Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Ashendale.2165:

I’m sorry, kind of double post here.

So now I’m paying attention to the level unlocks on the wiki. I have the urge to delete the game from my computer. No expansion for me like this.

I won’t go into details, but… Fine grade salvage kits only at level 44? Are you people serious? What kind of dumb person allows this? Have you considered not having a bunch of yes-men around you? I recommend pulling a Hemingway. The game is now a long, boring and forceful tutorial up to level 23. I did not pay for this kind of shabby treatment.

You can buy fine grade salvage kits at level 2. The wiki isn’t listing unlocks. It’s listening when you’re told about stuff. That’s all.

In the old system you weren’t told about them at all. But they don’t unlock at that level. They’re not locked at all.

I think people need to stop spreading misinformation.

Most of the things on that list aren’t locked at all.

thats a big problem with the NPE, its messaging is very poor. Its not that people are lying for the sake of lying its that in trying to make thinngs clearer, they made things less clear.
Some things are account unlocks
Some things are charachter unlocks
Some things are just hidden on the map
Some things are told to you in a way that makes people think its unlocks

the system is pretty bad at messaging, and more confusing than not confusing.

Obtena.7952:

I’ve got my super umbrella ready for the raining buckets of tears when HoT is considered ‘grindy’. These are just the clouds off in the distance.

thats kind of the point of the thread.

The OP doesnt feel that anet understands what people think when they hear the phrase “no-grind philosophy”
Its fairly likely that Hot will be pretty grindy. But looks like they are trying to focus the grind on experience gain, which is probably a thing they can control better.

Cazamar.7148:

A lot of people on this thread have the wrong definition of grind. They think if some is not handed to them and they have to work for it than it’s grindy. Grind refers to leveling therefore all these other things such as ascended gear and legendaries are not grindy because you do not need then. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It still doesn’t change what grind is.

grind doesnt refer to leveling alone, it never did.

Gibson.4036:

Test.8734:

We just need to let them know that, between Ascended items and slow dungeon rewards and Legendaries and the new level-based unlocks and the new trait system unlock and etc etc, well… Their “no-grind philosophy” has been extremely grindy.

Twenty seven pages in, I thought I’d quote the OP just to remind people what started this long thread.

Along the way, the thread has shifted to “Is GW2 grindy”? The circular arguments indicate this is probably too general of a question. In reading through the thread, a lot of people have attempted to answer it, but end up answering a different question.

For example, “Is GW2 grindy?” Answer, “Other games are way more grindy.” Which really answers “Is GW2 more or less grindy than other games?”

“Is GW2 grindy?” “No, all the grind is optional.” Which really answers “Do I have to grind in GW2 in order not to be locked out of some content”.

“Is GW2 grind?” Answer, “A full set of light Ascended armor takes 10,800 silk!” which really answers “Getting BiS gear is grindy in GW2.”

So I’d like to throw out a more specific comment for reaction.

In GW2, rewards for grinding are vastly superior to rewards for playing the game without grinding.

True, false, or somewhere in between?

id say this is the big issue. The problem with many of the grinds they design, is that its best achieved in the least fun ways possible. A good incentive in game design, is one that makes you do the most fun things/best designed things in order to succeed at the game.
for basketball, getting the ball through the hoop is probably one of the more entertaining aspects
For baseball, hitting the ball
In Tony hawks skating, doing tricks gives the most rewards.

But yeah the point of the thread was, the game they have designed does not feel like a no grind philosophy game.

Tree.3916:

Jerus.4350:

Tree.3916:

IMHO I don’t think any changes need to be made to the current party system. The real problem is lack of accountability of people hijacking parties. Solution, add a “Griefing” option in the reports menu and let internal GM’s take care of the issue.

By take care do you mean slap on the wrist like it seems they have done to those who they’ve “taken care of”?

If they’d actually do something you’re absolutely right.

This thread is not about discussing potential repercussions to said actions. The people who maintain this game make the rules and we can only abide by them. If they feel a temporary 3 day ban is sufficient, who am I to say otherwise?

Regarding someone else’s post about abuse of the system, there is no way Anet can create a robust enough system to eliminate all griefing. Knowing this, we can use tools that are already in place to help mitigate current and future problems.

you dont need to totally eliminate a problem to make things better. An increase in the usage of condoms, reduces the transmission of STDs, which has the dual benefit of reducing the amount of people getting sick, and reducing the time and money spent treating them.

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

Teladis.1309:

My sister and Mom got the game, and both of them are not “heavy gamers” So this system might be a so called “Insult” for people who play games. New gamers, the system works. It slowly teaches them, and adds a bit more later and later.

I don’t really understand the problem…the game holds your hand at the start. I mean is it really that bad? I heard once you do it once, it opens up for other chars right?

thing is, i dont really think the “problems” for new gamers were really problems.

Skill points and vistas are mechanically no different from any interactible. Uneeded information on a map, is commonly ignored. Google maps doesnt erase a bunch of information, and its highly usable by millions of people. Skill unlocks per level is not any easier than skill unlocks per use, in fact skill unlocks per use is probably a better training mechanic overall, and combined with level correction, was basically a better system.

If the NPE actually made things easier, i wouldnt complain as much, but it really doesnt. NPEs primary concern was trying to create a greater feeling of progression and purpose to leveling. As a teaching agent, its pretty crappy.

As a smoothing out of the intial leveling experience its also poor.

taken singularly you’d be right but imagine if google maps instead of just giving you an interface for navigating a map also include other stuff like ordering on line, bidding on stuff, looking up shop catalogs, looking up cinema information, shop opening hours, temperature maps, information on tectonic plate movements, tidal changes, plane arrival and departure etc.. do you think it will just enable all that from the get go or allow you to gradually enable feature after feature as you need them?

the map didnt do all this stuff, and they design interfaces to make those things actually very user friendly.
The answer to building a better UI isnt simply removing functionality, its creating a UI that gives you information naturally as you need it. hard locking people out of information is actually a really bad way to teach them.

it doesnt make sense to try to present a simpler world when your world isnt actually built that simply.

Lets say some one is new to New York City. You are not helping him by removing trains from the map, because its one of the things he is going to need. Yes trains maybe confusing, but it is more confusing to have trains hidden from you, when you actually need to use them right now.

Lets look at the TP thing. The fact that there is a TP in Divinities reach does not help you. You have no reason to go to divinities reach until level 10, but it is highly likely your inventory may fill up, and you may want to sell something before level 10. Its also fairly likely you may need to buy new equipment.

Likewise skillpoints, the game was designed to introduce you to skill points before level 10, they put them near starter areas, But then they disable them.

In theory you can make things easier by limiting people to less information, but that only works when less information is required. Its actually more confusing than not to change the rules as you go, its also a bad idea to have different people experiencing things differently.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

Shiyo.3578:

Page 15, and a reminder that damask is 100 bolts of silk instead of 50 like every other ascended mat, and also over 4x the price of every other ascended mat. Anet designed this item to be more expensive so that silk would be useful, and forgot to revert it back to 50 bolts of silk per damask after silk became insanely expensive.

So anet, why won’t you revert this change, or change some of the ascended backpiece recipes from >>15<< damask to 15 elonian leather?

John is probably never going to even acknowledge this fact because he knows he’s wrong and he straight up refuses to admit to his mistakes or fix them. Sucks for us players, I guess.

John Smith.4610:

You don’t micromanage markets to maintain equilibrium. Not only is it an incredible amount of work you can never be wrong in, it’s not physically possible inside a live game environment.

You assume that absolute parity is required inside of tiers, I don’t necessarily agree.

Except this is LITERALLY what you did, you changed silk bolts from 2 scraps to 3, then made it take 100 bolts of silk per damask instead of 50 like every other ascended material. Which actually made sense at the time, except that leather was equally as worthless and you didn’t do the same thing to leather.

It isn’t what they literally did. I’d look into what micro-manage is and what he was referring to.

he did micro manage, but i think the point he was making is he doesnt want to micro manage everything.

Micro managing is actually supposed to happen, its just not feasible for one guy or force to do it. Unfortunately we do not have a real economy or business structure, we cant do things like innovate, or replace goods, we cant alter amounts, and we dont have much direct control on many things. Therefore, at times, it will fall to Anet to micro manage, i dont really think its avoidable.

How is increasing the number of scraps needed for a bolt one time over the 2.5 year span of the game micro-managing? How is creating a new recipe which requires 100 bolts micro-managing? I seriously suggest looking up exactly what it means because it did not happen in regards to silk.

whatever definition you want to use is fine, Ill go with what you say. But this means that people want the type of changes he has made in the past, not what you would define as micromanaging.

Basically they want the overall system fixed so that the demand/supply relationship for silk in ascended isnt one that creates an unbalanced value for different armor types by its very design.

Astraea.6075:

one-off corrections =/= micro-management

well if thats how you define your terms, thats fine.

But then i think most people are asking him to make one off corrections, not micro managing as you define it

Ayrilana.1396:

Shiyo.3578:

Page 15, and a reminder that damask is 100 bolts of silk instead of 50 like every other ascended mat, and also over 4x the price of every other ascended mat. Anet designed this item to be more expensive so that silk would be useful, and forgot to revert it back to 50 bolts of silk per damask after silk became insanely expensive.

So anet, why won’t you revert this change, or change some of the ascended backpiece recipes from >>15<< damask to 15 elonian leather?

John is probably never going to even acknowledge this fact because he knows he’s wrong and he straight up refuses to admit to his mistakes or fix them. Sucks for us players, I guess.

John Smith.4610:

You don’t micromanage markets to maintain equilibrium. Not only is it an incredible amount of work you can never be wrong in, it’s not physically possible inside a live game environment.

You assume that absolute parity is required inside of tiers, I don’t necessarily agree.

Except this is LITERALLY what you did, you changed silk bolts from 2 scraps to 3, then made it take 100 bolts of silk per damask instead of 50 like every other ascended material. Which actually made sense at the time, except that leather was equally as worthless and you didn’t do the same thing to leather.

It isn’t what they literally did. I’d look into what micro-manage is and what he was referring to.

he did micro manage, but i think the point he was making is he doesnt want to micro manage everything.

Micro managing is actually supposed to happen, its just not feasible for one guy or force to do it. Unfortunately we do not have a real economy or business structure, we cant do things like innovate, or replace goods, we cant alter amounts, and we dont have much direct control on many things. Therefore, at times, it will fall to Anet to micro manage, i dont really think its avoidable.

this of course is – the negative connotation.

Basically someone has to pay attention to the details when things go wrong. In a normal economy, people in the industry would do this, but in this case its not possible.

I think if ascended was a real product, deals would be made to lower the cost of silk, or they would pay the magi tech engineers to figure out how to build insignias out of other materials, or use less resources per craft.

Teladis.1309:

My sister and Mom got the game, and both of them are not “heavy gamers” So this system might be a so called “Insult” for people who play games. New gamers, the system works. It slowly teaches them, and adds a bit more later and later.

I don’t really understand the problem…the game holds your hand at the start. I mean is it really that bad? I heard once you do it once, it opens up for other chars right?

thing is, i dont really think the “problems” for new gamers were really problems.

Skill points and vistas are mechanically no different from any interactible. Uneeded information on a map, is commonly ignored. Google maps doesnt erase a bunch of information, and its highly usable by millions of people. Skill unlocks per level is not any easier than skill unlocks per use, in fact skill unlocks per use is probably a better training mechanic overall, and combined with level correction, was basically a better system.

If the NPE actually made things easier, i wouldnt complain as much, but it really doesnt. NPEs primary concern was trying to create a greater feeling of progression and purpose to leveling. As a teaching agent, its pretty crappy.

As a smoothing out of the intial leveling experience its also poor.

Tree.3916:

IMHO I don’t think any changes need to be made to the current party system. The real problem is lack of accountability of people hijacking parties. Solution, add a “Griefing” option in the reports menu and let internal GM’s take care of the issue.

reporting is a bad option. It requires you first to get victimized, then maybe, eventually there is repercussions.
Also it uses resources in man hours.

Better to create a system that makes griefing less likely, and then people can report less griefing. (you can report someone for greifing already, its just not a drop down)

Ayrilana.1396:

Devata.6589:

I did just see the interview of Angry Joe with Colin Johanson and it reminded me of this thread.

Now remember, Angry Joe was one of those persons who loved the game at launch but then got bored with it and left. So it’s very interesting to see it from his perspective.

At 12:50 he refers to grind (to unlock season 2) on what Colin says “nah you can just play”. Basically the excuse most people here use as well. (other then the ‘you do not need it’).

More in the beginning he also talks about ‘zergy’ what is probably partly also the grind as much of the grinding is done in zergs.

Later (around 15:00) Colin says there is a lot of new stuff for returning players because of all the patches we have. On what Joe says “so we talking (about) new skins, new armor, new everything”. So there is more of your ‘you do not need it’ stuff. It’s the first stuff he talks about and yes thats all there…. but most of it behind a (gold) grind.

If returning players see all that stuff behind a wall of grind they get bored with the game very fast. That’s just the reality.

Maybe people who try to defend the grind or act as if it’s not there should try to understand this is how people (including many of those who left) do experience the game. That you do not ‘need’ a skin is irrelevant.

Anyway, it perfectly shows how you should see it from the perspective of players who did love the game and left.

Here is the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG5oUKqbIVM

It’s these types of players who will be coming back and you want to hold this time.

Then the ‘you do not need it’ and ‘you can just play’ excuse is all nice and well in a discussion but it does not help the reality of how people experience the game.

You should check out what Anet’s stance really is about in regards to grind and what they were actually referring to in the manifesto which people have widely misinterpreted.

Optional or “you can just play” are valid statements/arguments. You can experience just about all of the content in this game in greens with the exception of high level fractals. Even then, the content of a level 10 fractal is not significantly different than a level 50. I don’t consider inflated HP/damage by mobs and instabilities as content. Everyone has a choice when they decide to grind.

regardless, there is still the idea of having balanced grinds. For example, leveling can be a grind, or it can be considered fun progression, depending on the balance, and how its designed.

Not every thing is either one thing or the other, there are shades of gray, hue, and saturation.

I think his point is not really that there should be no grind, but rather the amount, and types of grind they put in, are not holding some player types.

Wanze.8410:

Aidan Savage.2078:

I think a better alternative would be creating weight-locked insignia, instead of the “generic” insignia we have now. This would mean leather can only craft (and use) leather insignia, with the same being true of heavy and light armor. It’d drastically cut back the amount of fabric needed for heavy and medium classes while increasing the leather and metal needed for them.

As for the deldrimor ingots, I’m not convinced that’s going to be a problem. The highest price they’ve been at was ~7g around a year ago. Since then, the average trend resulted in the price we have now, ~4g. In fact, since last october, deldrimor has been rising in price from the ~3g low it reached. If supply for mithril really is that high, why did deldrimor go up a gold in price? Mithril alone rising in price wont have much impact since salvaging weapons almost always results in it or wood.

This means if you increase the needs for metal and leather will, obviously, go up in price, which is the desired outcome. The difficulty lies in preventing it from becoming an unreasonable outcome. Ideally, if leather rose to the same price as silk, and mithril rose to say… 65% of silk’s price, I’d think this would be a healthy change for the economy, and players in general. Particularly since mithril becomes valuable enough to actually mine whenever you come across it. Which is one thing I’ve never done. I dont mine mithril when I can fill both unrefined and refined mithril collections from salvage alone.

Weight-locked insignias would greatly increase the long term timegate for medium and especially heavy users to at least 36 days (unless you buy additional mats). Even though a heavy set would only need 34 deldrimor, both heavy classes need alot of deldrimor as well for their weapons, usually at least 20 additional ingots for their build.
Even if deldrimor would be valued at about 65% of silk/leather, like you predict, i dont see how that improves the status quo. It only shifts the current problem from light to heavy.

And the price rise of deldrimor since oct last year actually is precursor related.
If you check the mithril price, it had two value bumps, one at the end of october and 1 during dec/jan. The first one was triggered by Halloween, the lab dropped alot of fine t5 mats, which suddenly went from 3.5s to 2.3s. That meant a rare gs was suddenly craftable for 18s less and a gs-pre 360g cheaper to forge on average. That sucked alot of mithril out of the market very fast.
The same happened during wintersday, with the addition of snowflakes, t5 fine mats lost another 33% value, lots of pres got forged and mithril supply couldnt keep up, until precursor prices fell so much, that profit margins went smaller and the influx of snowflakes stopped.

The price spike a year ago to 7g for deldrimor was caused by the watchwork knight backpacks that consumed alot of iron, so i think a good idea to increase the value of deldrimor without impacting the market of precursors too much, would be to increase the requirements for iron/platinum in the recipe, which would allow for the same mithril consumption.

i dont think you should be creating too much demand in lower level materials, especially not ones that are already at a pretty good price point like iron/platinum. Mithril is a bit low.

I know it ties into precursor price, but if precursor price demands mithril to be 40-50 copper, i dont know if thats a good thing

Rising Dusk.2408:

This is a topic that a number of players have claimed that they want, but we’ve never really gotten a set of requirements for. Let’s talk about this and see where it leads.

TurtleDragon.3108 provided a good starting point for discussion in another thread where this appeared as quoted below:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ideally, I think there should be options for people to get into instance groups. An automated one and a modified version of the existing LFG system

1. Automated group finder with heavy vote kick restrictions and no real “leader”. The option for new players or when you just don’t care about getting a zerker group for CoF p1 or w/e. You get a debuff that prevents you from using this option if you rage quit while the party is full. You can not initiate vote kicks in combat, or after the final boss has been killed.

2. The current LFG system modified to request party invites instead of automatically joining the group. The party leader will see a list of people who applied to join the party and can see their gear. Only the leader can accept join requests and invite other people. Only the leader can kick people and it doesn’t require a vote kick. This is the option to join if you want join a zerker meta p1 speed run or clerics only run or achievement run etc.

What do you all think?

EDIT: Keep in mind that this is not bringing the old system back. The old system had an instance starter, who if kicked would eject everyone from the instance. What we’re talking about here is a proposed new system that would enable greater control over who can kick and so forth. I also think, in addition to this system, we would want some kind of opt-in for the party leader system and it shouldn’t be the default. ie. A party leader could forfeit party leader control over a team and it would function as we have it now.

i suggested something similar, i dont think the see gear thing is required.
I would also allow for a 4 man kick option.
The game should tell you if someone was kicked or left of their own choice.

Steeldragon.7308:

coso.9173:

First of all, If this doesn’t go here, feel free to move it, but I couldn’t find another place for this.
I’m a new player, just got the game with the big discount days. I played yesterday for a few hours and I loved the game. I do have some questions that maybe you can help me with.
I enjoy roleplaying in other MMOs, I learned about it in Neverwinter, and then tried it in Tera and WoW, and always had a great time.
That being said, I heard that the unofficial RP server is Tarnished coast. But I see it’s always full and I can’t create a character in there, only go as a “guest” what does that mean exactly? Also I read something about megaservers but couldn’t understand it. is it like merging several servers in specific zones that are usually more lonely so you can see more players?

Another question, I’ve read many times that GW2 lacks endgame, but I also know that it just recently got it’s first expansion, Heart of Thorns, did that change things a bit?
I read that namy people get bored after they get to 80, I sure hope it won’t be my case.
I love exploring and it seems this game has quite a lot of it.

Again, on the rp topic, should I try to join a rp guild? how is rp in this game? I think it’s a beautiful game (and that comes from someone who played Tera) and I think it has all the tools for having a great rp community, I hope I’m not wrong.

I just miss some more races, I’ve always played a handsome redhaired rogue elf called Jox Minosclav in all the MMO’s I’ve played, I was sad to learn there are no equivalent to elves in GW2 (only silvary but I’m not really into plant people) so I just made a dar haired human, love how he looks so far.

I hope someone can help me with these questions, so far I’m enjoying the game a lot!
I hope things continue like this.

New player who loves the game and is enjoying it allot. Yet there’s a whole thread about a debate on the NPE (New Player Experience). Interesting.

Anyways welcome! I do want to say that as far as getting bored, I find that’s not the case when I create multiple characters and set goals for those characters. In fact, always set goals because that drove me to keep playing and not get bored. You can create all classes for all races with multiple story lines for each race so there’s no limit there as far as playability and story goes. Once you reach level 80 on one character, keep working on the other one or create a whole new one for a different story and experience. You should be golden with that.

just because NPE isnt a good execution, doesnt mean no one will like the game. Just means people dont feel its as good or better than what previously existed.

eithinan.9841:

I got lost at straight curve.

[Snip, misplaced superiority]

So everytime they would make a change they would need to “make a counterbalancing change” to every other mat to keep it balanced? That is micromanaging. What you are saying contradicts itself, just like “straight curve”.

straight curve is a geometry term, a curve isnt “required” to be straight. A curve is essentially a function.
a straight curve is a first degree equation.

Its not really an oxymoron, nor is it as crazy as it seems, much like a square is a rectangle or a parrellogram.

the real mathematic definition of curve, is closer to line than to bendy line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_curves

Mikuchan.7261:

TL;DR
Did I mention that changing the insignia recipes will solve the problem and at the same time keep the difficulty?
Also plots from simulation, because graphics are nice.
Also cloth gathering nodes.

The problem is not difficulty
The problems is not the individual prices of any material
The problem is the disproportional prices of ascended armors in relation to eachother caused by game mechanics
I’m all ok with Ascended armor being expensive and hard to get and it being a hardcore task or whatnot.
But I’m not ok with Ascended armor being more expensive and harder to get for light armor people compared to medium and heavy armor people because of nothing other than game mechanics. If it was a demand created by a high number of light armor users, then that’s all fine. But it’s not. It’s a demand created solely by the fact that light armor requires almost only damask and creating any armor at all requires more damask than anything else. See earlier post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-is-silk-going-up-in-price/4852182

Simply changing insignia recipes to require the base material of that crafting discipline instead of damask changes that, keeps the required materials per ascended material, keeps the number of ascended materials needed but balances out the cost of the different armors in the long run so that they are equal in price.

Currently the system is partially uncontrolled, there is no choice that can be made that affects the demand ratio between the materials. Damask will always be highest in demand.
There also is no choice that can be made that affects the supply ratio between the materials in a way that’s positive for cloth since cloth cannot actively be gathered.
As such, the system will continue to go out of whack as it is now.

Introducing the choice for insignias introduce what you, in systems control, call a feedback loop where a controller, the crafter, can make a choice based on some variables in the system, the price on the materials, and thus affect the demand of the different materials directly. The demand in turn affects the price. The choice will also affect the demand ratio positively for Damask since for all armors, you can choose to spend 18 non-damask materials and thus have less Damask than anything else in your armor set. Since the player can be assumed to go for the path of minimal resistance, he will go for what is cheapest and create a demand for that in favor of creating a demand for what’s expensive.
This means that regardless of supply, the materials will always be balanced in price and demand after they have initially settled with time. The prices may still go up and down, but they will do so uniformly.

Introducing gathering nodes for cloth will affect the supply side of the system and introduces a controller for the supply since the players can then make a choice that affects the supply of cloth, namely to go after the nodes and farm it. Depending on the price, more or less people will do so, which will affect the supply.
Not introducing choices for the crafting will however mean that the demand will keep trying to push damask out of whack, but there’s at least a chance that the supply may be able to do something about it. There is however not a guarantee that this will keep it balanced, it depends on how much each player is able to supply and how much they are willing to supply, while insignia material choices will always keep it balanced in the long run.

Attachments:
The plots are the result of a simulation that generated 1000 players of a random class, uniformly distributed.
The simulation doesn’t consider supply, only demand. It’s supposed to show how the demand changes depending on if the system includes a choice or not.
Demand is used instead of price, since there is no supply in the system and a price can’t be emulated. Demand will suffice for the experiment since it’s only meant to show the impact of a self-controlled system. In reality, the price would be the variable that would be used and that would create a demand which, together with supply, would create a price. However lowering the demand will always lower the price when supply is unchanged and because of that, the simulation still works.
The same list of players are used for both instances.
Players craft their own armor weight.
The initial demand values are set subjectively in order to simulate the current demand of the different materials.
The scale is not realistic, but it doesn’t matter since the point of the simulation is to show the impact of the choice.
In the first instance, the player is not given a choice but must craft the insignias with the current recipes.
In the second instance, the player will always choose to create insignias of the material that is lowest in demand.

good stuff

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Argon.1563:

Obtena.7952:

Other people that sleep, eat food, etc… have more ascended armor than you. If there is a break in logic here, it’s showing.

If you say so, dear. Last time I checked, CasualWars2 was the game branded as being “no grind” and “the game you can play with a job/career/human needs.”.

I think I might just switch mains to a light or heavy character, because they take ~a third less Damask to make their armour sets, so that might be a bit closer to the realm of reality.

this post right here highlights a problem with uneven vertical progression.
I dont think its arenanets intent that you switch characters in order to progress.
Leveling a charachter to 80, and leveling leatherworker to 500 is actually less work for many players than spending an extra 100 gold, and 10 days.

Except that it’s highlighting the fact that the progression is uneven in a way to discourage people that don’t need it. If anything that’s a big flashing red light warning that if you don’t NEED ascended armor, you should really think hard about committing to making it. Anet is not at fault if players can’t ‘take a hint’.

Anyways, that’s not the point of this thread. It’s some other 20 page thread out there that people got bored of.

are you saying that cloth users need it less than leather/metal users, and thats why they designed the price to discourage cloth users?

i sincerely doubt that

Nope, that’s not what I said. The need is based on the individual. The disparity between cloth vs. the rest is a different discussion than who needs ascended armor. I was challenging the poster on his choice to make Ascended armor, given that after two years, he still didn’t have the resource to craft it. Ultimately, that leads to the question of how much weight his experience carries in a discussion about anything to do with ascended armor.

To be frank, the more of a casual player a person is, the more they suffer from ‘real life syndrome’. If that applies to someone commenting on how hard it is to to achieve the highest levels of any accomplishment ingame, that context is very important, especially when it comes to BiS gear.

My first thought was “Jeez, the guy played 2 years, is drowning in silk and can’t fund ascended armor assuming he’s accumulated other mats worth something on the market at approximately the same amounts he could sell?” Something isn’t right there …

Of course you just jumped on his experience as the shining example of what’s wrong with the game without thinking that people have ascended armor that are casual as well that probably didn’t start with thousands of silk …

yeah but his point was why does he need so much silk specifically, then he mentions he may just level a different class.
its not just the ascended grind but the silk grind that he was talking about.

eithinan.9841:

Argon.1563:

Obtena.7952:

Other people that sleep, eat food, etc… have more ascended armor than you. If there is a break in logic here, it’s showing.

If you say so, dear. Last time I checked, CasualWars2 was the game branded as being “no grind” and “the game you can play with a job/career/human needs.”.

I think I might just switch mains to a light or heavy character, because they take ~a third less Damask to make their armour sets, so that might be a bit closer to the realm of reality.

and the wheels on the bus go round again to “You don’t need Damask or ascended armor to play any of the content” Since this statement is true, the “no grind” and “the game you can play with a job/career/human needs.” remain true. Just because someone feels Entitled to BIS armor doesn’t mean they need or deserve it.

why does heavy/medium need or deserve it more. Why are they more entitled to it than cloth users?

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Argon.1563:

Obtena.7952:

Other people that sleep, eat food, etc… have more ascended armor than you. If there is a break in logic here, it’s showing.

If you say so, dear. Last time I checked, CasualWars2 was the game branded as being “no grind” and “the game you can play with a job/career/human needs.”.

I think I might just switch mains to a light or heavy character, because they take ~a third less Damask to make their armour sets, so that might be a bit closer to the realm of reality.

this post right here highlights a problem with uneven vertical progression.
I dont think its arenanets intent that you switch characters in order to progress.
Leveling a charachter to 80, and leveling leatherworker to 500 is actually less work for many players than spending an extra 100 gold, and 10 days.

Except that it’s highlighting the fact that the progression is uneven in a way to discourage people that don’t need it. If anything that’s a big flashing red light warning that if you don’t NEED ascended armor, you should really think hard about committing to making it. Anet is not at fault if players can’t ‘take a hint’.

Anyways, that’s not the point of this thread. It’s some other 20 page thread out there that people got bored of.

are you saying that cloth users need it less than leather/metal users, and thats why they designed the price to discourage cloth users?

i sincerely doubt that

Argon.1563:

Obtena.7952:

Other people that sleep, eat food, etc… have more ascended armor than you. If there is a break in logic here, it’s showing.

If you say so, dear. Last time I checked, CasualWars2 was the game branded as being “no grind” and “the game you can play with a job/career/human needs.”.

I think I might just switch mains to a light or heavy character, because they take ~a third less Damask to make their armour sets, so that might be a bit closer to the realm of reality.

this post right here highlights a problem with uneven vertical progression.
I dont think its arenanets intent that you switch characters in order to progress.
Leveling a charachter to 80, and leveling leatherworker to 500 is actually less work for many players than spending an extra 100 gold, and 10 days.

Galphar.3901:

I hate to say it but I don’t think we’ll hear any more about a fix for the Traits system until after HoT drops. And the only reason it’ll become a priority for A-Net is because so many people will complain after making Revenants that they’ll be forced to finally address it for real.

they are most likely not going to ship hot without a modified npe, and new trait system for these reasons.
The question is will it be good.

Argon.1563:

So, I just began my quest for my ascended gear. I went into my guild bank, and found all the silk I have been hoarding since the beginning of GW2 (If im honest, I saw silk was useless at launch, and I knew ArenaNet were going to do something with it, so I hoarded it.), and I had 3050 pieces of silk…10 bolts of damask…2 years of work…for one third of a light ascended armour set.

At EGX Rezzed this weekend, im going to be asking the devs what they will be doing to fix this mess. Just so ya’ know.

i definately dont disagree with you.
anet has some really bad numbers guys when it comes to player satisfaction.
for a game that decided stacks would only need to go up to 250, they sure make things take 1000-10000 items way too often.

Natto.5819:

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

T6>T5>T4>T3>T2>T1

Ohoni.6057:

But again, my preference would be to lower the cost of all of them to at most the cost of Leather, if not lower.

So you want to crash ALL the ore,wood,cloth,leather markets to vendor+1.

I agree with Ohoni.6057 on costs. I don’t have much money, and would like to buy cloths for cheap. Everything in this game should be made cheap, so new players can afford the same things as high level players.

new players make about as much money as high level players, well newish. But ascended isnt available until 80 regardless.
So newish 80s, have similar potential to earn as older players.

Ohoni.6057:

See? You just dont want to spend your daily earned gold on ascended armor but rather on gems for example. I dont know why Anet would want that.

I used to think like that, but then I realized that every gem on the market was paid for by a human player, so if I spend 800g on Ascended armor then I’m giving ANet nothing, but if I spend 800g on 5200 gems, that means someone spent ~$40 somewhere.

So you want to crash ALL the ore,wood,cloth,leather markets to vendor+1.

The markets, not necessarily. When I say “the price of leather” in that context, I mean of the final product “Ascended Leather Armor,” which includes a bunch of cloth and other mats. Hopefully they could get the cost of the leather itself to come up a bit, just the cost of the cloth components down a bit, and maybe use less of some of them.

Regardless, the real issue here is the players who don’t have 800g to spend in the first place, much less the 4100g it would take to fully outfit one of each post-HoT character class.

So you want to crash ALL the ore,wood,cloth,leather markets to vendor+1.

As I noted up thread, I’d be looking for something in this range: The current progression, from T1 up, is 1.9, 2.9, 3.9, 4.9, 2.4, 0.5. It should probably be more like 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 2. The prices should not be at vendor, but they shouldn’t be so far from vendor either. Anything above vendor*2 is bonus.

I dont think that leather prices are anywhere near what the prices for any material should be.
If one thinks ascended overall should be cheaper, thats a discussion, but there is no way that being at vendor price is a good price for anything.
leather is definately not at a good place right now.

I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with you?

maybe i misread but i thought you said they should all be around the price of leather.

“But again, my preference would be to lower the cost of all of them to at most the cost of Leather, if not lower.”

Olvendred.3027:

phys.7689:

actually, a lot of what you said here, is good in theory, but going according to what they said, they arent really planning on changing things in the pact tyria. One can hope thats not really what he meant, but going by what he said, expect old areas to stay the same.

I dont realy think it will be good if the game stays mostly the same, thats why people want expansions. They want a meaty chunk of content, that builds on the old, but takes them to new things.

Yes people need quality, but they also need quantity

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/25/1269531706887/Nouvelle-cuisine-mash-002.jpg
that may taste awesome, but most people are going to want more food.

I’m not sure how you’re arguing in favour of changing old zones any more. Adding new things increases quantity. That’s what the expansion is all about. And that’s what LS2 has been all about – adding increasing amounts of new, permanent content. So that there’s a variety of different things that players can enjoy forever, including the original zones in their original condition.

they can change old zones, or they can add a lot of new zones, but i dont think they can not add a lot of new zones, and not change old zones, and still have people not end up bored.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Rin.1046:

Whether HoT ends with Mordy’s defeat or not, I think it makes sense to keep future LS episodes out of vanilla GW2, for the reasons already mentioned.

Some people see the Personal Story as separate from the Living World content, when in reality both storylines go hand in hand. The LW story continued on from the end of the PS, but because people could play them in any order, it often confused people as to what was happening when. But the fact is, the LW and PS is an ongoing story, with both being linked to each other, so LS episodes must be careful not to break the PS moving forward, like it has in the past. And the easiest way to ensure that is to lock it to the expansion.

People are worried that vanilla will become deserted and empty, but I do not think this will be the case. For one thing, many will want to level a revenant naturally, so many vanilla zones will remain populated. Then add to that the dailies, encouraging groups to populate various zones, and I think you will find vanilla GW2 will remain fairly active. Sure, it might not be as active as day one HoT zones, but that will die down after a while, and players will start to find their favourite areas again.

There is still plenty of things to do in vanilla, and I am confident that we will continue to get additional content added, that is not linked to HoT. For example, they said that new mini games will be added, and for all we know these may not all be locked to HoT. If they add the archery range to Divinity’s Reach, I cannot see this being locked to expansion owners only.

Vanilla GW2 will continue to remain entertaining and full of content, and I expect we will occasionally get new content added along side expansion only content. Consider the new defiance for example, this change could very well mean major changes to the way many existing vanilla champs work around the world. If future mechanic changes come to future expansions, these could have major impacts on vanilla content.

The sky is not falling. Vanilla is not coming to an end. And the devs are not leaving it behind. They are focused on HoT for now, so everything they say will be geared for that. We simply don’t know what the future holds, or whether Anet’s ideas will change. They always try to innovate and make the game fun. If that means revitalizing old zones and adding new core content, then that is what they will do. Nothing is ever set firmly in stone with Anet, as they are always trying new ideas and concepts, and that is one of the greatest things about them.

We really have nothing to worry about.

Edit:

Vayne.8563:

…snip…

I totally agree. Size is not only measured by space. I am extremely happy that Anet has seen the light and focused its attention on quantity of content over quantity of landmass. Having a large beautiful zone is great, but if there is not much to do it will only appeal to players who enjoy sight seeing. For the vast majority of players, content/activities is what keeps them playing, and this is now Anet’s focus.

actually, a lot of what you said here, is good in theory, but going according to what they said, they arent really planning on changing things in the pact tyria. One can hope thats not really what he meant, but going by what he said, expect old areas to stay the same.

I dont realy think it will be good if the game stays mostly the same, thats why people want expansions. They want a meaty chunk of content, that builds on the old, but takes them to new things.

Yes people need quality, but they also need quantity

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/25/1269531706887/Nouvelle-cuisine-mash-002.jpg
that may taste awesome, but most people are going to want more food.

And yet out of that huge quantity of content, players will be playing only a small percentage of it. Like for example the “huge” continents they gave out with GW1, the vast majority of the landmass was there to be seen once and be done with it, there was no reason to revisit most zones.

I wish we could see a “heat map” of zone activity in the “huge” continents they released in GW1

Eh, i dont think people were centered anywhere specific in GW1, they were all over the place, doing whatever they wanted. I cant think of one specific content that everyone was doing, and yet it kept millions of people entertained enough to buy expansions, and campaigns.

And thats one of the advantages of a big expansion. Just because you dont like one facet, their are usually a bunch of other things to do.

For example, i generally hate snow zones in GW2. If all they add in one expansion is a snow region, i will be a lot less entertained by it.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Rin.1046:

Whether HoT ends with Mordy’s defeat or not, I think it makes sense to keep future LS episodes out of vanilla GW2, for the reasons already mentioned.

Some people see the Personal Story as separate from the Living World content, when in reality both storylines go hand in hand. The LW story continued on from the end of the PS, but because people could play them in any order, it often confused people as to what was happening when. But the fact is, the LW and PS is an ongoing story, with both being linked to each other, so LS episodes must be careful not to break the PS moving forward, like it has in the past. And the easiest way to ensure that is to lock it to the expansion.

People are worried that vanilla will become deserted and empty, but I do not think this will be the case. For one thing, many will want to level a revenant naturally, so many vanilla zones will remain populated. Then add to that the dailies, encouraging groups to populate various zones, and I think you will find vanilla GW2 will remain fairly active. Sure, it might not be as active as day one HoT zones, but that will die down after a while, and players will start to find their favourite areas again.

There is still plenty of things to do in vanilla, and I am confident that we will continue to get additional content added, that is not linked to HoT. For example, they said that new mini games will be added, and for all we know these may not all be locked to HoT. If they add the archery range to Divinity’s Reach, I cannot see this being locked to expansion owners only.

Vanilla GW2 will continue to remain entertaining and full of content, and I expect we will occasionally get new content added along side expansion only content. Consider the new defiance for example, this change could very well mean major changes to the way many existing vanilla champs work around the world. If future mechanic changes come to future expansions, these could have major impacts on vanilla content.

The sky is not falling. Vanilla is not coming to an end. And the devs are not leaving it behind. They are focused on HoT for now, so everything they say will be geared for that. We simply don’t know what the future holds, or whether Anet’s ideas will change. They always try to innovate and make the game fun. If that means revitalizing old zones and adding new core content, then that is what they will do. Nothing is ever set firmly in stone with Anet, as they are always trying new ideas and concepts, and that is one of the greatest things about them.

We really have nothing to worry about.

Edit:

Vayne.8563:

…snip…

I totally agree. Size is not only measured by space. I am extremely happy that Anet has seen the light and focused its attention on quantity of content over quantity of landmass. Having a large beautiful zone is great, but if there is not much to do it will only appeal to players who enjoy sight seeing. For the vast majority of players, content/activities is what keeps them playing, and this is now Anet’s focus.

actually, a lot of what you said here, is good in theory, but going according to what they said, they arent really planning on changing things in the pact tyria. One can hope thats not really what he meant, but going by what he said, expect old areas to stay the same.

I dont realy think it will be good if the game stays mostly the same, thats why people want expansions. They want a meaty chunk of content, that builds on the old, but takes them to new things.

Yes people need quality, but they also need quantity

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/25/1269531706887/Nouvelle-cuisine-mash-002.jpg
that may taste awesome, but most people are going to want more food.

I don’t know. Let’s talk about Kessex Hills. This area changed drastically after the Nightmare Tower episode of the Living World.

I’ve done it many times before and many times after. Is it really any different? Visually it is, but there’s nothing there after that makes it a go to zone for me. None of the changes really impact play in that area.

Okay so Fort Salma was destroyed and they moved the Vista. It changes nothing, even though it’s changed. There’s a saying…a difference that makes no differences is no difference.

There’s a whole lot less value in redefining the old world than there is in adding to the new world. I’m pretty much done with Kessex Hills.

Tower was the real focus of the design there, and its not there anymore. What was left behind was essentially the same before and after, not really a good example of quality or quantity as far as changes go.

Rin.1046:

Whether HoT ends with Mordy’s defeat or not, I think it makes sense to keep future LS episodes out of vanilla GW2, for the reasons already mentioned.

Some people see the Personal Story as separate from the Living World content, when in reality both storylines go hand in hand. The LW story continued on from the end of the PS, but because people could play them in any order, it often confused people as to what was happening when. But the fact is, the LW and PS is an ongoing story, with both being linked to each other, so LS episodes must be careful not to break the PS moving forward, like it has in the past. And the easiest way to ensure that is to lock it to the expansion.

People are worried that vanilla will become deserted and empty, but I do not think this will be the case. For one thing, many will want to level a revenant naturally, so many vanilla zones will remain populated. Then add to that the dailies, encouraging groups to populate various zones, and I think you will find vanilla GW2 will remain fairly active. Sure, it might not be as active as day one HoT zones, but that will die down after a while, and players will start to find their favourite areas again.

There is still plenty of things to do in vanilla, and I am confident that we will continue to get additional content added, that is not linked to HoT. For example, they said that new mini games will be added, and for all we know these may not all be locked to HoT. If they add the archery range to Divinity’s Reach, I cannot see this being locked to expansion owners only.

Vanilla GW2 will continue to remain entertaining and full of content, and I expect we will occasionally get new content added along side expansion only content. Consider the new defiance for example, this change could very well mean major changes to the way many existing vanilla champs work around the world. If future mechanic changes come to future expansions, these could have major impacts on vanilla content.

The sky is not falling. Vanilla is not coming to an end. And the devs are not leaving it behind. They are focused on HoT for now, so everything they say will be geared for that. We simply don’t know what the future holds, or whether Anet’s ideas will change. They always try to innovate and make the game fun. If that means revitalizing old zones and adding new core content, then that is what they will do. Nothing is ever set firmly in stone with Anet, as they are always trying new ideas and concepts, and that is one of the greatest things about them.

We really have nothing to worry about.

Edit:

Vayne.8563:

…snip…

I totally agree. Size is not only measured by space. I am extremely happy that Anet has seen the light and focused its attention on quantity of content over quantity of landmass. Having a large beautiful zone is great, but if there is not much to do it will only appeal to players who enjoy sight seeing. For the vast majority of players, content/activities is what keeps them playing, and this is now Anet’s focus.

actually, a lot of what you said here, is good in theory, but going according to what they said, they arent really planning on changing things in the pact tyria. One can hope thats not really what he meant, but going by what he said, expect old areas to stay the same.

I dont realy think it will be good if the game stays mostly the same, thats why people want expansions. They want a meaty chunk of content, that builds on the old, but takes them to new things.

Yes people need quality, but they also need quantity

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/25/1269531706887/Nouvelle-cuisine-mash-002.jpg
that may taste awesome, but most people are going to want more food.

Ohoni.6057:

Introducing direct farming would just result in lower silk prices and cheaper ascended armor overall. JS indicated, that they are fine with the current price of ascended armor.

But again, you are creating circular arguments, because even if one accepts that the price of Ascended Cloth is fine, the price of Ascended Metal/Leather is still cheaper, and the difference is quantities of cloth components. So if Ascended Cloth is the unalterable lynchpin of the economy (a point that I disagree with but will concede for the sake of argument), then the cost of Ascended Metal/Leather should come up to be comparable, even if that were viewed as a nerf.

If it is the average of the three that is judged to be “correct” then both Metal and Cloth would need to come down to meet that. In any case, there’s no justification for why the three armors should have such significantly different costs, and before you start, “the free hand of the markets” is never a justification for anything, it’s merely an excuse.

And if you wanted to maintain all the costs of Ascended armor where they are, you could do that even if silk prices were lowered, by just making it up elsewhere. More Thermo-Cats maybe. For all that you talk up the joys of the TP as a gold sink, components that have to be bought off vendors are even more efficient at it.

But again, my preference would be to lower the cost of all of them to at most the cost of Leather, if not lower. If JS is fine with the current costs, it’s JS that needs to come around on that one if he cares whether the community is fine with the cost of crafting (or anyone above him does).

IF they wanted to devalue silk, it seems they already got good means to do that, season 2 showed it.

It needs to be something sustainable though. If you give players a way to earn Silk through activities, but the players tire of those activities and no longer view them as being worth their time, then that is not a sustainable source. It needs to keep up with where the players want to be.

I dont think that leather prices are anywhere near what the prices for any material should be.
If one thinks ascended overall should be cheaper, thats a discussion, but there is no way that being at vendor price is a good price for anything.
leather is definately not at a good place right now.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

This is actually a pretty big issue, the actual point of the thread isnt what you think it would be, but its a big thing.

Its something that has always been a problem in GW2, but now its something they are sort of going to have to commit to.

How are they going to keep people in these old zones, but at the same time freeze them in place?
How can they expand the world, if they want to keep it tight and small?

I think the best overall strategy is to have the base GW2 not as pact tyria, but as the everchanging tyria, and make the expansions the part that is more locked into certain times/stories

its a bit of a sticky wicket no matter how you slice it though

They’ll do it the same way they do it now. They’ll haves mats in those zones you can’t get in higher zones. They’ll have dailies in those zones. They’ll have quests that send you to those zones. They’ve done it all along.

Remember when we made Mawdrey and you had to do events in Caledon Forest? Who doesn’t need softwood (I know I do).

Just softwood and Iron keep people in 15-25 zones.

Actually Anet has already done a decent job of keeping those zones pretty busy and they don’t have to keep them usually busy because of the megaserver.

They said all along, they didn’t want to add new zones until the megaserver was finished. Now you know why.

yeah but your just talking about putting rewards in various places, not an actual change in the area.
i dont care how many rewards they put in old zone X, its not gonna make old zone X that entertaining, or the overall world of GW2.

As far as megaserver, Colin is still saying he doesnt really want to expand the world much. Which i was surprised to hear, because i thought that was one of the + points of megaserver.

You’re moving the goal posts. You said that there wouldn’t be people in the other zones. I pointed out that older zones were abandoned until Anet made changes to the game to get people there.

Half the business of an MMO is traffic control. Getting people to where stuff happens. No one wants to see no one when playing an MMO.

But changing the world, that’s not really on the table, at least not in any major way. It goes back to what I said about Orr, you can’t heal Orr, because it would literally ruin the game for any new player. These zones are locked in time. They are going to be locked in time.

It doesn’t mean they’ll be dead, or no one will be there, or people can’t have fun in them.

My point isnt really about people in old zones, its about content in old zones. Or more accurately, wanting to keep people interested in the overall world.

I am fine with them not changing anything, but then i would think they need to make expansions bigger. Or they can have small expansions, and try to constantly keep the overall world fresh and exciting.

But it seems hard to keep the world fresh and exciting, by only adding small areas, and keeping everything the same.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

This is actually a pretty big issue, the actual point of the thread isnt what you think it would be, but its a big thing.

Its something that has always been a problem in GW2, but now its something they are sort of going to have to commit to.

How are they going to keep people in these old zones, but at the same time freeze them in place?
How can they expand the world, if they want to keep it tight and small?

I think the best overall strategy is to have the base GW2 not as pact tyria, but as the everchanging tyria, and make the expansions the part that is more locked into certain times/stories

its a bit of a sticky wicket no matter how you slice it though

They’ll do it the same way they do it now. They’ll haves mats in those zones you can’t get in higher zones. They’ll have dailies in those zones. They’ll have quests that send you to those zones. They’ve done it all along.

Remember when we made Mawdrey and you had to do events in Caledon Forest? Who doesn’t need softwood (I know I do).

Just softwood and Iron keep people in 15-25 zones.

Actually Anet has already done a decent job of keeping those zones pretty busy and they don’t have to keep them usually busy because of the megaserver.

They said all along, they didn’t want to add new zones until the megaserver was finished. Now you know why.

yeah but your just talking about putting rewards in various places, not an actual change in the area.
i dont care how many rewards they put in old zone X, its not gonna make old zone X that entertaining, or the overall world of GW2.

As far as megaserver, Colin is still saying he doesnt really want to expand the world much. Which i was surprised to hear, because i thought that was one of the + points of megaserver.

This is actually a pretty big issue, the actual point of the thread isnt what you think it would be, but its a big thing.

Its something that has always been a problem in GW2, but now its something they are sort of going to have to commit to.

How are they going to keep people in these old zones, but at the same time freeze them in place?
How can they expand the world, if they want to keep it tight and small?

I think the best overall strategy is to have the base GW2 not as pact tyria, but as the everchanging tyria, and make the expansions the part that is more locked into certain times/stories

its a bit of a sticky wicket no matter how you slice it though

Aidan Savage.2078:

Wanze.8410:

Now, some people complain that silk isnt directly farmable and see it as a problem.
I already mentioned that i dont see it as a problem because you can buy it on the tp and just farm the gold neccesary to buy it but some people dont like that either.

But what if silk would become a choice reward for certain completed content and the amount you get relates to its value on the tp?

For example, the lowest listing for a silk scrap is 2s atm, so at the end of a completed dungeon, you get the choice to either get rewarded 1.5g or 75 silk scraps? IF the price rises to 3s, you would only get the choice between 1.5g and 50 scraps.
That would give people, who rather farm silk directly than buying it with gold on the tp, the chance to do so.

At first this seems like a pointless change to me but you have to keep in mind that the silk rewarded at the end of the dungeon wont come off the tp, it will be created, once chosen. So instead of adding wealth to the economy in form of gold, a completed dungeon will add wealth in form of silk supply.

Frankly silk isnt an issue. It never was. An ideal solution would be to increase the requirements for leather, mithril, and the elder wood for ascended refinements. This would remove their prices from being so low.

• Elder wood: 32c/1s19c as of post
• Mithril: 44c/94c as of post
• thick leather: 10c/33c as of post
• silk: 2s9c/7s34c as of post

Which of the above doesnt match? Silk. That’s what. Why? Thick leather is nearly npc price despite only being obtained in the same way as silk, and is used for 2/3 ascended (and normal) armor weights. Why the sheer disparity? Mithril is 20% and less of the value of silk, yet is used in heavy armor and every single ascended weapon. The farmability doesnt account for that difference. Elder wood is exactly the same, and is again, used in every single ascended weapon.

In addition, weight specific insignia will also draw off some of the pressure on silk, and push mithril and leather up as well, as it removes 18 damask from medium and heavy armor, and adds, respectively, 18 elonian leather and 18 deldrimor.

silk and leather have similar supply, but taking a look at ascended through all weights

damask:elonian:deldrimor is 85:24:16

not only that but in terms of use of basic materials t5,

25500:3600:1600

deldrimor gets a lot of value from weapons, so the low number makes sense, but leather? they created virtually no demand for it with their crafting design.
look at material requirements for LEATHER ascended 7200 silk : 2700 leather.

pretty obvious that leather probably shouldnt be supplied via the same means cloth with a crafting design like this.

Wanze.8410:

Now, some people complain that silk isnt directly farmable and see it as a problem.
I already mentioned that i dont see it as a problem because you can buy it on the tp and just farm the gold neccesary to buy it but some people dont like that either.

But what if silk would become a choice reward for certain completed content and the amount you get relates to its value on the tp?

For example, the lowest listing for a silk scrap is 2s atm, so at the end of a completed dungeon, you get the choice to either get rewarded 1.5g or 75 silk scraps? IF the price rises to 3s, you would only get the choice between 1.5g and 50 scraps.
That would give people, who rather farm silk directly than buying it with gold on the tp, the chance to do so.

At first this seems like a pointless change to me but you have to keep in mind that the silk rewarded at the end of the dungeon wont come off the tp, it will be created, once chosen. So instead of adding wealth to the economy in form of gold, a completed dungeon will add wealth in form of silk supply.

the method of getting it directly shouldnt really be based on the TP, it should be more based on the value its supposed to have, as an item within the framework of how its used.
I think JS prefers coming at it from a TP macro side, because that is his forte, but Id say first you should decide how much work should someone have to do to create this item, then start coming up with how much you give them.
Then you let the market decide how valuable they find that type of time/play required to get it.

the advantage to the bottom up approach in pricing, is that you are more likely to get people satisfied with the price point that is reached. Assuming there is no coercion.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

An interesting question came up in the other thread:

If any ascended armor set, regardless of weight, would cost the same, would people still argue that the silk price is too high?
If you add the value of 1 each deldrimor, elonian and damask, it costs about 20g. So if every mat would cost 6.66g and the sets use 42 t7 mats overall to craft, would people still complain about silk?

I would be fine with that.

Edit: That would mean 1 set would cost about 350g and weapons would be 10-20g more expensive.

if their was no disparity, people wouldnt complain about disparity.
If the cost of a mat was 6.7g i dont think people would be that upset about costs

people may still want more direct means of working towards it, and to feel like they have realistic choices for obtaining items, but that wouldnt be as closely tied to the price, because the price would likely not be that bad. (and not liking the price increases the amount of people who want to get it themselves)

Well, of course its a bit more complicated to balance out all three mats. Damask would lose about 50% in value and i think that devaluation could come from either t2-5 cloth. leather would rise over 200% in value and it also can come from any t2-5 leather.
However, deldrimors value will rise about 60% and that added value cant really come from mithril because it would add a couple of hundred gold to precursor prices, so platinum and iron have to rise in price.

yea, its not easy to balance. I think mithril could be a bit more valuable actually, and precursors is a tricky thing anyhow, because the overall design is going to change soon. And its possible the old design will be altered based on that as well.

overall i think the best ideas would be to normalize the recipes a bit, and make the universal material (insignias) be able to be created with any material.
This would create a soft balancer in prices.

There are probably other ways to go about it though.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ashen.2907:

iii) If the company releases something that it thinks is good, but which actively detracts from the game for me then it is not unreasonable for me to think that they need my input on what would be a positive change for me. What would be unreasonable would be to assume that the company, which has demonstrated that they do not understand what I want would somehow guess it without my input.

Yes but there’s a far step from “let me tell you about what I think is wrong” and “you need to consult with me constantly or else I’m going to assume you’ll mess it all up again”.

Like I said in my post, those three reasons are the ones which would make me decide to not post at all. The first one, naturally, being exactly why I couldn’t but the other two contributing to why I wouldn’t.

It’s not just this thread either. The whole forum/subreddit is basically sitting back waiting for someone with a red name who isn’t Gaile to pop up so they can begin shooting.

You are more caught up in how you feel about criticism than the criticism itself, that is a fatal flaw that most creators have to overcome, or suffer the consequences. There really isnt much difference between your two scenarios, qualitatively its just a matter of tact.

Being tactful is overated (when it comes to solving problems)though. Being direct is actually the most useful. Being tactful is necessary, but ineffecient.
for example, the fact of the matter may be, that in order to really understand and solve the problem well, they in fact need to consult people fairly periodicly. But if you say it in a tactful way, it may not be clear that is exactly what has the most likely chance of getting a better result.

If anet had a more visionary policy, i wouldnt think they need constant feedback. But thats not the type of system they built. Thats not the type of people they hired. They themselves have decided to go for an iterative policy.

Iterative development means the strength of their development will be constantly refining their ideas based on feedback.

this means they need even more feedback than other development strategies.
the real problem is their development strategy is at odds with their communication policies.

the best thing they can have for iterative development would probably be an extremely open door and heavily communicative policy. They should probably set up some sort of testing realm, witch changes rapidly and anyone can opt in to. They would need to set up people in positions who are very good at communicating to players and figuring out what players are really getting at, even when the player themselves dont grasp the why of the their feedback, who then is very good at communicating and representing that to the developers who are separated from this.

These things would totally destroy the desire for having everything be mysterious, and only presented when ready. They basically need visionary development style for the type of communication they have.

Obtena.7952:

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, the reasons are pretty easy to understand, the question is why haven’t they fixed it?

Because you are ignoring the reasons why it shouldn’t be fixed.

what are the reasons it shouldnt be fixed? I havent really heard any.

Wanze.8410:

An interesting question came up in the other thread:

If any ascended armor set, regardless of weight, would cost the same, would people still argue that the silk price is too high?
If you add the value of 1 each deldrimor, elonian and damask, it costs about 20g. So if every mat would cost 6.66g and the sets use 42 t7 mats overall to craft, would people still complain about silk?

I would be fine with that.

Edit: That would mean 1 set would cost about 350g and weapons would be 10-20g more expensive.

if their was no disparity, people wouldnt complain about disparity.
If the cost of a mat was 6.7g i dont think people would be that upset about costs

people may still want more direct means of working towards it, and to feel like they have realistic choices for obtaining items, but that wouldnt be as closely tied to the price, because the price would likely not be that bad. (and not liking the price increases the amount of people who want to get it themselves)

Wanze.8410:

dietzero.3514:

Wanze.8410:

dietzero.3514:

Wanze.8410:

In the end, i agree, that light armor users are a bit shafted by the daily timegate and I dont mind, if they find a way to bring them on par with medium and heavy armor.

But then we have to look at other timegates as well, that are disproportionally distributed.

Why do heavy armor users have to spend 55 laurels and 33g for the recipes in order to get a full ascended weapon set and an engi only has to spend 20 laurels and 12g, an ele only needs 25 laurels and 15g?

35 Laurels is a huge difference and makes the 6 days that a light armor user needs more to craft his damask (which can be circumvented by buying it directly anyways) seem miniscule.

35 laurels is easily gotten with the new system. And are you seriously saying that HAVING MORE WEAPON CHOICES is a bad thing?? I am sure Engineers And Eles would gladly be ‘punished’ with having to craft more ascended weapons, if they had more weapons to use.

Seriously…that is one of the single worst arguments I have ever seen on here.

I bet you 5 million karma that i will be able to acquire 6 bolts of damask faster than you will be able to collect 35 laurels.

So my sense of fairness demands anet to take care of the timegate imbalance between heavy classes and engies first.

Takes 30 seconds a day to acquire Laurels. At no cost.

And the point is, having more weapons IS A VERY GOOD THING AND WHAT ALL PROFESSIONS WANT. You claiming it as a negative because you need to make more weapons is absolutely ridiculous.

You see Anet toting less weapons for professions in the expansion? No? Right.

Each recipe costs 5 laurels and 3g, so there is extra cost involved, plus the added mats for each weapon to actually craft it.

I dont argue that having more weapons is a bad thing, its just a costly thing for professions, who use alot of weapons compared to those that dont. Eles need 5 different weapons to get over 80 skills, warriors have to craft 11 to get 49 skills.

Its a power creep as well because the ele can use all his skills with ascended stats once he crafted 5 weapons, when the warrior crafted 5 weapons, he will have only have a fraction of his skills unlocked, so he has to use exotic gear to have those skills available.

ele skills within the same weapon type do not equal a different weapon type. This is why its hard to discuss, because the mechanics and design are fundamentally different.
the different attunements dont actually, overall change your playstyle as much as different weaponset would for another class.

An obvious example is range.
you use daggers on ele, no matter how much you swap attunments, you still have to be within a certain range. Like if you are an ele in the harpy fractal, with daggerdagger you have to melee, all 4 of those attunements will not give you a ranged playstyle.

Then there are recast times, that are balanced around you having multiple attunements. If you just stay in one attunement, your dps, defense and support will suffer, you will be below another class in effeciency.

Point is, attunements is a different mechanic, with a different balance than a new weapon set, it doesnt actually translate into being equivalent to a weapon set. Its a totally different paradigm. You cant measure it directly against weapons.

level and play an ele in various content and you will start to see that it really isnt the same thing at all.

eithinan.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

Like I said, nobody is expecting them to be micromanaged to the point that they retain an absolute fixed price, but would it be too much to ask that a system be maintained in which the following is always true (aside from brief corrective swings):

Within a single material type: T6>T5>T4>T3>T2>T1

Ohoni.6057:

The argument isn’t one of ignorance of this fact, but rather of a difference of opinion between those that believe that the current natural level is acceptable, and those who do not. We would like to see changes made that would lower the natural level.

Which is it? Do you want the clear and simple progression of prices based off tier of mat or do you want lower silk prices. By the first quote you think silk should be priced higher considering the prices of other cloth mats, the second crashes the prices of all cloth following your logic. It is impossible to have both.

Ohoni.6057:

he just has the option of having more. No character in the game needs more than two one-handers or one two-hander,

No character in the game needs Ascended armor. They have the option of getting them.

having 14 ascended weapons does not make you stronger in combat
having 6 pieces of ascended armor versus 6 pieces of exotic does make you stronger in combat.

An analogy for the choice you are presenting here is.
Do you want more options for dinner? Some people will, and some people wont. some people just like burgers.
Do you want to eat a crappier version of the same food.
The second is not really an option. I mean you can try to claim it via semantics, but the reality is its not a realistic choice.

now, if they want to give every class 14 weapons to even things out, im all for it, but it really isnt the same issue, of some characters having to work harder to attain the same power level.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Coopziana.1802:

Ok, simple answer is: It’s the economy!
That’s all there is to it, some legendary weapons require more expensive materials that others… But that’s just tough! If you want it, you’ll work for it! Sometimes you’ll get them cheaper and sometimes they will go up in price… It’s just down to demand.

I don’t see what you aim to achieve with this post, ANET will not revise the cost of ascended items just because prices on certain materials have gone up. If you are so opposed to paying that much… Then wait for the price to go down!

Can we close this post now?

you havent really looked at the issue eh?
keep in mind this gear offers a stat advantage

and key is that it requires more materials to achieve the same purpose,

to make it simpler,
imagine instead of needing experience for the last 3 levels, you needed to collect

• 1000 mithril if you are a heavy +1000 silk
• 1500 leather if you are medium user +1000 silk
• 4000 silk if you are light user.

as you can see, for those same last 3 levels, light needs more materials than the other two combined. Not only that but since silk is needed by everyone, there will be more competition for that resource, meaning it will probably cost more.

*

What about the warrior, who needs more weaons crafted than the engie?
What about the player, who plays and Ele, Warrior and Thief and has to craft 3 different sets, while someone who plays all the light classes only has to craft one and can share it between his alts?

Its still fair to ALL PLAYERS because nobody has to pay more than the other for gearing the same class with the same equipment.

warrior weapons after the first two are horizontal progression. You are not weaker than an ele in a dungeon or fight, not weaker in WvW, and not weaker in a dungeon.

getting more charachters who can use your ascended is also horizontal progression, it doesnt make you stronger in any fight. Also note, as of HOT every ascended will be useful for 3 classes.

being fair to the owner of the game doesnt really come into this. By your definition balance between classes is totally unimportant, because any player can select any class.

So would it be good if warriors could destroy bosses with one hit, because everyone can choose to level a warrior? The same logic applies here.

now im not saying there needs to be no balance on horizontal progression, but that is a different issue.
I personally would have no objections to them adding more weapons to other classes, because that is more actual options having to do extra work for more options is different than having to do more work for the SAME power.

So its fine that the warrior has to craft 9 weapons more per set for build variety than the engi because its not vertical profession?

Why can my Engi friend have his full build variety today, while i still have to earn 45 more laurels and craft 9 more weapons for my warrior?

Thats so unfair.

You cant really compare engineers options to warriors, because kits do not equal a new weapon. Its a different mechanic. its trading utilities for a new weapon bar, it doesnt get its own sigils, its balanced to occur within one fight. Its a different rule set.

you pay for more options, the engi has less options. engineer is one of my classes i play, i would love to have 10 more weapon options, and i would be willing to pay for them.

I will say i think the laurel time lock is really annoying for classes with multiple weapons, but honestly the time lock is bad in and of itself and has little to do with this.

Falados.7165:

Okay i’m getting headaches and STRESSING over these builds YET want something EASY and laid back (NOT to hard or complicated for me) im kinda guy like it simple and easy yet able to help with speed run through Fractal and dungeons with engineer ?

if you want it to be laid back and easy, its probably best to give up on Speed running (highest speed possible) And look for laid back parties, they do exist

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Coopziana.1802:

Ok, simple answer is: It’s the economy!
That’s all there is to it, some legendary weapons require more expensive materials that others… But that’s just tough! If you want it, you’ll work for it! Sometimes you’ll get them cheaper and sometimes they will go up in price… It’s just down to demand.

I don’t see what you aim to achieve with this post, ANET will not revise the cost of ascended items just because prices on certain materials have gone up. If you are so opposed to paying that much… Then wait for the price to go down!

Can we close this post now?

you havent really looked at the issue eh?
keep in mind this gear offers a stat advantage

and key is that it requires more materials to achieve the same purpose,

to make it simpler,
imagine instead of needing experience for the last 3 levels, you needed to collect

• 1000 mithril if you are a heavy +1000 silk
• 1500 leather if you are medium user +1000 silk
• 4000 silk if you are light user.

as you can see, for those same last 3 levels, light needs more materials than the other two combined. Not only that but since silk is needed by everyone, there will be more competition for that resource, meaning it will probably cost more.

*

What about the warrior, who needs more weaons crafted than the engie?
What about the player, who plays and Ele, Warrior and Thief and has to craft 3 different sets, while someone who plays all the light classes only has to craft one and can share it between his alts?

Its still fair to ALL PLAYERS because nobody has to pay more than the other for gearing the same class with the same equipment.

warrior weapons after the first two are horizontal progression. You are not weaker than an ele in a dungeon or fight, not weaker in WvW, and not weaker in a dungeon.

getting more charachters who can use your ascended is also horizontal progression, it doesnt make you stronger in any fight. Also note, as of HOT every ascended will be useful for 3 classes.

being fair to the owner of the game doesnt really come into this. By your definition balance between classes is totally unimportant, because any player can select any class.

So would it be good if warriors could destroy bosses with one hit, because everyone can choose to level a warrior? The same logic applies here.

now im not saying there needs to be no balance on horizontal progression, but that is a different issue.
I personally would have no objections to them adding more weapons to other classes, because that is more actual options having to do extra work for more options is different than having to do more work for the SAME power.

Coopziana.1802:

Ok, simple answer is: It’s the economy!
That’s all there is to it, some legendary weapons require more expensive materials that others… But that’s just tough! If you want it, you’ll work for it! Sometimes you’ll get them cheaper and sometimes they will go up in price… It’s just down to demand.

I don’t see what you aim to achieve with this post, ANET will not revise the cost of ascended items just because prices on certain materials have gone up. If you are so opposed to paying that much… Then wait for the price to go down!

Can we close this post now?

you havent really looked at the issue eh?
keep in mind this gear offers a stat advantage

and key is that it requires more materials to achieve the same purpose,

to make it simpler,
imagine instead of needing experience for the last 3 levels, you needed to collect

• 1000 mithril if you are a heavy +1000 silk
• 1500 leather if you are medium user +1000 silk
• 4000 silk if you are light user.

as you can see, for those same last 3 levels, light needs more materials than the other two combined. Not only that but since silk is needed by everyone, there will be more competition for that resource, meaning it will probably cost more.

*

fracture.9754:

slow clap

By judging the first few posts I was afraid noone will understand the point of this thread. No, I will not stop whining on the forums about necros, because I want to play mine in dungeons, but as it stands it’s just so, SO bad compared to other classes. Yes, I’m bitter about it.

you are best off hoping for the content to change.
Necros will never, and probably should never excel at a top level in a meta based on fast movement and initial bursts.

welllll maybe the new specification could redefine the necro paradigm

Behellagh.1468:

Well they did see what we didn’t like about it. Specific things were listed as oppose to just hate mail because it was different. If most of your family hate a particular color for the new family car, such as “anything that’s green”, then you don’t really need to engage with them as they made their feelings quite clear.

unfortunately, based on the few responses we got, i dont think they were really able to understand what we didnt like.
I think they heard the having to do the same thing on multiple charachters part, that might be it.
Some other major problems were,

• comes too late in progression
  • unlocked at 30, too long without them
  • will generally take people till well after 80 to get all traits
• extremely high cost in skill points, when skill points are rare.
• people not liking to have to do specific content (because skill points/gold arent that realistic an option for many players)
• long time investment for some traits
• no connection between trait aquisition and the trait itself
• forcing pvp
• poor UI, and messaging

point is, based on past interaction, it seems its hard to really communicate with the devs. They pick up on bits an peices, but sometimes they dont really get the overall message. The trait rework is a good example. People were discussing other possible progressions for NEW skills, which currently were costing 25-40 skill points and other conditions, and it was suggested that there be another game based method for getting them.

so yeah, people want more of a dialog so this big 1 year waste of effort doesnt result from a misunderstanding.

Behellagh.1468:

Zefar.4278:

I feared as much with the quest. They can name them whatever they want but they will still be quest to me.

I grew up with Ragnarok Online where Quests where hidden and cryptic which made them neigh impossible without a guide most of the time. I liked it. So it was all about killing monsters and now it seems I’m forced to do these quests no matter what.

That might just be a deal breaker for me. Because Questing only just drags the fun out a game.

I will check up that bloodlust sigil.

But you DON’T NEED TO QUEST. You get XP from just about every activity you can do in PvE. Kill critters off the beaten path to earn even more XP since critters gain XP the longer they’ve been around. When an orange “quest” comes up on the right side of your screen when you got in proximity to one, you DON’T HAVE TO DO IT. There are some pluses. The Renown Hearts, which you only do once, will unlock an NPC vendor who will buy your drops and may have items unique to them to sell. Then there’s the XP bonus.

But gathering mats in the zone, will give you XP. Unblur a portion of your map by wandering into it will give you XP. Visiting a Point of Interest or Vista will give you XP. Clearing a Skill Challenge or activating a Way Point will give you XP. Rezzing fallen NPCs will give you XP. Crafting will give you XP. While not a pure sandbox this MMO most certainly doesn’t lead you from quest giver to quest giver. It doesn’t push you out of a map since the game will adjust your level down so all areas remain playable but you earn XP and some rewards based on your true level. You can get to 80 never leaving the starting zone.

But why? There’s a big world out there. 6 major cities, 7 if you count the one you can reach from the Human home city. Some 28 maps to explore full of critters to kill and mat nodes to gather from. And once you do get to 80 and you now decide to do some of the Dynamic Events or Renown Hearts, you can because of the auto level mechanic in the game.

If Soloing is your thing then great, with the exception of Dungeons, which there aren’t a lot of, and fractals there is no reason to form a formal party unless you want to. There is no kill stealing, no splitting of XP and loot as long as you do some fairly small amount of total damage you get full shares.

Honestly, this is the least linear MMO you are likely to find short of EVE.

as an above poster said, remember,
vistas are hidden at his level
skill points are hidden at his level
he has a big arrow telling him where he is supposed to go

the game isnt as linear as it might seem to a new player now, but he is just going off what he saw in his first half hour of play, and asking if its really always gonna be like this. The answer? kinda yes, kinda no.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Man if you guys spent as much time playing the game as you did telling people silk is too expensive you could have finished getting all the silk you needed weeks ago.

It reminds me of those wall street protesters. If they spent as much time studying as they did sitting in tents protesting then they would have all the money they need from their high paying job.

There are plenty of ways to get cloth, and plenty of ways to earn gold. Combine the two and you’ll be able to easily get a damask a day. This thread will last longer than the amount of time it takes you to finish your ascended armor.

You can think getting silk isnt that hard
but thats not really the crux of the issue.
Why do silk users have to work objectively harder for the same results, as other classes

i mean no one NEEDS equality in a game, they could just make levels 75-80 take twice as long for cloth users. And yeah they could just grind harder. But why should they have to?