Guild Wars 2

Got to love the double standards that constantly get applied in threads like this one.
“The game is great, ignore anyone who says anything negative, they just thrive on complaining, these forums are poison, everyone is so full of complaints… huzzah, let’s all say something positive in a huddle here!”
Gods forbid you let new players discover that the reasons for the complaints are valid; and people like Tigirius have come in here to point this out to them, in an effort to provide parity and an even point of view for someone who might be seeking such.
Funny how you are all allowed to be as negative as you like about the elephant in the MMO room, constantly lambasting this game over World of Warcraft, but woe betide anyone that voices criticism at your shiny new game here, even if said criticisms are clearly justified in regard to the seriously skewed design decisions that have been implemented since the developmental focus shift in the betas.
People coming into this game since Christmas will likely have little clue about how much they are being hindered in game to fulfill the gem drive. They have a right to know about what has happened.

What is wrong with being able to punch dragons in the face?
Seems to be a few of these “What is wrong with..” threads, so I thought I may have a go at one, sans the issue of the ages regarding running around starkers.
Does anyone else feel that there should be the capability to remove weapons and have a round of good old-fashioned fisticuffs with the beasties of Tyria?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

The “new baseline” is what drops will look like. You won’t have to guess.

The fix is coming – beginning this month and continuing into February and beyond. It’s not ready yet.

What he is telling us is that it’s coming – and when. How is this unclear?

Frankly, I think this issue has been addressed and the fix is coming per the announcement and coming more info. It would be reasonable to proceed to close this thread.

But that would cause too much trouble. %)

You’re right about one thing here. They will mark this as addressed and close it. But this thread has not been addressed. Show me the red response here. Vague references in an entirely different thread about a different topic do not count as resolution, no matter how seemingly simply related the wording is.
“It would be reasonable to proceed to close this thread” is also far from a valid statement. Reasonable in what sense? Indicate to me any offering of explanation or admission of responsibility in this, or the far more wide-reaching previous thread.
After all the loss of faith and face the last two months of Crystin-driven shameless wallet-milking has created, ArenaNet have a frightening amount of ground to make up.
To a not-insignificant portion of their long-term player-base, their actions, whether at the behest of their new Nexon directors or no, are teetering on the brink of unforgivable; and the most blatantly untrue of their past year assertions, the one regarding more open and frequent dialogue with their customers, has been soundly proven to be nowt but vaporous space-filler. I understand their hands and mouths are bound, and the helm is manned by the unscrupulous, but even a token gesture of attention would have served them better in the long run than silence, regardless of their concerns for adding fuel to the flames.
The holiday gem-buying frenzy is done. Demands for the hyper-inflated goods and materials made scarce due to the reductions will fall. Drop rates may well be increased, or DR relaxed a little for a time.
Some of us have learned from this at least one thing: this is the path that is being laid at the feet of the developers from here on out – and it will worsen, not improve, as we head toward the next period of changes. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating the amount of money the new shareholders are expecting to come out of this title over the next few fiscal years. Nexon is depending on it, and the players themselves are simply the cattle to be milked.
Please don’t pretend, however, that any attention or concern has been directed at this issue since it’s inception. You insult the intelligence, effort and concern that has been poured into a serious issue by many with these ’ArenaNet have fixed it all" posts.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

Triple-posting; but I didn’t want to mix in my opinions with the above (fact- and wiki-supported) summaries…

…This is my opinion. I assume that those of you who are throwing a fit will ignore all of this. That’s up to you.

But just know that you are sucking the fun out of the game for yourselves, at least, and for many others who are reading your rants as well. (And I’ll get the pithy quote in before RedBaron this time: “Misery loves company.” But you all may not and will not suck the fun out of the game for me.)

Finally a note for purely selfish purpose: I assume that ANet is reading this… I would like a LOT more stuff in the Gem Store.

So you triple post and decry everyone else whose opinion differs from yours as ‘having a fit’, and declare our posts and dialogues as nothing more than a ‘rant’, and conclude with the unbelievably asinine statement that it is all of us that are sucking the fun out of the game for others who are reading our posts?
Have you stopped for even one moment to consider why people would be dissatisfied and would consequently be reading, or posting in this thread?
And then, once this particularly inflammatory posting has concluded, you venture on to another post where you have once again brought up your concept of working with the developers to ‘revolutionize’ the MMO loot system, and declare yourself and many others as willing assistants for it’s conceptualisation.
All your posts thus far that contained your collected loot data existed solely for you to provide a base for your gradually emerging assertion that you are, as an individual, thoroughly content with the system as it stands post mid-November.
Yet this thread is a supposedly a platform solely for those who wish to post aberrant findings and what they term ‘deviations’. Not a place for yet another insipid proponent of the ‘I Love Everything They Do’ movement.
There are plenty of threads for you to aggrandize in. Perhaps your continuing presence in a thread that was designed for the discussions of grievances with the current system could be viewed as an elaborate provocation when you resort to continual declarations of your own satisfaction, and then to reiterate the clear deficiencies of anyone whose point of view is contrary to your own re-stated happiness with the topic?
And fear not on the dearth of goodies for you in the gem store. These are very early days for Maple Story 2.

For Aproposs Of Fire:
Forgive the excision of the body of your text – post letter limits prohibit me reprinting it for ease of dialogue.
How exactly did I fail to read ‘more complete data’ out of it’s context? The context was inherent in the discussion, and was never deviated from. But feel free to explain that one a little more for clarity and/or context. I would be interested to read the actual context if I was wide of the mark.
As for trying to stir up trouble, as I have previously stated in the original thread of this topic over the last month (a thread that was, incidentally, full to the brim of people gathering data much the same as you are doing now), the last thing in the world I would choose to be doing after the nearly five year long wait for this game is bashing my keyboard with my face over this descent into shameful, money-dredging, underhanded rubbish.
The tactics that have been employed since the June Nexon incursion make me feel ill, and the only outlet available for any form of dissent is this forum, despite it’s heavy-handed moderation and echo chamber circles of shouting each other down.
I never claimed to be a helpful poster, I am simply exercising a fundamental freedom in thought, and offering an admittedly cynical slant on the actual cause and underlying reason to the situation.
Once again, we tried for more than a month in the original thread to have as close as possible to an approximation of empirical data presented in the same method you are attempting here. Look where that has led. You are advocating re-treading the same path once more, with a greatly depleted audience, in the hope that someone is now in a position at ArenaNet’s end to analyse your sudden revelation of loot data and make amends?
Putting yourself in the position you have, as the single-minded advocate for what you perceive to be an open-ended exchange of data and dialogue with the developers is going to lead you nowhere. And your self-righteousness is far from apt, given the dwindling numbers of people who are going to be willing to band together for another round of the same.
Calling my arguments ‘baseless suppositions’ is a very tenuous stance, in light of the evidence that is available if you cast your eye further afield than simply focusing on playing follow the leader, and blindly devote yourself to the belief that if you jump through their hoops they will somehow concede, or reward you.
ArenaNet has already been given the benefit of the doubt. And this is what they have chosen to do with the opportunity and evidence we presented them. If you had followed this issue thoroughly through the last month in the now deleted thread, and the many other places it has bubbled up, you would be far better informed of the realities that you are dealing with.
Please refrain from challenging myself and others to take up your crusade. The endless item counts, the chronicles of picking through corpses for shinies to compare. It has been done already.
The fundamental purpose behind this reduction in open-world reward negates any sudden ‘oh my lordie here is the problem’ moment from the developers. The issue is beyond them, and far beyond us. It is not a bug, or a fault in code. It is intentional. The last week in this forum has proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Read wider, look at the greater picture. But don’t champion ArenaNet’s cause – they don’t have one. They code as they are told now.
Pardon my cynicism. I do wish you luck in your item reports.
Care to share an opinion on where you will stand in a few weeks’ time, when all your record-keeping and accurate data leads to a short, most likely slightly offensive statement from a staff member thanking everyone for their time, and the issue and thread is now closed for discussion because it has been ‘answered’ as they have deemed there to be no problem in their code?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

A Poster:

Or maybe you’re scared players will quickly realise exactly how aggressive your DR algorithms currently are?

This is just confrontational and counter-productive. ANet is not ‘out-to-get-you’ or any of us – this thread (though it might have been started with little more tact) is about helping ANet revolutionize yet another piece of the MMO paradigm: loot tables and RNG.

IF we can work with them rather than against them maybe GW2 will yet again revolutionize another facet of the “common MMO”.

…Since ANet obviously cannot tell us what variables they need information on (because of cheaters, bots and exploiters taking advantage of the information) we’ll need to give them as detailed info as we can:

• What mob did you kill,
• what did the mob drop, if anything,
• include outliers also! (this means if you got something good, do not hide it from the report to make your drops look worse)
• what other mobs were in the area,
• how many other player characters were in the area,
• what server are you on,
• what time of day did the drop happen,
• what zone are you in,
• what was the last mob you killed and in which zone,
• how long were you in this zone,
• how long were you in the last zone?

Things like these would be more useful IF Anet is trying to revolutionize the MMO drop paradigm. Yes, they can get these data themselves and I will tell you they are. But they need more complete data that only we can give them. Otherwise they are only working with what they can see and NOT what you are seeing.

Consider this an open beta test to make drops in GW2 and MMOs in general more fair and useful.

FWIW.

Every single variable you are requesting for the players to provide is apparent server-side. There is not one iota of the available data you specify for the player to gather that exists specifically in isolation to the client only. They have that data. All of it. You even state this yourself quite evidently. But then you go on to request ‘more complete’ data? What data are you referring to specifically? There is nothing ‘seen’ only by the client. The game is a graphical front-end to their database, with all data and records generated therein and accessed by the client.
For a month we provided every bit of data, unbidden by anyone in the ArenaNet community, to address the sudden impact that the changes they made mid-November to the reward system in the game were making.
The fact that they locked the thread (the gradualist, subtle deletion approach), and created this laughably obtuse request for ‘concrete data’ speaks volumes for the validity of their investigations.
It is painfully clear that this placation thread will wriggle a few more times before it dies, but end it will, doubtlessly under the weight of more ‘content’ patches tied to the kitten gem store.
If you really want to be taken at face value here, incidentally, lambasting what you seem to herald as the new participatory technique of game development, you need to ensure your tone is not so blatantly supportive of every move that has been made to create this woeful state of affairs.
You used the term “revolutionize” no less than three times in the one post in your accolades for the game and it’s design…
There are a few of us from the original thread that take a rather dim view as to the validity of any of such PR spin supporter threads.
It just reeks of the internal thread manipulator.

Walker.2184:

There are still bots in this game but it appears they are mostly limited to teleporting to resource nodes or farming mats under water. Since the bot farming is mostly under control I dont see a need for DR anymore. It should be turned off until bots become a problem again.

Bots were a means to end, both as a necessary impetus to implement DR (and subsequently reduce open-world gain), and also as an effective method of market supply and hence control in the lead-up to the mid-November changes.
There was/is a very good reason that bots would be reported so frequently and repetitively by so many players, without any apparent action for a long period, and then suddenly seemingly eradicated at an appropriate, alloted time.
There is an awful lot of real-world investor money now tied into this game, and the return on investment expectation is high.
Words like ‘coincidence’ and ‘perceived’ pale into insignificance.
The arrival of Nexon heralded a marked change of focus in the development cycle of what was still an unfinished title, and the push to an early release of the game with it’s re-tooled gem store and purchase focus in the leadup to Cash Festival clearly demonstrates this.
But all this has been stated before, repeatedly, in the old thread that was an elaborate, long-term discussion on the topic of reduced open-world rewards.
It’s just a shame that a large portion of not only the information posted in that thread, but also the people that posted it, have either left the game due to the current management and customer service, or are, quite justifiably, too burned-out to bother going through the motions again in what is essentially a cycle of pointless effort in data gathering for a laughably small possibility of an equitable outcome.

zeus.5248:

Errtu.8276:

Ladies and gentleman let me return with my paranoid messages …

For last 2 days, approx the morning of the forum topics release ive written some stuff about not recieving any good drop/not getting any exotic (except map reward&karka chest) after that; my luck suddenly increased i mean yesterday i run all 3 paths on AC/TA and 2 paths on CoF and i recieved like 8-10 rare and 1 “named” exotic …

And again im telling you i guess Anet just find people who are typing here and increase their drop rate for few days or so or maybe its like a bribe … and will end soon … but today after 4 dungeon runs AC 3paths and Cof 1-2 i recieved 2 rares

That means ive recieved nearlly the total rare count ive farmed till yesterday in 1 day // and i got 1.5k TA tokens / 1.9k CoF tokens think about it am i wrong ? or that just happened to me by a “Coincidence” ?

Same thing happened to me today While I was running HOTW it was really strange,while I wasnt getting any reward for a month now suddenly I start getting a satisfying amount of them Not sure if its coincidence or…?

After letting my emotions get the best of me, and consequently spending far too much time posting often and at length in our old treadmill thread, oddly enough the same thing happened to me as well. Instant rares appearing…
I made a point of thanking the live drop-rate tweaking team through the chat, for the gesture they had made, regardless of what their motive or reasons were, and logged out again.
It just felt too, well, cheesy. I don’t know how to explain it.
I don’t want to be rewarded for complaining at length about a serious issue, whether it is to make me shut up, or as a thanks from a bound and gagged dev team behind their Nexon taskmasters’ back.
And so here we all are on our new treadmill, attempting to prove our perceptions to the actual database, while everything we poured into our old thread fades.
I am feeling rather peeved at being shoved back to square one and reset, the slate wiped clean(ish), and being told to prove it all over again.
It’s easy to see why you did it – that last thread was incredibly resilient and loaded with uncomfortable items, and was surprisingly long-lived on your front pages for something so embarrassing.
I have to say, though, your lock and reset was most unimaginative. Surely the Nexon import team could have brought some of their PR spin into the discussions before the post, and gave us some flavor to go with the shamefully contemptible dribble you churned out?
As our last thread was locked due to being ‘answered’ by this new thread, I am wondering at what point this new stomping ground for our dissent and seething discourse will be ‘answered’?

Leamas.5803:

…Your argument about the market stabilizing falls on deaf ears.

Well put, Leamas.
After so much sifting of data and experience through the course of this, and many other threads; and in light of what is known from developer comments as to live monitoring and manipulation, it really does start to become apparent that real-time alteration of things like drop-rates is the likely explanation.
Waiting for patches to fix things is becoming redundant, when this ground-breaking new approach seems to have been taken to manage this facet of the game’s economy.

Oh, and for FacesOfMu:
What will I accept as evidence to the contrary? Unfortunately, I’m stuck at the furthest end of the chain, powerless essentially save for ranting into echo chambers.
Probably naively, I assume the least extent of the blame here lies upon ArenaNet’s shoulders.
The machinations of Nexon since their share purchases, particularly their insertion of a monetisation (I am giving up spelling that the American way, forgive me) manager who wielded a startling amount of control from her instigation, have altered the fundamental course of this game’s design intent. The appearance of FotM only concreted this scenario. And the recent total sell-off and restructure of NCsoft is another alarm bell yet unmentioned…
I truly cannot see any evidence to the contrary in any facet of announced design decisions, patch notes, developer interviews, anything.
But I keep on searching and hoping, like the rest of you. I love this game, always will, regardless of what transpires.
I wish ArenaNet every single success that they so absolutely deserve; the artists, coders, writers, you name it. Theirs should be the highest accolades available for what they have produced.
They are the ones that deserve to see this game progress in the direction they laboured to achieve. Not those that descend after the work is complete to so blatantly derail that effort in an attempt to graft a kittenised version of Maple Story onto Tyria.
Like I said, my lot is a but a pointless rant at the end of the day. But what else can you do when you fear for the future of something you love?

projectcedric.6951:

I don’t understand this whole ruckus about herding towards the gem store.

There is absolutely nothing of essential value in gem store. In fact, there are so little items in the gem store that it actually turned me off. Whatever little items is there is of peripheral necessity to the average player.

Furthermore, there is no direct usage of gems in-game aside from opening more bank storage and additional bag slots.

Why would there be such a high demand for gem-gold transactions that it warrants a concern for herding gameplay towards gem purchase?

Speaking purely for myself, I refer to the gem-store solely in terms of it being a place that has been tailored to become the go-to for players starved of items and materials from their open world experience. Players who require materials or armor/items to further their game interests are significantly less able to acquire them in the normal fashion, and are resorting more and more to purchasing gems to convert to gold to feed the BLTC market, and the repetitious cycles that exist therein that I am far too weary at the moment to touch on.
Put simply, the direct, in-game usage of gems for conversion to gold is the problem, although I suppose not inherently. I understand the need for profitability to maintain and develop an ongoing game.
It is the manner in which this need for gold is currently engendered in the player base that has me riled.
There are other issues with the gem store, such as the proliferation of the lottery chest syndrome, and the gambling element that has been added to what used to be a simple, functional, and presumably profitable system of buying event skins/armor sets in Ye Olde Guild Wars.
But the drive toward the gem store as a means for the game’s population to try and recoup losses that have been intentionally forced upon them as a cheap cash-grab by a new investor, coupled with things like the shifting of dyes from account to character-bound, is my gripe in a nutshell.
I hope that makes some sense.
Believe me, I would rather it not be this way. I waited, counting each day until release, along with everyone else since the release of EotN began the process. But if events transpire that are clearly indicators for a changing playing field, I’ll be buggered if I sit back silently and watch it unfold.

Downstairs Eddie.8125:

I wonder about the psychology of people who hang around posting on forums of games they don’t like, sniping at anybody who expresses a positive opinion.

Don’t you people ever think ‘Hmm, doing literally anything else with my life right now would be more productive than this’? Don’t you have jobs? Family? Hobbies? Anything at all going on in your life?

I’m still laughing at that name. “Downstairs Eddie”. That is sheer awesome.
Puts me immediately in mind of Richie gesturing furtively to Eddie about ‘some cracking birds’ or some garbage. Bottom. Gods, how I love that show.
Sorry, back to the drama…

RedBaron.6058:

The area I highlighted in my posted image shows clearly that they introduced an artificial constant raise in gems value against gold (see the nice constant positive positive gradient!).

On top of that artificial trade constant gem value raise they put the normal gamer trades and the graph appears with many spikes as normal.

The only problem is that last Friday they delayed the Wintersday event and everyone was expecting the new gem store items and almost nobody bought or traded gems until the patch went live on Saturday.

This curious gamers behaviour revealed the ninja gem versus gold constant value raise introduced by them, as the in-game graph shows.

I think there are not any more doubts about the market manipulation..:)

I take my hat off to you, Red. Well found indeed.

morrolan.9608:

RedBaron.6058:

It seems to me that the market is a bit too much “regulated”, what do you think?

I think its 100% regulated which is probably bad for buyers.

There seems no other real conclusion to reach, (especially in light of recent developer interviews where they actually discussed how much they monitor/adjust item availability in real-time), than the reality that a combination of per-player, zone-specific, and situational reductions/enhancements are applied constantly, to maintain and drive the current revenue focus of the game.
It’s very important to remember that this is not the same game at all as it was pre-June.

leman.7682:

Anet’s Chief Marketing Officer on his daily visit to the forums. I called it here!

They are so glaringly obvious, aren’t they?

So much here that could be vehemently argued against, but this one in particular:

MangoMan.3218:

—Yeah, the game has flaws, but ANet wants to fix them. Content updates are made, but I’ve seen someone make a point (I don’t feel like hunting down his name) that bug and problem fixers are a different group than the content team. Even if it was a wise choice (which I don’t think it is), ANet would not have the ability to focus all of their efforts on fixing current issues. It is simply inefficient, and impractical…

In a nutshell, this is a prominent issue to an awful lot of players, as they continue to churn out new content to capitalise on gem-store herding, instead of correcting and adjusting core mechanics of their game.
Far from inefficient and impractical, the success or failure of MMO’s hinges solely upon the devotion of time and resources toward a functional and rewarding playing experience.
I am sure the developers at ArenaNet are acutely aware of this, however their allotments of time are skewed terribly in favour of Nexon’s directives, not the interests of the game, or of it’s players. To the new investors, we are here to serve the gem store solely.
This is why since Lost Shores the ship has commenced lurching.

Etien.4601:

…I remember the days I couldn’t get sleep because there was a beta weekend coming.
On release day same thing, and the days after it. SUCH AN EXCITEMENT!

I feel exactly the same, Etien. I will never forget the culmination of all those years of waiting.
Never even once did I see this coming. And there I was thinking that I was over-cynical enough to avoid such a crestfallen situation as this.

Astraea.6075:

Ryuujin.8236:

Asides from containing half a thesaurus of adjectives and some vapourous commentary on how evil money lenders in the house of god traders on TP are was there anything of substance in that post?

I think he said something about the market having been altered since November and traders are in denial about it… I’m not really sure why he is conflating scarcity of loot drops with the activity of TP traders because, as far as I’m aware, there isn’t a direct connection.

Seriously? My word but you power traders are a thick bunch.
No connection between product availability and the marketplace?
I would recommend you contact the institute that issued your economic qualifications, and demand your money back.

Ryuujin.8236:

Asides from containing half a thesaurus of adjectives and some vapourous commentary on how evil money lenders in the house of god traders on TP are was there anything of substance in that post?

I see your comprehension is the equal of your wit.
You are actually putting yourself on the pedestal of a persecuted, quasi-biblical scapegoat?
If there are too many big words there for you, and you struggle to find meaning in posts such as that, might I suggest you return to the popularised science “for the unwashed masses” novels churned out by people like Dawkins?
I find myself wondering why elitist gold-snobs like you aren’t busy raking in millions on the real stock markets of the world, instead of spilling bland vitriol on discussion boards for video games.
Oh wait, too many words again? Apologies.

PowerCat.5738:

Orichalcum foil hat of the conspiracist on:

Don’t you find it strange that the drop in loot coincides with the higher return of Real Life money to ingame gold?

Rare items are the main source of ectos, and you need 250 ectos to make those high end items

It used to be somewhat cheaper to buy 250 ectos, but since the drop rate has lowered considerably and the ecto price keeps raising, AND the gem to gold ratio keeps raising, the technique is quite simple:

Create a false shortage of a “base” item, and make it attractive to BUY INGAME GOLD so that MORE PEOPLE WILL GIVE Arenanet their money.

Free to play? Sure. Don’t forget the fine prints, though.

Did you read that interview I linked a whiles back with Izzy, on Kill Ten Rats? Every detail of every zone is monitored, which inherently includes drop rates.
The knee-jerk response of calling anyone who attempts to marshal a few brain cells to form a quite reasonable and obvious conclusion is slapped with the soggy mackerel of the “crazy conspiracy nut”.
Refactoring the market base to increase revenue after the initial ‘tease’ window of reasonable return for input for the first month or two after release was clearly the plan of the Nexon monetization process. Simple as that.
As to what on earth we can do about it, well, that’s down to people abstaining from the desire to participate in the gear treadmill for a short whiles. Which, as we all know, is not going to happen. A concerted effort by the populace to stymie the gold purchasing from the gem store, especially over Christmas, would send a very clear message that they need to change their process, to shift the focus of gem purchase back to where it should be, on things like flavour items, skins, and costumes. The simple process of buying what you see, not wretched lotteries and hiding event skins in cursed chests.
They can monetize the game effectively in a multitude of completely different ways, as has been pointed out in other threads, rather than simply stripping away open world returns and trying to make people buy bloody gold to pay the power traders for whatever is left. Such thoughtless, brute-tactic business models belong in the social media, browser-based and power-grind game world where Nexon belongs.
Why on earth did Nexon think that what worked on games like Maple Story would work here, in the long run?
I hate to be petty, but I hope to the gods that one day someone puts on the giant, callous boots of monetization and stomps all over something they cherish, and wanted to keep as the one thing apart from the drab everyday world of bloody profit.
Will the stain of Nexon ever wash off what is left of the franchise once they have moved on like the locusts they are?
Man I pity the developers.

Leamas.5803:

RedBaron.6058:

MMO companies seem to never realize how commited is the player community and how fast they can achieve even the hardest of challenges. After a lot of players started to advertize their new Legendary weapons, in a relatively short time after the game launch, they kind of panicked and hastly introduced the FoTM to keep the achievers entertained (achievers were the first to reach end-game and to get the Legendary skin). They were afraid about people leaving the game because of no challenges.

Now they should be even more worried about people leaving because there is no reward for effort. Many, many players, such as myself, are reward driven much more so than goal driven, which was a big draw for me in GW2. I don’t have time to grind and didn’t have to to feel as though I accomplished something. After Nov 15th, everything is about grind. I get off on finishing a tough event/fight and reaping the rewards…well now there is essentially no reward. As a casual player, while I do enjoy dungeons and long chain events, I don’t always have time for such things. Mind you with the rewards as they are, there seems little point in doing such things since regular mobs usually drop better loot than veterans/champions/bosses.

Unfortunately much of the open world seems to be dying, as people funnel in to specific areas such as FotM, dungeons and Orr. Why? It they seem the only places where one can make any decent coin or get good drops. Orr, while it is part of the open world, it is a different story, many are there to farm T5-T6 materials needed for making legendary weapons. I pity those people who aspire to make a legendary. Under these new loot scheme getting all the required material by farming alone will take at least 10-20 times longer (And probably longer than that) than pre-Nov 15th.

Back to open world adventuring…even in Orr, where people do tend to congregate, although I understand there is less congregation since the loot changes, it’s hard to find a group who is willing to help with menial things like skill points…it’s all about about events and farming. I find myself often trying to hit-n-run skill points using pets/minions to distract mobs hopefully long enough to get the point. Unfortunately, this is not possible in all cases.

The areas I find most affected by population problems are the 40-60 level areas, especially now. Many simply leave the game before ever reaching level 40 and that number will only increase with the increased difficulty in leveling, heavy focus on the gem store, lack of rewards and the sheer frustration that causes.

The entire crafting, loot system, gem store and trading post is broken and corrupt. Artificially manipulating the marketplace like this would be considered fraud in the real world. Crafting is essentially dead as a result because T5-T6 mats are now so scarce and expensive that crafting is a waste of time. If they want a pure micro-payment-type economy common in some of the free MMOs…$2 for this piece of armor, $8 for this weapon, or even just straight gold for money…which seems the direction they’re pushing, then just do it and tell everyone. Then in this case, IMO ALL listings should be returned to the respective sellers, the TP should be shut down for player trading so that players can ONLY sell to in-game vendors, which in turn increases TP stock and prices are controlled from skyrocketing. GW2 should also be free to play in a pure micro-payment system. At $60 to buy, I didn’t sign up for a money sink. At least, then people would know where they stand.

Yes, I’m going to quote the whole damned thing.
I wish I were large enough to wear a T-shirt big enough to fit the entirety of this page’s discourse upon it.
Very well said, everyone. It’s so nice to see people thinking.

Ryuujin.8236:

I’m pretty sure it was Richard Dawkins who once said (paraphrased)

“The problem with democracy is that it teaches all views are equally valid. One persons ignorance is as valuable as another person’s knowledge”

Unfortunately the unwashed masses have already decided “they know what’s going on with the economy” so no matter what the economists tell them they arn’t going to believe it. They “know” the market is being manipulated, and they “know” bots are their real friend because it reduces T5 prices, and they “know” arenanet is controlling the gem market to make life suck no matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented.

How fitting that you have chosen to quote someone like Richard Dawkins in support of your elitist diatribe.
I am not even going to bother picking apart your random jumble of glib summations, horribly superior affectations and generalisations, suffice to say the arrogance in your assumptions that anyone who protests at the glaring change in the market affecting the quality of their game play is not inherently a fool because they fail to subscribe to your opinions of the situation.
Ignorance is most evident in the entire spectrum of trader arguments currently ignoring the fundamental problem to banter endlessly about whether or not their methods are helpful or harmful, to allay whatever personal doubts they may harbor, or reinforce personal viewpoints and justify their activities.
None of it matters a tinker’s cuss in light of the simple, well evidenced fact that since November the availability of materials and items, the cornerstone of the market itself, has been altered. Hence, the market has been altered.
Squabble on, as I’m sure you all will, fingers firmly in ears, counting your coins and reveling in your cleverness, never a thought to the source or the reason for the obvious. You are servants to your own demise.

Aoreias.6384:

…Because the power traders, by competing with each other, have pushed the sale price down, and the bid price up, Joe is able to buy the item cheaper, and if it drops for him while leveling, he can sell it instantly (his personally preferred method) for more money.

Bother it, only two paragraphs in and one of the wheels has come off.
Since early November, this situation has become untenable, as the rate and quantity of items dropping for people out in the field has been significantly reduced.
Scarcity of materials and items drastically changes the playing field, as is quite in evidence across the board.

Taisia.2813:

Narkosys.5173:

Very nice idea but goes against the idea of nerf loot in order to force players to buy gems to keep up.

Thanks, but I feel a healthy and engaged population that’s enjoying all the content the game has on offer would further increase avenues for profit for anet as well. The game was designed to make people explore and experience the whole world, but the lack of motivation to do so is pushing people towards a very limited “juicy” portion of the game at the moment.

A very apt point, Taisia. Opening up the world, and finding new, previously unexplored sources of revenue that tie in with the concept of exploration and expansion is a brilliant concept, and as you point out, would be another avenue for increasing profit.
Unfortunately, as ever, the well-worn path is being trodden by the monetization group that currently rides on the shoulders of the game, seeking simply to copy and paste a method of generating revenue that was designed for a vastly different game into Guild Wars 2, displaying a woefully disparaging attitude toward it’s fundamental design and execution.
But instead of paying heed to the past and present examples of how, and more distressingly when, this concept will fail them, it seems they are intent upon this single-minded determination to staple the how-to from their previous ventures onto our world in Tyria, no matter how blatant and disregarding they appear.
Full steam ahead!

marnick.4305:

Don’t forget the gems prices are so high because people are unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun. There’s only 1 way to get the prices down, and that’s buy supporting your favourite video game. In my opinion not really a bad thing since this support is completely voluntary.

I’ve bitten my digital tongue through all this thread, but this ‘gem’ just sticks in the craw far too much to be ignored.
Unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun, you say? Every single person that plays this game, without exception, has paid money to support the company. Full box price, and quite a few of them above and beyond this to show their support for ArenaNet, as it happens.
Or do you mean they are not paying for their ongoing fun? Does it state somewhere upon the box that this is a requirement? It would seem to be quite categorically stated this game requires no subscription, or ongoing costs whatsoever to fully enjoy it in it’s entirety.
Or, once again, do you mean something different, such as a failure on their part, ethically speaking, to support the ongoing maintenance costs of the game?
A moral obligation to provide fiscal support in an ongoing cycle to the supplier of your fun.
That sounds an awful lot like a subscription.
But I digress.
The sticking point of what you have said here is that the only way to reduce the costs in this game is for everyone to spend more.
You have absolutely made Crystin’s day right here.
This attitude of ‘supporting’ ArenaNet through gem store transactions is scarily misguided, in light of not only where your ‘support’ money is going, but specifically in terms of how they are getting you to part with it.
There are an awful lot of posts about why this issue is irking so many people. You should read around a little.
Oh, and I just adore the Freudian slip in the post: “buy supporting your favourite video game (sic)”
I laughed until I stopped.

Adenos.3018:

I believe the economist said a global market would be less prone to manipulation…Well, that’s true for items with decent drop rates. If the drop rates across all servers weren’t so kittening bad…

I think he meant less prone to manipulation by anyone outside the creation and perpetuation of the marketplace…
But with starved supply lines from the clearly reduced drop rates, inflated prices due to high demand and low product, traders scrambling over themselves to capitalise, and escalating gem-to-gold conversion rates to compensate for the masses who lack the capital or means to acquire it in the current system, someone is evidently pulling all our strings.
Who profits at the real end of the chain? And I don’t mean monopoly money profit.
You know something that would be fantastic? The combined intellect and economic clout of you Trader-types realising that you can both profit and simultaneously assist the entire player base to be aware of, and more importantly, free of, this underhanded, insidious manipulation.
I don’t doubt it for a second. You guys/girls hold most of the cards at the moment, because you are setting the prices for the desired products that have everyone throwing up their hands and banging their heads on the rather futile brick wall that is the open game world. Faced with the choice of having to abandon the currently desired item that they have been working on for who-knows how long simply because they cannot get the materials anymore, how many people are just turning to the gem store for their gold to just go and buy what they need simply?
I am not remotely blaming you for enjoying any facet of the game that gives you the most satisfaction – that is why we are all here.
But does it not peeve you that you are all being played, and the immediate finger of blame that is leveled at ArenaNet is pointing in the wrong direction?

digiowl.9620:

Heh, the game already have more than your average share of fridge horrors so it would not surprise me if they channel Burton.

Oh gods, please no clowns with the tear-away face…

Narkosys.5173:

Very nice idea but goes against the idea of nerf loot in order to force players to buy gems to keep up.

You’ve been paying attention, Narkosys. This one elicited a wry, cynical grin.
’tis a great idea though, and under different circumstances would work a treat.

Quaz.4931:

I dunno about you guys, but the lack of response tells me this was intentional.

Maybe the fact champions still don’t drop anything was not intentional, but I bet the rest of the loot nerfing was.

The champions failing to explode with multi-hued loot like the glorious pinatas they deserve be still vexes me.
Sometimes it seems as though they were left in their current barren state as indicator flags for the situation elsewhere. Giant, monumentally over-healthy champions for some sort of cause… Especially so after being specifically pointed out in the patch notes as recipients of repairs they did not receive.
Champions of the muffled developers, perhaps?

Nicely said, Egon.
Distressingly, the issue of culpability for the current state of the returns system is a rather tangled web, and it would appear that ArenaNet’s silence on this issue is quite compelling evidence that it is far from a bug.
Indeed, it could be concluded that their total absence from this thread, and any other that touches upon it’s context, points to a refocus of direction that has been thrust onto them to implement, and consequently wear the blame for, regardless of their own ethical standpoint.
On a small side note, that is one of my favorite names ever, Egon.
I envy you.

Ooo forgot to thank Phaneo for the trip down recent memory lane there with the design manifesto.
Such lofty and noble intentions so they were, and I don’t doubt coming into 2012 they were quite well on target, sadly enough.
Personally, I have been reminding myself of late that Guild Wars 2 will still be here in a year or two, after the milking of the populace by their new taskmasters is complete, and the parasites will depart.
Perhaps then ArenaNet, sufficiently left to their own devices, can show us what they had intended for us.

MdOgy.2147:

Well, just throwing my opinion into the mix…
It’s not a bug. The reduction of loot and experience is intended to slow down the
leveling, so I’d be surprised to hear from anyone in an official capacity anytime soon.

I appreciate that it is just an opinion, but would have to note that if that were the case at hand, we would not have so many reported instances of people stating quite clearly that their characters are totally out-leveling their received rewards during the course of the game.

Ryuujin.8236:

There’s still 5000 people trying to buy 550 items. The price’ll continue to rise but slower, until supply exceeds demand price typically will continue to rise.

On a side note I think you’ll find most traders don’t own legendary weapons… I can think of way better things to do with my gold than buy some plastic toy sword; such as buying materials cheap to sell back to the fools who’ll pay me for the parts to make a plastic toy sword.

It’s rather difficult to keep a straight face whilst reading that last part there…
You don’t actually believe that a pile of imaginary gold has more inherent worth than a plastic toy sword, do you?
If anything, in a fantasy game of floppy-eared gremlin geniuses and seething, rage-fuelled techno kitties all clambering over one another to hurl magical fireballs at purple dragons, the plastic toy sword is the preferable collectible, because at least you can stick it in the monsters to make them stop trying to eat you. Plus it gets you out into the healthy, illusionary fresh air.
Whereas pretending to be a serious trader parked in a whimsical upturned boat market on a pile of pretend coins is just a tad, errm, pitiable…

You don’t see the underlying naivety in declaring that “WE actually control the price of goods”?
You may sit at what you consider the end of the fiscal chain, determining prices based upon perceptions of demand, and declare that the only way to bring prices down is to increase supply, but unfortunately the only thing you are effectively doing is driving the rate at which people will give in and buy gems to get the gold to afford what they want, because they certainly cannot accrue wealth or means for trade with the current drop rate concerns.
Supply is absolutely throttled and controlled, demand for reduced resources escalates prices, especially in light of the ever-raised bar of gear tiers, and so on.
Prices cannot be relaxed when the supply chain is crippled. Your short-term profit might engender feelings of economic supremacy over the uneducated masses in the short term, but don’t forget the thing about bubbles…

FaRectification.5678:

Yes, to turn around my original post I believe all of your opinions and ANet’s original no-sub plan is correct.

It is a good ideal to maintain and will enable them to profit in the long run.

I was wrong sorry.

… but in light of what has transpired, particularly since mid-year, there are actually some amongst us who would almost rather a subscription-based direction, if it also entailed a removal of the travesty that is the gem store, and all that the monetization drive has engendered.
You shouldn’t feel the need to alter your original post as though an overwhelming majority of clearly presented arguments have made you ‘see the light’, so to speak.
I thought it was a fine idea for a discussion.

Veldan.4637:

Yes. I actually reinstalled GW1, but deinstalled again after cause it was pretty much dead now. (even kamadan america had only 1 district o.O)

If anyone would release another GW1 with modern graphics, I would never play GW2.

Kamadan can even have just one district??!
Oh lordie, seems the foretelling of the end times is truly upon us, if that can happen.

This is my grandson. He’s been your rival since you were both babies. Err… what was his name again…?

Beast Sos.1457:

so im going to the usual farm spot and all i see is someone killing a small group of mobs so im like thats fine. as i go to the next pull all i see is he pops up right next to me attacks then disappears. there back at it like crack addicts! i hope these bots r gone soon.

The English language takes 150 damage (5 absorbed)!
The English language is reeling!

ProphetSword.5427:

Logged into GW1 the other day for the first time in months (after having played it for years), generated a new character, played until I hit about level 2. Quit. Considered uninstalling.

I loved the game, but it’s time has passed. Going back feels like a severe step backwards. Hell, you can’t even jump or go in the water.

One of the odd criticisms often leveled at the original Guild Wars was the lack of swimming, and especially jumping.
And now there is totally free movement and combat through a watery environment, that quite alot of people avoid due to it’s inherent quirkiness and cumbersome combat mechanics, and swimming is primarily a means to get to the next piece of land.
Much the same could be said of the ability to jump. Aside from the clever addition of jumping puzzles as a mini-game diversion, and the placement of vistas as an incentive to jump up a mountain, the jump’s total effect on gameplay is fairly irrelevant. In terms of combat, the meat and drink of fantasy mmo’s, it really does not serve a great deal of purpose.
Not to belittle the flavour activities, such as breath-taking vistas or difficult to reach underwater POI’s, but the derision of Guild Wars for a lack of these things is perplexing.
Take WoW, for instance. The jump mechanic serves as a valuable tool in how many situations that a player would come across every day? Swimming was necessary because?
The addition of water obstacles to traverse, and hills and cliffs to be painstakingly jumped up, always felt a contrived time-waster.
Anyhow, will stop blathering now. Just a vent that seemed necessary about a superfluous gameplay mechanic that is often quite surprisingly brought to the table to discount Guild Wars – a game which I always found to be perfectly streamlined in it’s mechanics, especially in view of it’s age.

1. The Asura.
2. The attitude of Asurans.
3. The freckles upon the face of some Norn women.
4. Any Asuran I may have missed in 1.
5. Every single square foot of gorgeous landscape, and the creeps and beasties that dwell within it, not to mention the unearthing of tiny touches that remind the traveler of what once was in Tyria.

lazymustard.6491:

The biggest draw to this game is the LACK of a subscription to keep it going. The whole business model is based on making money off the sales of new expansions. Conclusion, your idea is absurd.

The business model of the original Guild Wars was built on the sale of new expansions, and I’m sure the original drive with this sequel was the same, however far back in the development and funds-securing process that was.
But an awful lot has changed over the course of 2012, and unfortunately the expansions alone are not the focus anymore.
Perhaps with a bit of luck, the cash cow currently being groomed and fattened up will turn out to be a poor yielder. Fingers crossed.

interpol.2397:

I noticed that they’ve been removed as loot (or had their drop rate lowered to the extreme) as well. I was just thinking about this the other day. I’ve amassed a load of chests, but only get keys from mapping or boss chests – which is a change from the first month of the game, when I clearly remember getting a couple of keys as enemy loot.

Funny, because the chests themselves keep dropping. It’s almost as…as if… they’re trying to force me to buy gems! But Nexo – I mean ANet would never do such a thing to their customers!

I giggled sardonically into my hand. If I were a Nexxie Fairy, I would give unto thee a shiny key.

StormageddonBK.9842:

What lunacy is this! Why would you want to give away money for nothing?!

And by they way, the marketing we all got was ‘NO SUBSCRIPTIONS!’ And I would think it’d include expansions as well (1 time purchase for each one of course).

This means they could not legally say to their millions of customers which bought their game based on this fact, ‘Sorry, but we’ve decided to rip you all off $?/month.’

They’ve made their product, marketed it, and sold it without subs. And you’re kidding yourself OP if you think the game on subs would give you better gear or change the way the game plays.

The marketing also would have had us believe that we would never be driven to the gem store as a means to acquire gold to cover artificially inflated costs of materials due to unadvertised and unacknowledged reductions in open world loot, or informed us of the rapid introduction of increasing tiers of itemization requiring, unsurprisingly, quite vast quantities of said materials.
Nor indeed did the advertising make mention of the cyclic manipulation of scripted market suppliers, whose existence and activities serve said economic process to further increase the capacities of the monetization treadmill.
But most regrettably of all – we have no rainbow-imbued ponies upon which to canter across the plains of Queensdale, resplendent in all our finery. This is the greatest of travesties.

phaneo.4597:

Any idea if they have AMA any sooner? Somebody might actually bring this whole thread to their attention. Not that they’d respond or do something, but it’d be bringing this issue to their notice face-to-face.

The issue was brought up at the last AMA with Chris, ignored, at the last dodged, and hence perpetuates. Lamentably.

Oh dear, I completely forgot to mention the chests and the keys.
How on earth did that escape my attention? You should go have a lookit at the Maple Story cash shop. It will feel quite familiar…

Medazolam.3058:

The Nexon stuff is just tinfoil fodder, the type of influence people are proposing is beyond the power of a minority stake shareholder. They will eventually be able to possible get people on the board via nominations and meetings, but even a 15% stake doesn’t ensure anything like that. It’s a public company, there are rules and laws with people watching for improper influence.

The installment of a Nexon employee, a monetization director at that, into a prime development position at ArenaNet, at the same time as the shares buyout from NCsoft…
The immediate changes to extant item accumulation systems such as dyes, to facilitate multiple re-acquisitions across an account, the cost of which is quite evidently increasing…
The blatant, and judging by the sheer volume of people actively playing the game who report the same effect, quite evident reduction of returns for input…
The proven increase in price and worth of gems, and introduction of new tiers of items requiring large quantities of the items that have dried up significantly from appearances in the open world loot tables…
Does that make it require a large tinfoil hat, or a really small one. I can never figure out which size is more apt.

Malvagite.3254:

The devs have already done a 180 on the core promise of this game with no gear grind….changing to a subscription model is not out of the question based upon that.

I would greatly prefer to pay 15$ per month and have decent drops and a normal mmorpg economy than to deal with the situation we have now.

Can you even imagine how much more enjoyable holiday events would be if half of the content wasnt locked inside a RNG black lion chest?

Indeed, Malvagite, an awful lot of people are ignoring just how much of an effect the arrival of Nexon staff into the development cycle in June has had on the game. The changes that were made even during the beta weekend cycles heralded a whole new direction for character progression and wealth accumulation in Guild Wars 2, and I would have to agree with you in terms of a subscription fee system in exchange for the removal of the underhanded returns system manipulation.
Every person who spends real world money in the gem store, and then converts it to in-game gold to spend on an item with an inflated cost (due to scarcity of materials, or quantity levels required being high for new recipes) needs to have a good hard look at the facts in evidence on sites like gw2spidy.
They are going to make you pay extra each month to acquire what was intended to be obtainable without expenditure anyhow.
The only real query is was it only intended to appear short-term blind cash-ins, or was the goal to make people reach the conclusion themselves that they would rather pay a subscription than to have to progress through endless micro-transactions?
The silence on the issue of crippled loot tables from the developers would seem to speak volumes, but perhaps they are in the uncomfortable position of having it completely out of their hands, and are made to endure the appearances of incompetence to divert attention away from the actual source of these changes?
I just wish I could go back to playing the kitten game, and not have to deal with this nonsense of attempting to second-guess the motives of vampiric entertainment industry strip-miners.

LOCO.1785:

I still don’t understand why DR still exists.

I was under the impression it was there to combat bots, but now that most of the bots are gone, why do we still need DR?

To me it seems bots were only part of the reason DR exists otherwise they would’ve removed it by now.

The problem is we’ll never get an answer from ANet, they’re all hush hush when it comes to game dynamics such as this.

It really is quite simple, in terms of the direction the game has taken since the June NCsoft shares buyout, and the concurrent installment of Nexon’s (the new 15% shareholder) monetization manager into ArenaNet.
DR, character-bound dyes, and especially the reduced loot drops from mobs, chests, etc, directs and promotes player traffic to the gem store. Gems purchased with real world funds are turned into gold to cover inflated TP prices due to scarcity of desired and required materials, due to the aforementioned restrictions.
This has been Crystin’s task since she was placed into ArenaNet in June, and hence why we are now feeling the effects of NCsoft’s financial problems.
And unfortunately, now that the inroads have been made, this is just the beginning.

Whilst darkly pondering the state of things, and far more worryingly the precedent this situation sets for the future of the game, a repulsive, yet seemingly inevitable thought emerged.
Nexon and their monetization remoras are latched on quite firmly now, we pretty much have to accept this; and the tiny changes (in terms of their ongoing plans, at least) that we have seen are but the tip of the iceberg before they are done with our game and discard the husk that remains.
What if we agree to an uneasy truce here. What if they can offer the increasingly disillusioned and betrayed players amongst us a substitute for a monthly subscription – quite fittingly perhaps a shiny maple-tinted key, that will grant us access to a server that is free of the new restrictions; the methods they have employed to funnel us into micro-transactions and gem-purchases in a sorry attempt to feel a sense of accomplishment?
They won’t see another cent from an awful lot of us now, quite deservedly, for not only their unethical methods and ambitions, but their offensive lack of any form of respect for the people that made this game what it has become so quickly, financially speaking.
So how about it, Crystin? Instead of a flat zero from a growing percentage of your player base, I would hazard a guess that many of us now would grudgingly pay $15 a month to be free of you – to regain the fantastic freedom, and potential for Tyria re-imagined, that so many of us paid willingly for.
Unrestricted, as was promised and paid for by us.
Sound like a good thing to bolster your resume?

LiberAzerate.4827:

Seriously, DR now that the bots are mostly handled just seems to serve as a hindrance.

The massive bot influx shortly after release was necessary to warrant the apparently heavy-handed DR introduction, which after their much-lauded successful first-round of bot clean-ups, has seemingly been amalgamated into the early November loot reductions, to provide the huge boost in gem sales and the materials-starved, inflated value market that we now enjoy.
Oh for apparent randomness.
My gods, how Nexon have tipped the scales of cynicism in a short time.
Well played, Crystin.