The fact that they have blatantly stated that they are monitoring and working on improving the MegaServer would very much suggest that they are indeed going to do something.
But I suppose it is better to assume they are simply lying about that.
you are being overly positive, you have to take an objective look at what they said.
- “Although we’re excited that you have more players than ever to explore the open world of Guild Wars 2 with, our work is not yet complete. Our megaserver team will continue to monitor the performance of the technology on live and evaluate your feedback. We will continue to tweak and update the way the system works until it is providing even better megaservice!”
they didnt acknowledge any issues here.
they said they will look at feedback
they said they will monitor and tweak.
tweak means “improve (a mechanism or system) by making fine adjustments to it”
All they actually said is, megaservers are out, we will tweak it, and someone will read your feedback.
This is what they actually said. This is a far cry from an announcement of intent to change/fix anything. In fact the word tweak implies they wont be making any major adjustments to the system or issues caused by the system.
They basically put out a statement, that you can try to put whatever value you want on, but its actually saying nothing. They are not lying. They just didnt actually say anything.
also note, if they havent told us what things they would like to improve, or what things arent performing as expected, we have no idea what their improvements might be.
The goal of their improvements might be, going from 63% of time you are with your guild to 65% of the time. Yes its an improvement, but it doesnt really solve much
(edited by phys.7689)
Are people actually thinking that they are not going to do anything at all? Seriously?
There a lot of things they never fixed, a lot of issues they havent addressed, There are things they said they want to do that they appear to have made little progress on.
The reality is, while it is not guaranteed that they will do nothing, it is also not guarantted they will do something.
We have had very little info even suggesting that they think this is a problem/priority.
So yeah its probably 50/50 whether they are going to do anything about this stuff within the next 6 months or not.
Use dungeon tokens, buy exotic daggers with them and throw them into the forge. I managed to get spark on my 5th try last night using this method. Didn’t spend a g and actually made some gold selling the non soulbound daggers I got from the forge. I encourage others to try the forge before paying that much for spark
for every one of you there is someone who will spend 500 daggers and get nothing. since dungeon tokens require 300 per dagger, you would have to run 5 paths per dagger.
lets say its 10 minutes per path semi speed.
but you can only run 3 for 60 tokens per day, so 180 day one and 120 day 2.
so you spend 50 minutes over the course of 2 days, and get 1 dagger, as forge fodder, which you can place a buy order for 2.08 gold.
or you could buy 10 rare hoods with the tokens, salvage them for an average of 9 ectos, and sell that for 2.94 gold.
Its not really looking that effecient in any case, and this is if you are at the decent dunegon runner who does any path in 10 minutes or less.
If you got extra tokens lying around and you want to gamble sure, but its not really much more effecient than mid teir casual gold grinding.
Though i dislike some aspects of the megaserver to be perfectly honest, servers were never going to do the job properly of balancing players across multiple maps. Even on TC some maps would be fairly empty.
That said, in order to do what they hope it to do, i think they would need something that encouraged or allowed people to move to the best new option in map instances. They also probably need some new community focused things, and a stronger purpose/utility for community building.
But yeah to my original point, server structure was always going to be bad way to group players.
The prices of all skins went up due to the patch, legendaries included. Since equipping a single weapon unlocks the looks for all your characters, demand is spiking, but there’s no corresponding increase in supply.
But that will change, if not soon then not too much longer after that.
Gone are the days when people are likely to work to craft two incinerators (no need to do all that work when you can double wield and work on another legendary). So the demand by the current crop of players will start to drop, while the demand from newer players won’t be much different. I doubt that the prices will drop back all the way, but if I could short the market, I’d do so.
that depends on how much new demand the functionality generated. It also depends on how many new players come in, and how long it takes them to earn whatever price it costs before a next new person comes in who wants it.
As far as spark specifically, my guess would be that its a spike, but even so it may end up falling pretty high after
I would be surprised if the average income of someone trading on the TP is higher, per hour, than that of someone farming endgame content (champ trains, world events, etc). Yes, very successful traders can make enormous amounts of money, but your median trader probably ends up losing money on trades.
if by trader you mean anyone using the tp at all, there would definately be losers, but if you mean actual people who play the tp, i highly doubt it. They tend to quit if they consistently lose.
As far as how much they make? hard to say, but when i was doing it, i was up to about 10 gold an hour with like 80-130 gold start up capital. At the same time the champ train if i sold everything would average 8 an hour. if i had more capital i could have made more money though. I was actually not being very TP effecient. I highly doubt i was one of the better TP traders
I would be surprised if the average income of someone trading on the TP is higher, per hour, than that of someone farming endgame content (champ trains, world events, etc). Yes, very successful traders can make enormous amounts of money, but your median trader probably ends up losing money on trades.
The median trader loses 15% on every trade.
where do you get this idea from? median would generally require specific data.
who do you consider a “trader” in this case?
while it would be true that overall, 15% of gold is taken from every transaction, that doesnt necessarily translate
If i decide i want to hunt 250 powerful blood? i will end up with probably 10 times as much things i didnt want on the path to get it. And at the end of the day? it would be substantially faster not to actually do that, but to earn via TP or hardcore farming technique 100.
The TP actually makes this problem less bad, since you can sell the extra items at a fair price to help buy the items you actually want.
It sounds like you’re actually arguing that the game is just too grindy — not that the TP spoils the game, but that the TP let the designers excuse the excessive grindy-ness of end-game rewards. That’s a rather different argument, though.
you see what you said there is exactly the point. Even if you decide to target a specific items, you must use the TP in order to get it effeciently. You really dont have a choice but to use the TP, or you will never get anything done.
And this is why you basically HAVE to go to the tp to succeed. You must sell all the crap you dont want, and you have very little ability to play in ways to target things you do want.these two facts combine to make the game more of gold game.
your reward for playing is gold (because most items you get must be sold since they have no value, and take up space)
the things you want, you will never find purposefully (most times) or not enough to fill your need. (someone mentioned crafting) so you need gold.so this establishes that all play ends up being about getting gold.
So as an intellegient player you say, well all im getting is gold anyhow, whats the most effecient way to get gold. Well that be the TP.and voila, you no longer have any reward for actually playing the game itself. Even most people who believe in the TP in this thread say they get rich on the TP and then play the rest of the game with the crappy rewards.
So yeah the tp is the players way of getting around a really crappy reward/goal structure.
If you have a problem with the reward structure, why dont you open a new topic about it to discuss it there instead of blaming the TP for all evil in this game?
the TP isnt responsible for all evil, and this is still thread appropriate. The TP is something you are required to use by the item/reward design. Should an appropriate thread appear elsewhere i will comment on it, or if a red name says it would be more appropriate elsewhere. All evidence i have had in the past is that any thread discussing economy has been moved here.
If i decide i want to hunt 250 powerful blood? i will end up with probably 10 times as much things i didnt want on the path to get it. And at the end of the day? it would be substantially faster not to actually do that, but to earn via TP or hardcore farming technique 100.
The TP actually makes this problem less bad, since you can sell the extra items at a fair price to help buy the items you actually want.
It sounds like you’re actually arguing that the game is just too grindy — not that the TP spoils the game, but that the TP let the designers excuse the excessive grindy-ness of end-game rewards. That’s a rather different argument, though.
you see what you said there is exactly the point. Even if you decide to target a specific items, you must use the TP in order to get it effeciently. You really dont have a choice but to use the TP, or you will never get anything done.
And this is why you basically HAVE to go to the tp to succeed. You must sell all the crap you dont want, and you have very little ability to play in ways to target things you do want.
these two facts combine to make the game more of gold game.
your reward for playing is gold (because most items you get must be sold since they have no value, and take up space)
the things you want, you will never find purposefully (most times) or not enough to fill your need. (someone mentioned crafting) so you need gold.
so this establishes that all play ends up being about getting gold.
So as an intellegient player you say, well all im getting is gold anyhow, whats the most effecient way to get gold. Well that be the TP.
and voila, you no longer have any reward for actually playing the game itself. Even most people who believe in the TP in this thread say they get rich on the TP and then play the rest of the game with the crappy rewards.
So yeah the tp is the players way of getting around a really crappy reward/goal structure.
i dont think that is true, I made most of my money in other games by hunting big game/small man instances/raids/or hunting specific monsters. Perhaps the Tp overlords were making so much more money, but it was a rarer form of play, and required pretty big time investments and greater risks.
basically AH mavens had to pay adventurers to get the best items, and some were exclusive, though they werent necessarilly the “best” items they usually offered some different stats.
I remember at some points they made TP sellable items a bit rarer, and had untradeable versions that one could hunt for.
All exchange systems exist in order to make acquiring things more efficient. These efficient exchanges lead to a higher rate of return than any other type of value add activity because they are efficient, and doing things yourself is not. Any time you have an exchange system, the people who use it will accumulate wealth SIGNIFICANTLY faster than those who don’t because they are leveraging Division of Labor.
exchange systems exist to create a common ground for making an exchange of goods an services, they try to make the process of exchange more effecient, but they do little for making the actual supply/manufacture more effecient, other than allowing people to specialize.
Which in this game is kind of moot because they dont allow you to specialize in supplying needs or providing services very often.
Using money in and of itself doesnt make cows make more milk, or make scientists smarter, or make tables get made faster.
like i told you in the other thread the moderators move those threads here, this thread specifically was moved here from general discussion. Probably because the TP team is connected to, or maybe one and the same thing as the items/rewards teams. Which makes sense, because the items/rewards are generally designed with the TP in mind.
It and others like it are moved here because they are called things like “getting rich off the TP” or “nerf the TP” and spend their time badmouthing the TP and the players that use it.
then shouldnt the mods rename it and put it in the appropriate place?
The part about “spend their time badmouthing the TP…” points to a rather large section of the OP and the following thread being about the TP.
Threads like this are moved here because they are primarily about qqing about the TP. They are not offering ways of improving dungeon, wvw, whatever reward structure. They are not offering ways of making gameplay more meaningful. They are simply moaning about the TP.
Strangely enough such threads get moved to the TP section of the forums (although it would be an improvement if they got moved straight to trash tbh).
If someone creates a specific thread about say dungeon rewards and posits ways of improving the rewards, content and adding new stuff. Then it is unlikely to be moved here.
There are currently fractal rewards thread on the dungeon forums. People in those threads are, you know, talking about fractals and rewards in them. Instead of qqing about the TP. Oddly enough, said threads have not been moved here as of yet.
If threads which provide reasoned and reasonable debate about how to improve things like dungeons rewards get moved here without being TP centric. Then I will be amongst the first to complain about it as it would be wrong to do as such.
actually in some release dungeon designers said they dont decide/know what drops and that the items/rewards guys decide that. So where do the items/rewards guys look for feedback.
Just as an FYI, the only way you can make “playing the game” provide a better return for your time than “playing the market” is to prohibit any type of player to player transactions.
All loot is bound to you forever.
Welcome to the grindhouse, it gets worse here every day.
i dont think that is true, I made most of my money in other games by hunting big game/small man instances/raids/or hunting specific monsters. Perhaps the Tp overlords were making so much more money, but it was a rarer form of play, and required pretty big time investments and greater risks.
basically AH mavens had to pay adventurers to get the best items, and some were exclusive, though they werent necessarilly the “best” items they usually offered some different stats.
I remember at some points they made TP sellable items a bit rarer, and had untradeable versions that one could hunt for.
And on your last point, im different than you, im not here talking to try to protect my method of earning. Im not even advocating any actual nerfs to the TP or flipping. I am for increasing mmo fun. Problem is the reward system and how it is built to feed the tp, is lowering fun. Many games have rich people, who can buy the world, but there also a lot of people who earned items just as fast, if not faster by playing the game. Im not really playing this game to earn money, earning money is just what i have to do to get the things i want in the game. Id basically prefer i had some goals that a good, reasonable way of obtaining it was based on non TP gameplay.
But why do you keep posting in topics about profits on the tp instead of making suggestions on how to improve rewards for other parts of the game in the appropriate forums?
you realize any post about this stuff gets moved to this forum because this is the rewards part of the forum right?
You also realize that the OP of the post is saying i wish i didnt have to play the TP to get endgame items?I am completely on topic an appropriate here.
All the OP did was to express his wish to obtain shinies through regular gameplay at the same pace as by playing the tp. He offered no suggestions towards rewards from regular gameplay but centered his post on the TP, so this topic is in the right forum.
Some other users, including you, start giving suggestions on how to improve rewards for other playstyles here but they get completely lost in topics like these because the title and OP doesnt imply that those suggestions might be included in this topic.
Devs will simply not see your feedback because its posted in an unrelated topic.I am pretty sure, if you make a suggestion about reward structures in the appropriate sub forums and dont mention the Trading Post in your suggestion, it wont be moved here.
i wish they didnt move these threads here, but they do. What forum would you place these things in if you were a mod.
Hey mod, or john smith or whoever knows, what would you say the appropriate sub forums for discussing various rewards and their interaction with incentivizing gameplay be.
like i told you in the other thread the moderators move those threads here, this thread specifically was moved here from general discussion. Probably because the TP team is connected to, or maybe one and the same thing as the items/rewards teams. Which makes sense, because the items/rewards are generally designed with the TP in mind.
It and others like it are moved here because they are called things like “getting rich off the TP” or “nerf the TP” and spend their time badmouthing the TP and the players that use it.
then shouldnt the mods rename it and put it in the appropriate place?
Back to the subject of the post I dont think TP kill the fun… for me at least is a part (i underline “part”) of the game and must be played if you want it. I dont play PVP and some things I can only get in PVP but I dont say PVP kills the fun of my game, I only just chose not to get interested in that content.
i would agree with you, but PVE content is primarily gold based. And designed with the TP in mind. Also i am not saying buying things shouldnt be an option, but actually going out and trying to get them specifically should be a better option.
Lets say an item drops in SPvP only, and only when you win a championship. If the players sold that to you, you and them would be exchanging value.
But the way pve works is you cant target most items/good directly and be effecient. Therefore the best way to get anything specific is to earn money and buy the item.
The only way ANet could make playing the game more rewarding than playing the TP would be to make end-game content with highly desired items that are so difficult to obtain (but reliably obtainable) that only a select few people can obtain them and then everyone else purchases them from those players.
As a hypothetical idea:
- Dungeon that requires 100 AR to even enter or you die and are ejected
- One team wipe = Ejected
- Bosses that are randomized and/or hyper-difficult requiring utmost timing precision and coordination
- Dungeon time limits
- Every mob respawns, meaning you have to keep moving or get murdered from lingeringHonestly, this sounds like more of a request for the content team than the TP team.
this is a great idea.. but those rewards Need to be FIX not RNG and they should be accountbound.. the Point in Special rewards is that they are Special and People can’t buy em with Gold.
They don’t Need to Change the TP they just Need to Change the game so there are Special Skins that are only avaiable to pve/ pvpers so rewards that Show you have done high end Content and not that you have spent 6k Gold to get it:) (Liadri / SAB Tribunal weapons ) are an example:)
I think the idea of items obtainable only from certain content and can not be sold is a great idea. But in PVP makes sense, because only counts the real ability of the player, but in PVE and WvW also equip is important and whit no money you can’t do it; so in the end who has the money can afford to do even that content while others players can’t. Said this, money in GW2 came from playing TP and we are at the start point.
I agree that rewards in general can be optimized and worked on. Anet is in the process of it. But why discuss this in a topic that basically asks to nerf the tp?
If people think rewards are not good enough for pve/pvp/wvw, they should make a suggestion in the specific forums and not complain that some people make lots of gold on the tp. Profits from playing the tp scale nicely with the skill you have and punish you if you make mistakes. If thats a reward structure you would like to see implemented in other parts of the game, fair enough. Go make a suggestion about it in the appropriate forums but dont come here and complain about the tp.
like i told you in the other thread the moderators move those threads here, this thread specifically was moved here from general discussion. Probably because the TP team is connected to, or maybe one and the same thing as the items/rewards teams. Which makes sense, because the items/rewards are generally designed with the TP in mind.
And on your last point, im different than you, im not here talking to try to protect my method of earning. Im not even advocating any actual nerfs to the TP or flipping. I am for increasing mmo fun. Problem is the reward system and how it is built to feed the tp, is lowering fun. Many games have rich people, who can buy the world, but there also a lot of people who earned items just as fast, if not faster by playing the game. Im not really playing this game to earn money, earning money is just what i have to do to get the things i want in the game. Id basically prefer i had some goals that a good, reasonable way of obtaining it was based on non TP gameplay.
But why do you keep posting in topics about profits on the tp instead of making suggestions on how to improve rewards for other parts of the game in the appropriate forums?
you realize any post about this stuff gets moved to this forum because this is the rewards part of the forum right?
You also realize that the OP of the post is saying i wish i didnt have to play the TP to get endgame items?
I am completely on topic an appropriate here.
(edited by phys.7689)
flipper.
Please stop treating that word like it’s equivalent to mass murder of puppies. Quite frankly you keep spouting that word like those players are the problem. You want to know what the problem players are? Players like you. Flippers, whether it be the same item be bought and resold or resources being refined and returned to the market, would not be making money if players like you did not seek instant gratification. They end up with more gold than you because they play intelligent and dont seek instant gratification.
Here’s the hilarity of it all. I could do the same exact things you do, drop the same exact items, and I’ll end up with more gold than you. Why? Because you’re selling to buy orders and shooting yourself in the foot. Meanwhile, I’m listing as sell orders and making more money when items sell, or salvaging, refining, and selling those results and making more money that you do by selling crap items to a merchant.
Now tell me, would you flip out and ask that the activities I did be nerfed because I played smarter than you and made more gold? It’s a brilliant strategy until you realize by asking that, you nerf the very things YOU did to make less money.
What are you talking about selling crap items to a merchant? i didnt mention that at all.
Also i have no hate for flipper, i use it describe a type of merchanting that focuses on flipping items and making money off each transaction. Much like they may describe investors in reall life as bulls or bears, its simply a term to describe a strategy of play.
And on your last point, im different than you, im not here talking to try to protect my method of earning. Im not even advocating any actual nerfs to the TP or flipping. I am for increasing mmo fun. Problem is the reward system and how it is built to feed the tp, is lowering fun. Many games have rich people, who can buy the world, but there also a lot of people who earned items just as fast, if not faster by playing the game. Im not really playing this game to earn money, earning money is just what i have to do to get the things i want in the game. Id basically prefer i had some goals that a good, reasonable way of obtaining it was based on non TP gameplay.
@wwfam
again and again you missed the point in my topic wwfam I dont question the fun part of it just the fact that fun things arent as rewarding as boring tp maths minigame in gw2 – so I do the stuff other players do for my share of fun but still I’m ahead of some of them in terms of ingame rewards because I exploit their fun for my profit by means of tp and the fact that some arent as good with it as others
get it?@smoothpenguin
yeah I get all you’re saying and you are right, however I still find this wrong how this game is so focused on tp and gem store and not on dungeons and dragons and the shortest way to get to some material goals in the game are through those means not by actual ingame work or lucky drops back in the gw1 days (and in some other games I play/played) I felt happy when I dropped a rare shiney and it always meant something even tho I was fairly rich from spamadan trading and that little drop was really a miniscule part of it…and here like 90% of exotics are worth 1g and almost everything in terms of loot feels unrewarding also thanks to anet nerfing farms loots champ bags and so onThe TP is a wonderful tool to determine the value of your loot yourself. If you list your items at the same value as the flipper/speculator, you make as much gold as him in the same time. If you sell all your loot to the highest bidder, you actually refuse to get more gold for your loot and shouldnt come complain about it.
The flipper speculator makes money for transacting, the seller makes money for time/effort. back in the day there was a market ineffeciency with elder wood producing items, turns out i could make money breaking down items and turning elder wood into elderwood planks.
doing it with my own items, i made as much of it as i could find items to salvage.
doing it buy buying from lowest seller, i was able to increase my current wealth by a value in % per hour, up to the velocity and competitor cap.
I think when i had like 120 gold, i was able to make 10 gold an hour off that. And to be honest i was working harder than most flippers, because i actually had to break items down, reform them and sell the results. I would have made money with less effort by simply flipping, but i prefer to get the most bang for my buck, even though it cost me more time.
point is. farmer getting top dollar for his farmed goods isnt the same as a TP player who primarily profits off of transactions. the more transactions the more money you make as a flipper.
most other games either make all items fairly obtainable, or make obtaining it require some sort of endgame, high end activity. Heck in FFXI even farming high level crafting mats was either about killing tough monsters, or traveling into death pits no one went to (and no one could solo) and ninja ing around the place with magic and knowing the spawns.
Death would lower your level, and send you far away from where you needed to get to. Like i said you keep talking about entitlement, its not about wanting something for nothing, its about wanting something for actually doing something.It’s everything about self entitlement and a complete failure to understand systems.
You do get rewarded for doing endgame content and you can “win”.
If you think the guy with x more gold is “winning” against the guy soloing dungeons, setting record times and also making enough gold to buy luxury items whilst he is doing it.
If you think the guy standing at the TP flipping all day is “winning” against the teams competing in major spvp tournaments.
If you think the guy flipping is “winning” against the people dominating in GvG everyday.
Well, then I find your notion of “winning” rather odd.
I’m all for new rewards for non TP activities btw, but if you want additional rewards for endgame activities than those rewards need to be granted for elite level content. And if you want to increase farming drop rates, then make the loot system competitive.
If winning the game is any activity that is playing the game, then sure you dont need the tp to win.
If winning the game is actually getting rewards/progress towards the end game.
- Just to be clear, mike o brien president of anet said that the long term game is about obtaining cosmetics, and Eric Flannum said that legendaries were supposed to be a goal for player who wanted to master the game. Ascended items were supposed to be a goal for players as well
and all of these endgame rewards are most easily obtained via gold
then getting as much gold as possible is winning the game.
yeah i play basketball, i sometimes lose, i still enjoy the struggle, but enjoying basketball is not winning the game.
So yeah this isnt a sPVP discussion, till last patch, all of their rewards were self contained, aka the fastest way to progress in spvp was actually winning matches
GvG doesnt really exist, but if you mean WvW, It works because it has other goals that people who actually like WvW can seek to do. Like killing the enemy. It also has seperate reward tracks that reward you for playing WvW (world ranks). If Pve had more reward structures for playing the game, the TP wouldnt be an issue. The Tp issue mostly comes from players who realize that the best way to get cool items is to play the tp, and dont particularly enjoy playing the TP for whatever reason. If there were other ways to get what they want, where they could play the game, they would probably be happier about it.
They dont have to make loot farming competitive if they make it targeted, the market is already competitive. The problem is filling demand is not well focused. Sure you can solo some skelks for powerful blood, but you ll probably get just as much per hour, and other mats/loot/gold/skillpoints from doing a champ train. And you ll get even more reward per hour playing the TP, if your actually ok at it.
The game actually forces farmers to overproduce.
Mostly what they need to do is create a reason to actually run around doing hero/adventurer stuff. Im not saying you get nothing for adventuring at all, just that adventuring isnt really a very good way of getting anything of value.
And the guy soloing dungeons isnt getting very much for it all unless he is selling spots, and a lot of the players doing it are exploiting anyhow.
It’s like the people telling me how terrible other games economy is. And how he flips much easier there. And apparently I went to that game and asked no one is complaining about flipping.
I think there’s some truth. In other games you can’t just buy the “best gear in the game”. So people probably complain less about flipping, eventhough flipping occurs there too.
But again, I also played a bunch of game where you can buy the best reward, still no one complains about flipping there. Maybe the buy order system just helps flippers too much here since there is a bunch of lazy people who just try to sell item as fast as possible, or they just dont’ care.
Perhaps that is because the people here are far more self entitled. That certainly seems to be the case.
I’ve played mmos since pre Tram UO and i’ve never seen anything like it.
most other games either make all items fairly obtainable, or make obtaining it require some sort of endgame, high end activity. Heck in FFXI even farming high level crafting mats was either about killing tough monsters, or traveling into death pits no one went to (and no one could solo) and ninja ing around the place with magic and knowing the spawns.
Death would lower your level, and send you far away from where you needed to get to. Like i said you keep talking about entitlement, its not about wanting something for nothing, its about wanting something for actually doing something.
Maybe if the best items in the game you weren’t able to buy on the TP maybe then it will be not a such big deal.
But when everything in the game you get with gold, whats the point doing anything else if you get the ultimate thing by using the most easiest way to do so if you got the brains for it.
dungeons/fracs sets even that you can pay people to farm the path for you so..Don’t hate the player hate the game.
So maybe if the game was a bit more rewarding for doing stuff that you don’t buy with gold.
Lets say wow arena / hc raids sure you might be able to “buy a spot” to get carried to get the best stuff but its still not just click buy on TP when you have enough gold.
the other thing, is if you have to buy spots, at least you are making an exchange of wealth for skill. There isnt much players have of value to trade with the merchant class that 10000 other people arent also trying to trade them
It’s bad to say but if you know what to invest and when to sell 90% of the game is done. I know my benefit comes at other players cost, but also took me six months playing few hours a week before understanding how this game works.
Now I have the opportunity to do what I like without thinking about my gold.
The discurse is that the free market is a great thing because as I’ve benefited me anyone can do it, even those who play only few hours a week like me and hasn’t knowledges economy and haven’t the time to farm and farm and farm again.
No other game before has ever given me this opportunity.
being a trader is a skill, and its nice that you can use that skill to get what you want. But its also sad that even in your post you realized playing the game/achieving things is not the best way to get anything. Normally you would use your ability to make massive money to pay players who suck at making money for their time/skill. But since no one can do much to any specific goal with their time/skill, you end up as king of the hill. thousands of faceless farmers with no unique skills/tempermants tons of crap they have no need for or desire to have, having to trade all that crap to get the things they want and little desire to play or understand merchanting. Middlemans paradise.
there is something fundamentally wrong with a game design that uses their trade system as the best way to earn gold in the game.
Please describe a game trade system design where players are allowed to trade, but the highest incomes are not a product of trading.
Pointing to any game that meets these two criteria will suffice.
you are right, people who dedicate themselves to making money will have the most money. However this doesnt necessarily mean they will have the most leet items. In FFXI the dudes with the LEET items were the ones who could do the endgame content best. Hunt notorious monsters, beat multi person raids, beat small party boss fights. Yeah rich people could buy some of these things, but that was only one option, the best and most likely option for many players was to try to play and beat these contents. They even had some pretty high end items that you could only get through playing the content.
The richest people had some things they ruled, and excelled at, but there was a ton of content to actually play and win.
Now the main problem with FFXI, is probably that you needed a group for everything, and if your group sucked, you would probably not get many rewards. You could easily lose and take a big loss to money/items/time gate annnd you could lose exp(i deleveled many a time). Also the open world was competitive, so you may never get a chance to fight the big bosses
Regardless though, it didnt feel like the best way to play the endgame was to amass money, there was advantages, but for the most part, fighting enemies, and beating special bosses/instances/hunting rare monsters was the main means of endgame. Also many of these activities earned decent money, since the most highly desired items were dropped from specific content, the people who could do this content and how many people wanted the content determined the price.
And ultimately i think that is the flaw in GW2 economy, the ability of any player to create specific supply is very weak. And most of the best rewards have little to do with any specific type of play. I know that the plan was mostly to be able to get anything by doing anything in the game, but that kinda defeats the purpose of trade. It also leads to huge imbalances due to over production.
If say for example silk was mostly produced intentionally, people would stop producing it when it was no longer profitable. If the demand was high people would go back to producing it.
Since time is money, and they would have to target specific things, farmers would pick the things of the highest value, that they are able to obtain. If they begin to fall out of value, farmers move on to the next thing of value, and the supply of the other thing begins to fall until it reaches its true value.
the other factor is high end items become harder to obtain. It would be easier to get copper than it is to get orichalcum.
The other advantage of this, is if a player decides the market value is too high, he can go out and try to obtain the item himself. If suppliers are over valuing their work, he can try to obtain it himself. Its missing a really key element of economic design, the ability of users to meet demands.
therefore any merchant who is good at their game, wins this game overall.
What? There is a way to win overall??? The wiki doesn’t say anything about a being crowned a winner…I want that crown…okay, someone explain to me how to be a merchant…or just point me to one or all the threads that cover it…or something…I need that crown!!
you didnt get the memo?
take a look at that icon in the upper right hand corner, methinks its a crown
http://www.mmozone.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ChinaGemStore-550x399.jpg
(edited by phys.7689)
The alternative is a pure NPC vendor system where they will buy your goods at some discount of their sell price. I’m sure some clever programmer could come up with an equation to set the sell price based on supply, demand and current gold in the global economy. Something along the lines of the Gem exchange but for each item in the game. Seeded at the vendor price at the start and we can see how many items are driven down to 2c each (only because sell price needs to be higher than buy price).
No TP Barons and either everything is cheap or nobody can afford anything.
they already did it in gw1, and yea, the things that no one wanted were super cheap, and things people wanted were somewhat expensive. But thats basically what we have in GW2 now.
the main difference is, they didnt design the whole reward system so that if you didnt enter the gold earning game you couldnt get much.
sure ectos were expensive, but you could get your own ectos through targeted play2-3 per run. Want rubies? well you can go beat these dunegeons for a pretty good chance at rubies. Want obsidian shards? go play this area. Dont want to do any of that? well then you can earn gold.
See the main difference is you could actually choose to earn/progress through gameplay, and they didnt design the amount of items you needed based or methods of aquisition based on how many junk items they had.
If i decide i want to hunt 250 powerful blood? i will end up with probably 10 times as much things i didnt want on the path to get it. And at the end of the day? it would be substantially faster not to actually do that, but to earn via TP or hardcore farming technique 100.
I mean of course ectoplasm hustlers were still making money and wealth hand over fist, but the game wasnt designed around what they were doing.
many similiar topics been added but I’d like to make a new one since commenting in previous ones would just got lost and I believe I can make some valid points.
firstly my personal experience:
~unconfirmed personal experiences offered as proof of something and references to players on the forum hating on people with his unconfirmed personal experiences~another example and proof of that:
~some information about other games and their failures with Auction Houses~I highlighted the things I find central to that linked article and the most important thing is “refocus players away from farming the auction house and onto farming monsters.”
So, to sum up the post:
You are a TP trader/baron.
Players generally get upset when people like you claim a) to have amassed wealth, b) quickly, c) with little effort, and d) in a short time-frame.
Other games with auction houses have had failures in those economies.Questions:
What exactly is the issue? Are you worried about people being upset with you? Or are you worried that your greed outweighs your desire to do other things in the game and you want someone to make you to stop being greedy?
Your argument has a fallacy:
GW2 doesn’t have an auction house.
i think his point is yes, the game is making his greed work against his enjoyment instead of for his enjoyment. And honestly thats the purpose of a good reward structure.
Its why food tastes good, and sex is pleasurable. Reward behavior that is beneficial. End game rewards are supposed to keep people interested in playing, but the current structure makes people not want to play the game.
I’ll counter your whole argument based on a single flaw I see: You choose not to play the game for fun.
There’s PvE, SPvP, and WvW within this game. If you feel that you’ve done everything PvE has to offer, try a different way to play. If player vs player isn’t your thing, then you can move on to a different game until new content is released. This game will be here when you come back.
As for the social aspect of this game, it’s not Anet’s job to give you friends. You should go out and meet new people yourself. If you have an active guild, or participate with community based groups, redoing the same content can be fun. Doing jumping puzzles with 100 other people on Team Speak, or killing Tequatl with only ranged weapons, or seeing who can survive the longest without armor.
As for comparing GW2 to Diablo III’s market. I’m stopping you right there. D3 RMAH was a complete failure. The whole reason why people focused on that was because you could actually make real money. Why play the game for fun, when you can earn tax free dollars via virtual goods? With GW2’s system, you can buy Gems with real money, but the exchange rates to Gold weren’t so good that you could reliably buy Legendaries at the drop of a creditcard. Gems are mostly used to get Gem Store stuff. Very few people would actually buy Gems for the sole purpose of converting.
You do realize the got rid of the RMAH first, and then months later got rid of the AH that was entirely gold based. Because it was messing up the game design.
And you are right there a lot of other aspects of the game, all of which reward you poorly, thats really the point. If you have a goal of getting end game stuff, and you are not playing the TP you are wasting your time.
Heres what end game rewards are about, giving you reasons to keep playing the game when you have already reached high level. GW2 endgame rewards are not achieving that because almost anytime you play the game you are being comparitively ineffecient at getting those goals.
simple logic.
If endgame rewards are designed to keep you playing the game
they should give rewards for playing the game.
Now if the TP is your thing, GW2 has an excellent endgame, you can amass mass quanitities gold, which allows you to amass even more money, and play around taking bigger risks for greater reward.
If like most other facets of the game, the endgame rewards dont encourage you to play them.
Might as well merge this thread with the “INCREASE TAX PL0X” thread that mercifully died it’s way to the second page.
And for those that want to attempt to discuss the same crap that was discussed in the other thread, let me simplify it for you. JS stated that if you want anything to be changed with the trade post, you first need to show there is a problem before you attempt a solution. Before then, you’re making a solution looking for a problem.
Second, the trade post already has limits imposed on it. DR on farming limits it. DR on dungeons limits it. The new meta boss schedule limits it. EVerything that limits the influx of gold and resources in the game limits the tradepost.
Have fun reading a 30 page thread that repeatedly discussed the “problem” with the trade post. I’m sure wanze has that ‘beating a dead horse’ still.
there is a relationship to the things that limit gold and resources, to TP earnings but it is not a direct one. TP merchanting is all about taking advantage of ineffeciencies or about making valid preditictions. Its not a linear relationship to the gold earning potentials of others.
As long as transactions are happening they can make huge profits.
for example.
making 10% profit off of a low cost item (lets say even 10 copper) turning it over with a high velocity every hour will give you more money/profit than turning over high priced items less often with smaller profits.
So really it doesnt matter if everyone is poor as long as they stay ineffecient, and transact often.
There is less money to be had, but you can still find the people at the top of their TP game earning similar money. Just like even though america is in a recession many companies are still thriving and even increasing their profits. Its only incidentally connected.
The other factor is that wealth is relative, so if everyone else gets poorer, and you stay the same, you are effectively richer.
As phys said above, there’s a legitimate problem with some areas of the game rewarding kitten all for the effort involved but I feel like it’s counterproductive to blame it on the traders/flippers.
its not really about traders and flippers in all honesty. Thats the symptom, not the problem. Traders trade, its what they do, flippers, essentially tax people based on knowledge and patience. The problem is basically that the rewards are designed to be gotten via gold, and that the merchanting by its very nature, is built around obtaining gold. The whole point of merchanting is to make profits, with minimal effort, therefore any merchant who is good at their game, wins this game overall.
Like i said, these conversations are generally pointless, you end up having a discussion with people who have a vested interest in things staying the way they are.
Heres my opinion, its a mistake to seperate game design from reward design. Whats good for the economy is not necessarily good for the gameplay. The point of this topic is essentially, that is kind of ridiculous that the endgame is about obtaining massive gold, and that the best way to do it has nothing to do with fighting/exploring/heroing etc.
If you actually have a goal in game, playing the game is going against achieving that. The game sells itself on dynamic content, the open world, the living story, action based combat WvW, and everyone of these things is a waste of time if your goal is endgame.
Fight the hardest paths in a dungeon? least effecient way to actually achieve anything. Save the world? you get a rare. Save a farm? you get 1.2 silver. Find the hidden chest in a multi teir jumping puzzle? get two blues and a green.
That was a grey market. It wasnt officially supported maintained or designed. In fact it mostly worked against their designs by not giving ectos a true price based on their trading algorhythm and getting around the money cap. They also nerfed non ecto farms.
In gw1 though, nerfing farms wasn’t that big a deal because you could get most things through gameplay.
The trading game was an opt in unsupported way of playing
But that doesn’t eliminate the need to control the influx of coin into the economy to keep runaway inflation in check.
There was no inflation in game. It was the grey market that created even the possibility of inflation. And only within those circles. All trade was only based on supply and demand. No flipping or even price setting.
You can’t really have inflation with set prices for goods and the inability to choose prices. Not to mention a gold cap. Only via your grey market was inflation real. Which was unsupported
The only way ANet could make playing the game more rewarding than playing the TP would be to make end-game content with highly desired items that are so difficult to obtain (but reliably obtainable) that only a select few people can obtain them and then everyone else purchases them from those players.
As a hypothetical idea:
- Dungeon that requires 100 AR to even enter or you die and are ejected
- One team wipe = Ejected
- Bosses that are randomized and/or hyper-difficult requiring utmost timing precision and coordination
- Dungeon time limits
- Every mob respawns, meaning you have to keep moving or get murdered from lingeringHonestly, this sounds like more of a request for the content team than the TP team.
The tp team is probably the same team. Even though others make content they don’t generally decide what you get from it. The item and rewards team does that(many times designers don’t even know what the rewards are). And from off the cuff remarks from devs john smith is either involved in item/ rewatds team or has a strong voice there
That was a grey market. It wasnt officially supported maintained or designed. In fact it mostly worked against their designs by not giving ectos a true price based on their trading algorhythm and getting around the money cap. They also nerfed non ecto farms.
In gw1 though, nerfing farms wasn’t that big a deal because you could get most things through gameplay.
The trading game was an opt in unsupported way of playing
and they really need to stop moving these posts to this subforum. Its like sending someone talking about capital punishment to death row.
There isn’t a design flaw because the game is not designed to have the trading post be the most efficient way to acquire goods. It is the players who took a simple tool and turned it into the most efficient way to acquire goods in order to skip farming.
Once again, everything that is available on the trading post was put there by a player. You don’t have a problem with the market, you have a problem with other players.
All other areas of the game have had limitations put on them so things could not be abused to make excessive amounts of money all except the trading post. So by your logic it is ok that this one and only way to be really profitable in the game is kept this way but that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you use it right? That is pretty shortsighted, and certainly isn’t in the best interest of the health of the game, just your way of playing.
No, other areas of the game had limitations to limit how much coin and items are injected into the game’s economy. It wasn’t to limit a farmer’s or dungeon/boss runner’s income, that was incidental to the actual reason.
in all actuality this is probably false. Based on GW1, which had a fairly self contained opt in only trading system. They nerfed farms repeatedly, because they didnt want people playing a certain way. Or people feeling like they had to play a certain class/build in order to succeed.
So yeah, they would nerf farms even if they had no effect on the economy. My guess is the tp stays as is because John smith wants it to be the way it is.
TP lovers are still missing the point. Its not about inflation and money sharing its about the game at endgame, basically becomes a gold wars game. Content takes a back seat to making gold, because in general content doesnt get you to your end game goals very fast.
People who didnt buy the game to play the TP think this is a bad design.
If you get invited to play basketball, you expect to play basketball
If you buy an action game you expect primary way to progress is through action
you buy an adventure game, you expect primary way to progress is through adventure
male humans just need more old faces and male norn less scarred, that’s what makes the choice so problematic.
then again, one thing i find off-putting is the voice of the female human, it will always sound way to adult so making a young girl of 19 years old ruins it all.
male humans also range from skinny to slightly buff, and tend to not feel that masculine. They tend to look kind of weak. I wanted to make a male human for teir 3 heavy, but he just looked too wussy for what i was going for, had to reroll him as a norn and say goodbye to teir 3.
Basically, I wouldn’t have even thought they’d consider new permanent content with an expansion release. That’s because they’ve always said GW2 was horizontal and not vertical progression. But, they did provide new levels for Crafting Disciplines 400-500, so I’m not without hope that they’ll actually do more zones, and maybe even more character levels in the futures.
actually when the game came out they said they had tons of ideas for new content. They talked about new weapons in beta, they talked about continuing personal story, guild halls, new unexplored areas. They said they had teams working on these things even as the game released.
Also expansions can be horizontal content, and still be highly successful. Look at ffxi rise of the zilart, treasures of art urgan and wings of the goddess. The level cap was never raised. new areas, new jobs, new storylines, new recipes, new gears (that werent necesarrily more powerful, but filled different roles/abilities)
I suggest they a much larger grouping like a party that you can opt into, that the megaserver treats as one entity.
like Jon invites you to “Company”
when jon changes maps, everyone in company goes to same server, if no server can fit said company, it creates a new one.
Up to 100 players.
if you leave map on your own you leave company
This can be used by anyone, guild or not, so servers can use it for events, groupings, WvW people can use it for squads/zergs. Parties can use it for small parties. The main purpose is to give players no matter what their size/goal the ability to choose to group with friends if they choose.
no content should be designed to require more than 100 players (honestly i feel no content should be designed to require more than 80 players) though it can scale up to map limit.
Last time we saw a new content at March 4! Two month ago!
its not really about them just adding something new, its about them adding something substantive. Most living story content has very little depth, and you are finished in like 15 minutes.
People are looking for the type of content you see in expansions like
new overarching storylines (that preferably arent bad)
new areas to explore(think new interacting DEs, and perhaps a questlike mechanic better than hearts)
new abilities/skills
new proffesions
content for high levels to push/use their refined charachters (i think a mission type system like GW1 might be a really good addition)
new dungeons.
basically expand and develop the game.
“So they should change the game to force people to bring a tank and a healer because that’s the way you like the game better.”
No. I am saying give us the option even if not all would take it.
the game already gives you the option. you ll have to mix in a heavy CC user for controlling the mobs.
you can already make super tanky tanks, and super strong healers.
start looking into ele/engi blast finishers on water fields.
Problem is, without the game forcing people to, the large majority of players dont actually want to play this way. Trinity games generally nerf hybrids to the ground, and build fights that need healers or you will fail.
What it really comes down to, is though you say 80% of people want this, you cant find these people to play with, because turns out given an option, people dont by and large, want this.
Something else, while i think the base world has not been expanded on enough, i think living story could actually have worked, if it was overall pretty good. They just dont have the type of people you need/skill sets to handle serialized content that well. It hasnt been tried too often by a Video game company, its probably hard to amass all the talent that would require.
You need really good serial style writers, content developers with good depth, and a short turn around. Editors/directors with a strong overall vision. excellent level/game designers.
They said “nothing new during WvW season 2”, it is ending in a month, so wait for announcement before complaining.
What do you prefer? An update next week with half finished useless things, or wait a month to get something (supposedly) better?
people basically want to know if they should expect some meaty content additions soon or not soon. If people know nothing major is coming for a year, they can just retire the game for awhile. Maybe come back later. They really just want to know if they shoudl keep gw on their radar or just drop it.
I think the problem is people believe they have the right to consume “content” when they want and not when the creators/distributors want. DVRs, streaming, torrents, etc. have unshackled the requirement of watching a show “Tuesday’s at 8p” or in our case LS content while it’s released.
Well first of all you got to realize its a bit different, GW2 is a service, its like a premium channel on cable. Basically what people are saying is, You really should stop showing reruns, because starting to lose interest.
Now Im sure you ll say living story is new episodes, but compared to the new seasons of other MMOs, and GW1 in the past (expansions) it simply doesnt compare well at all. Mostly what we have been getting in GW2 is the equivalent of new DVDs with bonus featurettes, that has been remastered.
Basically they want them to make some sequels, and people are assuming the sequels wont suck.
I mean they can do whatever they want, maybe this is how their business model works, but personally, though i in general like GW2, there is nothing to do. I fully understand that users can consume content faster than they can make it, but game will be two years old by the end of summer. It really needs to at least start planning some big things
like new fully fleshed out maps
new dynamic event chains/plotlines
new overarching plotline
expansion of charachter abilities
new proffesions
new dungeons (really new)
am i asking too much?
nah this is usually the type of things you see in expansions.
if they can deliver it with living story, fine, but to this date, Living story season one was not really a great showcase of potential.
Oh, and here i thought the opposite – that a lot of armor is definitely better designed for males, while females get plated thongs and bikinis.
Actually, its pretty subjective. Keep in mind a lot of people judge armor by “cool” factor, not how functional it is. Like Flame legion was very popular, chaos hands in gw1. The most loved armor is generally not functional on males or females. I mean just look at the amount of popular armor with dangerous spikes.
I wouldnt mind more armor for males that was less realistic, and more about cool factor, but i know some people love their lobstered mail looks.
To be fair, they added permanent content in the form of Southsun Cove and most people weren’t happy either. I do agree that we need more permanent content and a year ago, but that still won’t make everybody happy.
this is why it looks like they need to do an expansion. Southsun cove feels fairly half baked. The theme was weak, the charachters were bleh. The other launch areas are generally way better though out, with way better dynamic events/lore/experiences. So yeah they need some release level content, the type of thing you generally find in an expansion.
Its been two years, and their focus hasnt changed from reworking/refining the old world. Thats all good for new players, but they need more for all the people who have been here more than 5 months.
Anybody else secretly digging the megaserver? It’s actually pretty awesome in some ways.
Yes!
I’ve got a guild and a fairly extensive friends list, but I really enjoy meeting new people, and there are so many more people around now. I love how you are able to spontaneously team up with the people around to do events, including events I have actually not seen before even though I have explored the world on several characters.
Ever since the patch hit, I have pretty much retired my lvl 80/100% exploration characters in favour of a few leveling ones that had barely made it out of the 20s, and am having as much, if not more fun all over the place than I’ve had in a long time.
What makes an MMO a great kind of game to me is the community. But this community is made up of all people, not just those restricted to a certain guild or server. The landscape, the events, all this “belongs” to all players of this game.
You can rage that other players are trespassing on your “right” to do a certain event/whatever the way you want to have it, or you can empbrace the idea of a living world, where other players have an effect on the way the content can be played by you. I choose the second alternative, much prefering a non-optimal event with nice people that don’t play the way I expect them to, instead of streamlined, predictable farming of the same mega events day in, day out.
Since the megaserver, the maps, especially in the 30s/40s/50s, feel so much more alive again. You can actually meet new people (and every new person is a possible new friend, until they prove otherwise) all over the place, whether it’s in Rata Sum at the bank or in south-eastern fields of ruin saving some animals from the ogres.
I know that change and unpredictability is not everybody’s kind of thing, but I love how much more interesting playing this game has become thanks to the megaservers. If I want to play rpgs where the quests are scripted and only depend on my input, there is tons of that around both online and offline. I love the fact that megaserver has increased the impact other players have on my gameplay, providing enjoyable social interactions and unexpected turns of events in a way that hardly ever came up before.
i kind of agree with you, but the world boss schedule goes against what you are talking about, its on a schedule, the people are not the people who were exploring the zone usually.
I think people dont like the idea of people earning rewards that are supposed to be earned, with gold. However, since the game is primarily weighted towards earning money, and selling dungeon paths is one of the only methods to make rich people who dont like actually playing content give people money for actually being good at adventuring, its probably more fitting that not.
The other issue is, a great many dungeon path sellers have been known to exploit/hack so there is a negative connotation attached to that.