in the map early on, which is when you most need to particpate (for mastery exp)

I have played these maps a lot. But I still can’t get somewhere that I want about 40-80% of the time (depending on the map).

have to be more specific. dragon stand has event based lockout, but thats not due to map complexity.

i will say the exploration is deep, and takes many more replays before you master the map.

you figure out malachors leap in like hmmm 3 hours maybe? figuring out verdant brink or tangled depths takes much longer.

slashlizardy.9167:

phys.7689:

Labjax.2465:

Dashingsteel.3410:

I agree partially that HoT is designed to be more challenging but I feel that is in regards to the enemies you face and some of the semi-platforming elements. I do not believe that Anet intended navigation to be more difficult.

The great majority of maps in core gw2 have navigation that is clear cut. The only maps in gw2 that aren’t are the grove, rata sum, and the black citadel. The reason they aren’t is that they are mutli-tiered just like the HoT maps.

This IS a problem of the minimap not being compatible with multitiered maps.

Why even offer a revealed map and minimap if you intend for your players to memorize and learn the map?? I don’t think Anet intended to change the game in this kind of direction.

I am not talking about an undiscovered map. I am talking about a map that has been fully explored and revealed already.

I think I see what you’re saying and I’m inclined to believe it. That they did not anticipate the issues of a multi-layered map in their mini-map design.

i think that yall have a point, but yall missed the real meaning.
some maps are not designed to be easy to navigate via map, theyvare designed to be consistent with themselves.

rata sum, is in fact designed to be extremely convient, IF you know rata sum well. its very poorly designed if you dont.

black citadelnis supposed to be designed by a race who places powerful and agressive designs over ease of use. char dont particularly feel things should be easy.

verdant brink is not supposed to be a designed area, its a natural jungle thrown asunder by a crazy dragon tree natural disaster.

and yes exploration has way more depth in hot than in other areas. there is way more hidden things, and its easy to get lost. part of the difficulty in hot is that knowing the map is a huuge advantage. i dont think thatbis unintentional.

but a side effect of making these complex areas, is that the map is not the best tool for navigating it.

but that is a lesser consideration than the map itself achieving its goals.

really you guys dont like the concept of verdant brink and tangled depths, verdant brink is supposed to be a wild lands, and tangled depths is labrynth like.

which is fine, while having a few maps like this is a good variety.
because its all packaged in one expansion, people feel like the expansion was a waste for them, if they have this opinion.

good news is i dont think the next expansion is about a similar thing. it most likely will focus on having a lot of stuff spread out, and the travel is about doing it faster and getting new places, over unlocking the secrets of a small complicated area.

That is good news. Where have you heard that the expac 2 maps are going to be more pleasurable for exploration?

its just an educated guess based on some leaks.

do note, it may be less pleasurable for exploration, thats subjective. in terms of exploration, id say HoT maps are the most pleasurable, they most reward knowledge and have tremendous replayability for those who explore.
there many ways to get too the same place, many secrets, etc.
compared to say arah, or queensdale, where after the first time ive basically figured the map out.

also glider interactions enhance it

i concede thats me though, some people prefer long walks on the beach to a lost city in jungle when it comes to what they d like to explore

the best attribute of vanilla maps to me, is that its easy to get to large events, but thats sorta the opposite of exploration. i just teleport, or follow mini map markers

OriOri.8724:

phys.7689:

MachineManXX.9746:

Legendaries are absolutely luxury items. And ascended really has nothing to do with this conversation as they don’t require mystic coins or T6 leather.

changing stats is not a luxury, its a utility.

a luxury item is an item that has a direct relationship with its demand, ie its more desirable to rich people.
caviar, pearls, a lamborgini.

ascended and legendaries are desired from the moment you hit 80, regardless of wealth, because they are best in slot. and legendary is best in slot forever, for all situations.

people think that luxury and neccesity are the only two classifications of a good, but they wrong. just cause you dont need it to survive doesnt mean its a luxury.

a car is not a luxury if the normal course of your life, it is in your best interest to drive

an exp booster is not a luxury item, it has the same demand from a rich person and a poor person.

it seems the primary use of hardened leather is making insignias which are worth less than exotic armor that dont use leather to exist.

essentially hardened leather is the material of altering your ascended items stats. which is apparently a lot more common than it used to be. probably because of raids and possibly a more difficult open world.
there is no longer one size fits all, and items can be shared among charachters.

regardless of wether you think its a luxury or not, for some regular players its an item they will need later, that they dont feel should cost as much as it does, so they keep it, so they wont have to try to farm it later, or pay market value.

They are luxury items. Its the skin people want, and (AFAIK, correct me if I’m wrong) at the start of the game they didn’t even have the ability to stat swap. That was added later to add an incentive to spend the huge amount of gold it took to get a leg weapon.

its actually not the skin people want.

yes, it used to be a luxury item, exotic and legendary were the top teir, and there was no extra utility of the item.

that changed when they added ascended and stat switching.
other changes increased the value and made it more of a utility item.
meta shifts with more viable gear combinations and combination focused nerfs
new gear combinations
sharing legendary and ascended between charachters
raid designs with various immunities

take a look at the legendary armor thread, a number of people made the item then instantly transmuted it. a number of people have asked for a skinless/reskin to be made for other content.

legendaries are no longer a luxury item, they are a long term investment into your account.
its like buying a house.

best in slot forever, on whatever charachter can use that item.

Labjax.2465:

Dashingsteel.3410:

I agree partially that HoT is designed to be more challenging but I feel that is in regards to the enemies you face and some of the semi-platforming elements. I do not believe that Anet intended navigation to be more difficult.

The great majority of maps in core gw2 have navigation that is clear cut. The only maps in gw2 that aren’t are the grove, rata sum, and the black citadel. The reason they aren’t is that they are mutli-tiered just like the HoT maps.

This IS a problem of the minimap not being compatible with multitiered maps.

Why even offer a revealed map and minimap if you intend for your players to memorize and learn the map?? I don’t think Anet intended to change the game in this kind of direction.

I am not talking about an undiscovered map. I am talking about a map that has been fully explored and revealed already.

I think I see what you’re saying and I’m inclined to believe it. That they did not anticipate the issues of a multi-layered map in their mini-map design.

i think that yall have a point, but yall missed the real meaning.
some maps are not designed to be easy to navigate via map, theyvare designed to be consistent with themselves.

rata sum, is in fact designed to be extremely convient, IF you know rata sum well. its very poorly designed if you dont.

black citadelnis supposed to be designed by a race who places powerful and agressive designs over ease of use. char dont particularly feel things should be easy.

verdant brink is not supposed to be a designed area, its a natural jungle thrown asunder by a crazy dragon tree natural disaster.

and yes exploration has way more depth in hot than in other areas. there is way more hidden things, and its easy to get lost. part of the difficulty in hot is that knowing the map is a huuge advantage. i dont think thatbis unintentional.

but a side effect of making these complex areas, is that the map is not the best tool for navigating it.

but that is a lesser consideration than the map itself achieving its goals.

really you guys dont like the concept of verdant brink and tangled depths, verdant brink is supposed to be a wild lands, and tangled depths is labrynth like.

which is fine, while having a few maps like this is a good variety.
because its all packaged in one expansion, people feel like the expansion was a waste for them, if they have this opinion.

good news is i dont think the next expansion is about a similar thing. it most likely will focus on having a lot of stuff spread out, and the travel is about doing it faster and getting new places, over unlocking the secrets of a small complicated area.

MachineManXX.9746:

Legendaries are absolutely luxury items. And ascended really has nothing to do with this conversation as they don’t require mystic coins or T6 leather.

changing stats is not a luxury, its a utility.

a luxury item is an item that has a direct relationship with its demand, ie its more desirable to rich people.
caviar, pearls, a lamborgini.

ascended and legendaries are desired from the moment you hit 80, regardless of wealth, because they are best in slot. and legendary is best in slot forever, for all situations.

people think that luxury and neccesity are the only two classifications of a good, but they wrong. just cause you dont need it to survive doesnt mean its a luxury.

a car is not a luxury if the normal course of your life, it is in your best interest to drive

an exp booster is not a luxury item, it has the same demand from a rich person and a poor person.

it seems the primary use of hardened leather is making insignias which are worth less than exotic armor that dont use leather to exist.

essentially hardened leather is the material of altering your ascended items stats. which is apparently a lot more common than it used to be. probably because of raids and possibly a more difficult open world.
there is no longer one size fits all, and items can be shared among charachters.

regardless of wether you think its a luxury or not, for some regular players its an item they will need later, that they dont feel should cost as much as it does, so they keep it, so they wont have to try to farm it later, or pay market value.

i think the problem is that most of these items are balanced as luxury items, but they really arent.

a good that is desired for its usability, is not really a luxury item. anet wants to use luxury items to benefit poorer players, probably because in this game, the wealthy provide limited benefit to the poor. (no new jobs or buildings or technologies, art or culture)

the concept behind mystic coins is, a good that wealthy players need to get from poorer players
the concept behind insane amounts of basic goods needed for items, is only wealthy players need that much.

the flaw is, ascended and legendaries arent luxuries, they are items you need as the game matures.
ascended has better stats, and legendaries offer unique functionality, and represent the first time you are no longer renting your gear. (due to balance changes, and new stat combos)

so essentially they are items that you will eventually need. which means the only incentive to selling these items is as credit.

which leads to the other problem, most of the things you may need credit for, dont compete with ascended/legendary and the items you need for them. people most need a line of credit, to get the things that you want them to sell for credit.

overall this leads to many of these goods falling outside the economy, too expensive to buy, too necessary to sell.

so the supply is not being used effeciently, which exacerbates the cost, and makes people hoard more than they need.

leviathan.2148:

Just because you dislike the theme of it or legendary in general, doesn’t make it “joke legendary”

some are essentially made primarily to amuse

ama said they will continue to be released in small bursts, even after expansion. they will not require the expansion.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I would think that misleading map indicators causing more confusion than help is very different than achieving a vista that you have already located.

The problem with HoT is the minimap which I assume is to help you navigate often ends up misleading you as to the location of a particular area.

You used the example of the breached wall blitz vista. This is a platforming activity. The problem I have with HoT is one of navigation. The minimaps just don’t perform well with the multitiered maps.

I don’t enjoy my time being wasted. I wish the minimap instead of giving you up and down arrows would simply have a 1, 2 or 3 so you knew which tier of the map the area was in.

its not quite so simple, some are in the middle, some are same level but hidden, some are on top of the highest level. some need you to do an event to open doors.

Harper.4173:

So I finally made the armor – Heavy Legendary on a human male.
I have to say – seeing the screenshots I wasn’t expecting much but the actual armor – in game – is breathtakingly disappointing. It took me less than one minute to realize I want to reskin over it. It’s that bad.

The animation looks “cool” but turns something that’s a bit flashy and over the top ( but workable) into something horrendous. The protrusions that come off the helm make me look like a ridiculous beetle. The shoulder pads floating around don’t help either.
I’d comment on the rest of it but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I made it because I had already invested SO much into it – i had almost everything good to go with the rest of it costing me around 100-200 gold today to make. I don’t regret spending the money as I feel it has some prestige associated with it but…I regret the hope and hype.

It was supposed to be good and it isn’t. It looks like a mess – and it becomes an even bigger mess once it goes into its combat form.
I could and maybe would wear the non-transformed style for a while. However the “combat mode” is insufferable.

It’s really really sad – that after nearly 4 years of GW2 the best human heavy armor set remains the cultural T3 armor, followed closely by Phalanx Heavy ( a gemstore set).

I weep for the future of SkinWars 2 if this is the “best” and “most prestigious” skin in the game.

maybe you can mix and match some pieces.

mauried.5608:

You can summarise this entire thread this way.
I want to make something.
I dont have the mats to make what I want so I go to the TP to buy them.
Horror of horrors, the prices on the TP are far higher than I think they should be , so the economy is broken and Anet should fix it.
The bit thats missing from this argument is why are the TP prices so high.
Well its because everyone else wants to do exactly what I want to do at the same time.
Supply / demand economics 101 seems to be lost on most ppl.

actually you didnt read the OP at all, he isnt complaining about prices, he is explaining why he doesnt think anet should think of player behaviour of saving as irrational or hoarding, he goes on to say how he thinks he could solve the problem IF anet decided they want to solve it.

The point of the thread is not TP prices being high

Halandir.3609:

vesica tempestas.1563:

lol ok, well compensation aside, maybe its a generation thing, older games didn’t have maps, so you learned to learn.

Please just stop :.( Learning NEQ Capacity to think NEQ memorizing NEQ Learning!
Same pool – Different swimmers!

Sure, causation is one well proven way of learning things. Its sadly not a great motivator/way of learning things that your life does not depend on.

Bottom line: Dashingsteel posted a valid concern about unnecessarily complicated map layout and that the “map/minimap” does not, in a meaningful way support player exploration.
No matter how you try to derail that valid concern/complaint the issue sticks!

(And before I get the “generation” lecture: I’m a 50+ mathematician/programmer and I not only accept: I love that new generations do not put up with some of the … we accepted way back when)

the problem is, while i agree the map is not performing at peak effeciency in HOT, by far, that alone would not deter people raised with a different set of rules. Also, for many of things the map performs poorly at, its actually supposed to be a secret. Like theres a hero point here, somewhere, but your supposed to figure out where its hidden.

Part of the design of tangled depths, is to be a tangle depth, you learn tangled depths more from experience and exploration than from a map, and i dont think thats compeltely unintentional.

at a basic level, dashing steel doesnt like that, he wants to know where to go, he is not wrong, but he is opposed to the concept of a place that a map doesnt work that well in a video game.

Dont get me wrong, i know how he felt, but overall, the map would not have enhanced the area much for me, just like having crappy amusement park map wouldnt guarantee i had kittenty time at an amusement park.

ArchonWing.9480:

A lot of gem store sales involving things are time limited, but also at predictable intervals. Furthermore, gems are a single resource too. Unlike materials that will have limited use, gems always work in the gem store.

Things like gear and such doesn’t really go anywhere.

I never said to just “gamble” away materials just because. Hoarding items can also be a gamble if they lose value. I’m saying that in a lot of cases, it really doesn’t matter anyways in the long run and being overly scared in letting things go in a sea of should haves and would haves doesn’t seem very healthy. Of course, that really depends on the definition of gamble since there aren’t many actions with 100% certainty.

To make it clear, im probably closer to your behavior, i sell over a certain amount if i have specific goal, and i dont generally care too much about the losses i may take, because why worry about to tommorow.

but i recognize i have wasted tons of money doing so. Its not very effecient, and now there is a bunch of things that are back logged due to previous descisions.

Im just pointing out, they arent really crazy, they actually are extremely effecient, especially if they are not the type to pay attention to the TP speculation. Its just not a playstyle i can do, focus on nothing for a long period making incremental progress in a lot of different fronts, and keeping things around with no clear goal when i dont need them.

but its smart, and its actually the thing that, if you arent hoping to get things cheaper or sell at a more peak value, makes the most sense.

i just recognize, my particular way, is not the one that makes sense in this game.

ArchonWing.9480:

So I sell 1000 mithril @40c for 3.4g. I later need 2000 mithril and now it sells for 1s. I now have to pay 16.6g. Wow, big deal.

Then again, I guess everyone has their own approach. I just don’t believe in trying to predict the future. TP boogiemen making extra coin is really none of my business.

I suddenly decided that I want to craft more Ascended gear and needed thick leather. I was selling most of my thick leather for past months. Big deal? No. Just required a lower buy order. In fact, I made a mistake and should have done lower, but hey is that extra gold going to kill me? Now that price dropped even further I’m just glad I can now order leather for even cheaper now.

unless you win the gamble they will have everything you want faster. you will spend more resources for less gains.

split yourself into two yous, one buys now, the others saves, both of you will eventually have the same stuff, you will get it first, but overall he will get it faster if only due to tax.

unless you win at the market

ArchonWing.9480:

Well, again, that’s what I mean by having no concrete goals. If I need to stockpile X material, then I will leave whatever amount is needed minus the amount I expect to gain from just salvaging materials. That’s just simple planning.

Obviously, when one’s needs are vague and undefined, then they are going to lose out on a lot of things.

You don’t need to monitor the market. Just look at updates once in a while and see what happens during big events and holidays. Everything else is literally pennies. I mean how often do you need to swap stats on insignias? Probaly only when new stats come out or balance changes affect old ones. Not very common and even estimating 10-15 insignias, the long term swing is what? 200’ish gold at worse? Not even enough for 2 pieces of ascended gear.

Then again, I guess everyone has their own approach. I just don’t believe in trying to predict the future. TP boogiemen making extra coin is really none of my business.

i hear insignia is like 65 gold right now, so thats 650-800 gold assuming 10-15. and its not the tp boogeyman.
assuming the item keeps the same value, you lose 15% if there is general inflation, more than that.
if you have your behavior, selling what you dont need, you are likely to be late when the changes happen and will need the items when they introduce new things, which is when they tend to go up.
so your just losing money.

in beginning some gold spending returns value, but later on, not much.

they also arent trying to predict, thats why they wont sell it when it goes up or even as it drops.

as i said, they arent trying to gamble on the tp anymore, they dont want to try to be aware of trends. tp barons make money on everything they can make money on, the point being you arent going to just lose 15% most times, you will lose 15% plus whatever cut the market wants to get on that particular item.

the bank express is nice, and may be worthwhile, but that is a case of trading for something else. you are giving up mats for something you cant get with mats. thats rare. most time you will be selling mats, to buy mats, and the next thing you need will use the mats you sold.

now consider this, if you buy gem items with real money, there is only a few items at all that you dont have that will not use items.
for those few items, day to day gold or rmt in extreme cases is a better strategy.

a if you rarely buy mats, gold is basically only for black lion ticket type items, and direct gold sink items.

unless you are a trader, there isnt much benefit in selling basic mats without direct farms

there just isnt much to gain by splurging. if i sell leather to finish dawn faster, right as i finish dawn, i ll need leather to swap gear stats, or for a gift ofvleather. sell mythrilium? nope might need it if they make my specialization a dagger. you are generally not choosing to give up one thing for another, you are just buying on credit.

overall its very effecient if you arent monitoring the market.

Squee.7829:

Anela.3867:

imsoenthused.1634:

phys.7689:

point is different themed areas, different movement means

No, the point is artificially introducing a problem that the game already had a solution to in order to create a niche for the introduction of mounts which will undoubtedly be a massive cash shop success for them, at the cost of permanently losing part of the identity that makes Guild Wars 2 a Guild Wars game. Which they have every right to do, but don’t pretend they couldn’t have done the exact same thing with properly used waypoints and strategically places updrafts and ley lines. The only reason they aren’t is so that they can make mounts a desirable item and sell more gems.

Companies are in the business of making money. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be in business. I don’t understand why people don’t get that.

We all know businesses exist to make money. It’s common sense. But it’s not as simple as just “Let’s make an item and hope people buy it!”. You also have to consider, especially in this case, “will people get irritated if we make a product they not only don’t want, but seem to be adamantly against”. Put simply, if they add mounts they run the risk of satisfying a few customers and driving away an equal or greater amount of customers. Because it’s not always just a case of “if you don’t want it, just don’t buy it”. You have some people who will just up and leave and no longer support the game.

Now I’m not saying everyone is against mounts, but clearly many are. For various reasons. And it seems like at least enough people are opposed to strongly consider not adding them.

many people just follow what the authorities say. if the authorities say no mounts, they say mounts suck, if the authority says yes mount, they say mounts awesome.

reality is it comes down to execution. mounts in swtor felt hollow, mounts in black desert felt awesome.

its up to anet whether its cheesy or fun

imsoenthused.1634:

phys.7689:

point is different themed areas, different movement means

No, the point is artificially introducing a problem that the game already had a solution to in order to create a niche for the introduction of mounts which will undoubtedly be a massive cash shop success for them, at the cost of permanently losing part of the identity that makes Guild Wars 2 a Guild Wars game. Which they have every right to do, but don’t pretend they couldn’t have done the exact same thing with properly used waypoints and strategically places updrafts and ley lines. The only reason they aren’t is so that they can make mounts a desirable item and sell more gems.

no its not artificial if thats what the theme of the area needs.

i live in a big city, mass transit is generally better than cars, bikes are better in the city proper. walking is effecient.

in venice, a city of canals, 2 person boats make sense.

in california highways and cars dominate.

if you want variation in map design that matter you must use different means of travel. If you have the same travel limitations, you have to design similar maps.

its not a cash grab, gliders are not an after thought in hot maps. they werent made to sell skins.

the mounts are there for the gameplay opportunities they present on the maps as well as setting a different feel and tone. they wanted the maps to be exciting and different, with new ways to interact with the zone.

you are thinking of mounts in other games, which are primarily speed boosts and skin sales.
these are map mechanics

i dont want elona maps to have updrafts and ley lines, i already did that in hot. having super vertical maps was cool, but having a horizontal map may be fun.

waypoints as main means of travel is boring as hell, its good in small doses, but its best use imo is as good respawn position.

opinions on which is the best way to handle maps may vary, thats why its a good idea to have map variation

SepiaBrownie.7504:

As I’m diving more into HOT I’m realizing more of why people are complaining about difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I like mobs having interesting mechanics and I like challenging maps. (although, I will admit HOT content is gett’in my sheeze but I think that’s because my gear isn’t that great) What I don’t like is being forced to learn certain things in a certain order in order to travel through the maps when before I didn’t have to. (aka the mastery system) I had choices on how I could do things in the other maps in the base game. While in these maps I don’t + if I want to learn certain mastery’s I HAVE to do them in HOT maps.

So far I feel like HOT stripped away a lot of the freedoms that the base game gave. So the difficulty and challenge isn’t really in the players hands anymore but game’s. Like before, if I wanted to do a dungeon, or a jumping puzzle (which I love). Those where challenges that are there and I can chose if I want to do them or not. If I didn’t want to, well, I wasn’t missing anything in terms of personal progression or story. Now, if I don’t do HOT maps. I’m missing not only personal story but also mastery points & features attached to those mastery points.

Idk, I think if they made it to where there wasn’t mastery points that you HAD the learn in HOT. I don’t think there would be as many complaints. ’cause than people can learn in other maps and than apply those skills in the HOT maps. Which would possibly make them easier to process for the player.

the mastery system is at its worst early on, and makes you feel like you need X to progress.
however it actually turns out you can get most places without them, but its more involved. but when you re stuck and you see a nuhock wallow, the assumption is you need x or cant move forward.

which i agree is pretty frustrating

Labjax.2465:

In response to the point about learning maps:

1) If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is “you eventually learn them,” that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. There’s a reason that complex features often have tutorials to go along with them; to use the reading analogy that Vayne brought up, you don’t just hand a child a book and tell them to learn how to read. Reading is also a poor analogy as a defense because reading can take years to learn and that’s with heavy guidance and instruction. So if learning the maps is like learning to read, it’s way too difficult.

2) Some people have a poor sense of direction. Even with a map, they can get turned around easily. I am one of those people. No amount of playing the maps changes this fact. Instead of instinctively navigating spaces, I more or less have to memorize parts of them. This takes time.

3) The difference between navigating the HoT maps with most-to-all gliding mastery (and some non-gliding, like nunoch wallows) unlocked versus navigating it with no gliding mastery unlocked is night and day. And once again, this takes time to do. Meanwhile, you’re trying to unlock the masteries in the very maps that would be less confusing and difficult to navigate if you had the masteries. It’s a bit like having you play in the NBA, so that you can qualify for college basketball.

You might be inclined to skim over these points and go, “Well see, it all comes back to if you spend enough time, you’ll learn.” If so, you’re missing how poor of a design philosophy that is. You have to assume that people are going to misunderstand things, get confused, get frustrated, and that many will silently leave if they can’t figure out what to do. Because that’s what a lot of people naturally do when faced with an optional piece of recreation for which there is no obligation to stick with it.

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

3 is the major flaw, these maps are really good/funnest when are experienced with them. you can move around fairly quickly, but its not very boring, and a lot of variation within each map.

however the curve is steep and its very hard to achieve anything or participate in the map early on, which is when you most need to particpate (for mastery exp)

still overall id say they are very worthwhile maps, the problem is they are like high end explorer maps, within the context of the total maps in game, its great to have em, but within the context of 4/4 expansion, you will lose a lot of people before they are invested.

that said, i think the game overall really needed more depth and replayability, and i got much more enjoyment when having to go back to these maps, than most other maps in the game.

it also enhanced say, orr for when you wanted something less cerebral and more pick up and play.

imsoenthused.1634:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I think the end result will be closer to the junundu wurms from Nightfall than the traditional MMO mount.

We can only hope and pray. I personally think we’re going to see a storm of winged glitter ponies the size of an SUV, just like every other MMO out there. I don’t care how big the new zone is, I can’t see a single reason it couldn’t have been handled just fine with waypoints and gliders, other than pushing cash shop mounts and accessories in the gem store.

travel based changes makes the most sense for masteries.
also gliders are designed for vertical maps. if you want to design an expansive desert area, gliders are not a good idea.

why big maps? well it fits the area, and its better to have a lot of players on one map because they can shout for events.

if you played guild wars i, the desert was huge and expansive, making it small would not have the same effect. they also used giant worms to traverse it, this is a similar paradigm

if they moved to an urban area, neither gliders nor mounts would be the most useful, and masteries might be tied to wall climbing, mass transit, and vip accesses.

point is different themed areas, different movement means

ArchonWing.9480:

OriOri.8724:

Host Tar.8436:

I’ve been so badly hurt financially when I’ve sold off stuff in previous years only to then need 1000s of it to craft something, that I hoard everything!! Pretty much every single crafting mat from the dregs to the very most expensive, I keep. I have a storage expansion to 500, when I hit that, I transfer to mules, & keep on filling up. I have ten of thousands of some mats. I don’t care, never again will I be pray to TP manipulators, recipe changes & new items spiking stuff. It’s a false economy when so much can be manipulated by wealthy players. I remember the very early days when it all started, when leg weps & precursors were simply bought out by a few players & then drip-fed back into the market when required. It happens all the time with everything that has any value, low to high. So now, I simply save absolutely everything.

You definitely take this to the extreme, but you point out a valid concern that a lot of players have regarding “hoarding” their items.

Anet has a history, especially in the last few years, of introducing new recipes/changing old recipes to require absolutely massive amounts of some mats. So why on earth would we have an incentive to sell something it, at any time, Anet could change a recipe to now require hundreds, or even thousands, of whatever items we just dumped our entire stock of? For a lot of players this risk isn’t worth the temporary reward of a few more silver, or a few more gold, because it has the potential to cost them way more than what they make in the long run.

Because one might want stuff now? Because it might suddenly collapse? (See resonating slivers?). Applies especially true for players that haven’t gotten equipment or account upgrades.

I’m not sure how well people are at farming liquid gold, but I like to keep a healthy amount of gems converted from gold to get whatever I need.

And if you have nothing to buy, then what use is wealth to begin with?

You people worry way too much. This isn’t real life where not having funds means you get kicked out or starve to death. So what if you missed out on hundreds or even thousands of potential gold? This is nothing over years of game time. Perhaps some of you should play some strategy games like Starcraft or Civlization. There you will realize that sometimes due to snowball effects that small advantages right now are more important than big advantages later.

Why is this? Well, that’s easy. Let’s say someone gives you $500 now. Or they could give you $30 once a year for the next 50 years. Assuming you could do something useful with the $500, it’s pretty obvious you should take the $500 even ignoring inflation. Because you could use the $500 to do something that will further your cause.

This is even more true for this game, because at this rate, one could continually “hoard” until they stop playing, and never actualize any of its benefit. What’s the point?

Just play the game. The more you cling onto how little you have, the less you will have.

see, you like to gamble, sure you MIGHT make money/gain value, but its pretty unlikely unless you are going to monitor the market.

they have lost too many times, and they arent playing anymore. they are checking out of the market.

there is no item you dont need, and usually in large numbers. you can sell now, but you ll have to buy later. the tp players dedicate lots of thought and time into making sure you have to pay them for your mistakes.

leather used to be a few copper, and they had/sold thousands now its expensive and they need thousands.

bad part is the game pace of progress is pretty poor when you have to save everything. I guess mostly extremely patient players are left.

hmm leaks suggest stuff….

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

I don’t sell my coins as I barely have any anymore, and I put them all into my guild for upgrades. So I’m not hording at all, but they are going into sinks whenever I get even 1. The same goes for t6 Leather.

yeah but apparently a lot are being saved, not like what you are doing

Fatalyz.7168:

Thao.3947:

Fatalyz.7168:

Jski.6180:

I get the feeling ppl are in denial about there own views so i am more or less talking to anet dev most of the time. There will be real consequent to gear like this being added with a raid wall. Just trying to give warning and the real storm to come.

I get the feeling that you are in denial about what the community wants, and what they game devs are doing based on feedback from the community.

But you keep on believing as you believe, you’ll realize in time that there is no “real storm to come” and no “real consequen(ces)” to this gear being added. You’ll also realize that this armor isn’t going to be changed from a raid only armor nor will it be changed into a skin only.

So do you think the community, aka all players, wanted a raid only legendary armor? Really?

If the devs listened to the community and not a vocal minority GW2 could do better. Perhaps you don´t remember that they had to rework their precious hot maps and metas or the new desert borderland fiasco.

I don’t think that the community wanted a raid only Legendary armor.

I think the community wanted Legendary armor, the community wanted Raids, and the community wanted content locked behind specific game play modes to show mastery in those areas. The community received those things, just not in the way that they expected.

I have also said repeatedly through out this thread, I think that the first ever Legendary armor being placed behind raids was a mistake, but that it is most likely too late to change it at this point, due to how heavily intertwined with the Raids it is. The better option would have been to make something more generally accessible, but that assumes Anet wants Legendary armor to be easily accessible (judging by the collection requirements for the second collection, they don’t).

Personally, I don’t think Legendary gear (specifically the Gen 1 weapons) should have ever been as easily accessible as what it turned out to be. Legendary armor, backpieces, and the Gen 2 weapons are going in the right direction, content locked behind specific game modes, imo.

if it took em two years, and few players like the designs, and few players seek to make, that all comes together to make it unlikely.

thats why i suggest an item that upgrades something else to legendary status.
saves em from spending tons of time creating new legendary skins, and
has a relatively low cost of production.

Ensign.2189:

phys.7689:

so essentially, players have been trained in gw2, that gold has little value. hoarding is logical because anet has built an economy where you will probably need many things, so there is no value in selling them, because you ll just have to buy it later.

I think this is touching on something important that is a little tricky to pin down.

If you look at what players get from drops, it’s this mix of materials that everyone gets a ton of – and, importantly, everyone gets roughly the same mix of. It’s not like some people do content that produces blood and another content that generates fangs and they need to trade to get the mix they want – with a handful of exceptions, regardless of where you play in the end game you get more or less the same stuff.

Demand similarly takes somewhat different ratios of that stuff, but still draws on big piles of the same stuff.

So the big flows of trade, that you need gold for, are shifting between the very rare drop / gem store skin markets and the commodity markets. You trade rare thing for rare thing, or rare thing for a big pile of common stuff, or a big pile of common stuff for other common stuff.

If you aren’t trading out of the common stuff to get a rare skin, there’s basically no reason to sell, since all the goods are generic. You’d just be selling to buy back later, holding wealth in gold in the interim.

Within that, it’s interesting, because you have a couple different mechanisms. Mystic Coins have always been pretty interesting since they are time gated and can be traded, so they act like a negative beta good – when other stuff is rare and expensive, coins are cheap, and when other stuff is cheap, coins are expensive. So you see coins marching upward, which implies people are flooded with all the other crap needed to make endgame crafts. So far, so good.

Hardened leather, well…if you look within the bundle of commodities, leather, metal, fine mats, etc, everyone has a steady income of those, and you can’t really do much to tweak the ratios other than hitting that centaur camp hard. In that case, you’d expect prices on the higher demand (relative to supply ratios) items to, over time, eventually encompass the whole value of the output. Hardened leather looks like that item, so it’ll keep rising in price (while the value of non-hardened leather commodities, that are produced as byproducts of hardened leather, drops proportionally).

The former I understand pretty well. The latter, well…it doesn’t have great real world analogues, but I think the case is pretty clear – it’s the high demand portion of a farming process with tons of waste products, and thus captures a disproportionate bulk of the value of that process.

true, but i assume they are implying people are storing more than they will probably need.
like if people are storing amounts equal to what they need to make things its normal, not really worth mentioning.

a side note:
i was thinking the game may need more items which can be bought, but not created from basic mats, the rares as you say, but that would hit crafted items values overall, which is still the primary driver in the economy.

Charrbeque.8729:

phys.7689:

Charrbeque.8729:

Well 11 months ago a dev said this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Mystic-Coins-again/page/2#post6157178

Chris Cleary.8017:

Most of this price increase revolves around players that are pushing the value up due to the players willingness to pay more. If players are willing to pay more for an item, it’s going to keep increasing until eventually it hits a ceiling for the commodity. We’ve seen the same thing occur with numerous commodities over time.

Right now there is a consistent supply of mystic coins entering the game (way more than are being consumed) and churning through the trading post at a very slow rate. —-Most of the coins on the market are ones that have been flipped.-—

In retrospect, this is actually causing the daily login reward to be worth significantly more to players who wish to convert mystic coins to gold.

Although he didn’t specifically use the word “hoarding”, he gave a pretty good impression that: Most of the mystic coins are in FACT being hoarded by players intent on keeping the price high, because apparently some players seem to not mind the higher prices.

Oh and, remember earlier I pointed out a dev on Reddit said that 30k coins were purchased by 2 players? Well………….https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5dmnfm/before_leaving_gw2_i_invensted_in_stuff_in_case_i/da5owid/ That was posted some time after the dev’s comment. Someone talking about buying 15k mystic coins for a future investment.

what it suggests is that an unusual amount of coins being traded arent being consumed. non flippers are, by an unusual percent, niether interested in buying or selling.

basically as the above poster said, not interested in the coin market at any price. well, unless it was cheap maybe

True. Lack of interest in using mystic coins is the reason why they’re being hoarded in order to keep the price up. And those that actually intend to use them are willing to pay the higher price. (If you’re working on a legendary, you most likely have the gold to pay the higher price anyway)

Which brings me back to my point: the supply is there. It’s basically not moving. And because of that, the devs aren’t going to do anything about it.

And to repeat my suggestion: 1 possible solution is to come up with something players actually want to use mystic coins for. It would increase consumption, which in turn would encourage the hoarders to put more supply on the trading post to get as much gold as they can before the price gets too low to turn a profit. Which of course means the prices would decrease due to more supply being posted. And when a good portion of the hoarded supply is permanently removed from the game (due to players actually using them), then the devs can find a way to give us a better and more reliable way to obtain them. Just a theory.

nah what it means is they dont care about profiting on coins any more, future possible use is more valuable to them than gold.

so either they would continue to save their coins, feeling justified that anet will continue to add things and one day they may want one.
or they will make the new items and start saving up again.

basically they are saying its pointless and a loss to sell something and buy it back later.

with that type of paradigm, no price is the right price. they see selling goods as a gamble, and they arent gamblers.

unless
they can no longer carry it
no longer think they need it

inventory is high and
when anet asks you for something they ask for huge amounts.

cost to make items from items is fixed, cost to buy materials is variable, and generally going to be most expensive at the point in time when you actually want them.

saving items is predictable saving gold is not, and most of the things you will want to buy are made.

Obtena.7952:

TorsoReaper.8530:

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Why is it even necessary to entice players to sell them, hoarding or not? Why is it always Anet’s job to ensure players get MC coins at the rate players see fit at the price they want to pay? That’s not how it works. I would hope an Economics major could get that.

its a designed economy, so it kind of is their focus. If they were laissez faire as you suggest, they would never have hired an economics guy.

anet may choose to change it or not, but its still of interest to economy focused people because its one of the issues they deal with in designing and analyzing an economy.

note, he says IF they want to change the behavior, he knows that maybe they dont want to.

basically, while this may bore you, economy focused people would probably find it interesting

That doesn’t make sense … designed economy does NOT mean players should get what they want, at the prices they want in the volumes they want. It has nothing to do with boring … it has everything to do with sensible.

the boring comment was me explaining why an economics dude would want to talk about it.

the fact that the economy is designed means that player satisfcation matters to the economy.

Again … the goal here of the economy is not 100% player satisfaction … it’s simply mats available to players at market prices.

no one said its 100% player satisfaction?

Then why do you bring it up the idea that a designed economy means customer satisfaction if you understand that not all players can be satisfied in the first place? That’s a non-starter of an argument. I guess you just flip flop for whatever suits your position?

The fact is simple. The economy isn’t designed to make everyone happy. Furthermore, if someone doesn’t like the price because it’s expensive and that makes them unhappy, you can be assured that sellers are as happy that people are buying at that price as well … so you can drop the nonsensical ‘dissatisfaction’ ploy as a reason for Anet to do something here.

The goal should be an unsatisfied player base because that is what makes the most money for Anet and NCSoft! Good idea!

You haven’t made any attempt to understand me here if that’s what you think I’m saying. Frankly, you are delusional if you think that Anet can fix the game to make every single person satisfied with it. That’s just completely unrealistic.

The question isn’t what to do if people are dissatisfied with something. The question is if it’s worth doing something about it in the first place. I don’t see anyone really justifying this other than “because I want stuff”. Everyone just comes in guns blazing with sensationalized ideas to ‘prove’ it’s the next big problem that needs to be fixed … well get in line because there are hundreds of those next big ideas.

I think lots of people attempt to look at the economic theory here to come to some conclusions about it’s good, it’s bad, it’s whatever they want it to be ….

The practical reality is that all mats on the TP are simply and naturally determined by very simply concepts of what people are willing to do. The market prices and volumes are just testament to the FACT that on average, what you see happening is representative of what the population of players is willing to sell or pay for a given mat. Any concept of absolute value “What a mat SHOULD be” is really just nonsensical. We already know what it should be, because the market tells you that.

actually there are market failures, where things arent performing according to supply and demand.

if a lot of players begin to see items like the poster a few posts back does, it creates a marketplace that doesnt do its job of making players feel like trading goods.

ie the marketplace begins to only represent a small subsection, which has snowball effect

or rather IF this is the case, its a problem. however increasing supply may not help in this case.

most likely they need to stop people from needing everything, and increase the amount of buyable goods of value.

its probably too late though they already made everyone a crafter, and endgame items need practically every thing. it is genuinely a bad idea to sell/buy basic goods, and players caught on.

Charrbeque.8729:

Well 11 months ago a dev said this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Mystic-Coins-again/page/2#post6157178

Chris Cleary.8017:

Most of this price increase revolves around players that are pushing the value up due to the players willingness to pay more. If players are willing to pay more for an item, it’s going to keep increasing until eventually it hits a ceiling for the commodity. We’ve seen the same thing occur with numerous commodities over time.

Right now there is a consistent supply of mystic coins entering the game (way more than are being consumed) and churning through the trading post at a very slow rate. —-Most of the coins on the market are ones that have been flipped.-—

In retrospect, this is actually causing the daily login reward to be worth significantly more to players who wish to convert mystic coins to gold.

Although he didn’t specifically use the word “hoarding”, he gave a pretty good impression that: Most of the mystic coins are in FACT being hoarded by players intent on keeping the price high, because apparently some players seem to not mind the higher prices.

Oh and, remember earlier I pointed out a dev on Reddit said that 30k coins were purchased by 2 players? Well………….https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5dmnfm/before_leaving_gw2_i_invensted_in_stuff_in_case_i/da5owid/ That was posted some time after the dev’s comment. Someone talking about buying 15k mystic coins for a future investment.

what it suggests is that an unusual amount of coins being traded arent being consumed. non flippers are, by an unusual percent, niether interested in buying or selling.

basically as the above poster said, not interested in the coin market at any price. well, unless it was cheap maybe

FrizzFreston.5290:

Cyninja.2954:

Sure it does. Your reasoning is slightly different but all it does is shift your price point up. Also legendary armor was known material wise for months now, that’s no different than people going:“I might make legendary xyz, I need to hold on to these materials.”

If for example Mystic Coins were to hit 10 gold a piece, I guarantee you a LOT of players holding on to them at 1 gold would sell them off, especially new players. Why? because for many of them that would be insane value per MC per month compared to effort invested.

Would some hold on to Mystic Coins at that price? Sure because they might expect future price increases. That’s called speculation. The majority of the market does not work that way though.

That is assuming everyone participates, and is willing to give up or bet on mystic coins goals in the game. Knowing it’s a rising price atm, and that it might become worth even more and that it’s ridiculously timegated, it’s hardly any different than selling T7 materials (Deldrimor steel, spiritwood planks, etc) which youre most likely better saving up for ascended armor or a precursor journey

Selling them at price X is just as much of a bet as holding onto them. Some people don’t want to make any bets on the market with items they may care about later.

There’s better ways to make ingame gold than selling mystic coins that you get. No matter the price point.

I can say that there’s no pricepoint for mystic coins at which I’m willing to sell them at, and more that there’s is an amount of mystic coins where i’m willing to sell mystic coins, namely when they cant fit in my inventory.

so essentially, players have been trained in gw2, that gold has little value. hoarding is logical because anet has built an economy where you will probably need many things, so there is no value in selling them, because you ll just have to buy it later.

if mystic coins go up in value, it just means you need to save more, because you arent willing to pay the price.

but the suggestion is that people are saving more than they could use, or else they wouldnt refer to it as hoarding.

so basically people no longer believe in trading items, because in the game you probably need everything at some point.

which is true, there are few basic goods that you wont need. if there are items you think you wont need, chances are, eventually anet will make you need them.

mystic coins the desire to futureproof is larger because it isnt something you will be able choose to farm if the price is too high, so you ll jut end up buying it back at a loss.

the logical extension of this type of thinking is an economy where people check out of trading building block goods.

they probably messed up by making everyone need to craft. and needing all disciplines,

it is true that you will probably need all your items eventually, and you will probably take a loss if you buy or sell most things.

so basically the market relfects only the supply of a few, and price points only a few are willing to pay.

interesting
people just dont feel like trading is that worthwhile

actually story only touches on a few locations, and chain of events only work if you are the type that followed chains(or story ). neither btw, from what i remember usually show you the best ways to get around, in fact they are usually roundabout.

these are actually pretty good exploration places in the long term, but really frustrating early.

basically a lot of people dont want to explore, in that they wander around trying to figure the secrets of the map to get tasks done.

which i do understand, but i will say there is a lot more depth, and joy of traversing the map in the long term once you know them.
tangled depths was my most hated map initially, but when i had to repeat for currencies, was the most entertaining map later. auric basin was kinda boring, and dragon stand, bleh.

so i see why people hate them, but i also see why in some ways they are better designed for repeated play.

tyria regular is really boring once you get used to hot maps

Just a flesh wound.3589:

zealex.9410:

Sartharina.3542:

Fur showing on the charr would have been awesome. Unfortunately, the developers decided that since we don’t like “Feminine” armor on our charr, we want the all-covering male armor instead of something that’s awesome and unisex for charr.

That is wrong on the pre pre cursor the armors for asura and charr had the same chest piece as the human female and sylvari. Player feedback changed that.

Yep. The previous iteration had female Charr and Asura wearing bikini tops. There was a thread asking for our opinion on it and people did not want bikini tops for those 2.

Original version for precursor armor for female Charr and Asura

yeah the charr having a bra makes no sense.

i think what they wanted is design that isnt simply a male skin, but is not designed for a humanoid woman.

since it was either or, the implication is doing something new for them wasnt on the table

Cyninja.2954:

Sartharina.3542:

Wanze.8410:

Behellagh.1468:

No, ANet’s assumption is that Mystic Coins would be handled like every other mat, as the price goes up, it would reach a point where players would sell rather than hold. This is normally true if new supply is elastic, that players can control acquiring more of that material.

Mystic Coins however are rationed out a little bit at a time and while ANet did add a “farm” to get one a day, it’s not easy. And as the price on the TP reached a tipping point, players who had sold the ones they got stopped. As long as the price keeps marching upwards, why sell? Especially if not selling is what’s keeping the price going higher.

This doesnt make sense.

People stop selling, once MCs reach a tipping point? In my opinion, they will start selling at a certain price value. And I would argue that is what actually happened, once they hit 1g at the start of the year. Sine then, their price has been incredibly stable at that value .

Yes it does – at some point, the price is so high re-acquisition becomes prohibitive (I think this has happened to Leather, which is required for EVERYTHING). You can’t sell it, because you’re going to need it later. The short-term profit from selling isn’t worth the long-term cost of not having that good later. And for those genuinely interested in selling – why sell now, when you can wait as the price continues to rise?

Yes but unfortunately your view is unrealistic. The playerbase (at least a majority of it) does not go about looking at longterm profit or availability.

Case in point, the current price spike once leggy armor was announced to release. Other examples? Every single addition of new items which players could prepare for yet prices still spiked.

The majority of players (as in the real world) have a price point at which they are willing to sell assets because they feel the value they receive in liquid currency matches the value ot they item they are holding on to. It’s actually one of the most basic economic priciples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_supply).

Will there be a part of the playerbase which will hold on to their mystic coins expecting further price increases? Sure, it’s called speculation. This amount will be castly smaller than the increase in sellers simply due to the risk avert nature of most humans.

The common proverb going with this goes:
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

except real people sometimes dont follow these rules. the fact that devs called it hoarding, suggests they dont believe its speculation, or rather its not reasonable speculation.

consumers arent willing to buy at this price (in the numbers they should), and yet the people holding it arent willing to sell, even as the non traded supply grows.

which if the devs believe is the case, they wont want to increase supply, because the in game supply may represent the real demand, adding more would just flood the market.

i think the devs are seeing, what they feel is illogical behavior. hence they think of it as hoarding.

the op is saying its not illogical, its storing value, but as you say, not everyone invests. in fact they can probably see people arent investing in other items with better or similar growth/demand

so basically the devs just gonna wait for the unrealistic player behavior to pass.

and if it doesnt, its just another case of humans sometimes breaking the paradigms

mtpelion.4562:

For the record, 100% of my Mystic Coin buy orders have been filled to date, so the idea that there is a shortage of supply is false.

1g per MC is not an outrageous price for a pure luxury item, and it hasn’t prevented me from making profits on the items I craft with them.

its not always about shortage.

like lets say something that happens to beef it goes up to 5 dollars, but overall consumers arent willing to pay 5 dollars, and sellers would rather keep it at 5 dollars.

essentially the amount being exchanged is not representing the historical demand, and the amount being consumed doesnt represent the amount people are selling.

which implies there is some non supply/demand based reason people are holding on to the item.

its interesting because the implication is gold has very little value in this game. People would rather hold items than turn it into gold.

i wonder if they had some investment system, or something where you could spend money to increase wealth, would that flood the market with excess hoarded goods? perhaps the bank needs to generate some type of interest for stored gold.

or perhaps it just needs more things people want to spend gold on regularly

Wanze.8410:

Behellagh.1468:

No, ANet’s assumption is that Mystic Coins would be handled like every other mat, as the price goes up, it would reach a point where players would sell rather than hold. This is normally true if new supply is elastic, that players can control acquiring more of that material.

Mystic Coins however are rationed out a little bit at a time and while ANet did add a “farm” to get one a day, it’s not easy. And as the price on the TP reached a tipping point, players who had sold the ones they got stopped. As long as the price keeps marching upwards, why sell? Especially if not selling is what’s keeping the price going higher.

This doesnt make sense.

People stop selling, once MCs reach a tipping point? In my opinion, they will start selling at a certain price value. And I would argue that is what actually happened, once they hit 1g at the start of the year. Sine then, their price has been incredibly stable at that value .

their price being stable doesnt really illustrate reaching effeciency. If this item is designed to be consumed, and the people who dont want to consume the item arent selling, and people who want to buy arent buying…

then its not really fullfilling its purpose.

the item design using mystic coins assumes that some percent of the supply will be sold.

its like… if the government gave everyone hamburgers, knowing half the people wouldnt care, and designed the supply so that there was only enough hamburgers for 50% of the people. the assumption is 50% will sell theirs, who have no need.

but instead the non eaters choose not to sell, only a few buyers are willing to pay the market price, and you have a build up of demand and supply, and an impasse.

the hamburgers are not effectively serving their purpose, but making more hamburgers is a waste. they are basically failing as a product.

of course this is just a possibility, it could be that everything is performing as expected. it really depends how much coins are being held with no intent to use or short sell them, which would be pretty hard to tell.

Mage of Void.7963:

Why is the Sylvari female medium armor so different from the rest of the female medium armor? Its so skimpy and impractical.

probably because sylvari skin is more distinctive than human skin. People select the design and glow, and maybe they wanted more to come through.

Basically, a sylvari in too much human clothes just looks like a human.
Now, me assuming that says they should have had more fur showing for charr, and not clipped their horns, but i think we all have accepted the designers arent particularly strong/willing to spend the effort on anthromorphs as they are humanoids, perhaps because the work on humanoid stuff benefits more races.

but yeah, basically the answer is, because less is sometimes more.

Katastroff.1045:

Why is it a problem that legendary armor is gated by doing raid? After all its an end game goal and it should be reachable by doing end game content.
We already have legendary weapons that are gated by buggy events that dont start or get stuck, at least raiders do know they will see the end of it at some point, while the rest are still waiting to see bug fix on older stuff to finish their collections.

The real problem is this community has never accepted raids as the endgame of guild wars2 its a bit of a hard sell, since it way more difficult to even attempt than anything else in the game, and directly opposite to what many people though the endgame of this game was before it.

people see it as one option among many in the game, and thus dont like it requiring a sizable investment into the game mode.
for comparison, a legendary weapon needed 500 tokens, thats like 6 dungeon paths
wvw needed 500 badges, which even before they gave em out like candy would probably take a week at best.

to be clear, i think the only fair complaint is based on the utility of legendary, not having a nice or special skin, which is totally fair game.

if they can get the community at large to see raiding as the logical endgame and culmination of pve, then people will have less complaints, but i think thats fairly unlikely, since it would have probably happened by now if that was the case.

Fatalyz.7168:

Jski.6180:

Fatalyz.7168:

Jski.6180:

Its called not letting ppl get a free ride. Legendary armor seems to be more of a time gated item set where weapons where more of a gold gated set. By making them have a means of needed to work for a new combo you keep them on par with other players progression.

Two things:
1) What is free about a 2500 gold set of armor?
2) Stat combos are not end game progression, I covered this already in my previous post to you. They maybe to YOU, but your opinion is not fact. Fact: End game progression in this game is around acquiring legendaries, Mastery progression, WvW rank progression, and sPvP skill levels.

I did horizontal progression is gw2 treadmill. You just do want what to here it is all. All games have some type of progression most of them are strong version of the gear but that not the only way to add in progression to a game.

Jski.6180:

It is power creep at its purest form. If they add in more combos like traibalzers or even 5 state combso or a super 1 combo you can for free and with out doing pve content get these effect right as they are added to the game.

So i am suggestion make legendary armor and wepon need to have content to unlock there new combos any thing beyond that they are going to brake most raiders players need to keep playing AND make raider better then every one else in wvw setting.

You apparently do not know what power creep is. Power creep completely invalidates what came before it, kinda like the elite specs did for more core specs.

Why does Legendary tier gear need to have an unlock for new stat combos? So someone just spent an inordinate amount of time and money on making something, and you are now trying to tell them that they should need to spend more time and money on it. That is a terrible suggestion. You are trying to invalidate the work, time, and money that someone spent, just because you feel it isn’t fair, which is so wrong.

Btw, where are your facts, proof, or evidence?

Ppl can spend there money how they pleases but it should never give you an advantages over other ppl. Relay it should be a skin and effects only it should do nothing for combos and how strong you are.

Trailblazer and over all 4 combo is prof. You know just keep asking dose not make your argument any stronger.

The only advantages it gives you are QoL advantages.
1) Stat-swapping out of combat
2) Never have to make a higher tier weapon, the stats will always be at the best in the game.
3) New stats as they are added to the drop down (as of HoT, that wasn’t always available same day on weapons, so this may have changed)

It does NOT provide a power increase, as people in ascended are at the same power level.

You not providing proof, facts, or evidence does not make a case for your “complaints” or lend any weight to your “opinions”, so yes I am asking for those things. Otherwise, again you aren’t here for a discussion.

Trailblazer and 4 stat gear is proof of what, exactly?

while it isnt powercreep literally speaking,

I think you are being disengenous if you arent saying its not a huge advantage over not having it.
Having players who can swap gear for any situation as needed, on the fly is extremely powerful.
Im a healer in this fight, a Direct DPs for this fight, COndi in this fight, tank in another fight. That is no small ability to have. and while you could walk around with every stat set of armor, its not really too likely, and it would be way more expensive.

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Why is it even necessary to entice players to sell them, hoarding or not? Why is it always Anet’s job to ensure players get MC coins at the rate players see fit at the price they want to pay? That’s not how it works. I would hope an Economics major could get that.

its a designed economy, so it kind of is their focus. If they were laissez faire as you suggest, they would never have hired an economics guy.

anet may choose to change it or not, but its still of interest to economy focused people because its one of the issues they deal with in designing and analyzing an economy.

note, he says IF they want to change the behavior, he knows that maybe they dont want to.

basically, while this may bore you, economy focused people would probably find it interesting

That doesn’t make sense … designed economy does NOT mean players should get what they want, at the prices they want in the volumes they want. It has nothing to do with boring … it has everything to do with sensible.

the boring comment was me explaining why an economics dude would want to talk about it.

the fact that the economy is designed means that player satisfcation matters to the economy.

Again … the goal here of the economy is not 100% player satisfaction … it’s simply mats available to players at market prices.

no one said its 100% player satisfaction?

what do you mean about mats being available at market prices? Keep in mind this thread is not really saying they must do anything about it, but rather saying what he thinks is the root cause of the behavior.

Basically anet says that a lot of item supply isnt going back into the economy or being consumed, which is why the values of certain items are off.

the OP is saying what he believes is the cause of the behavior, and talking about what may come to pass.

What is it that you object to about that discussion?

Fatalyz.7168:

Xillllix.3485:

If they fixed raids to be playable by anyone without having to waste 3 hours looking for a party then nobody would be complaining. Anet needs difficulty settings for their dungeons and instanced content.

If you are wasting 3 hours looking for a party, either extend your friends list, join a guild, or join a static group. People choosing to waste 3 hours of their own time looking for a group, are doing exactly that, choosing to do it.

and how many hours does it take to find these things you speak of?

is it required for most of the rest of the game?

how long does it take once you get these groups and you are the new guy?

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Why is it even necessary to entice players to sell them, hoarding or not? Why is it always Anet’s job to ensure players get MC coins at the rate players see fit at the price they want to pay? That’s not how it works. I would hope an Economics major could get that.

its a designed economy, so it kind of is their focus. If they were laissez faire as you suggest, they would never have hired an economics guy.

anet may choose to change it or not, but its still of interest to economy focused people because its one of the issues they deal with in designing and analyzing an economy.

note, he says IF they want to change the behavior, he knows that maybe they dont want to.

basically, while this may bore you, economy focused people would probably find it interesting

That doesn’t make sense … designed economy does NOT mean players should get what they want, at the prices they want in the volumes they want. It has nothing to do with boring … it has everything to do with sensible.

the boring comment was me explaining why an economics dude would want to talk about it.

the fact that the economy is designed means that player satisfcation matters to the economy. if enough people are dissatisfied it will change, because they specifically hired an economist so that the economy would be satisfactory to players, and also the company.

real economies exist no matter what, even if they result in war and strife.

not sure why you are saying its not their job, when its mostly what they do. They make changes they think will benefit the economy because they believe that benefits the players.

whether changes to mystic coins will benefit the economy and the players is the discussion. Or whether changes already made are hitting their targets.

no matter which side each particular economist (or economy interested party) falls, its the type of thing they might want to analyze and explore.

Obtena.7952:

Why is it even necessary to entice players to sell them, hoarding or not? Why is it always Anet’s job to ensure players get MC coins at the rate players see fit at the price they want to pay? That’s not how it works. I would hope an Economics major could get that.

its a designed economy, so it kind of is their focus. If they were laissez faire as you suggest, they would never have hired an economics guy.

anet may choose to change it or not, but its still of interest to economy focused people because its one of the issues they deal with in designing and analyzing an economy.

note, he says IF they want to change the behavior, he knows that maybe they dont want to.

basically, while this may bore you, economy focused people would probably find it interesting