Guild Wars 2

Evan Lesh.3295:

timmyf.1490:

How long does it take to settle? Could the leaderboards simply filter out players who don’t yet have X games? (Where X is 50 or 100 in my mind? More than enough time for folks to settle, I would think?)

Glicko settles pretty quickly, the problem is that it doesn’t always stay settled. If you leave the game for a while and come back, your next games could throw your rating all over the place again. A strict games played counter wouldn’t solve everything.

timmyf.1490:

Similar to my suggestion above, could the LB just filter out players who don’t have Y games in the past 30 days? (Where Y could be 10, for example, I wouldn’t think it has to be large.)

We could. Do we want people coming and going from the leader board, but still having the same ‘skill’ level behind the scenes? Will people still just front load their games and afk? Not sure if a system we can actually decay is strictly better or not. I’m just a programmer :P

Doesn’t the second suggestion solve the first? Meaning: " If you leave the game for a while and come back, your next games could throw your rating all over the place again" is solved by “the LB just filter out players who don’t have Y games in the past 30 days?”

You have an MMR of 1800 and leave. After 30 days, you’re removed from the LB. You come back and your MMR drops to 1200 after you get killed in the first game, up to 1600 in the second, blah blah. But until you play 10 games, you’re not re-added to the leaderboard, so it gives your MMR some time to re-settle.

Certainly this will lead to temporary blips, but it’s almost certainly an improvement over the current grind-a-thon.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Random jumps: Glicko is used to make the best match possible. It does this by adjusting quickly which can result in very large jumps up and down before settling.

How long does it take to settle? Could the leaderboards simply filter out players who don’t yet have X games? (Where X is 50 or 100 in my mind? More than enough time for folks to settle, I would think?)

Evan Lesh.3295:

Decay: We can’t decay MMR directly, which causes the problem of people sitting inactive at the top of the leaderboard.

Similar to my suggestion above, could the LB just filter out players who don’t have Y games in the past 30 days? (Where Y could be 10, for example, I wouldn’t think it has to be large.)

You could absolutely still create another system, but I think there would be value in letting players see their raw Glicko number for tracking and comparison.

Dano.5298:

No salt here, except for the overall fact that server pop is madly imbalanced!

Question for you, though: does the imbalance across all tiers (i.e. kitten T8) bother you, or are you more concerned about intra-tier matchups?

I feel like the biggest problem we have is that there are HUGE Glicko cliffs between servers in the rankings. Example chart attached showing some of the “problem areas.” (Non-zero axis intentional to emphasize differences between servers.)

The basic problem, as I tried to indicate with green boxes, is that there are servers that are roughly balanced, but they don’t fit within the current tiers all that well. There’s either 4 of them that are even, or 3 split across tiers, etc.

Like many have said, Anet can’t fix this, and it moves so quickly any attempt would fail horribly.

Anyway, I like seeing it in graphical form, I think it makes the problem pretty obvious.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

It’s going on even now though in some places, that some people are paying guilds to move, but let me reiterate, I do not know if this applies to ET/NSP now or recently, that clear enough?

Yeah, that’s fair. I appreciate the clarification.

I could see this being interesting for SPECIFIC, LIMITED areas – think the Junudu (sp?) from GW1. Perhaps there’s a particular expanse you must cross, but gliding won’t get you there… so you must learn to fly on a gigantic pterodactyl or something…

But the use of those “mounts” should be limited to one area of the map for one purpose and not act as a free passive 25% speed buff for players who level the mastery.

Dano.5298:

timmyf.1490:

Dano.5298:

timmyf.1490:

Have you guys asked the guilds that left why they left? There’s a lot of speculation here, but why not just reach out and ask?

Nope never thought of that one!

Lol cmon yo

You guys just keep saying stuff like “they got bought” but it’s not true, at least not for the 4 or 5 guilds that came to NSP. You all seem like you’re guessing.

So stop one second. You are talking to someone who’s played a ridiculous amount of gw2 with the leaders of those guilds. Countless hours, helping, trying to improve the team, organizing events, server trainings, heck I’ve even driven their guild from time to time.

I’m not some random player who knows nothing about the community I play on. And never did I suggest NSP bought guilds.

Yeah man, I can see you’re taking this personally. Don’t mean to call you out, it’s actually this Lunacy guy…

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Sadly it’s how it is when guilds are paid to move, and servers want to be stacked and do everything they can to do so, even to move to another server and take it over and pay more guilds to move there.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

If it wasn’t for some paying for multiple guilds to move so their server can have more people than the enemy, WvW may have balanced out better over time. With the way things have been, buying guilds, etc., that won’t happen now.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

The consolidation of people through ‘buying guilds’ etc., has directly and indirectly led to the current situation.

I was trying to politely say, “Hey, the guilds didn’t get bought, they just didn’t like the situation there” but was obviously too vague.

Dano.5298:

timmyf.1490:

Have you guys asked the guilds that left why they left? There’s a lot of speculation here, but why not just reach out and ask?

Nope never thought of that one!

Lol cmon yo

You guys just keep saying stuff like “they got bought” but it’s not true, at least not for the 4 or 5 guilds that came to NSP. You all seem like you’re guessing.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

I know in fractals they dont stack very much anymore, but in dungeons, stacking is still a valid and mainstream way to do things in PUGS… usually guild runs are not as stacky, due to everyone tends to know each others playstyles and how best to compliment them. But in a PUG, I still see alot of people cry for stacking.

You want to make sure you’re close enough to get buffs and stuff, but that doesn’t require a tight stack. Sometimes walling can be nice, or line-of-sighting to cleave more, but the old style corner stacking should be dead.

Pugs gon’ be pugs.

spoj.9672:

Look at fractals for reference. It shows they can do it. And stacking in a corner hasnt been a thing for over a year….

He’s been told that repeatedly, including by myself. Doesn’t seem to make a difference.

I wouldn’t read too much into this. In that we’ll announce a date when there is a date to announce.

Follow-up from Devon. http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/38426o/steve_fowler_in_building_a_competitive_game/crs4jfl

Have you guys asked the guilds that left why they left? There’s a lot of speculation here, but why not just reach out and ask?

So happy I chose not to farm for that stupid portal. Sorry you missed out, OP, but asking for a Legendary is…

…well, I’d tell you what it is, but I’m going to avoid the infraction points instead.

Sure, Vayne, most of us get that there’s enough challenge in this game for many people. The problem is this: if you only play 5 hours a week, you still probably haven’t done all the content that exists NOW. So you don’t need more content, at least not as much as somebody who plays 30-40 hours and has mastered all the existing content.

The request for challenging content is coming from and meant for players who either invest a ton of time or are just naturally more skillful at games. They don’t have anything made for them, apart from maybe high level Fractals and a small handful of dungeon paths, and even those are too easy.

There is already a TON of easy and lightly challenging content in this game and very little challenging content. Forget build diversity, I want challenge diversity.

“Open Air Dungeons?” Puhhhleeeeease. Make them real instances so I can play with my guild and keep the pugs out. You want to “play how I want?” Fine. I want to play with whom I want.

piano man.1672:

Heart of Thorns page mentions “challenging group content”. Not sure if this is open world boss fights with anyone who is in that map, or if it’s content for a small number of parties…. we don’t really have much information on it right now.

Nope, and Colin showed up in another thread to basically say, “We see you’re all really worked up over this, but we don’t have anything to say about it yet.”

CorrynnStarr.7942:

timmyf.1490:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

I want Ascended to remain the highest-tier stat set in the game, even with the introduction of raids. Why do you think raids would fundamentally change the game into a gear grind?

simply put, as game quality declines and as player base declines as a result of it, you are left wit ha skeleton staff that would have to take simpler methods of doing things, which boils down to them taking the path of least resistance and going with a gear grind.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this. So…

Okay! Have a nice day!

CorrynnStarr.7942:

and fundamentally change this game into a gear grind.

I want Ascended to remain the highest-tier stat set in the game, even with the introduction of raids. Why do you think raids would fundamentally change the game into a gear grind?

Windsagio.1340:

The guy I’m responding to up there is making a straight conflation, and the point is directed at that guy.

You’ve got to quote stuff, man! You mean this guy?

Avster.1935:

I’m going to repeat the same thing that the dude from the HoT PAX announcement. I want “PvE that doesn’t suck” – in other words, please make me use my brain more.

For those who are more laid back and just want to do things. You can have your open world PvE. I’m happy for you.

For those of us who are more intricate and like complexities, please gives us our challenges

I mean, he never said “raid” in his post, so I hardly feel like he’s saying raid == challenging without alternatives. He just wants PvE that doesn’t suck – as do many of us.

Windsagio.1340:

For me, specifically, I don’t want the discussion of difficult content (which I most dearly want) to get conflated with the discussion for raids (which I’m reasonably certain won’t happen). To my mind the more we focus on difficult content outside of raids the more useful focus we can get on that. — especially since raids seem to be like ‘zerk’, they turn a thread into madness.

So I totally understand this, especially the part about turning a thread into madness, but it’s not the proponents of raids/challenging content who ruin the threads. Not every disagreement is equally the fault of both sides.

Back on the Raids CDI, Chris Whiteside defined raids as “challenging instanced content.” If we continue accepting his definition, that means that you also appear to want raids. (Assuming you want the content instanced.)

Just because half the folks here have some sort of traumatic past experience with raiding and have to break all our toys if we use the word “raid” doesn’t mean we should let them without a fight.

I feel like I should put some sort of declaration of intent in my signature or something, like this:

My name is Karaoke. I want challenging instanced content. I would like it if that came in 10-person formats, but I’d be fine with 5. I don’t care about the name in the slightest. I wish I could discuss this without having to defend WoW or distance myself from WoW, a game I never played.

Windsagio.1340:

You slipped in the reqiurement for more players again at the end, lol

I’m gonna bet you that far fewer people would object to extremely difficult 5 player instanced content (noting some would of course) than object to multi-group content.

The problem is going from 5 to 10, really? How about 8?

Honestly, I’m fine with 5, but it’d be really nice to get more of my guild in the same instance. More than five isn’t a “requirement lol,” it’s an example.

Windsagio.1340:

Why do we have chalenges == raids though?

They don’t. And nobody is saying that they must. But challenges should be:

• Available for groups of 5 players, and perhaps more
• Available in instances
• Require the vast majority of players in the instance to meaningfully participate. For example, a 10-person instance should not be easily completed by 7 players, but perhaps by 8 or 9. (80+% meaningful participation rate, for example.)

The name doesn’t matter. Those parameters do. We can call them “10-man Hardcore Fractals” if you prefer, but either way, it’s not Vinewrath. Or Marionette. Or Tequatl. Or Triple Trouble.

CureForLiving.5360:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Simply put: we haven’t announced it yet – when we’re ready to show everything about our plans for challenging content for HoT, we’ll announce it.

Though it isn’t the “challenging content” feature discussed in our announcement – I will add we want our open world content experience to be more challenging as well just in general.

That’s slightly confusing.
So from what I understand: There is challenging content coming. But it’s different challenging content than the challenging content that was announced. So there’s more than one type of challenging content coming? But besides these types of challenging content you’re also looking at harder open world content?
So there’s at least 3 types of challenging content coming, and 1 of them is open world content?w

Read it backward.

“we want our open world content experience to be more challenging” … "Though it isn’t the “challenging content” feature discussed in our announcement"

There’s challenging content coming which is not a part of the open world content experience. That’s my optimistic read of it, anyhow.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Though it isn’t the “challenging content” feature discussed in our announcement – I will add we want our open world content experience to be more challenging as well just in general.

That sentence (the first one, especially the word “isn’t”) gives me hype. Or at least hope. Thanks, Colin. Hope things are going well.

VaLee.5102:

Maybe then topics like this will stop. Go do dungeons without abusing the mechanics and stacking in a corner if you want challenging content until then.

You don’t do many dungeons, do you? Anyway, here’s an example from A YEAR AGO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhQC5-Vjvb4

That’s Arah Path 3 with 5 Bearbows. You’re welcome.

NS? You mean NSP? Check out RISE. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor/Those-Who-Fell-RISE-is-recruiting-NSP

Windsagio.1340:

One side is saying “This content existing would enhance my game experience” the other is saying “This content existing would hurt my game experience”.

Call it a quadruple down if you like, but you still haven’t explained to me (in a convincing way), nor has anybody else, why adding new content you don’t wish to play hurts your game experience.

And if more content you don’t like hurts your game experience, does less content help it? Would the removal of Fractals and dungeons and WvW and PvP improve the experience for open world PvEers?

I think that’s a ridiculous argument, but I’m curious why new content hurts and keeping existing content doesn’t, then?

(Also, Wind, I’m using the second-person “you” meaning “others,” not “you specifically.” I get the whole playing mediator thing you’re doing, I do it with my guild all the time, and props for trying to keep things on an even keel, even if I totally disagree with what you’re saying to do it.)

Windsagio.1340:

EDIT: It’s not cut-and-dried either way, and we need to get over that. It’s a complex decision and people have a tendency to see all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of the things they personally want.

It’s also a false equivalency. One side is saying, “This is content I want and I’d like it included along side the type of content the rest of you want.” The other side is saying, “You can’t have this content because I don’t want it.”

Not. The. Same. Thing.

DSRilk.2978:

The anti-raiding posts comment about the potential down sides of adding raiding, while many (though not all) of the pro raiding comments are little more than personal attacks and snide comments.

The snide comments started here.

MattyP.6954:

If instanced raids turn out anything like the current dungeons, it’ll just be more people wearing ’zerker gear and stacking in the corner dps-racing the mobs.

No. Thank. You.

If you’d like to see why those snide comments were returned, read through the quoted user’s previous posts. This post is certainly not this user’s first of this style. This user is, as we may say, a known factor.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

There seem to be plenty of people who just hate the idea of stuff they can never accomplish/get. They’re SOMEWHAT accepting if it’s just too hard, but the requirements on raids are different:

1) significant time investment
2) forced interaction with people you don’t particularly want to interact with

Funnily enough these are the exact two issues that make me hate open world. Ironic isnt it?

Mine are a little different:

1) Boring and grindy

2) forced interaction with people you don’t particularly want to interact with

DSRilk.2978:

I don’t care for 5 man group dungeons, and Anet’s continued to add them on occasion.

Yeah, on occasion. Singular. As in they’ve added one dungeon path since launch.

If you’d like to count Fractals, then increase that to 3 occasions.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

timmyf.1490:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

timmyf.1490:

I can’t believe people are literally suggesting they’ll quit if ArenaNet builds content they aren’t personally interested in playing. This blows my mind.

It shouldnt, cuz people play games to have fun and feel a sense of accomplishment… if they arent getting it, or fearful they wont get it due to lack of developement, then they will consider leaving for another game that does. Just as you are fighting for your emphasis on a certain kind of content, so they too are fighting for theirs.

There’s tons of players who don’t do dungeons and Fractals and WvW and PvP. They haven’t quit yet. Why would raids make them quit now?

as i just said, adding a new mode will take away from developement of their current prefered mode, making them feel more inclined to go elsewhere for their fun.

Bye Felicia!

CorrynnStarr.7942:

timmyf.1490:

I can’t believe people are literally suggesting they’ll quit if ArenaNet builds content they aren’t personally interested in playing. This blows my mind.

It shouldnt, cuz people play games to have fun and feel a sense of accomplishment… if they arent getting it, or fearful they wont get it due to lack of developement, then they will consider leaving for another game that does. Just as you are fighting for your emphasis on a certain kind of content, so they too are fighting for theirs.

There’s tons of players who don’t do dungeons and Fractals and WvW and PvP. They haven’t quit yet. Why would raids make them quit now?

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Right now the majority of the people playing are doing 1 of 6 things…. fractals, dungeons, world boss training, leveling a new toon, wvw/pvp or silverwastes. the more things you add to the game in terms of game modes, the less and less the other modes will have to work with. Your map theory is a wash as those already doing the mapping are gonna continue mapping in the new map content. You arent taking from any other categories, and those that do swap… do so temporarily, then back to wvw/pvp/dungeons or whatever.

A lot of what you say is very smart and I appreciate your thoughts, but you’re forgetting one important thing:

Players can PLAY MORE.

There are literally millions of people who STOPPED PLAYING. They can come back. Players who still play can play more. I have dozens of people in my guild who log on for their dailies and leave because there’s “nothing to do.”

Raids are something to do.

While raids could absolutely pull people from other modes, it could also pull people from other games and that needs to be a consideration as well.

DSRilk.2978:

timmyf.1490:

I can’t believe people are literally suggesting they’ll quit if ArenaNet builds content they aren’t personally interested in playing. This blows my mind.

It’s not about building content I’m not interested in. It’s about the impact the drain on resources would have on the rest of the game. If they could magically create that content with zero man hours, then I really wouldn’t care – but that’s not at all what would have to happen in reality.

As a player interested in instanced content, I would have quit this game a long time ago if I had your attitude. It’s a good thing some of us recognize that we may only enjoy portions of the game and aren’t so selfish as to suggest 100% of resources must go to game modes we enjoy OR ELSE.

I can’t believe people are literally suggesting they’ll quit if ArenaNet builds content they aren’t personally interested in playing. This blows my mind.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Ill say it again. creating yet another game mode only serves to divide the number of players away from already established modes, and would weaken the content to the point like when we had separated servers. people flocked to one type of server and the other servers were so dismal in players that not all the content could be accomplished on certain servers due to “diversity” We all know what happened then, servers died and it all had to be revamped. when we spread ourselves out to thin, it becomes a chore to do already existing content. This game was not meant to be a traditional “Raid” type game. Adding a multitude of game modes would just serve to frustrate us in the end and lose players.

Think of it like a Pie… we have 8 slices in a normal pie, able to fully feed 8 people 1 slice. the more people you have, the thinner the slices become, and the less amount each person gets to have. eventually the slices will be small enuff to the point people will not compete for their slices and just go somewhere else to get a bigger piece of pie.

Its nothing personal against raids, its just we will spread ourselves out to far and the game will feel empty and un-enjoyable. which brings me back to why servers died…

We better not add new maps in the Maguuma Jungle, then. It’ll just pull people away from Dry Top and Silverwastes.

MattyP.6954:

Dungeons, as they stand now, consist of stacking in a corner

Except that corner stacking hasn’t been a thing for, what, a year? Are you also tired of the 4 Warrior 1 Mesmer meta? :-D

green plum.7514:

Dinks.2478:

There is zero negative drawback to adding more game options for people who want it. You don’t have to play every game mode the game offers. I know people who have never PvPed because PvP isn’t their thing. I know people who don’t PvE. I know people who don’t WvW. And just like that it is okay if you’re a person who doesn’t want to do Raids. But others do, and we have nothing else to do. There is nothing else for guilds to do.

But this is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. Raids, per definition, are only interesting to large, organised guilds that are interested in PvE and have dedicated players that are ready to organise their life around playing that content. But how much of the GW2 population do such players represent? 5%? 10%? Creating raid content is a major undertaking for the company. I simply do not understand why Anet should allocate substantial resources to create something that probably only a small minority will experience.

Because it’s something to strive for? Something to build toward over time? Something other than running in circles pressing 1 for hours?

Crystallize.8603:

EDIT Yes I can see the want for more people instances. I have played many games with more manned instances. 8man/12/24/48 But I can’t personally see how they are going to work in GW2 and why there is a need for them outside of “some” people would like them.

Well, it’d probably work like this…

• You gather in your guild hall
• You enable the raid
• People in the guild hall get a “ready up” screen
• You are transported into the raid

As far as your other comment… I can’t see why there is a need for world bosses outside of “some” people would like them. I can’t see why there is a need for PvP outside of “some” people would like them. I can’t see why there is a need for WvW outside of “some” people would like them. Ad nauseum.

It’s a game. You build content because people like it. Raids are something for guilds to do together and we’d like it. What other reason need there be?

Crystallize.8603:

timmyf.1490:

Crystallize.8603:

So what is the purpose for the raid? Simply difficult content with no reward?

Maybe a new currency to buy X (New currency ideas alrdy are hated)

Maybe specific materials to craft a very special legendary weapon? But then that means you’re doing more than just raiding.. which I guess the raiders dont want..

They’d be better off imo, improving Fractals. Increasing the amount/difficulty/scales/rewards rather than working on raids.

We literally had hundreds of posts discussing this in the CDI. You could perhaps start there and educate yourself about the types of things people want rather than setting up and knocking down strawmen.

For my part, I suggested raids would allow players to upgrade Ascended armor into stat-switchable Legendary armor. Perhaps later raids would allow Legendary armor pieces to be upgraded and then usable across armor classes as well.

This is just one of many ideas.

My apologies for having missed those posts. I tend to focus on other areas of the forum in the limited time available to me and therefore can’t edumacate myself to your standard.

I however am allowed to express my own opinion and what in my opinion would be good. Sorry for contributing. I wont next time.

Have an opinion all you want, but don’t misrepresent the opinions of others. You have this attitude (and probably unintentionally of) “I don’t see what proponents of raids could possibly want, why don’t they just do Fractals?”

Rewards are only part of it. Primarily, I would like instanced experiences larger than 5 people. 10 is a good number. Or 12. Maaaaybe 15.

I’m certain, even in your current state of edumacation, you can recognize the difference between 5- and 10-man content.

Astralporing.1957:

timmyf.1490:

Crystallize.8603:

So what is the purpose for the raid? Simply difficult content with no reward?

Maybe a new currency to buy X (New currency ideas alrdy are hated)

Maybe specific materials to craft a very special legendary weapon? But then that means you’re doing more than just raiding.. which I guess the raiders dont want..

They’d be better off imo, improving Fractals. Increasing the amount/difficulty/scales/rewards rather than working on raids.

We literally had hundreds of posts discussing this in the CDI. You could perhaps start there and educate yourself about the types of things people want rather than setting up and knocking down strawmen.

You might read that CDI yourself. If you did, you’d see that rewards and exclusivity/inclusivity were the biggest contention points, and not only between raiders and nonraiders, but also between people that have differing visions of raids in GW2. There was no consensus on that point at all – and thus the question “what is the purpose of raids” is still valid and unanswered.

I didn’t claim there was a consensus. I said there have been lots of ideas and gave an example.

Crystallize.8603:

So what is the purpose for the raid? Simply difficult content with no reward?

Maybe a new currency to buy X (New currency ideas alrdy are hated)

Maybe specific materials to craft a very special legendary weapon? But then that means you’re doing more than just raiding.. which I guess the raiders dont want..

They’d be better off imo, improving Fractals. Increasing the amount/difficulty/scales/rewards rather than working on raids.

We literally had hundreds of posts discussing this in the CDI. You could perhaps start there and educate yourself about the types of things people want rather than setting up and knocking down strawmen.

For my part, I suggested raids would allow players to upgrade Ascended armor into stat-switchable Legendary armor. Perhaps later raids would allow Legendary armor pieces to be upgraded and then usable across armor classes as well.

This is just one of many ideas.

Gustavef.6730:

The world event/boss system is a very viable model for GW2.

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

My guess is that Anet is attempting to build raids behind the scenes but is unsure if or when they will be ready. By claiming HoT has “challenging group content,” they can:

• clarify that this term means challenging open world bosses or
• clarify that this term means both challenging open world bosses as well as challenging instanced content in the form of raids

when they figure out whether raids will ship with HoT (or shortly after) or not.

This “wiggle room” is pretty typical in corporate announcements and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this is the reason they’re being intentionally vague.

As a player, I don’t care for it, but as a consumer, I understand it.

Interesting, thanks for the heads up.

Screenshot should speak for itself. Check out Dark Asuran Greatsword. Unlocked in wardrobe, not in collection. Even got one and salvaged it the other day, still didn’t unlock in the collection.

Grimwar.3789:

^vouch +1. Great community to fight against. Hope you guys can rotate into T3.

I’m not sure NSP is ready for T3, at least not full time, but getting a chance to try it out every so often might be fun. We just need a bit more coverage in SEA time.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Just keep in mind the Gold Transfer limit of 500 per week. Also, document each transaction in-game to leave a trail, in case any accounts are actioned.

You can always ask the CS Team for an official answer. Good luck.

Yeah, that’s not really a huge deal. I’d probably be receiving 250g or less, just limit myself to 2/week. But I definitely don’t feel great about doing it without getting an official OK.

Oh, and just a math example…

Current cost to transfer: 1800 gems, 371g
1800 gems → gold = 203g

If we do the deal at “equal benefit” levels, my guild mates save 84g per transfer and I get 42 extra days of arena time. Per transfer. (And we’ll probably have 3-5.) Yikes.

Kind of a weird question.

I’m a guild leader for a medium-sized guild that just did a bunch of recruiting. We’d love to bring our new members to our WvW server, Northern Shiverpeaks, so they can play WvW with us, but oh boy are the exchange rates nuts right now.

As guild leader, I regularly pay for a variety of services (web hosting, domains, etc.) and this used to include our custom PvP arena. When the custom arena switched from gem-based upkeep to gold-based upkeep, I was already just eating the $6 or $7/month (whatever it was) for the arena. I continued doing so, but now I just buy the gems and convert them to gold. It’s actually slightly cheaper for me doing it this way, so yay!

Here’s the question part: I regularly buy gem cards and convert to gold. My guild members want to convert gold to gems. I’m planning on giving many of them gold straight out of guild bank to help (probably paying 1/3 to 1/2 the cost.) Would it be appropriate instead to send them a gem code in exchange for a guild bank donation? How about gold directly to me? This would essentially mean they get a cheaper transfer and I get more arena time tokens for my money.

The other way I could do it would be to ask them to buy time tokens for me, put the time in the arena, and then I’ll just give them the code. This is probably the “safest” option.

I have 3300 hours on my account and a lot of guild members who depend on me, so I don’t want to risk anything, buuuuuuut nothing about this seems wrong, shady, or like it perpetuates gold selling. Just figured I’d check to see if I can get an official answer.