58 replies to this topic

[Al Shamari]

So, as we all know, Arenanet has placed many "gold sinks" into Guild Wars 2 and vastly limited the ability to productively farm, as opposed to how easily possible it was in Guild Wars. Their reasoning behind this is solid and understandable. The economy in Guild Wars got progressively worse through its maturity and deflation became the name of the game. Rarities like Obsidian Shards and Ectoplasm were farmed in mass quantities. Supply steadily started to outweigh demand.

But, we can all see problems in the current system... especially 'taxes' such as pay-to-travel waypoint usage. These were put into the game for one use, ease of access. Taxing their usage has taken that away. Now, of course there are other gold sinks as well, such as equipment repairs (which are incredibly too frequent) and taxing to re-roll your traits. Again, why create a game mechanic - in this case, the ability for any character to play a different "role" - that allows players ease of access if you're going to tax it? This is all vague of course... there are better arguments against each of these gold sinks strewn throughout the forums.

What we need is a solution, something that would work in reality. I don't mind these taxes to a degree, but as of right now, I feel they are far too high.

So, this is a thread to discuss possible solutions as opposed to the current system that limits playability.

1) Lottery ticket system - A simple gold pit system. Create vendors that sell several different types of "lottery tickets", possibly in 'scratch card' form to make it a mini-game of sorts. These vendors could be limited to each of the major cities within racial areas. They could sell "themed" cards that would placate the atmosphere of each racial home, but in the end the lottery tickets would have the same general idea (spend x amount of gold and try to win x amount more. We've all scratched lottery tickets before, we get the idea. This method of a gold sink would rely on peoples' greed, seeking a get-rich-quick scheme. I'm simply making up numbers here... but they could cost 1 silver each and have a potential return of say 10 gold (very rare of course). Again, all this is purely hypothetical and I would leave the numbers to Arenanet, but you get the picture. I think people would go after them to the degree that it would be viable gold sink, but the return would be limited (although some will profit heavily, obviously). Yada-yada, you know how it works, rambling.

[Seera1024]

I do like the lottery idea. As long as the chances of getting your money's worth from an individual bet aren't so low that it dissuades people from doing it. If 80% of the time you lose half of your money, you're eventually not going to bet often enough for it to be a gold sink.

One possible "win" item could be a key for black lion chests. People get enough of those and it takes more than 1s to buy enough gems for a key. A rarer win item could be a set of keys. We all know some lotteries give out non-cash prizes.

[Lyenyo]

Oh no... nononononono!

Anyone remember the Gigglegibber Goblin Gamblin' Game from EQ2? y'know.. the little lottery guy they place riiight next to the docks while you wait for your boat to arrive?

NO SIR, YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY 10 SILVER THIS TIME.

[matsif]

No Taxation without Representation!

There are way too many gold sinks.  Waypoint, repair, retraiting, forced to buy skill books to be able to unlock the next tier of traits, have to rebuy levels of crafting if you switch crafts...the list goes on.  Not to mention the extreme costs of stuff (tier 3 cultural weapons/armor when its not even max stats, order armors/weapons when their not even max stat, dungeon armor tokens coming so slowly before the patch).  Its fairly ridiculous to me how expensive rare items are when there is a whole tier of exotics above them .

as to the lottery idea, I would support it if you knew what you would be winning from each ticket, by which I mean there are different ticket vendors that sell various gold/karma rewards, crafting mat rewards, weapon/armor rewards, gems/black lion keys/chests rewards, etc.  If it was implemented as "buy this ticket, you might win something, but we won't tell you what," I would never buy a ticket.

[Zun]

Retraining traits is incredibly cheap. 3s50 at level 80 is ridiculous, since you're not supposed to retrain as frequently as you use waypoints.

You forgot the biggest gold sink, however : TP taxes.

[ilr]

For the most part, I think the taxes are fair...  Infact the TP tax of 15% isn't high enough in my opinion b/c there's still some day-flipping going on.

The only detailed points these sinks aren't "fair" IMO in, are when it comes to the actual DISTANCE you travel as a level 80 to a Way point.  It could be only 50ft, but it still treats it like you're crossing 2 zones.   At level 20 we could cross THREE zones for ~30 copper.  At 80 the price practically increases 10fold and I could live with that if it didn't cost a whole silver & 1/2 just to travel to the NEAREST WP.  (b/c you innocently slipped, fell, & died and  the slope physics in this game exist apart from the laws of friction/acceleration).

Oh Also Repair costs from deaths in WvWvW.  Talk about the ultimate killjoy...  Were supposed to be encouraged to show up and represent our servers en masse and experiment with tactics but nothing puts the kaibosh on that faster than running out of money an hour into it and having to go back to PvE just to get more.  ...especially when your server is already losing.  This isn't QQ, this is basic goddamn arithmetic.  If you're already backed into a corner and everyone on your side can't get any drops at a decent rate from kills b/c they're outnumbered while the zergs outside are zerging together for the exact reason that zerging together ='s almost never dying.... then it's pretty obvious what's going to happen to every player on your side who isn't getting any "kills" and hasn't squirelled away 10g for repairs.

I'm not saying all repairs in WvWvW should be free... but it definitely should be factored by how much Terrain your server actually controls and if you don't even control 20% of the map it should be damn close to free.

Edited by ilr, 02 October 2012 - 02:53 AM.

[Inraged Twitch]

I dont care about the Wp travel or the TP tax but freaking ditch the repair shit already, 2/3 of my money I make goes into repairing my gear after doing dungeons.

[Mataris]

No no no..... Just no. The only thing I'm this thread I agree with is repair cost for WvWvW. I don't feel you should have to repair at all in PvP environments.

[Requiem For Dawn]

I don't really think that WP / retrait / repair are THAT bad
ok sure, when you start the game it's quite hard to get the money, especially at level 60 when you pay 2g for the damn book.
But on the other hand, there aren't items you NEED to spend money on other then your own will.

You can buy a full exotic set + weapons for about 10g (might not be runed though) which is absolutely nothing at level 80.
Just by leveling to 80 you should have about 3g and if you don't care about crafting you'll have a lot more!

I have 3 crafting at 400 and another at ~225, I'm working on getting my legendary , I donate money to my guild so we can buy Commander, and I still have around 8g.
And yes, I move around using WP like a frantic , I retrait every PvE / Dungeon / WvW , and I farm no more then 1h a day.

Bottom line, gold sinks are fine as is and a lottery system is just another gold sink not a solution (if you want to gamble try flipping in TP as it's just like the stock market, or if I'm not mistaken there is a cow throwing gambling area somewhere in the world)

Edited by Requiem For Dawn, 01 October 2012 - 11:30 PM.

[Haishao]

All these gold sink are completely necessary because the game push us into fabricating new money all the time since the big majority of items are completely useless and unwanted by anyone. They are just glorified junk that create new gold in the game everytime they are sold to NPC.
Even green item are just NPC junk 99% of the time.

These goldsink are bad because they are just a bandaid for a terrible design, but needed because this is how it was designed. I think they even designed it with the bandaid in mind.

Edited by Haishao, 01 October 2012 - 11:42 PM.

[Strife025]

Most of the gold sinks you are complaining about are pretty normal and required to keep down inflation, like people said, only one I agree on is no or reduced WvW repair costs.

I don't want to sound old (because I'm not that old) but the "punishments" in this game are so laughable, I don't understand how anyone can even complain about them if they've ever played an MMO before the WoW generation.

Seriously, complaining about 3s50c to respec, or about ~4s for dying at 80? Those consequences are laughable and exemplify how casual MMOs are now.

Same with the 1s-3s for way pointing, you save so much time where you would normally have to run in other games. In the time you save you could make way more then 1-3s.

Repair and TP taxes at GW2 levels are normal in most MMOs, so those aren't even worth complaining about, especially in a game with no other penalty for dying but a minor amount of silver that can be farmed in <5 min at 80.

Waypoints and respecs aren't normal in most MMOs, so complaining about <5 min of farm time for convenience just shows how spoiled people are. Usually when you waypoint, the result of the waypoint is a much greater return on your investment.

Like waypointing to dragon DEs, or temple DEs is a cost of 2-3s but will result in drops10x that. If the game didn't have wps you wouldn't have enough time to hit all the DEs and farm events. People who complain about WP costs obviously have no clue the benefit of the WP system on their money flow or are just terrible at making money.

Edited by Strife025, 01 October 2012 - 11:54 PM.

[Al Shamari]

I'm not saying the taxes aren't fair in entirety... I can deal with the taxes, as can everyone else seeing as we're all still playing. But, at level 80 they can become a little much for the casual player. As some as have said... 3 silver for crossing over to a waypoint in the same zone after dying. Dying is a part of the game, so Arenanet needs to stop treating it like we're playing some "hardcore mode" as far as I'm concerned, same goes for the repair costs. Lower the current gold sinks and add new ones that don't affect overall gameplay.

Strife025, on 01 October 2012 - 11:49 PM, said:

I don't want to sound old (because I'm not that old) but the "punishments" in this game are so laughable, I don't understand how anyone can even complain about them if they've ever played an MMO before the WoW generation.

Seriously, complaining about 3s50c to respec, or about ~4s for dying at 80? Those consequences are laughable and exemplify how casual MMOs are now.

That's the point though, MMOs in this day and age are casual. Guild Wars (1 and 2) prides itself on being a casual MMO experience that doesn't punish non-elite players.

Edited by AlShamari, 01 October 2012 - 11:53 PM.

[Strife025]

AlShamari, on 01 October 2012 - 11:49 PM, said:

I'm not saying the taxes aren't fair in entirety... I can deal with the taxes, as can everyone else seeing as we're all still playing. But, at level 80 they can become a little much for the casual player. As some as have said... 3 silver for crossing over to a waypoint in the same zone after dying. Dying is a part of the game, so Arenanet needs to stop treating it like we're playing some "hardcore mode" as far as I'm concerned, same goes for the repair costs. Lower the current gold sinks and add new ones that don't affect overall gameplay.


That's the point though, MMOs in this day and age are casual. Guild Wars (1 and 2) prides itself on being a casual MMO experience that doesn't punish non-elite players.

And the equivalent of <5 min. of farmtime as a penalty is casual. Not sure what people want, just no one to use currency and everyone can just buy whatever and do whatever they want for free? Yea that's gonna work in an online MMO...

If 4s as a penalty for dying isn't casual then I don't know what is.

[actionjack]

That intersting.. make me want to rethink about the concept of gold sink again...hmmmm

[Al Shamari]

Strife025, on 02 October 2012 - 01:00 AM, said:

And the equivalent of <5 min. of farmtime as a penalty is casual. Not sure what people want, just no one to use currency and everyone can just buy whatever and do whatever they want for free? Yea that's gonna work in an online MMO...

If 4s as a penalty for dying isn't casual then I don't know what is.

I can't really comment to be honest, and I'm sure you may be right because you've progressed much further into the game than I have (being a newer player), but just the idea of a 4 silver tax in the future seems like insanity to me... but obviously, you amount much more gold later in the game. Let's hope.

[ilr]

AlShamari, on 02 October 2012 - 02:18 AM, said:

but obviously, you amount much more gold later in the game. Let's hope.

Not really

Look at the price of "blue mats",  Smalls are practically the same price as Teir5 "larges".  In some cases, like blood especially, you can farm Thin vials faster than Potent ones from a much larger variety of mobs before D.R. antifarm kicks in.  The only advantage of being 80 is getting a few ~74 rare weapons to pop every day which usually salvage (atleast in theory) into Ectos that shouldn't ever drop below 15s a piece.  (unless the entire market deflates b/c they have TOO many goldsinks which I'm certainly not making any predictions on at this point).

[LavaSquid]

1. Lower all the taxes (players are happy), update cash shop content
2. More people are interested in cash shop, they put in more gold for gem (gold sink, check point 4)
3. Demand of gem increases (benefits Anet).
4. Hardcore players trade gem for gold, gold can be used for equipment skins and WvW.

Edited by LavaSquid, 02 October 2012 - 03:12 AM.

[wclenix]

If players find it difficult to accumulate gold, then they will simply use their wallets. That's why gold-sellers are such a plague in MMOs: they know people will throw money to bypass the annoying time-consuming part of the game. ArenaNet gets to sell more gems, a product which they have the monopoly to produce an infinite amount at will and at no cost, and make more money. And players will get to claim happily how they are able to get cash-shop items without spending a cent. I can't see any good reason why ArenaNet should want to decrease the goldsinks.

[Silvercat18]

Naked players are becoming more common in WvW because of the repair costs, especially when a server is outnumbered. They reason that they can contribute that way without being punished with the cost from their likely multiple deaths and i can see why they are making that choice.

I`ve had times when i have sunk all my cash into crafting (a gold sink in itself) and have been left with a silver or two in the bank. I`ve gone into WvW with real trepidation, as the possibility occured of being put into a situation where repair costs could make getting new cash impossible by wrecking my armour and thus my ability to kill mobs to raise cash for repairs - (and so on in a vicious spiral).

Fortunately, i`ve been careful enough to avoid that happening, but i have had to think about it as a significant risk. Bad luck could have placed me there and i am sure people have had that happen to them.

It seems that the sinks are designed so that players struggle to gain money at all. God help us all if the auction house goes down again for an extended time as thats the only way to make a profit from all those material drops (large fangs etc). Doing the Jormag event today, for example, the chest loot balanced my repairs and the only profit i made was on large fangs dropped by the elementals, which i could sell at auction.

Edited by Silvercat18, 02 October 2012 - 03:39 AM.

[actionjack]

Well.. the way I see it.. the current gold sink might not be enough.
Once you got all you need, the way point travel and repair cost are very minimal, once you hit that farming stage.  As you tend not going to move much, nor die much, if you just want to farm for gold.  So this is not going to tax the end-game folks as much.


And Thanks to the long traffic jam on drive home... squeeze out some ideas.
Will post it here.  http://www.guildwars...our-teeth-into/
See what you think.

Edited by actionjack, 02 October 2012 - 03:42 AM.

[Ritualist]

actionjack, on 02 October 2012 - 03:40 AM, said:

Well.. the way I see it.. the current gold sink might not be enough.
Once you got all you need, the way point travel and repair cost are very minimal, once you hit that farming stage.  As you tend not going to move much, nor die much, if you just want to farm for

See, this is exactly why we play a GW game - because we want, nay, DEMAND a game that is balanced around farming!

[Ardeni]

I guess I should approve this  idea only because this was introduced, I would no longer be affected by the gold sinks. I never do lottery since I know that I would just lose money.

[XgreatArtist]

AlShamari, on 01 October 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

So, as we all know, Arenanet has placed many "gold sinks" into Guild Wars 2 and vastly limited the ability to productively farm, as opposed to how easily possible it was in Guild Wars. Their reasoning behind this is solid and understandable. The economy in Guild Wars got progressively worse through its maturity and deflation became the name of the game. Rarities like Obsidian Shards and Ectoplasm were farmed in mass quantities. Supply steadily started to outweigh demand.

But, we can all see problems in the current system... especially 'taxes' such as pay-to-travel waypoint usage. These were put into the game for one use, ease of access. Taxing their usage has taken that away. Now, of course there are other gold sinks as well, such as equipment repairs (which are incredibly too frequent) and taxing to re-roll your traits. Again, why create a game mechanic - in this case, the ability for any character to play a different "role" - that allows players ease of access if you're going to tax it? This is all vague of course... there are better arguments against each of these gold sinks strewn throughout the forums.

What we need is a solution, something that would work in reality. I don't mind these taxes to a degree, but as of right now, I feel they are far too high.

So, this is a thread to discuss possible solutions as opposed to the current system that limits playability.

1) Lottery ticket system - A simple gold pit system. Create vendors that sell several different types of "lottery tickets", possibly in 'scratch card' form to make it a mini-game of sorts. These vendors could be limited to each of the major cities within racial areas. They could sell "themed" cards that would placate the atmosphere of each racial home, but in the end the lottery tickets would have the same general idea (spend x amount of gold and try to win x amount more. We've all scratched lottery tickets before, we get the idea. This method of a gold sink would rely on peoples' greed, seeking a get-rich-quick scheme. I'm simply making up numbers here... but they could cost 1 silver each and have a potential return of say 10 gold (very rare of course). Again, all this is purely hypothetical and I would leave the numbers to Arenanet, but you get the picture. I think people would go after them to the degree that it would be viable gold sink, but the return would be limited (although some will profit heavily, obviously). Yada-yada, you know how it works, rambling.

the lotto thing is like Maple's gachapon. I think it is a good idea, but some people will NOT be able to control themselves and end up losing all their money. It is a big gamble but i think it could be fun. Just worried that those people might whin on the forums about how crap the system is and demand their $ back

[Al Shamari]

XgreatArtist, on 02 October 2012 - 06:24 AM, said:

the lotto thing is like Maple's gachapon. I think it is a good idea, but some people will NOT be able to control themselves and end up losing all their money. It is a big gamble but i think it could be fun. Just worried that those people might whin on the forums about how crap the system is and demand their $ back

That would indeed be their own fault though, it is a choice after all. Which is the idea of a gold sink, at least in my eyes. Allowing gold to be spent, without putting too much of a penalty on just playing the game. I'm okay with the idea of taxing commonly used game systems, but especially when we're paying for armor damage in WvW... it becomes a little much.

[Righteous]

Gold sinks do not need a "solution".
They ARE the solution.

[Red Sonya]

Happens in EVERY MMO, those players WITHOUT money and who don't want to EARN it complain about having to pay for things or that things should be FREE so they don't have to EARN anything but what they want to. GW1 was so easily exploited for coin it wasn't funny. So, i'm VERY GLAD they TAX things in GW2. Prices are just fine and I'm more than willing to EARN the taxes needed to play this game. Since there's no equipment progression wealth is about the only thing left to actually play for so it shouldn't be EASY to obtain and/or keep. Good job Anet.

[Passive Aggressive]

I'm more or less OK with most of the gold sinks but perhaps waypoints could be brought down a bit and deaths in WvW really SHOULD be almost free or free.  Realizing how much each death cost me now that I am higher level put a really bad taste in my mouth.  People in chat were like "well you can make money in WvW!" but our server has been doing awful the past week and we most definitely weren't making any money that night.

I haven't been back to WvW since.

[Red Sonya]

Quote

I haven't been back to WvW since.

Good then the system is working as intended. It keeps the baddies an unskilled players out.

[Al Shamari]

Red Sonya, on 02 October 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

Good then the system is working as intended. It keeps the baddies an unskilled players out.

Oh don't even start with that... WvW is a zergfest regardless of being "skilled" or not. Players can still die frequently due to getting caught up in something, so don't give me that... the WvW system is flawed, end of story.

[shiannan73]

reintroduce the need for gems to be used in buffing people!

like my father always told me , you wanna cry? ill give u something to cry about!!!