Guild Wars 2

lol this thread is funny, the people in this subforum in general feel its their duty to exploit any weakness, so you will find very few people here who feel its dirty

Wanze.8410:

laokoko.7403:

tolunart.2095:

In Rift I could control, at least for a day, the goods that were available and you either had to go out into the world and farm or buy from me at a price I set. Here you can either farm, buy from me, or buy from any of dozens of other sellers who are competing with me, or place a buy order for the amount you’re willing to pay.

Do you understand this?

You are probably right. This is quite a confusing topic for me myself. I have a hard time figure out which system is more manipulative.

I’m not talking about server hopping and isolated server though. Since that’s a different topic.

I’m create a seperate post since this is kind of getting off topic, and I hope I can get some more insight from other people so that’ll probably help me understand better.

Nice talking to you.

I actually made a topic, asking, if a Dolyak Express or CDI towards the Trading Post would be a better way to inform people and have a fruitful discussion about how suggested changes to the trading post/economy would be better or worse for the general player base. I think its clear that the discussion in this topic stopped being progressive plenty of pages ago. But until now i have gotten no response in that topic but plenty in this one, so I am wondering how much people are actually interested in a fruitful discussion in the first place.

point is most people dont want to think about the economy, they just feel dissatisfied. They ask for things they think will help solve the issue, because they dont know what the real issues are.

Thats really my whole point a large percentage of the population doesnt really know/care about economics, and thus feel a lack of reward, because knowing about economics vastly imrpoves what you can earn in this game.

They will continue to feel unrewarded unless they play the game in an economically sound way, the disconnect comes, because the game wasnt marketed as an economic game.

tolunart.2095:

Your complaints are not based in reality, it is a result of being jealous of some hypothetical TP Baron who bathes in the gold stolen from innocent players and picks his teeth with shards of broken precursors just because he can.

Because there actually is no problem, there is no solution to be offered. If you keep pretending that there is, I will keep setting you straight.

complaints about this arent jealousy of what TP baron has, its annoyance that the only way to get end game material goals is to bunker down and become an accountant or run a business.

I could care less if wanze has 10000 precursors 300 bank slots every single skin unlocked. The problem is, what do i have to do to obtain things in a timely fashion. The game forces me to compete with Wanze, Tolunart with every other player in a gold war to get end game items. Thats a problem because one style far and away excels over the others at gold warring.
Its an even bigger problem because 90% of the gameplay isnt about gold wars, but 90% of rewards are.

Wanze.8410:

If you want to discuss reward structures that fair enough but you have to realize that profits on the tp are not rewards, its a completely different game mechanic and player regulated. Merchants make profits because they offer convenience to players. If your aim is to regulate profits you can only do so by regulating convenience along the way.
This will result in a worse game experience for most people because the elimination of the merchant class wont offer regular players a faster way to desired rewards.
Reworking reward tracks towards those rewards is a good way to go about that but it has absolutely nothing to do with potential profits on the TP.

Profit on the TP is rewards, it is built in to the rewards system to its backbone. They convert the value of items into money based on what the TP says.

perfect example, does ascended take 300 silk, per day because 300 silk per day is the good gameplay earning point? no it takes 300 silk per day because of economic design, the idea is that players will turn their other rewards from play into gold, and then turn the gold into silk.

The game has the majority of rewards distributed in ways that you cannot go out and work towards achieving them directly, you have to go to the TP.
lets look at silk once again.
If your primary goal for the day is gathering silk, lets say 300 scraps, you will take like 2-3 hours if you are lucky. if you do some other activity you will make enough money to buy silk faster. The silk market is primarily supplied by people by accident. trying to obtain it directly is a waste of time.

point is gold is rewards in this game. the best way to specifically obtain most items is the gold/tp. so the guy who gets the most gold the fastest is winning the game, the best way to play the game to achieve set goals is to earn as much gold as possible.

This is why rewards are relevant to this discussion. The imbalance in the TP earning is an issue because as players learn the game, they begin to feel the most effecient way to play is to use one playstyle. For those that like the other 90% of the game they have three options
ignore rewards,
acheive them at a snails pace ( a pace designed around TP usuage)
do whatever makes the most money at the time repeatedly.

This is why the thread exists, its because rewards from potential profits on the TP give a distinct advantage within the games reward structure to one form of play over others.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

The game is also the design of the systems, which make it such that it is nigh impossible to get anything you desire without getting a bunch of stuff you have no desire for, and in fact takes up space.

You really have only two choices in order to play the game, npc items, or use the trading post. So its not that people particularly want to give their money, its that the game makes people enter the market blindly.

Also the rewards should reflect the gameplay types.
Adventuring should be the best way to earn adventurer rewards
Farming should be the best way to earn farmer rewards
Merchanting should be the best way to earn merchanting rewards

money should be used between different playtypes to get the things they want to get that dont fall into their playtypes or goals.

I understand what you’re saying, that you don’t like the way the game is designed. Unfortunately, you are not in charge of designing the game and there is very little chance that complaining about it here will cause the game to become what you want it to be.

There are many different kinds of games out there to play. I have to wonder why you would rather waste your time demanding change that will not happen when you could be looking for a game that is a closer match to the kind of game you want to play.

I mean, I like Italian food. McDonald’s doesn’t serve Italian food. Which is better, to go to the nearest McDonald’s and stand in the middle of the restaurant demanding that they serve me Italian food, or going to an Italian restaurant and ordering Italian food because that’s what they make?

Im just letting them know, where i believe they are making mistakes. Thats what feedback is about. And no, not everything they do is the best answer just because they do it. They make mistakes just like anyone else. If people dont try to change things then nothing ever progresses.

I get that you like the systems, because it reinforces your gameplay type. But do you realize that a large amount of press and in game belief is that GW2 is really bad with reward design? This has been admited by developers. I am saying a major facet of the feelings many people have of a lack of endgame, and poor reward structures have to do with the imbalance in earning of rewards through one method of play, that is not what many people thought they were signing on to.

Either they just designed the reward to effort ratio poorly, or they designed it with a lower end merchanter in mind, because the amount of time it takes regular play to achieve endgame goals is off the wall compared to the alternatives.

also, the content is good, the battle in mid sized groups entertains me. Its a shame the rewards structure doesnt encourage me to replay these types of content, and instead i spend disproportionate time in a city merchanting, and talking on forums waiting for buy/sell orders to fill.

red.2387:

All the profits that the Trading Post manipulators make for themselves comes via artificially increasing the prices for everyone else. The TP is a rampant speculation market. The problem isn’t that the rich are rich, its that they extracted value from buyers to get there.

manipulator is bad word here.

But yes, by its very definition all money that traders make and amass directly comes out of the hands of suppliers and users. So yes, traders do in fact devalue items for sellers, and inflate it for buyers.

But in their defense, they can only do this where there is greater than 10% difference in what buyers and sellers are pricing.
What they would say they are offering sellers is more liquidity, and a better value without having to do the research, not sure what they offer buyers, probably nothing.
In practice though, they generally arent offering sellers much because they generally try to give the minimum amount possible to sellers just as buyers would have.

regardless they are here and they aint going anywhere. The only way to actually really mitigate them is for less uneducated sellers and buyers to be in the market, but thats unlikely due to the nature of the reward design systems.

mtpelion.4562:

In this game, you still can get every reward in the game by adventuring or farming. If you don’t want to take that long, you can also trade away your things for gold, then trade that gold for the thing you want. Most other games don’t allow you to do that and force you to grind out everything for yourself.

Bottom line, Wanze is enjoying the rewards of other players because they GAVE him their rewards because they wanted to. If Wanze has a nice house, it is because the players of this game rewarded him, not the game. The game ONLY rewards adventuring and farming.

The game is also the design of the systems, which make it such that it is nigh impossible to get anything you desire without getting a bunch of stuff you have no desire for, and in fact takes up space.

You really have only two choices in order to play the game, npc items, or use the trading post. So its not that people particularly want to give their money, its that the game makes people enter the market blindly.

Also the rewards should reflect the gameplay types.
Adventuring should be the best way to earn adventurer rewards
Farming should be the best way to earn farmer rewards
Merchanting should be the best way to earn merchanting rewards

money should be used between different playtypes to get the things they want to get that dont fall into their playtypes or goals.

This way, as a whole players will place some value on the items they sell, this is their product, if it gets devalued, they will get devalued. But the best part is that even if they cant or dont get a good value for other items, they can still work towards goals most effeciently on their own paths.

What are some examples of things adventurers want? unique or special weapons and armors, things that allow them to better hunt and successfully kill enemies or find treasures and further adventures.

Farmers, want things that allow them to farm more conisistently and control and target what type of supplies they can procure. Also things that allow them to change something of low value to something of higher value through consistent effort.

Merchants, Heck i dunno, my guess is they want the fancy house and collections, and a money bin to swim in. (im not really a merchant, im just an adventurer who looks for effeciency which leads to merchanting). I Would give them expanded personal spaces, and dominance in large coordinated projects (say guild hall customization) Of course they would want things that make trading etc more convenient (they have some of these like personal black lion traders, merchants, mystic forge, power trader etc)

My point is that the reason TP profits and class/playstyle disparity is an issue, is because
1)most high end game rewards are based around wealth

2)in order to get things for your playstyle, you have to go out of your playstyle and do what they do, or spend 3-10 times as much time doing it. you also must meet a minimal amount of earning or else you will just be battling inflation.

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

do you think people would be happy living at minimal standards in real life?

game life sustenance health care etc, comes down to enjoying the game. If many people start to find the game unenjoyable due to the reward structure, that is a problem.

Rewards are supposed to enhance your experience, not hinder it.

There is no particularly polite way to put this, but I’ll try my best:

If the rewards that other people get are able to detract from the rewards that you got simply because you noticed those rewards, you need professional psychiatric help because that is NOT normal.

The rewards that other people get in this game have ABSOLUTELY no bearing on the rewards you get. Enjoy the rewards you get and ignore what others are getting because others are not impacting you.

First of all i dont get how you made some connection to me looking at other peoples rewards, from that quote or any thing i have said.

its not about the rewards that other people get. Its about what most people have to do to get them. In order to get endgame rewards at a bearable pace, one must grind gold. If your goal is to get said endgame shineys, you must become a merchant or a hardcore grinder. Rewards are designed with this in mind.

I dont care how 200 people chose to get their endgame gear, some grinded some tped, some bought it, some got lucky. I care about how the game entices you to play the best and most interesting content.

reward design is part of game design, its not seperate, you design your rewards to give people things they want, and give it to them for playing well/as you design.

examples of good rewards, tournaments in magic which award card packs with wins, the more you win in a tournament, the more cards you get.
See, rewarded for playing the game well.

hate to say it, but WoW, not so much the stats themselves, but the using of these stat rewards to guide people to the best designed content in the game, and set up a progression from one to the next.

FFXI – rewards for completing story content to unlock areas, and then grouping up to take on difficult/epic fights

Disgaia rewards items and exp, which you can use to unlock new charachters and skills and delve deeper into the world

Virtua fighter V, where through repeated play, weird fight happenings, and defeating content and a dash of luck, you can unlock extreme charachter customization.

point is a well designed reward structure, does 2 things, it gives the type of rewards the player would want if they are interested in certain content, and it leads them to those types of content.

The fact that the TP is incredibly more effecient at getting these items, detracts from the other content. It makes people play the game in ways that dont reinforce gameplay. Instead of the rewards leading you to the type of gameplay that fits them, they lead you away from it.

tolunart.2095:

If GW2 were to suffer similar problems to D3, for example, the price of Dusk would jump from 1,000g to 10,000 to 10,000,000g within a month.

you are missing the point, they could have fixed the AH, but it served no purpose, the AH was just bad for the game in general.

the Ah was always a problem for d3, even before inflation, and after closing the real money auction house, mostly because the gameplay works counter to the AH. The point of playing the game is to find leet drops, you have to find lots and lots of leet drops, the whole reason for playing is the never know what your going to get, and wanting those hard to get things.

AH changed it to a sure thing, you just had to grind enough gold. suffice to say the actual game is a lot more boring once you arent hunting rare drops.

Anyhow the game is better, and sold very well with abolishment of the AH completely, the game is redesigned so that drops are easy, you can reroll stats, and there is always a reason to jump back in, also the gold sinks eat up basically everything in your hunt for power. anyhow, The main point of that was to say that working as intended isnt always good for the game, and that trying to create TP economies can work against gameplay.

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Should players be locked out of the game after 2 hours online per day? Because it’s not fair that someone should be able to collect loot all day long while you’re at …

Oh it’s not about that at all. You’re missing the point so much it hurts considering how many times it has been stated.

What we would like to see is lesser income disparity between the ways of making money in the game. I would see an ideal point where you have an average way of making money and any other way differs in potential only by +-50% in that you’re not gimping yourself by selecting a playstyle, therefore the only income gate that remains is time, which all players have in common.

Say you have…
1) harvesting and selling – 6gph
2) crafting – 12gph
3) doing dungeons – 10gph
4) world bosses – 12gph
5) PvP/WvW rewards – 7gph
etc etc
So that not one of these paths is worse off by more than double in comparison to a different one.

Then we can all differentiate our wealth more or less only by how much time we spend playing and not have to worry about being effective or not in a freakin’ causal game all the while experiencing all the game has to offer.

I think you just widely overestimate the average profit being made as tp merchant.
Personally, I already stated that I estimate my account wealth to be in the region of 50-60k gold and people said i make too much gold on the tp. But I also clocked more than 6k hours, so my hourly rate is less than 10 gold, which seems pretty much in line with other ways of earning gold.

most people have not come anywhere close to 10 gold per hour overall sir, you have just demonstrated your richness, and your out of touchness with the common mans world. imagine if you will having 1000-2000 hours and your account wealth is in the region of 1000 gold. this is the normal player.
this means you have 10 times the money per hour they have. and things you seek to obtain are 10 harder for them to obtain.

im estimating, but JS has all the numbers, he can give us the average value of hours played-wealth obtained.

Behellagh.1468:

Sorry, my mistake then, I thought that was only available during the particular LS arc. Still the number of players running that is considerably lower which still means it’s extremely rare and extremely rare means it’s going to be expensive so I see the TP working as intended.

The complaint is really that only a relative few have accumulated enough wealth to afford to buy it and that number is matches with the injection rate, otherwise the price would have dropped to attract buyers.

old skins price increases based on the amount sold supposedly. or time or something
anyhow fused skins now cost 7 tickets.
scraps are about 1/5 chests
tickets are about 1/100

so on average 40 chests will get you a ticket, give or take, but you would need 7 tickets soo thats 280 chests.

The only reason these arent beyond super expensive is due to heightened supply from key runners. If they ever kill the key farm, the prices will be ridiculous.

Zaxares.5419:

tolunart.2095:

Jim and Bill both run dungeons when they play the game. Both make 10g/hour.

Jim runs dungeons for 10 hours a day. Bill runs dungeons for 2 hours per day.

A month later, Jim has 3000 gold and buys the precursor and mats to make Twilight. Bill only has 600 gold and can’t even buy the precursor.

Obviously, this is a problem because every time Bill sees Jim with Twilight, he feels bad. Therefore the only solution is to change the game so that no player can play more than 2 hours per day. That way no one feels bad because they can’t make enough money to buy stuff.

Welcome to online gaming, where sometimes other people have better stuff than you do.

There is another “solution”; boost supply. Change the game so that completing the Personal Story gives you a Precursor of your choice. Make it so that all Vets drop Loot Bags as guaranteed loot. Elites drop non-Exotic Champ bags. This should vastly boost the supply in game. Getting your fancy skin then becomes a question of “when”, not “if”.

Of course, this “solution” means that just about everybody would have a Legendary or some other formerly exclusive item, so I imagine a fair number of players would now consider the game “ruined” if they enjoyed having stuff that few other players have. (I honestly don’t care what other people are using, so it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.) The other potential side effect is that it could also cause player attrition once players achieve their goals and then move on to other games, which would be bad for ANet from a business perspective.

For both reasons, I doubt ANet would ever take this route. The current system is a compromise, as things in life so often are.

looking at diablo iii, everyone having a legendary isnt that much of a problem. there more legendaries to get, and more synergies to try, and every so often Bliz releases new ones.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

i already told you why its bad.
earning at different rates creates different rewards per effort

JS said prove that competition is real.
I cite prices as proof.
If desire is universal across multiple economic classes (say 1/10 players rich or poor want an item)
then the items velocity will show how many rich versus poor players are competing in the market.

You have not proven anything. People like expensive European sports cars. Poor people cannot afford expensive European sports cars. They can either get more money, or realize they will never own an expensive European sports car. They are, understandably, not happy about this. The people who make and sell expensive European sports cars don’t really care.

You’re just repeating your opinions and claiming that this is the obvious truth. It’s not, and I’m done taking anything you say seriously.

i have proven as you say that the TP earning disparity creates a get more money or get out system, as you yourself has said. I have also proven that people who sell items market them to the highest bidder, and thus the people with more money when the supply is small.

You have agreed with everything i say
you agree TP earns more
you agree you either l2p TP or dont have things
you agree that people selling items sell them based on TP earners prices.

the only difference is you think this is all a good idea for the game.
you are not saying that wealth distribution to certain playstyles doesnt effect the gameplay and player experience of everyone else, you are merely saying its ok, because they should either l2p the TP or not have anything.

mtpelion.4562:

Pie Flavor.1647:

why can’t you use wealth disparity in GW2 when we use things like inflation, supply/demand, etc which have just as many variables as disparity in real life that are not taken into account in GW2?

fact is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is just no way a new player nowadays is able to compete in this market, because those who already possess a fortune will be making more money out of that market, and the barriers of entry are higher and higher as more gold sources are nerfed and removed.

Rich players are unable to negatively impact poor players in a game because things like sustenance, healthcare, housing, and employment don’t exist. That is why wealth disparity is irrelevant in a game.

do you think people would be happy living at minimal standards in real life?

game life sustenance health care etc, comes down to enjoying the game. If many people start to find the game unenjoyable due to the reward structure, that is a problem.

Rewards are supposed to enhance your experience, not hinder it.

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

The complaint in diablo 3 and gw2 is exactly the same. The amount of complaint on the forum on the topic is roughly the same too.
.

I never played D3 and it’s been a while since I read about the crash there… but wasn’t there something about players selling stuff for real money? And if the situation is the same, why hasn’t inflation spiraled out of control leading to GW2 crashing? Things are actually working as intended, as confirmed many times by JS. You remember him, right? The guy who is in charge of keeping things working as intended…

they got rid of real money trade first, then they got rid of fake money, completely killing the AH. they sold an expansion after doing this and sold 2.7 mil in one week.
The key here is the crash wasnt the real problem, the real problem was the AH was creating playstyles that didnt really encourage actually playing the game much, and reduced the WOW factor of good drops, which is essentially the whole point of Diablo.

Essentially, AH economy was detracting from gameplay reward structures/design. In taking it away they made huge sales, and had many people say the game overall feels much better and much more rewarding. They also tweaked reward structures in ways that you cant tweak rewards if you have an AH, like increasing drop rates, and better rewards for specific content, that can be repeated as much as people want.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

Players want cool stuff but they dont necessarily want to be merchants, just take a look at diablo which sold 2.7 million in first week, one of the biggest changes to the game was the destruction of the auction house. What does this tell you about player behavior TP dominance and profit?

Yeah, a broken TP and an economy that spiraled out of control, that’s a good example to keep pulling out, instead of all the other games that worked the way they were supposed to.

As far as “working as intended” goes, you still have not shown that there is a problem, JS has said at the very beginning of the thread that he does not see any evidence of a problem. But he will reconsider this if you can demonstrate that there is a problem, with or without numbers.

Um, if there’s no evidence of a problem and everything is working as intended, did you ever consider that maybe Anet devs are satisfied with the way things are going? If you can’t show that there is a problem, why should they change anything?

People have been saying “I don’t like it… I can’t prove it’s bad or tell you how to fix it but I know it’s bad and you need to fix it.”

My response is… if you can’t tell me why it’s bad or how to fix it, what do you expect to happen?

i already told you why its bad.
earning at different rates creates different rewards per effort

JS said prove that competition is real.
I cite prices as proof.
If desire is universal across multiple economic classes (say 1/10 players rich or poor want an item)
then the items velocity will show how many rich versus poor players are competing in the market.

for example
item costs 400 gold
player A earns 20 gold a week
player B earns 200 gold a week

every player A who buys the item needs 20 weeks to buy the item
every player B needs two weeks to buy the item
supply and velocity of item is 40 per week that sell

players of the type A cannot keep up with the supply of the item. 40 items are created a week, but type a players only earn enough in 20 weeks, this implies with demand being the same, that 38 of the 40 are being sold to player B. If you are a seller, you are going to sell at a price that meets player Bs needs, not A. Player A prices are suboptimal.

tolunart.2095:

It’s probably the only possible solution to your problems. Now, to be clear, these are your problems with the way the game works, not the game’s problems.

The TP supports the game in the way the devs envisioned it – “working as intended.”

You are one person. You can say that all your friends want this, that everyone you talk to in the game agrees with you, and it doesn’t mean kitten. Because Anet monitors player activity and responds accordingly. They’ve been focused on gold-based rewards for over a year now, because that is what most of their players want. If you want to change that, get more people into dungeons and wearing dungeon-exclusive armor, get more people going to WvW and using other parts of the game, and make them less reliant on the TP. Show Anet that this is what the players want and they will give it to them.

Coming to the forums and acting like your opinion is obviously supported by the majority of players will not work when the majority of players ignore the content you want Anet to focus on and actively use the content that you want Anet to ignore.

Working as intended doesnt mean working as it should, or solving its design problems. This is why engineering is based on a loop, and why anet generally believes in an iterative process. At one time working as intended for cars was a 10 people killed per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, now its 1/10th that. But at one time 10 people was “working as intended”

Mike O brien said in an interview his idea for anet’s profits in a forbes interview was that if you make a good product with good design, people will happily part with money for it. By improving the product, he can then make more money. When people love playing, and keep playing, they spend more.

you have said in a previous post that you realized the best way to enjoy the game is to ignore the rewards, and thats the problem, you are right. The rewards should be reinforcing the game, instead its a sacrifice a player must make. The problem comes when the player graduates to a certain level, and comes to the realization that they can either ignore the reward mechanics and keep playing, become a merchant class, or stop playing.

A better solution is make it so you can get rewarded/progress while playing the game in multiple ways, rather than making people choose to play one way/accept that they cant progress without playing that way, or leave.

I mean you can say learn to play the TP or quit, but is that a good idea for an adventure game?

also as far as thats what players want due to data, your data showing thats what people want is based on a game that makes people have to get money to get what they want. Its circular reasoning.

you build a system whereby you have to get money in order to succeed.
then you say data shows people repeatedly do things that earn money.

Players want cool stuff but they dont necessarily want to be merchants, just take a look at diablo which sold 2.7 million in first week, one of the biggest changes to the game was the destruction of the auction house. What does this tell you about player behavior TP dominance and profit?

Aidan Savage.2078:

phys.7689:

laokoko.7403:

The thing is you dont’ even need to spend much time on the TP to earn money.

So even if you are a dungeoneer or farmer, why not just spend 1% of the time to invest in something.

That’s what I did. And the pay off is great. So if TP is an easy way to earn money, why not embrace it.

its easy for you, not for everybody. Many people dont want to even think about spending time researching every way to obtain an item and the current values of the other means of obtaining them. And i think its unreasonable to expect them to do that to succeed/progress at endgame activities in an adventure based mmo.

Its not bad as an option, but its not good as the best option.

You’re purposely misconstruing what’s being said. No one is telling you to become a tradepost merchant. That is you and you alone. Everyone else is saying to spend a little time checking the prices of items you’re selling instead of looking for instant gratification. Tell me, would you sell a used car for $200 because that’s the top “I have cash, will buy now” offer, or would you take the time to check what it’s been selling for, IS selling for, and basically put up flyers saying you’re selling it for $7000? Odds are those buy it now offers are the exact people you have a problem with, yet you continue to feed them the methods they use to make money. But if you took the time to actually look at prices, you’d be able to sell your item at a higher price than the buy it now.

The more players that do this, the less money gets “funneled” to so-called TP Barons because they’re going to be competing with the entire playerbase that actually KNOWS how those people are making money. It’s purely a matter of educating players instead of punishing those that actually know how to use the trade post for than “ooooooo looooooooooot” /instasell

used cars is a pretty good hustle because that is EXACTLY what happens with used cars.

Most used cars are bought from people for fraction of value, in “trade ins” or from mechanics, who will “take the car off your hands” They are then resold for a notable mark up to people who cant/dont know how/dont have the time to find the dude who just needs to get rid of it.

So yes its actually quite common for people to sell their cars to the first seller, and yes its still a bad idea to have a system tied to end game goals be based on used car sales mechanics.

The problem here is that most of these items are like the goals of play. they are equivalent to the raison d’etre in life. People dont buy used cars as their overall goal in life, in game life, these things are the overall goals. If you arent going to hunt cosmetics, or rares, your reason to play after hitting 80 and doing most content once is over.

I guess the other solution is to create more new and interesting content, but they already said they cannot create it as fast as players can consume it.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

laokoko.7403:

The thing is you dont’ even need to spend much time on the TP to earn money.

So even if you are a dungeoneer or farmer, why not just spend 1% of the time to invest in something.

That’s what I did. And the pay off is great. So if TP is an easy way to earn money, why not embrace it.

its easy for you, not for everybody. Many people dont want to even think about spending time researching every way to obtain an item and the current values of the other means of obtaining them. And i think its unreasonable to expect them to do that to succeed/progress at endgame activities in an adventure based mmo.

Its not bad as an option, but its not good as the best option.

It was been said several times before. Even if we erase the merchant class, it will change nothing at the pace you will aquire expensive, cosmetic, rare items because their impact on the prices is miniscule. I also fail to see how cosmetic goodies that have no influence to gameplay can be seen as core endgame content in an adventure mmo and being a merchant or crafter cannot.

The fact that merchants can acquire those goodies at a faster pace has no negative impact on your gameplay.

i dont believe this is the case, JS said super rich 1% TP barons arent effecting the prices, i am talking about the merchant class which is way greater than 1% of players. People like myself also dip in and out of the merchant class when its necessary to do so. There are very few people who save up earnings from 1-2 hours 5 days a week and get these items(you wont even keep up with inflation on some of these items). All of these items are marketed to the merchant class, and seem attainable, only when you start playing merchant. 400 gold fused gauntlets? 900 gold precursors, 300 silk scraps a day for 9 days for your armor? 100 gold for bank slots? etc.

the average player simply doesnt earn enough to be partaking in most of these markets. They cant be the main demographic because they simply dont earn enough money to be a major factor.

simple math
assuming desire for items to be the same for normal players and aristocrats
1/10 of players are interested in fused guantlets for example.
assuming regular player earns 10-20 extra gold a week
it will take average guy 20-40 weeks to get this item
it will take low end aristocracy 1-2 weeks to get this item
If the velocity is 40 items sold per week
this means each week 2 of those items are sold to average player, and 38 are sold to low end aristocracy, so who do you think the item is priced for?

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

at level 1total money you may profit on green wood flipping/crafting- lets say 2 copper per click
untill you start operating at amounts in the 250 size, so 250×2copper per click
at level 2total money you may profit on iron speculation lets say 12 copper per click
250 size now 250×12 copper per click
eventually you break into higher value markets, like rare stat distribution items,
they sell for like 10 gold, and buy orders are for like 4-6 gold. profiting like 5 gold per click.
Eventually you get up to legendary and precursor levels, where you are either crafting your own for profit, or acting as the middleman for people who cant front 5% gold and wait long periods for a return

suffice to say, its not limited via clicks, its most limited via knowledge available capital, and supply/competitors

Go put 1000G into the market now and tell us all how many orders you have filled, listed and sold for profit in the next hour.

People are not just “clicking” and dropping massive margin returns on AUM instantly.

once i have high amounts of money, i may not be making the same % or the same rapid returns, but you are making large % profit returns.
most people diversify

You got a couple of ways to do it, depending on how much time you have. by going small % repeatedly you can make geometric gains, you flip something fast for 102% then take results and flip for 102% throughout the day if you do this with fast markets, you can end up making massive money, but it requires many many flips. Its generally fairly stable though, and you will always make your money back, its just a matter of how long it will take to jump back in.

In this progressing to relatively high priced items make a big difference, like going from 2 copper one wood to 22 copper on another.

Then there are longer hustles, but they pay out big money in one swoop. Like buying a rare skin that sells for 400 gold, and returns 40 gold.
yeah it may take awhile to sell, but if you sell one a day, you make 40 gold just from that transaction for minimal work.
the more money have, the more of these markets you can hit, and the less competitors you have (because it requires large start up capital.

when you got 2000 gold you can do these types of investments on like 4 different items, making like 160 gold for a few clicks.

But you dont JUST use those, it may take days, it may not, you do the fast stuffwhen you got the time to min max on high velocity items, you take some longer term every couple of days sales, and you take risks with recipe gambles that generally pay out, but may bankrupt a person with a bad streak if they dont have back up capital.

so yeah with 1000 gold you can make a lot more per day, than you could with 10 gold. eventually your % starts to drop, but if your % is dropping doesnt matter when that % is giving you more per day for less work than people playing for a week.

I know the game, i just dont think its a good mechanic that me being able to focus on numbers, data, mathematics, should make me win at the game.

If i join a basketball league i want success and goals to be based on basketball, not business/accounting acumen.

Rangersix.1754:

maddoctor.2738:

I wouldn’t call an improvement if I get in a different map than my team or my guild

Due to the nature of the new system that situation (karka queen -> empty overflows) happens a lot less. It ’s something that happened before too, and a lot more. Going from more to less is an improvement in this case, no matter how you twist or turn it.

The vast majority of complaints are basically the same stuff we saw at launch. This is simply how the game looks like when maps are full. MaterDolores says he was here from launch, but from what he complains about, I hardly doubt he was. At launch everything was zerged constantly.

And then we come to the guild complaints that they can’t get people on one map, not even the small guilds. To those people I suggest looking to new leadership, who can actually get something organized. Other guilds, like tequatl and wurm guilds, have done this on a far larger scale (hundreds of people) before. Getting 20 people on the same map is a piece of cake compared to that. You just need competent people in charge. You’re a guild, not a random rag tag group of people. You’re supposed to be organized.

Get a core party of 5 people in a map, consider that your “main map”. Now break the group apart and have each of those 5 people form their own party so they can then join their party leader on the “main map”. It’s quick and it’s easy. Guilds complaining that they need to make use of organization, dear me.

there are literally pages of people who had bad experience with guild activities over the weekend.
Its an issue.

Also the time organizing doesnt work, because you are on a schedule on most guild missions.
You have 15 minutes to complete said event, if you have to spend 5 minutes coordinating people into the right maps, that makes it 10 minutes to do the missions.

Yes its bad to have to figure out how to best game the overflow, and for the record, the people in big teq/wurm guilds who did it before, techniques will no longer work.

Yes its a problem, the solution is up to anet, but its definately a real issue.

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

phys.7689:

The key is to make it so that people can feel like they are progressing at a decent rate via other modes of gameplay, preferably ones the designers feel highlight the strengths of their game.

Why dont’ those people just spend 1% of their time to invest in something on the trading post?

I dont’ spend much time on the TP. And I progress fine.

How does 1% of the time help anything? Just selling stuff from two successive dungeon runs at 1 copper less than current offer took me about 15 minutes for 30 items, in large part due to the slow responsiveness of the platform that BLTC is built upon. Wait 1-3 seconds for each change of page, seriously?

And 15 minutes is not 1% of my time, it is closer to 10% of the time spent playing a day… I don’t see what I could do in a few minutes on the TP that would be so profitable.

You just made a good argument for the fact that profits on the tp actually are capped and not only by the amount of gold some can invest.
It takes time to monitor buy orders and markets, flood control when selling items slows you down etc. In the end it doesnt matter much, if you just use 200g to trade with or 20k gold. There is a limit of items you can handle simultaneously and once you neglect to monitor your investments and buy orders the risk of actually making less profit or a loss becomes higher.

its not capped because there are various markets, which once you have greater money you can enter.

at level 1total money you may profit on green wood flipping/crafting- lets say 2 copper per click
untill you start operating at amounts in the 250 size, so 250×2copper per click
at level 2total money you may profit on iron speculation lets say 12 copper per click
250 size now 250×12 copper per click
eventually you break into higher value markets, like rare stat distribution items,
they sell for like 10 gold, and buy orders are for like 4-6 gold. profiting like 5 gold per click.
Eventually you get up to legendary and precursor levels, where you are either crafting your own for profit, or acting as the middleman for people who cant front 5% gold and wait long periods for a return

suffice to say, its not limited via clicks, its most limited via knowledge available capital, and supply/competitors

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

<snip>

You can make more than enough via:

“Skill” in terms of dungeons.
“Farming” in terms of open word farming.
“Merchanting” in terms of the TP.
Or via a combination of the above.

The options are there, some people are simply refusing to use them and then crying about how they don’t have enough gold for extreme value vanity items which are not actually needed.

Dunegon earning is capped
farming is capped
Tp earning is uncapped

meaning even between your 3 best ways to obtain money, TP is the best way to do it. In this game money = endgame, so its also the best way to endgame.

notice dungeon rewards have been tweaked, fast ways to do dungeons have been eliminated – this is very much a controlled market

farming has DR, it has monsters that drop no loot, it has rebalanced champion bags, its highly regulated and limited in profit

But TP? Tp you can make as much as you can figure out how to make (to a limit, but its so much larger than other markets its crazy) that limit also goes up with inflation.

Also i would like them to expand on the dungeon skill options. Speed runs is one method, but they should also add things like hardmodes, bonus goals, hidden mobs/events etc, full clears. But see, that would only work if they could make it rewarding to spend extra time playing/succeeding at the game. If they did add these things but made them give something thats supposed to be TP based, they would have to make it grindy or worthless in comparison to other farm methods, thus making them unappealing.

Yeah, lets nerf rewards on the tp, the only activity that DOESN´T create rewards.
That will surely level things out.

you are thinking of mechanics of the economy instead of gameplay.

You may have to nerf gameplay for the economy, but you may have to nerf TP just for gameplay purposes.

That said i wouldnt directly nerf the TP(to be honest you will never get a situation where people focused on earning gold will not get more gold than people not focused on earning gold), i would improve gameplay in a ways that dont necessarily increase reward, or dont directly add to the economy machine.

• not increase reward- targeted farming reduce rng on items
• add non TP based rewards- self earned account bound items tied to progress, like accountbound ascended(leather deldrimor etc) or even gems for achievements more often. More gameplay related endgame progression tracks.

The key is to make it so that people can feel like they are progressing at a decent rate via other modes of gameplay, preferably ones the designers feel highlight the strengths of their game.

Thats all fine and i agree with you that it would be a good thing to add more reward tracks in the game.
But its completely off topic, unless you would also like reward tracks to be added to the trading post.

Its not off topic at all

*1 This topic is about trading post tax

*2 Why do people want a trading post tax?

• trading post makes too much money for people to compete without becoming a trading post person
• deeper meaning?
  • progressing via trading post is far more effecient than progressing through other gameplay

The problem at the end of the day is that trading post is more rewarding than other activities, many of you say that this is for the value of the economy, while this may be true under the current systems, It isnt a good gameplay mechanic. Its not a good idea that the best way to succeed (get high end perks) by a large margin is to become a businessman in an adventure game.

more reward tracks for progression through other modes of gameplay(that cant be dominated/controlled/designed based on TP) is actually one of the possible solutions. That doesnt put a tax on tp players.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Aidan Savage.2078:

morrolan.9608:

Wanze.8410:

morrolan.9608:

phys.7689:

Why is the TP which is not something the game was marketed for, or promoted for, the main means of achieving endgame goals?

And why is item obtaining designed around TP merchant playstyles and earning.

I’d really like a comment on these questions from John Smith or an actual gameplay dev seeing as how it relates to gameplay. Similar comments have been brought up many times in the past without any comment.

He actually commented many times on these subjects, here is one of them:

That doesn’t deal with the issue of game rewards being structured around the TP rather than skilled gameplay. Plus his comments on the TP would only fit if this was a sandbox game without the constant supply side shocks that anet administer.

They arent. The fact you perceive it to be is the problem. Items dont just magically appear on the trade post.

actually they very often do randomly appear on the trading post. The difference between targeted farming and undirected farming is minimal. this is one of the big tp/rewards design issues.

The far majority of items for sale just magically appeared in a players inventory without any intent. They have no idea what its worth, and no vested interest in maintaining its value. In fact every item is of a negative value, because its using inventory space.

SO what you get is that the vast majority of items have a negative value to most of the people who get them, And a positive value to those in the know. The tp players purpose is to divest the people of these items as fast/cheap as possible, and sell it to the people who want the items for as much as possible. Sometimes the merchant also processes the goods, so he is making up for a lack of knowledge, or resources to achieve the conversion (gambling for specific drops requires starting capital) but thats usually not even the easiest/steady profit

So you are basically arguing that players just put a false value on their items. The reward structure is fine and players would earn far more gold, if they would put the same value on their items as the trader.

the trader is either a guy who just looks at trends and buys low, and sells high, or he is a guy who know what other items become, and at what rates. Neither is a skill that comes naturally to many people. Many people dont even like basic math and information based reading. Which is fine, BUT everyone is forced to market here. They cant obtain much by themselves without a much greater time investment. JS is counting on the invisible hand to guide pricing and give everyone a fair price, but the method is fed by the merchant class. They take a cut of every transaction, which makes their wealth non linear, which sets them as a different class of player.

As many people have said in this thread, you cant beat the merchant class, you can only join them. So as i have said, the only way to succeed at a decent rate is to become a merchant.

People are fine early on, until they hit the endgame, and the goals become high demand items, then it becomes a game of gold wars.

laokoko.7403:

The thing is you dont’ even need to spend much time on the TP to earn money.

So even if you are a dungeoneer or farmer, why not just spend 1% of the time to invest in something.

That’s what I did. And the pay off is great. So if TP is an easy way to earn money, why not embrace it.

its easy for you, not for everybody. Many people dont want to even think about spending time researching every way to obtain an item and the current values of the other means of obtaining them. And i think its unreasonable to expect them to do that to succeed/progress at endgame activities in an adventure based mmo.

Its not bad as an option, but its not good as the best option.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

<snip>

You can make more than enough via:

“Skill” in terms of dungeons.
“Farming” in terms of open word farming.
“Merchanting” in terms of the TP.
Or via a combination of the above.

The options are there, some people are simply refusing to use them and then crying about how they don’t have enough gold for extreme value vanity items which are not actually needed.

Dunegon earning is capped
farming is capped
Tp earning is uncapped

meaning even between your 3 best ways to obtain money, TP is the best way to do it. In this game money = endgame, so its also the best way to endgame.

notice dungeon rewards have been tweaked, fast ways to do dungeons have been eliminated – this is very much a controlled market

farming has DR, it has monsters that drop no loot, it has rebalanced champion bags, its highly regulated and limited in profit

But TP? Tp you can make as much as you can figure out how to make (to a limit, but its so much larger than other markets its crazy) that limit also goes up with inflation.

Also i would like them to expand on the dungeon skill options. Speed runs is one method, but they should also add things like hardmodes, bonus goals, hidden mobs/events etc, full clears. But see, that would only work if they could make it rewarding to spend extra time playing/succeeding at the game. If they did add these things but made them give something thats supposed to be TP based, they would have to make it grindy or worthless in comparison to other farm methods, thus making them unappealing.

Yeah, lets nerf rewards on the tp, the only activity that DOESN´T create rewards.
That will surely level things out.

you are thinking of mechanics of the economy instead of gameplay.

You may have to nerf gameplay for the economy, but you may have to nerf TP just for gameplay purposes.

That said i wouldnt directly nerf the TP(to be honest you will never get a situation where people focused on earning gold will not get more gold than people not focused on earning gold), i would improve gameplay in a ways that dont necessarily increase reward, or dont directly add to the economy machine.

• not increase reward- targeted farming reduce rng on items
• add non TP based rewards- self earned account bound items tied to progress, like accountbound ascended(leather deldrimor etc) or even gems for achievements more often. More gameplay related endgame progression tracks.

The key is to make it so that people can feel like they are progressing at a decent rate via other modes of gameplay, preferably ones the designers feel highlight the strengths of their game.

Aidan Savage.2078:

morrolan.9608:

Wanze.8410:

morrolan.9608:

phys.7689:

Why is the TP which is not something the game was marketed for, or promoted for, the main means of achieving endgame goals?

And why is item obtaining designed around TP merchant playstyles and earning.

I’d really like a comment on these questions from John Smith or an actual gameplay dev seeing as how it relates to gameplay. Similar comments have been brought up many times in the past without any comment.

He actually commented many times on these subjects, here is one of them:

That doesn’t deal with the issue of game rewards being structured around the TP rather than skilled gameplay. Plus his comments on the TP would only fit if this was a sandbox game without the constant supply side shocks that anet administer.

They arent. The fact you perceive it to be is the problem. Items dont just magically appear on the trade post.

actually they very often do randomly appear on the trading post. The difference between targeted farming and undirected farming is minimal. this is one of the big tp/rewards design issues.

The far majority of items for sale just magically appeared in a players inventory without any intent. They have no idea what its worth, and no vested interest in maintaining its value. In fact every item is of a negative value, because its using inventory space.

SO what you get is that the vast majority of items have a negative value to most of the people who get them, And a positive value to those in the know. The tp players purpose is to divest the people of these items as fast/cheap as possible, and sell it to the people who want the items for as much as possible. Sometimes the merchant also processes the goods, so he is making up for a lack of knowledge, or resources to achieve the conversion (gambling for specific drops requires starting capital) but thats usually not even the easiest/steady profit

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

<snip>

You can make more than enough via:

“Skill” in terms of dungeons.
“Farming” in terms of open word farming.
“Merchanting” in terms of the TP.
Or via a combination of the above.

The options are there, some people are simply refusing to use them and then crying about how they don’t have enough gold for extreme value vanity items which are not actually needed.

Dunegon earning is capped
farming is capped
Tp earning is uncapped

meaning even between your 3 best ways to obtain money, TP is the best way to do it. In this game money = endgame, so its also the best way to endgame.

notice dungeon rewards have been tweaked, fast ways to do dungeons have been eliminated – this is very much a controlled market

farming has DR, it has monsters that drop no loot, it has rebalanced champion bags, its highly regulated and limited in profit

But TP? Tp you can make as much as you can figure out how to make (to a limit, but its so much larger than other markets its crazy) that limit also goes up with inflation.

Also i would like them to expand on the dungeon skill options. Speed runs is one method, but they should also add things like hardmodes, bonus goals, hidden mobs/events etc, full clears. But see, that would only work if they could make it rewarding to spend extra time playing/succeeding at the game. If they did add these things but made them give something thats supposed to be TP based, they would have to make it grindy or worthless in comparison to other farm methods, thus making them unappealing.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Wanze.8410:

Giving out ticket scraps for dungeons would hurt Anets income from key sales.

No it wouldnt. Keyfarming alone hurts Anet’s key sales far more.

not really sure about this, my feeling is no one would really buy keys to get the items. at a rate of 3 tickets out of 100 keys, its not going to be worth the investment. better off just buying gold with gems than flushing it down the trader toilet. The value of the skins would of course go up, but i doubt the sales of black lion would go up much.

Fenrir.3609:

Borghal.1635:

I would love to get a few pointers on how to make that much, if you can… or perhaps just redirect me so that we don’t spam the thread. Really. Dungeons are unstable due to PUGs and even if you run within 30 minutes it’s hardly gonna be more than 4g an hour bonus gold included.
Open world bosses spawn every 15 minutes now and I usually end up with one or two rares worth 60s total and a bunch of 1-5s trash. So again that’s close to 4g an hour…
Oh and I have only 64% MF despite basically salvaging everything blue and green since hitting 80… :- /

If you can’t do dungeons effectively (and by that I mean speed run or solo sell them) and have poor MF then you are going to be limited in terms of gains, still 6-7g+ an hour via open world pve is more than viable.

As for “pointers”:
Work out which mobs drop T5/T6 (or other in demand craft mats/bags).
Find a location which contains said mobs in high density and with a decent respawn rate.
Find several locations which suit the criteria above.
Farm and hop between them to avoid or otherwise limit DR hits as much as possible.
Profit.

I can pull in 60+ T5 and 12+ T6 per hour. When you factor in upgrading the T5 to T6 via the MF, from T6 alone I can gain over 7G an hour. Again that is without factoring in any other drops.

Now in the last 10 minutes whilst waiting for some orders to fill I got 17 T5 and 3 T6 as well as other drops (crud drops this time around in fairness, all greens or worse).

Regardless, even at the 4G an hour rate you mentioned, that is more than enough to do what I initially said. Either set aside a few hours to make the money you want for that shiny skin you want, or set a small portion of each hour aside for it. If you do that, you get your skin. The trouble is instead people don’t bother and just qq.

and this is really the point, playing GW2 at a high level comes down to merchanting to succeed. Its not bad that this is an option, its bad that this is the best option, by far.

In my experience other games tend to reward a bunch of different types of players

the hunters/luck based (usually have rare enemies/circumstances with special drops they roll on. Rare chests and such would also fit into this type

the merchanters

the grinders

the guild players (content that isnt super hard, but requires a dedicated guild/group)

crafters (in this game this becomes merchanters, because crafting is the norm and expected)

highly skilled players.

The fact that desired items and wealth are attainable by more controlled circumstances/people mitigates the effectiveness of middlemanning. IE the guy who makes his money hunting is going to try to get the best price whereas the guy who randomly picks up an item without trying is going to have no idea and just get whatever the lowest bid says.

In gw2, some of these types dont exist, and all of them are heavily regulated except for TP merchanting.

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

I’m getting at this – I would like a way to obtain more gear in ways other than just harvesting gold, similar to dungeon gear. Simple as that. EDIT Also don’t cling to details – I’m sure they would have no problem making it so that skins obtained via special “dungeon claim tickets” are account-bound or something like that, that’s not really an issue ;-)

By the way, how many chest do you open to get a ticket, since you do it often if I understand correctly?

This would be a 180-degree-turn from the direction Anet has been going since launch. As in, don’t hold your breath. If they wanted to do that they would have developed the dungeon and karma merchants a lot more.

I don’t do it a lot, only when I’m bored, and I’ve been playing other games the last few months while waiting for the big update and LS 2: the Revenge of Scarlet.

Average is probably a scrap every 3-4 chests and a ticket every 10-12. I’ve pulled maybe 2 full tickets and 50 scraps. Someone really dedicated to this and who doesn’t have a day job could probably do three runs an hour and get that every other day.

you were pretty lucky with those tickets.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Guy-opened-500-Black-Lion-Chests

the tickets are closer too 1/100
the scraps are about 1/5th

10 scraps in one ticket.
So your looking at 50 chests on average to get 1 ticket or 100 chests for 3 tickets on average

tolunart.2095:

The game was designed for casual players. The TP provides a means for a player to do nearly any activity in the game and still have a chance to get most of the “stuff” that they want. Take that away and hardcore players who grind away at specific content until they get what they want have a huge advantage over casual players with limited time and specific interests.

Casual players generally have more money to spend on the game, but less time.

Hardcore players generally have more time to devote to the game, but less money.

It’s not hard to see why Anet chose to focus on the players who spend more money on the game, rather than those who spend more time on the game.

Subscription based games focus on players who will spend a little money over a long period of time because they are personally invested in the game. Cash shop games are interested in players who will spend more money to get the things they want right now. You might not like it, but that’s just the way it works.

I never said they should give all endgame items for goals that are unattainable by the masses.

And casual players cant actually get those things (without huge disproportionate time spending) without playing in the TP way. It doesnt have to be only hardcore playstyles. They can design account bound rewards that dont factor into the economy so they can give regular players more methods of working towards their goals.

They can design normal content to make things attainable through regular play. Do you really think halloween skins were designed in season 2 in a way that normal players can get it?
do you think anet figured people could gather 10000 rare materials? those descions were completely based around buying items on the TP to lower supply. Which is the perfect example of what im talking about. Best way to get halloween items? play the TP and buy the items. Playing the content they added? not a good idea at all.

Resk.6412:

So, I’ve considered posting this for a couple days now. I tend to lurk rather than posting. I realize this will likely fall on deaf ears, but after this weekend, I feel like it really needs to be said.

The attitude on the forums, and the response from the community over the past week (and even before that) is appalling. Every new thread is created to somehow belittle or bash the Anet dev team, or to negatively criticize every aspect of the game (whether part of the new update or not). And it isn’t just in General – it’s happening in PvP, in WvW, in the Profession forums, all of them. Is this criticism valid? Certainly – there are threads created for the exact purpose of collecting that information (and no, we don’t need to keep making 9 different threads on the same topic). But the tone of that criticism has reached an all-time low, and it’s turned the forum into a toxic mess. We’re no longer in the territory of constructive, positive discussion that a forum like this is here to encourage.

The general consensus of the community appears to be one where we expect the dev team to be chained to their desks 24/7, fixing every mistake and catering to every whim of any player who feels like our gameplay has somehow been diminished. I mean, just look around – you’ll find it in almost every new thread that’s been created this week. How does this kind of feedback – the whining, the complaining, the bashing, the lack of patience, the anger – actually help the game or promote any kind of meaningful discussion? Everyone seems to be shocked at the lack of responses from the dev team about issues – is it really any wonder why? If I were them, I wouldn’t respond to anything either, considering the community won’t be happy with whatever they have to say (or even if its what they want to hear).

Have there been problems this week? Certainly. Could things have been rolled out differently? Probably. But in no way does that excuse how this community has reacted. We dare say the Anet team can’t have a bloody holiday weekend to themselves? Of course they can! Who are you to say they don’t deserve one? (And there are threads where this exact statement is happening).

Lets use the Megaserver as an example. For those complaining about the megaservers, have you even considered that releasing this update this week, in this way, is intended? The Megaserver system is a BIG deal. And the devs have said repeatedly that its an ongoing system. I mean, the update isn’t even a week old! How do you expect the dev team to make any meaningful changes to the system to improve things, when they don’t even have enough data yet to determine what those changes should be? It’s called patience, and this community could use a huge dose of it.

Altogether, I know this thread isn’t going to deter the community’s reaction to the new content. I know it’s not going to correct anything. But I’m hoping that, if you support the dev team, their hard work, and their efforts to give us something great to play, you’ll post in here and let them know.

I love the new updates, and I know that I for one can’t wait to see what’s coming for us next

complaints are caused by dissatisfaction, a lot of people are dissatisfied. These systems touched major parts of the game, Its not really surprising.

As for expecting a high level tone, thats a skill that most people do not have. When many people get angry or dissatisfied, they dont become more tactful/understanding.
Also, anet needs to hear some of this negative feedback, because apparently they didnt realize a lot of these solutions would cause a lot of these problems. Either that or they prefer a wait and see approach in either case, they need to see these pages of toxic mess to try to solve the problems

to be honest this seems to be part of a system designed by china rewards team to incentivize things like a VIP pack which gives more skill points, magic find, gold, exp boosters etc. Its not the full system, but its one of the pieces.

It fits in very nicely design wise if those are your goals, but it kind of goes against what they said they wanted to achieve.

The annoying part is they now created a whooollle lot of things that are now high priority fixes/changes. This means new content will fall farther behind which is what the game really needs for most of its population. For many many players, the problem is simply a lack of new content. New new plotlines, zones, charachters, etc. And this would require design on the levels that we have not seen very often in living story.
I ll be honest very few additions have been integrated smoothly and as well as the core games features.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

Wanze.8410:

And John Smith already deemed your argument invalid in his first post in this topic.

I think I may have hijacked the topic a bit -imo it certainly should be renamed after all these pages – I don’t mean to argue that traders influence the market in a bad way nor that they should be stopped. I agree there’s too much movement for a small-ish group to influence it. Nor do I believe TP trading should be stop. For that matter, it cannot be stopped, as you pointed out. It’s just a feature of the market.

I was merely agreeing with phys and trying to make the case that players ought to have more than one “most efficient” opportunity and that if the “best” one – as seems to be the opinion of a lot of people – is one that is outside of the core gameplay, it is not a good thing and basically discourages players to… actually play the game if they want to save up money for that darn precursor and rather try their hand at trading instead.

And there are more than one way to reach your goals. Basically the profits to be gained on the tp are blown way out of proportion by some people here. Basically the best way to obtain gold is to buy it with gems. If I put my account wealth into proportion of hours played, i made about 1$ per hour. Your arguement might be valid, i this game was pay to play but as long as it is financed by micro transactions and you pay for free after the purchase fee, your argument is simply invalid.

my TP profits are not exageratted, they are estimated and approximate, but im actually lowballing here. You guys seem to forget i have done this. I have used the TP and various other hardcore farming mechanics to make money in the past. I’m not some guy who is incapable of making TP money. I just recognize, its bad for the game.

how much do you think someone makes in a day of a normal planned playthrough by arena net? lets say spending 2 hours completing a map. well lets say they have 15 hearts, they may find 2 or 3 chests (most chests arent near hearts) Well i just did it the other day on my engineer, i made probably 30 silver in gold, maybe 60 silver in materials. thats 90 silver in an hour for core gameplay.

I have also played the merchant, not even trying to be hyper effecient, my goal was turning over items with ineffeciencies fast and often. In that same time frame i made probably around 16-22 gold. farming the champ train was tedious and boring, but including materials i was making around 10-15 gold in two hours. Now if i had more money, i would have been able to make even more on the TP, there were some markets i didnt have enough initial investment to ride out on. I had to do more risky or slower selling markets because while with 100 gold on hand i could only make 8-11 gold and hour or about 10% of my capital, with 1000 gold i could take safer and more consistent markets that pay out more consistently, doing things that only get me like 5% gains per hour. but 5% of 1000 is 50 gold an hour. I also couldnt jump into risky but highly profitable markets like precursor creation like i could if i had 5000 gold (making on average 20% of my initial investment back.

Point is, it makes the game suck, any second i am not doing the most effecient activity is a waste of time. Jump puzzles? All of the content they should be trying to get me to go back and do, mini dungeons, open world fights, are not worth it. Harder and more interesting dungeons? 1.7 gold in about 35 minutes if played as the devs said they wanted it to be played.

So what do you really want?

a better game design, that rewards people for doing things that accentuate the games strengths. Feel cool and rewarded when you achieve a goal, while doing the interesting things the game has to offer.

As long as the TP merchant playstyle is the dominant(by a large margin) one for progressing towards endgame goals, all of the rest of the game, which is the vast majority of it, will be less rewarding in comparison.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

Point is, it makes the game suck, any second i am not doing the most effecient activity is a waste of time. Jump puzzles? All of the content they should be trying to get me to go back and do, mini dungeons, open world fights, are not worth it. Harder and more interesting dungeons? 1.7 gold in about 35 minutes if played as the devs said they wanted it to be played.

As someone else in the thread said, fun is subjective. If fun for you is making the most money as quickly as possible, then playing the TP is probably the best route to that goal. If standing at the BLTC trader all day and researching prices bores you to tears, you don’t have to do it. Most players aren’t into that and they would rather do what they find fun, such as running dungeons or farming champions and events, and when their bags are full they sell the loot and continue doing what they find fun.

Again, no one can show that there is a problem with the way the TP works, because there is no problem. Something will always be faster than other methods of reaching a specific goal, or easier, or more fun. Some people find the TP easier and more fun, others find the champion train or WvW or PvP more fun. They get to make the choice for themselves, and Anet gives them plenty of options.

Why is the TP which is not something the game was marketed for, or promoted for, the main means of achieving endgame goals?

And why is item obtaining designed around TP merchant playstyles and earning.

I wouldnt have a problem with the TP if it didnt effect the game.

Anet decided they wanted to force people to use the TP as much as possible. They decided to make gold the most important thing for achieving goals. This means they have to use gold to incentivize playing the game as they intended. Right now TP earns way more. than any type of healthy playing by a large margin.

It makes endgame goals, something you best work towards achieving by playing the TP.

As for what do i want, i want the game to be more rewarding in all facets, i want their to be reasons to explore the world, to do hard fights, and kill things in the world. The nature of the gold standard and TP profit being high as well as item/reward design being focused on what the tp produces leads to really bad gameplay reward designs.

And thats how TP profits unbalance effects the world, it makes them design content around what a TP player would do. It makes working towards most endgame goals about playing the TP. It creates a class disparity based on playstyle.

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

Wanze.8410:

And John Smith already deemed your argument invalid in his first post in this topic.

I think I may have hijacked the topic a bit -imo it certainly should be renamed after all these pages – I don’t mean to argue that traders influence the market in a bad way nor that they should be stopped. I agree there’s too much movement for a small-ish group to influence it. Nor do I believe TP trading should be stop. For that matter, it cannot be stopped, as you pointed out. It’s just a feature of the market.

I was merely agreeing with phys and trying to make the case that players ought to have more than one “most efficient” opportunity and that if the “best” one – as seems to be the opinion of a lot of people – is one that is outside of the core gameplay, it is not a good thing and basically discourages players to… actually play the game if they want to save up money for that darn precursor and rather try their hand at trading instead.

And there are more than one way to reach your goals. Basically the profits to be gained on the tp are blown way out of proportion by some people here. Basically the best way to obtain gold is to buy it with gems. If I put my account wealth into proportion of hours played, i made about 1$ per hour. Your arguement might be valid, i this game was pay to play but as long as it is financed by micro transactions and you pay for free after the purchase fee, your argument is simply invalid.

my TP profits are not exageratted, they are estimated and approximate, but im actually lowballing here. You guys seem to forget i have done this. I have used the TP and various other hardcore farming mechanics to make money in the past. I’m not some guy who is incapable of making TP money. I just recognize, its bad for the game.

how much do you think someone makes in a day of a normal planned playthrough by arena net? lets say spending 2 hours completing a map. well lets say they have 15 hearts, they may find 2 or 3 chests (most chests arent near hearts) Well i just did it the other day on my engineer, i made probably 30 silver in gold, maybe 60 silver in materials. thats 90 silver in an hour for core gameplay.

I have also played the merchant, not even trying to be hyper effecient, my goal was turning over items with ineffeciencies fast and often. In that same time frame i made probably around 16-22 gold. farming the champ train was tedious and boring, but including materials i was making around 10-15 gold in two hours. Now if i had more money, i would have been able to make even more on the TP, there were some markets i didnt have enough initial investment to ride out on. I had to do more risky or slower selling markets because while with 100 gold on hand i could only make 8-11 gold and hour or about 10% of my capital, with 1000 gold i could take safer and more consistent markets that pay out more consistently, doing things that only get me like 5% gains per hour. but 5% of 1000 is 50 gold an hour. I also couldnt jump into risky but highly profitable markets like precursor creation like i could if i had 5000 gold (making on average 20% of my initial investment back.

Point is, it makes the game suck, any second i am not doing the most effecient activity is a waste of time. Jump puzzles? All of the content they should be trying to get me to go back and do, mini dungeons, open world fights, are not worth it. Harder and more interesting dungeons? 1.7 gold in about 35 minutes if played as the devs said they wanted it to be played.

Obtena.7952:

I didn’t steer it … someone has made the point that average players can’t make decent progression endgame doing core game activities in a thread related to increasing penalties for people that make money on the TP. You don’t see the connection attempting to be made here? It’s not hard to see that the next step is to say rich people are screwing the average person’s ability to progress because the gear rich people manipulate on the TP to make money (the same gear average people need to progress at a decent pace) is too expensive for the average guy to afford.

Therefore … nerf rich TP people that make money on the TP, that will make needed gear for decent progression affordable and all the sudden, the current miserable struggling average people are smiley happy people that can progress and play the game.

It’s nonsense.

Ill make it clear to you again.
you hit level 80
what are your goals?
its not to get exotics, you already have those, or can get them cheap.
its not get exp you are max level.
you know what eric flanum said it was on release? he said they made this cool system called legendaries, that required you to show mastery in everything in the game. He said people would start working towards their legendary.

You know what mike o brien said people would be doing in his game rather than trying to get best in slot? he said they would be aiming for cosmetics.

Cosmetics, legendaries, ascended, these are the endgame goals of gw2. THIS is what you are progressing towards once you hit level 80. Its not about wearing rare gear so you can get another level of exp. they designed the progression at endgame to be cosmetic.

And the best way to do that is not by saving Orr, or defeating centaurs, fighting dragons, finding hidden treasures, organizing guilds, defeating other players or even murdering hoards of monsters, its by playing the TP, which makes every thing else suboptimal play for achieving the goals they expect players to have after 80.

The problem is that the TP is the best way to play the endgame. The game itself is unrewarding, and doesnt incentivize the type of play they say they want people to have. They nerfed event rewards, which is actually the activity they said they expect and want players to do. What type of incentive is that?

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

People can t make decent progress post 80 by doing core game activities.

That’s a huge load of crap. The endgame content is balanced around gear that you get from doing open world event, purchase rather cheaply or craft relatively easily with T5 mats; Rares. The game content IS designed around the most common players in mind because everyone playing through the game should be able to afford or craft rare gear by level 80.

your goal and progressions once you hit 80 is not rare gear, you have had rare gear since like level 45. your goal once you hit 80 is, customizing your appearance, rare skins, and best in slot gear. perhaps another goal might be more varied equipment builds, which requires extra inventory.

Understand the goal of playing and progression once you hit 80 is not to be the weak guy with weak stats and random appearance from items you picked up. They even said when the game released they expected people to be pursuing legendaries, best in slot (exotic at the time) and cosmetics once they hit max level.

Playing the core game is the worst way to get any of those things. The endgame is designed for wealthy traders, people have already admitted that here, they only difference is they say that the way it should be, and people should learn how to be business men if they want to “win” at endgame progression.

DavidH.7380:

Personally, I’m doing WAY more boss fights than ever before since I know exactly when and where to be for the event starts and there are always more than enough people participating in the events.

However, the 8 hour spread on the mega-bosses is just horrible unless you are unemployed or a kid on summer vacation from school. You only get rewards once a day, so what possible harm could there be in letting the mega bosses run in rotation every hour, hour and a half, or two hours?

simple answer? anet wanted to encourage zergs. They were afraid with too many options, they wouldnt get full participation.

As an aside i prefer a more dynamic system, with ways players can track the events if they so choose.

You guys will never get it because y’all are merchants.

People can t make decent progress post 80 by doing core game activities.

These items are not luxuries they are the goals you play for after hitting 80.

You can’t make any progress towards a legendary climbing the highest mountain, finding the hidden pirate cove. You make minimal gains killing the toughest monsters.

The game has a whole wide world and nothing to gain for most of it. Reward is supposed to lead the player through the world and reinforce the core gameplay.

Right now they want to use gold as the medium, fine. But that means you either play the game in the most profitable way, or try to buy things at prices designed for the economy that looks at things in a business perspective. ie buy 10000 candy corn to win at halloween
Spend 10 gold a day for 28 days to get best in slot.

Etc.

Do you really think these things are designed with the most common earners in mind?

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

looking at the markets when you are selling things, and waiting for the right time. Counting the pennies, and seeing what makes what and whats actually truely cheaper.

You realize this is the basics of being a merchant or running a business?

Im fine with people running a business amassing massive gold. But you must remember this is an adventure game. It needs to have rewards and goals that the adventurer can achieve and excel at. Right now, most of what would normally be their goals, you would be a fool to go on an adventure to obtain.

There is a reason many people call the game gold wars. Its not just because people are rich, its because the game is designed so that the endgame is designed around wealth.

Why is it that the business mans skill set is so much more valued in the game world than the adventurers? Why is being able to read spreadsheets, and patiently sell and buy items and look for deals/ineffeciencies the best means of progress in the endgame?

One would think people would be telling people to learn to explore, or save the world, or fight an insanely difficult boss to succeed at playing an adventure based game. Why is the answer learn to merchant if you want the flaming sword of power dipped in dragonblood of an ancient, passed down from generation to generation.

Well we have come to the conclusion here. Essentially the end result is, the endgame of gw2 is gold hunting, the field of battle is merchanting. And this is the way people should learn to play if they hope to succeed.
Wealth distribution between play styles is not relevant, because you should just learn to play in whatever way earns the most money.

Well in my opinion thats a bad reward design for a game about saving the world and killing dragons.

How do you need gold to go out and do adventures? All the stuff you cant effort doesnt exclude you from endgame content.
All ascended and legendary gear is heavily gated by account bound mats that are ONLY obtainable by adventuring, NOT the tp.

You want more gold from the tp? Post all your loot at higher prices and wait until it sells, thats all there is to it. There is literally no difference in me getting an item for 1s on buy order and posting it at 3s and you getting that item via loot drop and posting it at 3s instead of 1s.
No spreadsheets involved.
Do you know why most people dont do it? Because they want gold now and dont care, if somebody else gets rich on it in 2 weeks or 2 months.

You don’t need gold for adventures, you just won’t get much of anything of value from adventures.
People sell on the tp without caring because the gane gives them no choice. You get tons of crap you don’t want and limited inventory. You have to get rid of stuff.
Its very rare for you to purposefully get anything through adventuring.
Which means even if they are bad it, know nothing, or have no desire to do it. They have to. And you profit off of this model that forces them to market.

The rewards are not designed with gameplay in mind. They are designed based on the tp. See halloween items year two. No one could get any of those skins through gsmeplay without the tp

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

There is a reason many people call the game gold wars. Its not just because people are rich, its because the game is designed so that the endgame is designed around wealth.

Why is it that the business mans skill set is so much more valued in the game world than the adventurers? Why is being able to read spreadsheets, and patiently sell and buy items and look for deals/ineffeciencies the best means of progress in the endgame?

One would think people would be telling people to learn to explore, or save the world, or fight an insanely difficult boss to succeed at playing an adventure based game. Why is the answer learn to merchant if you want the flaming sword of power dipped in dragonblood of an ancient, passed down from generation to generation.

Well we have come to the conclusion here. Essentially the end result is, the endgame of gw2 is gold hunting, the field of battle is merchanting. And this is the way people should learn to play if they hope to succeed.
Wealth distribution between play styles is not relevant, because you should just learn to play in whatever way earns the most money.

Well in my opinion thats a bad reward design for a game about saving the world and killing dragons.

Except that most of the players don’t care about the TP or squeezing every penny out of the transactions on it. The average player doesn’t even think about this stuff, which is why they just “sell now” and move on.

The experience is not much different from what I’ve seen in other MMOs, except that the multi-server TP moves items and coin much faster and more efficiently. This is an improvement over the TP/auctions in other games, not a problem.

I get that you don’t like it, but the fact is that the TP works as it was intended to work. It moves items and coin very quickly among those who choose to use it. Because it works as intended, just saying “I don’t like this” over and over is not going to cause change.

Oh well whatever its pointless. TP shall rule forever. Business men shall rule them all.

Behellagh.1468:

Phys, the point is if players decided to price items for sale rather than going for the quick buck and placing orders rather than going for immediate gratification then flipping wouldn’t be a big thing.

Nobody’s suggesting everyone should be flipping, just that using the TP just like an NPC Vendor, give me coin NOW for this item, let me buy this item NOW allows flippers to find an environment to flourish in. But as long as players want instant gratification over getting more/spending less coin then other players willing to provide that will exist.

I know that. I realized that long ago shortly after the TP started working when people were selling items below npc price and taking a 10% loss to boot.

And thats why the TP is bad imo, you guys are playing against noobs, and essentially taking advantage of them. Its proffesional nba players going to the kiddie park and rejecting little kids. The only competition is mostly between each other to see who can pimp the noobs best. Numerous players sell their time for nothing. People should be charging more for items which use skill points, or require 1 day per item to make, and yet they sell it for less than its base parts. Its ridiculous.

IMO goods should be designed such that people only bring them to market if they actually want to be a merchant. Right now, the tp is required even if you dont care/want to think about selling at all. I got friends who have no idea how much an item is worth in parts, i advise them on whether they should craft an item, or buy the parts, or obtain it themselves, I tell them based on the market whether they will be better off salvaging or mystic forging. You cant really expect the average player to play the game at this level in order to succeed, when most of them bought an adventure game.

Aidan Savage.2078:

phys.7689:

and this is the key factor you guys just dont understand. Some people dont want to be merchants. Saying that people should just be merchants shows you there is a problem. Unless you play the merchant game, you are at a distinct disadvantage. You basically have a class disparity that comes down to merchants, and the top teir grinders coming out as the upper class.

This is why you think a problem exists where it does not exist. We arent telling players to become TP players, which is idiotic and entirely wrong. We’re telling players to actually LOOK AT THE MARKETS when they sell items. And this isnt some “look for a few seconds and then insta-sell” either. Take the Carrion Tribal Short Bow of Blood for example. It’s “sell now” price is 3g4s1c. It’s “buy now” price however, is over three times that at 9g84s21c. If someone didnt care to look at prices closely, they’d have simply sold the bow they had for ~3g. If they looked closer, they might realize they can get a big more gold out of it than that, maybe even the full 9-10g of the sell listings.
In fact, that’s what I did when I had one to sell. Listed it at 6g50s about 3 days before the 15th, and it sold in the hours after the update because apparently someone wanted the bow for the skin. Not to mention it was below the sell prices enough they thought the 3g more than buy prices was enough for the speed of buying it now. Total time invested in the single sale? 3 minutes mostly because the price spread worried me.
Now, if you consider that a lot of dropped rares and exotics have a difference between the buy and sell listings of nearly 100% (or more) of the buy listings, someone who made 400g off rares sold through buy now, would have made closer to 800g by listing at sell listings instead.
It’s THIS that me and wanze are talking about. Teaching people how to make the most of what they drop as opposed to using just the TP to make money. Taking a moment to check the item prices BEFORE you click “sell” can make a difference of silvers on average, and golds one pricey items.

If people dont want to learn how to extract that little bit of extra money with a little thinking instead of mindless clicking, well… they can insert foot where complaints originate from.

looking at the markets when you are selling things, and waiting for the right time. Counting the pennies, and seeing what makes what and whats actually truely cheaper.

You realize this is the basics of being a merchant or running a business?

Im fine with people running a business amassing massive gold. But you must remember this is an adventure game. It needs to have rewards and goals that the adventurer can achieve and excel at. Right now, most of what would normally be their goals, you would be a fool to go on an adventure to obtain.

There is a reason many people call the game gold wars. Its not just because people are rich, its because the game is designed so that the endgame is designed around wealth.

Why is it that the business mans skill set is so much more valued in the game world than the adventurers? Why is being able to read spreadsheets, and patiently sell and buy items and look for deals/ineffeciencies the best means of progress in the endgame?

One would think people would be telling people to learn to explore, or save the world, or fight an insanely difficult boss to succeed at playing an adventure based game. Why is the answer learn to merchant if you want the flaming sword of power dipped in dragonblood of an ancient, passed down from generation to generation.

Well we have come to the conclusion here. Essentially the end result is, the endgame of gw2 is gold hunting, the field of battle is merchanting. And this is the way people should learn to play if they hope to succeed.
Wealth distribution between play styles is not relevant, because you should just learn to play in whatever way earns the most money.

Well in my opinion thats a bad reward design for a game about saving the world and killing dragons.

Rydralain.8126:

phys.7689:

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

and this is the key factor you guys just dont understand. Some people dont want to be merchants. Saying that people should just be merchants shows you there is a problem. Unless you play the merchant game, you are at a distinct disadvantage. You basically have a class disparity that comes down to merchants, and the top teir grinders coming out as the upper class.

Wanze and others have been explaining this for as long as people have been complaining about the TP. What you don’t understand is that this is not a problem.

Everyone has the opportunity and the choice to go for instant gratification and minimal interaction with the TP, or to play the TP to get the most out of it. Just like any other aspect of the game.

I don’t run dungeons. Dungeons provide a lot of loot, as well as items that are unique and can only be obtained through them. But I’m not going to demand that they do away with dungeons or give me the things I can get from them without actually going into the dungeons. Other players are not doing anything wrong by running dungeons. Dungeons are not bad.

There’s nothing wrong with the TP as it is, and players make the choice for themselves whether to use it or not. That some choose not to make use of it does not make it wrong, or broken. There is nothing that can be done, nothing that needs to be done, if players choose not to get involved with the TP.

so basically you are saying its good design to have 90% of high end items be obtained primarily through one mode of play 3-10 times faster than any other. Which is not even the prime demographic of the game.

So to be clear, you believe and understand that tp merchanting is and should be the primary method of obtainining most (not all) endgame items?

It’s not that it should be, it’s that it can be. For anyone. You play how you do, and others play how they do, and the TP normalizes most prices, and everyone progresses at the rate of their play regardless of how fast others do.

no, you are making a mistake, because you are assuming that these goals are static, and that no method is noticeably faster.

say for example you want a dusk. Dusk went up 170 gold in the last 6 months. This means if you dont make 170 extra gold in 6 months, you cannot even handle the interest.
If you only save up 200 gold in 6 months it means that only 30 of these gold is going towards the item every 6 months.

The same holds true for any gemstore item, its a moving goal. you have to earn faster than it inflates. And inflation will always happen, in fact generally economists irl prefer controlled inflation to defaltion or stagnation.

Prices for high end items are placed to sell to high end players, the aristocracy. Do you really think a normal player who can only save 5 gold a week, is really the main market for a costume shop item that is 90 gold, and will be 120 gold by the time he earns 90 gold?

The average player will always be competing with people who make the same money 3 to10 times faster than he can. Note, i did not say person, i said people.

Personally i think it is extremely bad game design to have the long term and high end goals for players be virtually unattainable or extremely tedious, and in fact more costly, unless they play the game in a very limited game mode that isnt even the focus of the game.

The only reason this type of model even works in real life is due to loans and credit.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

and this is the key factor you guys just dont understand. Some people dont want to be merchants. Saying that people should just be merchants shows you there is a problem. Unless you play the merchant game, you are at a distinct disadvantage. You basically have a class disparity that comes down to merchants, and the top teir grinders coming out as the upper class.

Wanze and others have been explaining this for as long as people have been complaining about the TP. What you don’t understand is that this is not a problem.

Everyone has the opportunity and the choice to go for instant gratification and minimal interaction with the TP, or to play the TP to get the most out of it. Just like any other aspect of the game.

I don’t run dungeons. Dungeons provide a lot of loot, as well as items that are unique and can only be obtained through them. But I’m not going to demand that they do away with dungeons or give me the things I can get from them without actually going into the dungeons. Other players are not doing anything wrong by running dungeons. Dungeons are not bad.

There’s nothing wrong with the TP as it is, and players make the choice for themselves whether to use it or not. That some choose not to make use of it does not make it wrong, or broken. There is nothing that can be done, nothing that needs to be done, if players choose not to get involved with the TP.

so basically you are saying its good design to have 90% of high end items be obtained primarily through one mode of play 3-10 times faster than any other. Which is not even the prime demographic of the game.

So to be clear, you believe and understand that tp merchanting is and should be the primary method of obtainining most (not all) endgame items?

Aidan Savage.2078:

Behellagh.1468:

Come on, lets get back to vilifying wealthy players who must have gotten their fortunes from using the TP

Aside from the gold from dungeons and the piddly copper from events, where do you think us normal players get our gold from too?

and figure out a way to shaft them properly while minimizing blow back onto the unwashed masses.

Sarcasm aside, this is the embodiment of my previous statement. The disparity is fueled by lack of motivation, greed, jealousy, and inability to learn.

Also, figuring out how to make money more easily, or shaving golds off costs for the ways you already make money, IS relevant to this topic because they disagree with the ‘fact’ “money is hard to make” many people are using as the basis of their argument.

If this is your opinion, why dont you advocate for changing the system from a merchant meritocracy, to a complete one. Put super rare hard to obtain items in competitive gameplay. Then the rich will have to use their money to buy these items, or get them themselves.

Why not also add account bound items that wont contribute to the market, but allow people to work towards the same goals. Then money will be an option to exchange value of services, rather than the only way to “survive” (survival in an mmo is feeling you can keep playing without hating what you have to do)

greed and jealousy are irrelevant, they are heavily ingrained in the TP merchant playstyle as much as any other.

laziness is not accurate. many people play a lot and dont come out ahead that much. Doing the prime games mode of play is one of the least profitable/progressive means of playing the game (dynamic events) Doing the hardest content in the game is less profitable than grinding/farming and playing the tp is way more profitable.
Exploration?
Jumping puzzles?
Mini dungeons?
Chest hunting?
Even champion hunting and killing isnt profitable unless you create a route, and get enough people to trivialize the encounter.

the vast majority of gameplay is not profitable enough to earn high end things fast enough for most people.

The reward systems in the game so far tend to actually work against the game. Its mostly getting by on its content. As the game currently stands, you go to work picking cotton for the TP merchants to middleman, or because you are a tp merchant yourself, so that you can get the things you want, to increase your enjoyment of the game.

Wanze.8410:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Behellagh.1468:

Come on, lets get back to vilifying wealthy players who must have gotten their fortunes from using the TP

Aside from the gold from dungeons and the piddly copper from events, where do you think us normal players get our gold from too?

and figure out a way to shaft them properly while minimizing blow back onto the unwashed masses.

Sarcasm aside, this is the embodiment of my previous statement. The disparity is fueled by lack of motivation, greed, jealousy, and inability to learn.

Also, figuring out how to make money more easily, or shaving golds off costs for the ways you already make money, IS relevant to this topic because they disagree with the ‘fact’ “money is hard to make” many people are using as the basis of their argument.

Actually, the perceiving problem of some players making lots of profit on the tp, while the masses cant keep up, is its own solution. Bring the masses to the tp and let them make good choices that aim at profit and not instant gratification and there wont be a profit disparity on the TP anymore.

and this is the key factor you guys just dont understand. Some people dont want to be merchants. Saying that people should just be merchants shows you there is a problem. Unless you play the merchant game, you are at a distinct disadvantage. You basically have a class disparity that comes down to merchants, and the top teir grinders coming out as the upper class.

The point is, people who dont want to be merchants are forced to be merchants/farm grind in order to succeed. Why is this a problem? because its not supposed to be a merchant simulation game. The valuable rewards/goals should not be tied heavily to a method of aquisition that doesnt fall in line with the gameplay demographic of the game.

So either they need to make alternate ways of achieving award on a personal basis, or they need to make people who play able to get more of the pie, but i really dont see how they can do that. Merchants will just add that to the operating costs and pass it on.