Guild Wars 2

pdavis.8031:

phys.7689:

pdavis.8031:

Argon.1563:

Hm. What I find strange, is that John Smith posted on here, but only to comment on the validity of the thread, rather than the topic itself.

Is this an issue ArenaNet doesn’t care about, or is it just something they’re aware of, but don’t want to discuss right now?

It is something they are well aware of, and in fact John Smith said several times in various threads about the matter, that Silk was intentional and is working as intended. He also said in regards to player perception of a broken economy, that he doesn’t care. So from those type of statements that he already has made, one can reasonablly assume that in rergards to silk pricing is: that it is fine, its working like it should, and he doesn’t care about the misconception of silk being overpriced.

he said he doesnt care if players are unsatisfied with economy? really?

John Smith.4610:

LordByron.8369:

Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?

There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

i dont think this means he doesnt care if players are unsatisfied, merely that he doesnt care if that particular player thinks the economy is broken.

but i could be wrong, perhaps you are right, and he doesnt care.

eithinan.9841:

phys.7689:

silk already reached the 2 silver price mark before those recipes were released,
they hit that because they released the 2-3 silk scrap change and ascended armors were already out. it is the continued additions to the demand for damask. Again just like the bum with elonian leathers for spinal blade backpieces.

the problem with your perspective, is it is looking only at the value of one material, and not at the world that they had to create to give it that value.
dumb statement is dumb when I am discussing both other t7 mats and components that make them.

hypothetical……[SNIP]
I don’t do hypothetical
[SNIP]
whining about how refinement works

not doing hypotheticals? you fail at science/math/logic
then.

regardless looking at the actual implementations.

simple concepts for you

the introduction of ascended caused silk to go from a value of .09 silver to 2-3 silver. The introduction of backpacks caused silk to go from a value of 2-3 silver to a value of 2-3 silver

logic dictates that it is not signifigantly responsible for the current value of silk.

i see you are way too amused by snark to actually see anything from multiple perspectives. which limits your ability to understand things.

Lyzandia.9135:

My experience as a brand new player has been very different.
Although I admit I love running around and exploring – this is a BEAUTIFUL game and the Vistas really show it off.
But levelling is really easy. Every zone gets you a level or two.
Dungeons give you nearly a whole level and you can do them in story mode and then a few levels later as explorable. When I tell groups I am a noob they are super nice.
Tomes of knowledge are everywhere.
And I found all the starter zones well populated.
Find a Guild or 2 or 3 – folks love helping – the game has been out 2 years.

My only question – what is the NPE folks keep mentioning?

you are new, you are better off not knowing about npe

Miku Lawrence.6329:

phys.7689:

The big problem as i see it, is that because people are mostly seeing these parties on lfg, they feel like they cant play dungeons, wont get groups, or will be kicked.

I’m looking for a job. I had that interview where I was so lost I didn’t understand half of what the recruter was saying. Why is he looking for someone so qualified? There is no need of a degree to get paid a wage. Instead of actually getting a degree I’ll just remain jobless and feed on living support the State can offer me.

the goal of the dungeons in the game is to be played by players, as many players as possible, of varying skill levels.

your analogy is off, because this isnt a job, its a product. And the product needs to appeal to as many people as possible. If this product narrows its focus to be ONLY for the elite, it will no longer be developed.

The goal of dungeons should be to be easy start, hard to master. You want a everyone to be able to get joy out it. The current climate is really bad because people feel like they cant even attempt the dungeon. Thats probably the worst thing because then people arent even trying the content.

If anet feels that only 5% of people can enjoy dungeons, they will give it 5% of the resources, or possibly none of the resources, and seek to expand other parts of the game to get 100% of a larger audience. Which up on until HoT seemed to be the trend we were seeing.

RSLongK.8961:

phys.7689:

Droggy.7863:

I think this ZERKER mania is stupid.

Every dung finder says 80 lvl ZERKER only or kick. How could a new player of GW enjoy the game when some guy is so blinded by mass degeneration of community who believe that only way to go in dung is berserker stats build.

If this is truth then tell me why other stats are in game? Why are not berserker stats on every single item in the game? Because someone want to people think about their builds. Someone wants to people run different enjoyable builds. Then hodor hodor bam bam.

Please think about it. Not everyone enjoys just dmg. Someone wants to be support for the rest of the party. Or even healer in options of GW2.

basically the current dungeon players are not concerned with what works, but with what works best. If Dungeons are going to continue to be a thing the dungeon community needs to expand to encompass players who just want to play some dungeons.

Even if zerk wasnt the thing, they still would only want specific builds, and exclude others.

Try this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jra3jV_ckYg

Doesnt really work that way, some people who join open parties still expect people to be playing with speedrun focus many times. There was two threads recently, one from the point of view of the guy creating an open party, where the two people who joined expected them to be playing better
and another where a guy joined an open party, only to be horrified that they werent playing meta, or with a high skill level.

point is, open parties are not a safe haven.

Jerus.4350:

phys.7689:

Droggy.7863:

I think this ZERKER mania is stupid.

Every dung finder says 80 lvl ZERKER only or kick. How could a new player of GW enjoy the game when some guy is so blinded by mass degeneration of community who believe that only way to go in dung is berserker stats build.

If this is truth then tell me why other stats are in game? Why are not berserker stats on every single item in the game? Because someone want to people think about their builds. Someone wants to people run different enjoyable builds. Then hodor hodor bam bam.

Please think about it. Not everyone enjoys just dmg. Someone wants to be support for the rest of the party. Or even healer in options of GW2.

basically the current dungeon players are not concerned with what works, but with what works best. If Dungeons are going to continue to be a thing the dungeon community needs to expand to encompass players who just want to play some dungeons.

Even if zerk wasnt the thing, they still would only want specific builds, and exclude others.

That’s the thing, a lot of the people here do that, there’s lots of folks who will play their necro. It’s simply that facts are facts, some things are poor/inefficient, you can choose to do whatever you want but you really should know the costs of choices you make. If I do X how will it affect Y?

And, there’s NOTHING wrong with asking for like minded individuals to play with. The jerk in the group is not the guy asking for people who think like him to join him, but it’s the guy who dismisses their groups opinion from the start.

i wasnt putting a value judgement on it, i was just stating thats how it currently is. I see this guy and another guy saying, why are people asking for these specific parties? you dont need this to win, and im pointing out that their goal isnt to win, its to win fast.

im not really saying there is anything wrong with making like minded parties. It makes more sense to do than not to do.
The big problem as i see it, is that because people are mostly seeing these parties on lfg, they feel like they cant play dungeons, wont get groups, or will be kicked.

hybrid.5027:

phys.7689:

If Dungeons are going to continue to be a thing the dungeon community needs to expand to encompass players who just want to play some dungeons.

the dungeon speed run community is bigger now than its ever been. Not seeing the pressure to “encompass” non-conformists.

the speedrun community is larger, but the overall community versus the total amount of players is small.
I dont really care if people want to play a certain way, but i think the developers are not giving dungeon development the effort it deserves because they feel its market is too niche.
And its very true that it is a lot harder to experience dungeons in a non speed run fashion than it used to be.

And lets be honest hybrid, if the meta says the best party is a certain 5 classes(and its noticeably better), that is what the speedrun community will do, however, that means 3/8th of the proffessions will have no place.

thats just the what it means. I am not seeking to erase the speedrun community, i am just saying that by its very nature, speedrun community will not work for many players. For dungeons to thrive, it needs to appeal to both the current community and expand into regular players as well.

Lytalm.5673:

phys.7689:

Lytalm.5673:

Why are we even caring about stupid post like that?

because the post is actually about a legitimate issue, even if the solution isnt feasible. This is a line anet has to walk carefully, and try to come up with a balance that works.

It doesn’t make the game P2W and only add revenue to the devs. I see it more like a win-win-win for every one : People who want to pay RL cash for IG gold are pleased, devs and compagny get paid, people who don’t want to spend RL money have a way to get gems for store items by only playing the game (aka earning gold and trading it for gems).

So tell me again what issue is there?

first of all, i see people dont really get the OP, hes actually on you anti p2w guys side. He made his suggestion as a means of shutting up the p2w debate once and for all. Or at least thats the side he presented.

The system definately has advantages, i know a couple friends who would not play for a signifigant amount of time if they had to pay a subscription.

However, i think its foolish to ignore the issue. Its something you have to monitor and adjust, its not going to be 100% ok or 100% bad. This system is like consuming alchohol, you have to monitor it, and control it, or else it can end up being a bad experience.

Its not a question of whether pay for in game things is 100% bad or 100% good, its about how to manage pay for in game so that it creates the best balance of gains versus losses.

pdavis.8031:

Argon.1563:

Hm. What I find strange, is that John Smith posted on here, but only to comment on the validity of the thread, rather than the topic itself.

Is this an issue ArenaNet doesn’t care about, or is it just something they’re aware of, but don’t want to discuss right now?

It is something they are well aware of, and in fact John Smith said several times in various threads about the matter, that Silk was intentional and is working as intended. He also said in regards to player perception of a broken economy, that he doesn’t care. So from those type of statements that he already has made, one can reasonablly assume that in rergards to silk pricing is: that it is fine, its working like it should, and he doesn’t care about the misconception of silk being overpriced.

he said he doesnt care if players are unsatisfied with economy? really?

eithinan.9841:

phys.7689:

eithinan.9841:

insanemaniac.2456:

silk isnt a problem
leather is

This. Silk is a thriving market with lots of different uses and demands on the supply, Leather on the other hand….

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ConfusedDave.4271:

You can’t farm for leather any more easily than you can farm for cloth, but leather prices are still low. So it doesn’t look like the farmability of silk is the driving factor behind the price. (At the end of the day, most people who play the game do so to have fun, not to farm like a crazy fool all day.)

nope, silk is a high end market which places the large majority of its value on ONE use. The proof of this that the price changed drastically when ascended came into being. Before that it was essentially vendor price.

The driving force of silks value is that it requires a ridiculous amount of it to progress your charachter past a certain point. And that it is unbalancedly used in crafting recipes.

If its value was actually caused by having a diverse amount of recipes that had need of it, in manageable amounts, i would have no problem with its price.

and i guess this is what john smith is saying.
I think silks price of 2 silver might be an ok price point

i dont think damasks value of 13.5 gold is a good price point
i think the “cost” of damask by any means, bought or farmed is too high.

furthermore, i dont think the unbalance in required materials is good design for ascended crafting.

The point of the thread is silks cost as it relates to the cost damask, and ascended crafting. And the imbalances between different ascended materials

You are ignoring the fact that damask has more uses than elonian leather. All the backpacks that take 15 damask. If the dwayna or Balt back pack could be made with elonian leather then you would see a balancing just like you did when the spinal backpieces came out. The real issue is how under valued leather is in gw2.

Gossamer being so low in comparison to silk is based on the same reason as the leather being so low. Less end game uses for it. End of story. Supply and demand.

On the whining about it being 100 bolts not 50. Well, that came about because of the glut of silk on the market. The market then corrected itself and has found a balance for the price when more demand was created. This demand is what makes the silk market healthy and the Gossamer/leather markets unhealthy. Now anet has the choice of letting a system stay in place(that is working fine) or invalidating the effort made by people with sets of ascended armor already.

The reality is with account bound ascended being implemented, end game gearing is even easier.

silk already reached the 2 silver price mark before those recipes were released, those recipes are not driving their value. Big difference is, they are optional and not part of progression. In the same way that ectoplasm price is not driven by the anomoly (focus)

the problem with your perspective, is it is looking only at the value of one material, and not at the world that they had to create to give it that value.

hypothetical
America has an excess of corn, so to give corn value, they make everyone have to buy 100 bushels of corn a day to get a liscense to travel above 35 miles per hour.

it might be nice that corn now is worth more than dirt, but the reality is that if you are used to driving above 35 mph, or desire to, then your standard of living has just taken a huge hit.

How many people do you think would knowingly vote to have this instituted?

The cure is worse than the disease. Before silk was worthless, i transformed it into other things of value, or i vendored it
Now it has value, but if i want to progress my charachters past a certain point i have to either spend a bunch of money i wouldnt have spent before, or i have to spend a lot more time grinding easy monster kills.

By all means increase demand, but do not increase demand by making people require ridiculous amounts of materials to progress their charachter. Do not make singular items require other items in the 1000s.
If you need to increase demand that much, so that players requires 1000s of something, you would be better off to look towards the supply side of the equation.

simply put, you are not increasing player satisfaction by paying him more, if you also increase the daily price of satisfaction, you are just shifting around numbers without making a qualitative change

Algreg.3629:

phys.7689:

once again, i am truely amazed at the amount of posters who have a complete lack of perspective here.

He is a new player.

This means he is not wearing the best gear for each level
This means he has no traits at all
This means he doesnt know little tricks, like how to get bonus exp
this means he doesnt know if he plays X spvp battles and selects a certain track he will get a book, which it turns out can be used to level him once
This means he cannot join dungeons, and when he can, it wont take him 10 minutes without being carried. Most groups these days wont even let him play.

this is a NEW player, and apparently the game is very bad at retaining new players, his complaints may give some insights into why. Interestingly enough NPE doesnt really help most of his complaints.

here is the kicker: we have all been new players when we were new to the game. Speaking for myself, I cannot remember any of the experience described (NPE or not) and see no reason to reconsider what I wrote earlier.

• when i was actually a new, new player, they had people in every zone doing events, even empty maps would have 1 or 2 other people who would jump in on the harder dynamic events.
• I also had traits from level 11 onwards which provided goals, synergies, so leveling was less boring, and the order of my skills/skill choice mattered more.
• i had trait points so less of my total stats was effected by how close my gear was to cap.
• I was able to do personal story for large experience gains, in fact almost all of my charachters did personal story underleveled, up until like level 30ish, when it starts to get crappy, and you have enough tools to be able to have fun killing
• I did dungeons maybe 5 or so levels after they were unlocked, which is a very bad proposition these days.
• enemies in the first 20 levels had a greater variety of skills and tactics

The game is very different for a new player today. I dont feel like its a better experience honestly. Though, i will say someone who hates exploration will probably have very tough time getting to the other parts of gw2

Droggy.7863:

I think this ZERKER mania is stupid.

Every dung finder says 80 lvl ZERKER only or kick. How could a new player of GW enjoy the game when some guy is so blinded by mass degeneration of community who believe that only way to go in dung is berserker stats build.

If this is truth then tell me why other stats are in game? Why are not berserker stats on every single item in the game? Because someone want to people think about their builds. Someone wants to people run different enjoyable builds. Then hodor hodor bam bam.

Please think about it. Not everyone enjoys just dmg. Someone wants to be support for the rest of the party. Or even healer in options of GW2.

basically the current dungeon players are not concerned with what works, but with what works best. If Dungeons are going to continue to be a thing the dungeon community needs to expand to encompass players who just want to play some dungeons.

Even if zerk wasnt the thing, they still would only want specific builds, and exclude others.

eithinan.9841:

insanemaniac.2456:

silk isnt a problem
leather is

This. Silk is a thriving market with lots of different uses and demands on the supply, Leather on the other hand….

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ConfusedDave.4271:

You can’t farm for leather any more easily than you can farm for cloth, but leather prices are still low. So it doesn’t look like the farmability of silk is the driving factor behind the price. (At the end of the day, most people who play the game do so to have fun, not to farm like a crazy fool all day.)

nope, silk is a high end market which places the large majority of its value on ONE use. The proof of this that the price changed drastically when ascended came into being. Before that it was essentially vendor price.

The driving force of silks value is that it requires a ridiculous amount of it to progress your charachter past a certain point. And that it is unbalancedly used in crafting recipes.

If its value was actually caused by having a diverse amount of recipes that had need of it, in manageable amounts, i would have no problem with its price.

and i guess this is what john smith is saying.
I think silks price of 2 silver might be an ok price point

i dont think damasks value of 13.5 gold is a good price point
i think the “cost” of damask by any means, bought or farmed is too high.

furthermore, i dont think the unbalance in required materials is good design for ascended crafting.

The point of the thread is silks cost as it relates to the cost damask, and ascended crafting. And the imbalances between different ascended materials

Happyfool.8951:

are we talking about the same game where i leveled a new toon to 80 in 2 weeks just doing events? and that’s slow compared to others using the really quick methods.

if you’re having trouble, have you tried asking in map chat or getting in a guild?

when did you level to 80 in two weeks? did you also craft? How many other people did events in that time period.

Most big MMOs these days are designed so a person who knows what they are doing and has time can level to max level in 2 weeks or less. WoW FFXIV SWTOR, etc.

The question is more how does it feel to level. I personally enjoyed gw2 the first time, but i like exploration, and seeing all the world has. If you dont really like exploring, the games progression will probably feel pretty poor. The ways of getting exp without having to explore are better understood once you have played through the game, and learned a lot of things.

Lytalm.5673:

Why are we even caring about stupid post like that?

because the post is actually about a legitimate issue, even if the solution isnt feasible. This is a line anet has to walk carefully, and try to come up with a balance that works.

maddoctor.2738:

Quick question: why do you care or should you care, how the person next to you obtained his gear? Are you paying attention to everyone around you, looking at their gear to find which one looks good and which is not and then feel jealous you don’t have it?

Why does the method of obtaining a cool looking skin by someone else matters to you? And why should it?

If there is a problem with getting items through real money, then what about low random chances? If someone is upset the person next to them got an expensive skin paying with real money, then shouldn’t he also be upset if said person got it through seer luck?

i personally am not that concerned by it, unless the design of aquisition through normal means gets effected by the monetization strategy.

However, its not really true that people who do feel that way do not have a valid point. Playing a social game means having many players, and at its very fabric, a game must have people playing by the same ruleset. Outworld money for ingame objectives basically works outside the ruleset of the game.
spoiler for a long story of a past situation
PSO...One of my first online games was phantasy star online, I loved the game, however it was insanely riddled with cheaters. It was probably like 80-90% of the online population that cheated or used items obtained from cheating. This essentially changed the game. The main focus was on obtaining rare special items, so everyone having access to these rare items, totally changed the game. Theoretically trading items was supposed to be a thing, but why trade that item you worked hours on for that hacked item? Basically i played with a smaller subset of people, in passworded rooms, who didnt cheat. We had fun hunting rare items. But we essentially had to section ourselves off from most of the social gameworld. Only trading/playing with "legits"

So yea, out of game means of achieving ingame goals, does have an effect, you can choose to ignore it, but it by its very nature changes the way the game is experienced.

In the case of luck, luck is defined within the game system, everyone (should) have the same chances. A person getting lucky, is an expression of the game world ruleset. A person winning a huge pot at the roulette table is beating the casino, other gamblers respect that he is playing the same game as them. A guy buying a whole bunch of chips and not gambling, isnt really a part of the world.

Now in this case, i think the fact that its an exchange makes it a little better, the value they get is based on how much value people in game think it has. But mostly, i am not playing the game that socially, so other people arent as important to me. But in an MMO the goal isnt really to be asocial eh?

once again, i am truely amazed at the amount of posters who have a complete lack of perspective here.

He is a new player.

This means he is not wearing the best gear for each level
This means he has no traits at all
This means he doesnt know little tricks, like how to get bonus exp
this means he doesnt know if he plays X spvp battles and selects a certain track he will get a book, which it turns out can be used to level him once
This means he cannot join dungeons, and when he can, it wont take him 10 minutes without being carried. Most groups these days wont even let him play.

this is a NEW player, and apparently the game is very bad at retaining new players, his complaints may give some insights into why. Interestingly enough NPE doesnt really help most of his complaints.

Jana.6831:

Akagami.9861:

.. and NO no matter how skilled you are you can’t kill a champion alone.

I (and a lot of others) disagree:

lets be accurate here, a new charachter most likely cant solo many champions, you dont have all weapon skills, traits, runes, sigils
Some classes might be able to, but its not really a realistic expectation for new players to be able to solo champions or do some of the dynamic events.

Aphex.9782:

Hey everyone here is my rant on GW2. Maybe some dev reads this and will improve the game in the expantion.

Leveling : Leveling in this game is not fun. There is no variety and the xp gain is way to low. Exploration is nice and all but i personally don’t enjoy exploration. I would prefer to have some action instead of a running simulator……leveling through dungeons would be nice or through pvp. Unfortunately first dungeon is at 30 and there is no xp for pvp.
Rest of the leveling expierience is a unrewarding grind and running simulator: Walk to a) intertact with stuff/kill mobs. And there is never enough to complete the “heart” fast enough. You end up running arround looking for quest relevant stuff. EVERY heart is a variation of the same stuff and it gets old really fast.

Events: Events are fine and i’m having fun while doing them with one exeption : Bosses.
The bosses are some other kind of bs. Almost every event boss has unavoidable oneshot mechanics : being chaincocooned and then blown up by the spiderqueen for example. 2 dodges don’t cut it when you’re constantly slowed. I know it is a group event but i remember that someone said this is a skillbased game. Instead of interesting cool mechanics there is oneshot bs.

Poison/Bleed: Completely overpowered imho. Get poisoned by 2 mobs = dead.

Classes/Depth: There is not a single class i completely enjoy. There is always one or two skills that i don’t like using. Skills in general are boring. You just spam skills that come off cooldown. No rotation, no thought, no depth behind it. This feels like League of Legends when it should feel like a complex and deep roleplaying expierience.

World Bosses: Zergfest….nothing more to mention here.

General : Xp gain is godawful or i haven’t found a efficient way to level wich makes everything feel really slow and grindy. Not that xp matters anyway because you get downscaled in areas too low for your level so you never ever feel powerful in this game.
Feeling powerful is fun from time to time you know?
Idk if i will continue playing this game. I feel like maybe i should push through to max level to get the whole picture but i would really have to force myself and THAT is the cardinal sin imho.

I really don’t see the appeal. Sure other MMOs are mostly the same but some of them at least have an interesting story or in depth combat/skill mechanics and dungeons.

Most hearts suck(entertainment wise), only do a heart if its easy and gets filled while you do dynamic events.

honestly the game wasnt designed for you to be completely alone, although you can be. Even having one more person with you makes the things that were kinda hard, fairly doable. Doing the story missions give big EXP, its a shame they only come once every 10 levels now. Though, a lot of people dont actually like story, so that might be a mixed bag.

leveling isnt really as fast as people make it out to be, yeah there are a few lulls. based on what you said, spvp might be your best bet, i think you get level scrolls there which can give you levels, its not very fast though.

as far as rotations, depends on the job, they have some profitable skill se

Obtena.7952:

Shiyo.3578:

There’s no reason for silk to take 100 per ascended mat when it’s over 4x the price of other ascended mats.

There is no reason for silk not to take 100 per ascended mat because it’s 2x the price of other ascended mats either.

yes there is
game balance with respect to effort required to progress with your charachter.
the current ascended system basically says progressing on cloth class is like 1.5 times as hard as progressing on another class.

tekfan.3179:

My problem is not the cost or the grind. It’s a high tier armor after all.
What I dislike is the imbalance between the different armor-classes.
Heavy armor needs 25 bolts of damask and 16 deldrimor steel ingots.
Medium armor needs 24 bolts of damask and 18 elonian leather squares.
Light armor needs 36(!!!) bolts of damask and 6 elonian leather squares.

So not only do you need the most of the most expensive material for light armor, but you will also need the longest time of at least 36 days to craft your armor, if you craft all mats yourself.

I got a suggestion on how to equalize and spread the costs for the materials you need for ascended crafting:
Insignias could be made with one of each(damask, elonian leather and deldrimor steel), instead of three bolts of damask.

i think it would be better if it could be made with any one of the materials.

i would really be interested to see how the price would be affected.
im thinking damask would still be the most expensive due to increase material costs, but a lot less drastic a difference.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Essence Snow.3194:

I see the same faulty premise time and time again, that winning is confined to one objective only. Winning it completely dependent on the goal at hand. If the goal is building a better sandcastle, then tools that help achieve such, help in winning. If the goal is to knock out an opponent, then brass knuckles help in winning. If the goal finishing an achievement, then ofc anything that aided in such helped to win. It’s very simple logic.

To be replaced with your faulty premise that all competitive play is now being compressed into a single objective? Pay-to-win should be reserved to subjects that involve competitive play. As such, it should be reserved for things which can be purchased that provide a numerical advantage.

Pay-to-win is a term that has a stigma in western gaming culture. Those seeking to expand the definition to encompass anything they dislike about a game’s payment options are seeking to use that stigma to shame the developer into removing any and all for-cash options they dislike.

As to "simple logic,’ the logical extension of a process by which more and more pay options get stigmatized is that any optional payment features put in by a developer will be pay-to-win.

Dislike gems —> gold all you like. However, in changing the definition of a pejorative term to suit your point because the term is a bugaboo, all you’re doing is distracting the discussion from the real issues.

short version, we should create a new term to define that type of system? a Rose by any other name? still the same is it not?

Honestly at this point, from a semantic standpoint, the word may evolve, this debate that comes up constantly is because some people are evolving the word, and others dont think it should evolve in that direction.

essentially this is a war on word definition, that will basically be decided by consensus at some later date.
but really it doesnt matter what word we use.

the crux of the matter is some people are disatisfied with being able to gain things built to be obtained in the game world with money from outside the game.

the OP proposes to remove that functionality to solve the debate.

i think that while the issue at hand is worth discussing, i think the solution presented, really has no chance of happening.

Ah, but why are they seeking to adapt the term? They’re doing it to capitalize on the negative connotations attached to games that allow players to pay cash to win in PvP. Thus, it very much does matter what term is used. The stigma attached to P2W is being used as a tool to influence poster opinions.

That said, I also think the solution presented has no chance.

i think you are overestimating peoples guile, and skill at propaganda.

Its probably simply because to some people these things seem like winning. This debate doesnt only appear in this game, and it isnt just use by expert debaters. Many of the people are just using the term because it feels accurate to them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

As usual, a customer has decided that s/he ought to be able to decide what the base game purchase ought to buy and what the developer is allowed to charge extra for. That’s not how it works.

actually it kind of is, or rather it is the interaction of both parties that determines where its going to end up.

that said, since people are paying now, unless the op can present some compelling reasoning that says more people would spend more money on the game if they had more initial bank slots, and that amount of people would lead to greater profit overall, or the same profit, but higher customer satisfaction, they really cant say much other than let anet know that they specifically think it messes up the game

IndigoSundown.5419:

Essence Snow.3194:

I see the same faulty premise time and time again, that winning is confined to one objective only. Winning it completely dependent on the goal at hand. If the goal is building a better sandcastle, then tools that help achieve such, help in winning. If the goal is to knock out an opponent, then brass knuckles help in winning. If the goal finishing an achievement, then ofc anything that aided in such helped to win. It’s very simple logic.

To be replaced with your faulty premise that all competitive play is now being compressed into a single objective? Pay-to-win should be reserved to subjects that involve competitive play. As such, it should be reserved for things which can be purchased that provide a numerical advantage.

Pay-to-win is a term that has a stigma in western gaming culture. Those seeking to expand the definition to encompass anything they dislike about a game’s payment options are seeking to use that stigma to shame the developer into removing any and all for-cash options they dislike.

As to "simple logic,’ the logical extension of a process by which more and more pay options get stigmatized is that any optional payment features put in by a developer will be pay-to-win.

Dislike gems —> gold all you like. However, in changing the definition of a pejorative term to suit your point because the term is a bugaboo, all you’re doing is distracting the discussion from the real issues.

short version, we should create a new term to define that type of system? a Rose by any other name? still the same is it not?

Honestly at this point, from a semantic standpoint, the word may evolve, this debate that comes up constantly is because some people are evolving the word, and others dont think it should evolve in that direction.

essentially this is a war on word definition, that will basically be decided by consensus at some later date.
but really it doesnt matter what word we use.

the crux of the matter is some people are disatisfied with being able to gain things built to be obtained in the game world with money from outside the game.

the OP proposes to remove that functionality to solve the debate.

i think that while the issue at hand is worth discussing, i think the solution presented, really has no chance of happening.

ConfusedDave.4271:

You can’t farm for leather any more easily than you can farm for cloth, but leather prices are still low. So it doesn’t look like the farmability of silk is the driving factor behind the price. (At the end of the day, most people who play the game do so to have fun, not to farm like a crazy fool all day.)

It’s the overly onerous amounts of silk required for light ascended armor that is pushing the price up. If you ignore the trading post, it takes significantly more “normal” playing time to craft it than the medium or heavy equivalents.

It may seem like a good idea from an economics point of view to have some materials worth a lot more than others, but making it so light armor wearers have a much harder time crafting their armor wasn’t really a fair way of doing it.

Things like Silver Doubloons being hard to come by aren’t such a problem, because Juggernaut is a luxury item, as opposed to being the only way to get a Best In Class hammer.

there is more than one variable which effects cost.

John Smith.4610:

Sounds to me like two independent issues being discussed.
1. Aggregate price for silk and market velocity
2. Farming for individual mats is hard

I would argue that these issues aren’t actually related and shouldn’t be discussed as if they were.

reading the op, the discussion is about why the cost of silk is high, within the context of damask.

when truely examining cost, one most consider not only the price in gold, but the price in time, or price in effort.

regardless, there is an imbalance in the price of silk, and the price of other basic materials, within their total costs with respect to ascended crafting

elonian cord, basic material cost 49.5 silver
mithrillium basic material cost 49.5 silver
spool of silk basic material cost 7.3 gold or 730 silver

now, i would argue that how hard an item is to obtain effects its cost, but regardless, within the context of ascended crafting silk is grossly unbalanced in terms of gold cost.

Lorgus.6148:

serenke.4806:

I’m wondering how often other dungeon sellers hijack instances. For me they seem to be the prime suspect for this.

I’m honestly perplexed at this.
It would seem logical that one seller would know the difficulties that can arise when selling, and wouldn’t wish them on another. In my experience other sellers are more often than not polite and not at all like the lfg trolls.

And if they hijack to sell, can’t you just rejoin and kick them back when they relist?

they could have kicking accounts, and seperate selling accounts i think.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

phys.7689:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Essence Snow.3194:

I see the same faulty premise time and time again, that winning is confined to one objective only. Winning it completely dependent on the goal at hand. If the goal is building a better sandcastle, then tools that help achieve such, help in winning. If the goal is to knock out an opponent, then brass knuckles help in winning. If the goal finishing an achievement, then ofc anything that aided in such helped to win. It’s very simple logic.

Except that pay to win is typically associated with paying to get an ADVANTAGE, and cosmetic items don’t offer any advantage PHYSICALLY. they don’t offer more damage. They don’t autokill mobs etc.

they give you an advantage at getting rewards.
someone may have to kill 1000 monsters to get enough drops to get a certain item
someone may pay Xdollars to buy enough drops to get that certain item.

The advantage of autokilling monsters is what? faster loot, and exp, gold can also buy you faster loot, and exp.

you can also pay gold to make other people kill monsters for you, ala dungeon selling.

You don’t pay gems for dungeon spots so not pay to win. Never seen dungeon selling, and don;t see a reason anyone would pay for that so using extremes doesn’t help either.

Pay to win also only applies to paying cash to gain said advantage, of which there is none.

No in game items that offer stats are also offered in the gem store. Items in the gem store are 100% separate, and don’t offer any advantages that make it easier to kill mobs, etc etc.

Any exp boosts and other junk purchasable is also findable in game.

Next.

dungeon selling is fairly common, they even have a dungeon selling guild organizing in the dungeon forum. The main reason people buy the dungeon paths, is because they want to get the gears that were designed to require you to beat certain dungeons, without putting forth that effort/waiting themselves. Most commonly, i think they want the tokens to finish some legendary. You will often find arah, since pugging that is either time consuming, or difficult.

and this whole thread is more focused on the buy gems then exchange them for gold side of the equation.

basically you can buy gold, and then you can have anything in game that having gold gets you. Which due to meta economy, includes paying players gold to do things for you.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem with silk is that they didn’t fix it once, they fixed it three times and each person fixing it didn’t realize someone else was fixing it as well. So what we get is as Astral says, overkill that not only fixed the glut but swung the pendulum all the way to the other side and then some.

my guess? they probably wanted silk to go up to about 1-2 silver.

they balanced the supply, and the expected demand, and made some predictions.
they hit their mark pretty well, maybe overshot it a bit, but not too much

problem is they looked at it on a macro level, and they didnt realize that their solution made the player experience for cloth kind of suck balzack.

300 silk a day is terrible amount to try to gather, and 6 gold a day is an annoying amount to spend every day for 30 days.

essentially, its nice for the silk market, horrible for the main use of silk.
As if the government decided they had too much apples, and decided we have to destroy 80 apples a day to use the internet.

nice for apple sellers, sucky for people who want to use the internet.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Essence Snow.3194:

I see the same faulty premise time and time again, that winning is confined to one objective only. Winning it completely dependent on the goal at hand. If the goal is building a better sandcastle, then tools that help achieve such, help in winning. If the goal is to knock out an opponent, then brass knuckles help in winning. If the goal finishing an achievement, then ofc anything that aided in such helped to win. It’s very simple logic.

Except that pay to win is typically associated with paying to get an ADVANTAGE, and cosmetic items don’t offer any advantage PHYSICALLY. they don’t offer more damage. They don’t autokill mobs etc.

they give you an advantage at getting rewards.
someone may have to kill 1000 monsters to get enough drops to get a certain item
someone may pay Xdollars to buy enough drops to get that certain item.

The advantage of autokilling monsters is what? faster loot, and exp, gold can also buy you faster loot, and exp.

you can also pay gold to make other people kill monsters for you, ala dungeon selling.

Ayrilana.1396:

Essence Snow.3194:

I see the same faulty premise time and time again, that winning is confined to one objective only. Winning it completely dependent on the goal at hand. If the goal is building a better sandcastle, then tools that help achieve such, help in winning. If the goal is to knock out an opponent, then brass knuckles help in winning. If the goal finishing an achievement, then ofc anything that aided in such helped to win. It’s very simple logic.

Then everything is pay to win by that very broad definition which is very far from what it originally refers to when it was coined.

I’m definitely going to win by fulfilling my dream of flooding my bank and inventory with stacks of soiled rags when I buy gold through gems in the gem store.

it basically means any game where you can use real money, to achieve game objectives would be considered pay to win.
Which makes sense for what the phrase is supposed to be about anyhow. Many of the first games that were called p2win werent directly competitive anyway.

But really people should get over the terminology, and more focus on the reality. What is acceptable as far as paying money to achieve in game goals?
what are the pitfalls, etc

those are the real questions people should be considering, rather than the semantics of the term.

Bubi.7942:

I wouldn’t call it the most rewarding thing by far.

If you compare the gem prices with gold prices… let’s see…

An avarage run for a key 20-25 mins (yes you can do super speed runs for 18 mins, but that wont happen every time), but it’s more likely a bit more with character creatin and deleting. 25 keys is 2100 gems. So that’s roughly a bit more than 10 hours “playtime”.

2100 gems currently is around 260 gold. That’s a 26 gold per hour “income”. And…

Huh… it may be the most profitable after all

thing is, no one buys keys with gold, it isnt worth 10 gold, on average i think it used to come to like 3 gold an hour.

you are always better off buying the item direct, if you want anything specific. Its mostly just the thrill of the gamble, and the low level time attack people like

rfdarko.4639:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/The-New-Defiance-Article/first#post4828851

I believe we’re still balancing the broad-reaching solution but yes, a significant stun will be applied.

The implication being, once the bar is depleted it triggers a specific event, unlike the current system which allows your next cc to go through. From what we’ve seen of the demos there is no visible “unshakable” status effect, and it would be unlikely that blind would function both as a defiant-ripping cc and as a condition that very occasionally effects the boss. More likely, blind is being turned into a cc to address the issue that the 10% proc chance was in practice the same as blind immunity, and didn’t really work as a mechanic.

lol i found the new blog funny, because it kind of presents blind like it was always a CC that behaved weird, even though it has never really been considered a CC effect before.

Malkavian.4516:

Assuming that does happen, I can imagine a huge chunk of the playerbase will just leave or will resort to getting gold through less ideal methods. I welcome this in that if I want to buy gold, I can at least do it safely. Plus, the Pay 2 Win here is present in this game but unless you have a clear idea on what you want to do with that gold, it’s hardly noticeable at all outside of just investing the gold you need to buy yourself a legendary right away.

@Astral Projections I assume your friend’s logic towards this game is that if your character doesn’t look fabulous enough, your practically a loser? That’s more like “pay to look pretty” than an actual win unless he aims to have his character be in a Tyrian equivalent of Vogue magazine.

the argument is basically this, the thing that you work hard for in gw2, is appearances, that is essentially your reward for doing lots of things
people who can get the reward without doing these things are basically paying to win. They pay money to achieve the things that others feel should only be earned through dedication/skill.

its actually a somewhat valid arguement, but by setting up this p2w as gold <—> gem exchange, it sort of reduces the effect. Yes they may be paying to win, HOWEVER, they are paying people what they think their time is worth.

So, it kind of sets up an equivalency where your personal game time has value. In a normal pay to win scenario, the people are invalidating your work, your time and effort becomes meaningless, by paying the company.

But in this scenario, even though they are paying, your game time is being valued. At a price determined based on how valuable players overall find their time.

basically everyone who plays is paying in some form or another for the items, at a price that represents how much people value each thing.

The biggest problem with this type of system, imo, is more how it may effect the game design. Not exactly in the way people think, anet doesnt really make more money if more people buy gold, unless people are selling gold.

the amount of money they make(outside of box sales) is most based on the total demand for gem items, the gold<—>gem conversion acts mostly as a means of converting one players demand for gems into cash from another players desire to not have to work in game.

Point is, gem-> gold can never go away unless gold—-> gem also goes away. And a great many people would not be satisfied with that, i think.

TexZero.7910:

phys.7689:

TexZero.7910:

Please stop lumping yourself in with the rest of us that don’t need or require more bank space.

9 level 80’s multiple gearsets on each and yet here’s my bank.

no offense but looks like you just carry a ton of junk on your charachter. I mean i got one slot as well, but i cant pretend i dont have to salvage more, and tell my friends to hold up a sec on fractals while i do inventory management because my inventory starts out more than half full.

No offense but, i have junk on my character because im lazy and haven’t managed it. Most of it would end up on the TP or in a vendor. Which only goes to show you dont NEED more bank slots.

If you honestly believe you need more slots, stop being a skritt and putting the same junk you’re bashing me for having in my personal inventory, into your bank.

Im not bashing you, i have one slot, and my inventory is similar.

I’m just letting you know, for a lot of players, not me personally, they buy space so they can organize all that junk. Essentially i personally, and probably you as well are ok with having a ton of junk on our charachters, but many people dont think that is normal or should be reproduced.

Essentially lot of players dont feel comfortable living that life. Basically boils down to different people have different comfort zones when it comes to organization/junk. So for some people a second tab doesnt seem like a luxury, they would rather not play. A lot of times its not the hoarders, its the people who like to be very organized who cant live with that 1 slot.

they would have to disable both.

Gyler.8150:

It’s like you can press a button and gain either $1 or someone you don’t know has a horrible experience. And there are no consequences for pressing the button. Why not press it?

because one dollar isnt worth another persons pain.

But some people are sociopaths.

TexZero.7910:

Please stop lumping yourself in with the rest of us that don’t need or require more bank space.

9 level 80’s multiple gearsets on each and yet here’s my bank.

no offense but looks like you just carry a ton of junk on your charachter. I mean i got one slot as well, but i cant pretend i dont have to salvage more, and tell my friends to hold up a sec on fractals while i do inventory management because my inventory starts out more than half full.

Tribio.8531:

shifted.4086:

They either provide enough space or they don’t.

And for most people 1 tab is enough space.. Just not for you.. :p

1 really isnt enough for most people, out of me and 6 friends, im probably the only one who didnt get more bank space by some means, so i think its enough for a minority of players, its just that many people are ok with spending more money or game time on tabs

i think what this shows, is that the overall item system, isnt very intuitive for newbs. This maybe because they now give you a lot more stuff early on.

Aidan Savage.2078:

darkace.8925:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Does anyone have an actual argument as to why silk needs to be changed, other than “I don’t want to work for it, make it easier”?

It’s been presented in this thread more than once, you just chose to ignore it.

Does anyone have an actual argument other than “because mithril and elder wood logs are this way and silk isnt, therefore silk must conform”? No? Does anyone think Anet didnt already consider this beforehand and consider the impacts? (doomsayers need not reply) Does anyone think JS isnt watching the markets to see if it’s a potentially reasonable change?

Also, for those touting the gw2spidy and other market site information, keep in mind those sites wont be able to track, or report, orders that are filled faster than the API caching/refresh times. It could be 700k buy orders 10 minutes before the data gets refreshed, but 2m buy orders are placed, and filled, in those 10 minutes, but only the 700k buy orders are reported.

I think anyone can make a mistake or have an oversight

heartless.6803:

Because they don’t exist in this universe maybe?

Most of the hair styles exist because it has to do with the races in game cultures. I don’t see why people want everything in the real world pushed into the game world event though it doesn’t exist there.

But it does exist in this games.universe, check gw1.

Draknar.5748:

phys.7689:

Draknar.5748:

Brother Grimm.5176:

phys.7689:

most endgame sets dont actually require
60-90 hours of active play to achieve.

it may take you a couple months of raiding to get best in slot, but you are probably only raiding for those drops 2-3 hours a week, not 2-3 hours a day.

the daily grind method of gearing up tends to take less than a half hour a day, of that type of activity.

Also other games tend to have 1 – 3 possible best in slots per class. This game has like 24? different gear stat sets.

May I ask what in God’s green earth does how long it take to get a BiS set from that other game have to do with the price of Silk? Your longstanding agenda of comparison between GW2 and that other game is NOT part of this thread and your attempts to twist every thread into that comparison is getting tired. If you want a BiS in that other game, go play it for 2 months and get it.

He also failed to mention that in those other games, you have to re-grind that BiS set every new patch that adds a new tier of armor. In GW2 you work your grind once.

If you add up all of the time spent keeping a character at BiS in other games, it would blow GW2’s 60-90hr estimate completely out of the water.

Source: Common sense

an interesting point, but it doesnt really translate well.

if someone said i will pay you 1 million dollars, but you have to do 90,000 hours of work first, most people would say screw you.

so its not simply about the totals, its about how you experience it.

I mean, if you had to do all the work to buy a house before you can live in it, most people would not have houses.

or, by the time they got it, they would be to old to actually enjoy it.

btw the 60-90 hour estimate, was just for armor alone, and that is the time to get the silk, some of the other required elements are not properly included, like linen, cotton, empyreal obsidian etc.

Ok, well if you want to throw completely exaggerated numbers out there. Like 90,000hrs of work (45 years @ 40hrs/week for $1million)….

It’s more like this:

We will give you $100,000 for 1000hrs of work with 20% accrued interest every year after that without having to work any additional.

Or we will give you $10,000 for 100hrs of work. But you can keep signing up for another $10,000 every 100hrs until we decide we no longer need your services (game closes down)

The second guy will have to continue to work for years to come, while the first guy invests his time up front and then gets to kick back and retire, never having to worry about working again unless he for some reason wants even more money, then he can sign up for another contract.

I think it’s clear which option is better.

Yes my numbers were based on the average amount of hours worked, and the average earnings.

And yes its better to buy a house up front if you got the money, but if you don’t, paying a mortgage (you pay way more in interest) will give you a higher quality of life, than saving for 25 years.

hybrid.5027:

Rising Dusk.2408:

It’s entirely plausible that ripping off Defiant to score a DF is still going to be a thing, and it might be even easier since a 3 second stun hurts the Defiant bar a lot more than a 1 second stun. It’s hard to say without better information. How long will the Defiant bar be “down” when you strip it completely, for instance? Maybe this will remove permanent Stability from some bosses so that we can interrupt everyone equally (ie. Korga)?

They confirmed on Reddit that when the boss’ bar is gone there will be a predetermined effect regardless of what CC pushes it. So if the bar is gone and you blind the boss it will have the same effect as if you Deep Freeze.

thats kind of ….
garbage.

skills should kinda do what they say they are going to do.

come to think of it, the system also doesnt really allow on CC proc effects to be useful at all in large encounters.

well i guess its a slight improvement because more powerful CCs have more value.

Draknar.5748:

Brother Grimm.5176:

phys.7689:

most endgame sets dont actually require
60-90 hours of active play to achieve.

it may take you a couple months of raiding to get best in slot, but you are probably only raiding for those drops 2-3 hours a week, not 2-3 hours a day.

the daily grind method of gearing up tends to take less than a half hour a day, of that type of activity.

Also other games tend to have 1 – 3 possible best in slots per class. This game has like 24? different gear stat sets.

May I ask what in God’s green earth does how long it take to get a BiS set from that other game have to do with the price of Silk? Your longstanding agenda of comparison between GW2 and that other game is NOT part of this thread and your attempts to twist every thread into that comparison is getting tired. If you want a BiS in that other game, go play it for 2 months and get it.

He also failed to mention that in those other games, you have to re-grind that BiS set every new patch that adds a new tier of armor. In GW2 you work your grind once.

If you add up all of the time spent keeping a character at BiS in other games, it would blow GW2’s 60-90hr estimate completely out of the water.

Source: Common sense

an interesting point, but it doesnt really translate well.

if someone said i will pay you 1 million dollars, but you have to do 90,000 hours of work first, most people would say screw you.

so its not simply about the totals, its about how you experience it.

I mean, if you had to do all the work to buy a house before you can live in it, most people would not have houses.

or, by the time they got it, they would be to old to actually enjoy it.

btw the 60-90 hour estimate, was just for armor alone, and that is the time to get the silk, some of the other required elements are not properly included, like linen, cotton, empyreal obsidian etc.

Brother Grimm.5176:

phys.7689:

most endgame sets dont actually require
60-90 hours of active play to achieve.

it may take you a couple months of raiding to get best in slot, but you are probably only raiding for those drops 2-3 hours a week, not 2-3 hours a day.

the daily grind method of gearing up tends to take less than a half hour a day, of that type of activity.

Also other games tend to have 1 – 3 possible best in slots per class. This game has like 24? different gear stat sets.

May I ask what in God’s green earth does how long it take to get a BiS set from that other game have to do with the price of Silk? Your longstanding agenda of comparison between GW2 and that other game is NOT part of this thread and your attempts to twist every thread into that comparison is getting tired. If you want a BiS in that other game, go play it for 2 months and get it.

it was a response to a person who was comparing best in slot to other games, and im not really talking about one game in this case, im talking about multiple games.

specifically this part of the person i was replying to

“If anything that is too short a time. I would expect an endgame armor set to take 2-3 months like in most MMO’s. "

so no, im not really trying to twist anything, he brought up how easy it is to get as compared to other MMOs, and i am pointing out that is not accurate. He made a mistake by only looking at the time from start to finish, and not the amount of time ingame.

Heres what you need to do
Stop trying to identify people by their names and your own notions of what they are about, and examine the posts, and the posts they are replying to based on their own merit. This is not about me, or my agenda. Or any other post from any other discussion.

This is about how people are unsatisfied with how silk is, in relation to the requirements for them to get best in slot.

Take a deep breath, and stop trying to make it personal, its really not.

xDudisx.5914:

phys.7689:

xDudisx.5914:

phys.7689:

xDudisx.5914:

Finally a possible nerf to frostbow #5. Good job Anet. A buff to the smart usage of CC and a nerf to open a fight with icebow. Defience bar seems to be one of the best pve changes anet has ever done.

Jon: When we wrote the original combat blog post, a lot of people assumed we didn’t want the trinity. It wasn’t an anti-trinity, it was more of a case of “this is how we want to do this type of combat and we want these roles and we want them to be flexible.

one thing i will say, they seem to be thinking builds has something to do with berzerker.
Unless the amount of break you get scales with duration, you will still be King of CC wearing berzerker.

I wonder if any other conditions are now going to be counted as CC for the break bar
like immobilize or cripple.

Warriors have weapons like main hand mace and hammer that are never used in pve because they don’t have such a good autoatk and don’t focus that much in pure dps.

If they start making people focus more in those weapons will reduce the oveall dps. Making fights take a bit longer will make them a bit harder for people running no defensive stats.

Stats are one of the most important thing in the build. Go with a full nomad and see the dmg difference it makes even using same traits and same skills.

only dps stats have a strong effect on builds
A CC guy will CC virtually the same whether on zerker or any other gear
A support guy will support virtually the same whether on zerker or any other gear except for heals.

Some weapons do provide better CC than others, that much is true, but you still may as well be using zerk hammers and zerk maces

What happens is that the CC traits are not the same as dps traits for most classes. If they reduce the overall dmg it is great. If the meta is not able to use all the traits giving extra percentage of dmg than the dps gap with other builds will be reduced.

They can’t fix everything at once. They are doing small steps in the right direction. Fgs/norna elite nerf, crit dmg->ferocity nerf, might nerf, now defience bar to nerf frost bow at start. The new content like champs with very high armor so people use more condis, bosses that you can’t crit, etc.

i like variety in playstyle choice as much as the next guy, probably even more. But some of those things dont really increase playstyle viability.
they just make a different stat better mechanically.

non critable bosses is one of the worst offenders imo.

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

Well, since we don’t know the numbers, it’s always possible that in spite of the veteran’s complaints about how it’s affecting them that it’s doing what it was intended to do, retain new players longer. That’s one possible reason why ANet hasn’t changed the NPE in spite of numerous posts by non new players.

Really this is what it’s all about. Are more new players staying than old players leaving over the NPE.

I think that people who hate it really hate it…but I think their feelings about it make them believe they’re greater in number than they are (just my opinion here). In other words they dislike it so much that they can’t conceive of that not being the most common reaction.

I don’t think most older players love it. I think most older players don’t really give it much thought one way or another (again my opinion).

But the real question has always been how the NPE affects the players that say came in on the $10 sale, again as compared to how many people will actually leave because of it.

Considering how old this thread is now, 5 months, if ANet’s numbers were showing a drop in new player retention then it would have shown up by now. I expect it would have shown up in the first month if it were enough to be significant. I can’t see a company holding on to a build that is doing the opposite of what it was supposed to do, not for months and hurting their bottom line. (Compared to the trait system where they have changed it already in response to feedback and plan to change it even more)

I’ve only leveled new chars to level 20 but truthfully I didn’t see what the fuss is about. The part about dancing for the cows is no worse and not significantly different than the heart in the Diessa Plateau where you threaten, sit, or bow to cows. It occurred to me if the game at launch had people dancing to the Queensdale cows and it was changed to carrying food to them there would have been even more posts about that change and how dancing added flavor to the area and how feeding cows ruined that heart and was boring.

For hand health reasons, I could do without all the pop up rewards when leveling that I have to click on, but getting rewarded frequently is a proven method to keep people interested. It was mildly annoying to have to backtrack to a skill point, but I’ve leveled 4 to level 20 to see the new system at low level and leveling was so fast it was at most 3 skill points I had to back track to, not a large number, and in the amount of time that you play a character, a tiny percent of the play time.

they have had traits for 10 months and the said they believe it isnt the right solution. You cant change things overnight, and it costs money and time that may be used somewhere else.

It is highly likely they will not backtrack because its not worth it.
Truth is, its highly likely they are no longer focused on new player retention at this juncture, and more focused on renewing interest among older players. Hence, an expansion that is focused on level 80+ content, and is theoretically supposed to be more challenging and require you to use the combat system better than previous content.

low level npe is annoying, but its not a game breaker, especially if they make it last for a shorter period by increasing exp, or giving out leveling scrolls.

hybrid.5027:

The big question is whether bosses start fights with full bars of defiant or if they don’t start accumulating until they are in combat. Because if they start empty, nothing changes. If they start full, its a big deal.

pretty sure they start full, they imply breaking changes the enemy condition. WOuldnt make sense for them to start stunned/downed/taking triple dmg etc.

xDudisx.5914:

phys.7689:

xDudisx.5914:

Finally a possible nerf to frostbow #5. Good job Anet. A buff to the smart usage of CC and a nerf to open a fight with icebow. Defience bar seems to be one of the best pve changes anet has ever done.

Jon: When we wrote the original combat blog post, a lot of people assumed we didn’t want the trinity. It wasn’t an anti-trinity, it was more of a case of “this is how we want to do this type of combat and we want these roles and we want them to be flexible.

one thing i will say, they seem to be thinking builds has something to do with berzerker.
Unless the amount of break you get scales with duration, you will still be King of CC wearing berzerker.

I wonder if any other conditions are now going to be counted as CC for the break bar
like immobilize or cripple.

Warriors have weapons like main hand mace and hammer that are never used in pve because they don’t have such a good autoatk and don’t focus that much in pure dps.

If they start making people focus more in those weapons will reduce the oveall dps. Making fights take a bit longer will make them a bit harder for people running no defensive stats.

Stats are one of the most important thing in the build. Go with a full nomad and see the dmg difference it makes even using same traits and same skills.

only dps stats have a strong effect on builds
A CC guy will CC virtually the same whether on zerker or any other gear
A support guy will support virtually the same whether on zerker or any other gear except for heals.

Some weapons do provide better CC than others, that much is true, but you still may as well be using zerk hammers and zerk maces