237 replies to this topic

[Trei]

I, on 20 January 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

The economy is pretty horrible. In a way, it's "pay to win", considering you can pay real money --> gems --> gold --> buy whatever you want.

Like others have said, the trading post is just plain stupid as well; for a whole lot of reasons.

Pay to win what?

Redhawk2007, on 20 January 2013 - 02:35 AM, said:

...

I see nothing but contradiction in your points.

I have doubts as to whether you understand the accepted definition of inflation and its common causes.

What you probably were trying to refer to, at one point, is the price elasticity of ectos. However, you failed to distinguish between the elasticity of demand for ectos the material vs the craftables that need ectos, and instead talk about them as if they are one and the same.

A recipe's demand for ectos is unchanged, true, but that is also true for any other mats in any recipe, hence irrelevant.
When ectos prices go up, what changes is the desirability for those items that require ectos.

Or to put it another way: yes the armor needs ectos to make, but you don't need to make the armor.
Can't substitute the ectos needed to make the armor? Substitute the armor then.

To complicate things even more, here's a revelation: I don't need to buy or sell anything from the TP in my entire time playing the game.

Every single item in the TP was put there by players.
Every player in the game has natural access to those same items.
Players buy them instead of gathering or getting lucky themselves because they feel it is worth trading gold for time, up to a certain value. They want the item now.

When that value exceeds the worth of the item, I would simply just go out and farm it myself. Now is no longer important, its more worthwhile to get it later, if now cost this much.

This worth gets distorted and disproportionately higher the easier it is to gain and accumulate gold.
The gold sinks serve to keep such feeling of worth at a controllable level.

Being a gold sink is not the only sole reason for WPs costs and other costs' existence, it is not even their primary reason.
They only double up as one in case the player chooses to spend the gold in exchange for time.

The costs' main purpose is mild deterrence to make players consider, make the other option of less convenience viable in comparison.
Depending on situation, do you really need to spend that 1s to port to place X?
Anet would prefer you physically travel through this world they painstakingly created and drawn instead, and if you do you would save 1s, good deal?

It just so happens that a mechanic taking out gold from players back into the system can be considered a gold sink.

edit:
Oh yeah, as for the contradictions -
How do we come to the conclusion that players are kept poor if prices are indeed rising?
Somebody must have been buying for the price to stay up, yes?  

In fact, you even say such gold sinks we have now are not even effective, just annoying.

Either the prices are not as high as you think, or we aren't as gold-starved.
Take your pick.

Edited by unraveled, 20 January 2013 - 09:09 AM.

[Krazzar]

I, on 20 January 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

The economy is pretty horrible. In a way, it's "pay to win", considering you can pay real money --> gems --> gold --> buy whatever you want.

Like others have said, the trading post is just plain stupid as well; for a whole lot of reasons.

Fun fact; a legendary weapon would cost ~$18,000 to exchange gems. What you can do and what is feasible are two very different things. That of course ignores the question, what are you buying that makes you win?

Edited by Feathermoore, 21 January 2013 - 06:01 PM.
removed flamebait

[chrisbdrake]

Krazzar, on 20 January 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

It's quite obvious you have no idea what you're talking about, but continue with your conspiracy theory.



Fun fact; a legendary weapon would cost ~$180,000 to exchange gems. What you can do and what is feasible are two very different things. That of course ignores the question, what are you buying that makes you win?

The other questions that needs to be asked is what are you winning?

[lmaonade]

matsif, on 19 January 2013 - 11:46 PM, said:

I've played for ~600 hours as well and have only ever gotten 5 exotics as drops (disregarding gambling in the genie's toilet and map completion).  3 of those have been in HotW, 1 was in CoF last night, and 1 was in CoE.  I've never seen a world PvE exotic drop.  I've maybe gotten 50-60 rares as drops/chest loot, most of which came from dungeons.  Either RNG hates me or I have no luck whatsoever.  The other night in CoE with my guild 2 members of my group got multiple charged lodestones, and I didn't even get a green, and I was the one running a magic find booster and omnom bar.  

point being, just because you are doing fine from drops doesn't mean everyone else is.  yes my case and your case may be extremes, but for every case of someone being extremely "lucky" I've found, I've seen at least twice as many people who are closer to my case of hardly ever getting anything.  for the past 2 weeks I haven't even gotten a green weapon to drop off a dragon chest or orr temple event, have snagged maybe 3 rares total (most of which were worthless on the tp and didn't salvage to ecto with a mystic kit), and that exotic in CoF last night was the first exotic I've seen outside of buying them with tokens in over a month.

I've played a bit over 800 hours have gotten literally 2 exotic drops (again not counting map drops and the like), the last one I got being on the day fractals came out.

The TP sucks because it's too much like real life, it rewards people who like to play spreadsheet wars 2, making it a detriment to the game in general, and less rewarding for casuals (funny, since the game was aimed at casuals), I'm not saying that people who spend time on the TP shouldn't get their just reward, I'm saying there should be more incentive to go elsewhere in the game rather than sit in LA all day. Does the economy, as itself, suck? No, it moves on the correct principles of a market, is it bad for the (a) game? Yes, probably so.

Edited by lmaonade, 20 January 2013 - 05:28 AM.

[jthamind]

it's a figure of speech, you guys are taking it literally. in the GW2 sense, pay to win basically means pay to excel, or pay to advance, or pay to avoid having to earn anything through hard work.

[leongrado]

How can you tell if it's good or bad? I don't think it's that bad considering that it's based on supply and demand. I try to buy something off of the trading post. Don't get it for a few days. Post a higher price. Seems fine. I only complaint is the 15% they take away from you for every transaction.

[Baldur The Bold]

I think that the interesting thing that made GW1 so cool was that the community dictated the market prices internally. Remember when Elemental blades were new and very rare from the desert? Then they became so common that you could merch them?
The problem with GW2 is that the community doesnt dictate the prices. Rich people who play the TP do. BIG BIG difference.

[fatality39]

HawkofStorms, on 20 January 2013 - 02:24 AM, said:

I feel like this guy has never played or even heard of eastern MMOs like Lineage or Aion.

Yes, and those games sucked too.  How many games have you played that restricted your ability to loot coin or items the way Anet does?

[Featherman]

This game's economy can hardly be considered anywhere near the worst. Despite the gold sinks, everything that isn't a luxury is accessible to all players. Very few games can boast the same.

Edited by Featherman, 20 January 2013 - 08:58 AM.

[Minu]

There is a reason that Anet monitors their economy and manipulates it to work adversely for the majority of players, adding to the awful rewards for actually just playing the game by way of loot, is so that when people see something shiny that they want, and cannot afford, they simply buy gems and convert to gold, player is happy he has his shiny, Anet is very happy they have his money.

Have you ever considered that some of these super rich TP manipulators are Anet employees fixing the market?

Edited by Minu, 20 January 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Craywulf]

jthamind, on 20 January 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

it's a figure of speech, you guys are taking it literally. in the GW2 sense, pay to win basically means pay to excel, or pay to advance, or pay to avoid having to earn anything through hard work.

I'm not sure there's anything to advance, I suppose XP boosters allow you to advance faster, if only a few hours faster than those who don't use a booster. But core question is how do you compete in a cooperative venture (PvE)? There's no race or benefit of you beating Zhaitan first before I do. Furthermore there's no rationale to be upset if someone reaches a higher level before you. That's a sign of being too emotionally co-dependent on someone else's success or in this case failure.

As far as booster usage in WvW, pretty much irrelevant, when everyone gets upscaled. booster's don't effect armor or weapons, which is where the true statistical differences are among players vs players in WvW.

Edited by Craywulf, 20 January 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[Featherman]

Redhawk2007, on 20 January 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

snippity snoo

Logically speaking. If players aren't using waypoints, it means that the content they give access to isn't worth the cost. This is an issue with content rather than the gold sink itself, and not necessarily content being kept in check by the gold sink. In which case, the content simply needs to be more valuable to the player. I'd even hazard to say that even if there were no fees, players still wouldn't travel as much around the map, because the content isn't worth the time in terms of reward and player experience. This is because there are places on the map that have more perceived value to most players, like fractals for example. Stating that the waypoint fees and other gold sinks in themselves are an issue is a bit of a red herring, imo.

Also waypoints cost nothing in WvW and the fact that players are still playing WvW despite armor repairs means that it's worth the potential cost. A better point can be said about siege weapons, which are a more tangible gold sink than armor repairs because they're paid for up front rather than as a fee for dying. They're being used despite the cost which means that the value of the experience in using them is worth as much if not more than the fee.

Edited by Featherman, 20 January 2013 - 07:48 AM.

[Samarin]

Greetings from the more casual side of the community.

I have experience only on GW1 and GW2 and I never was a much into economics. I´d like someone to explain me what

SHOULD an mmo economy look like? I understand that the GW2 economy is too easy to be manipulated
but what other problems are there? Some people here say it´s not "deep" enough. What does it mean and require
that a mmo economy would be "deep"? And what would it mean for casuals like me?

Some people complain about gold sinks and some say they are necessary. Some say there should be player-to-
player trading and some say it ruined the whole economy of GW1. To me this thread looks like a war of ideology
between social democrats and neoliberalists (or something like that).


I´ve been playing GW2 pretty casually since the launch. I haven´t bothered myself with playing spreadsheet games
because 1) I don´t have time and 2) I haven´t been really interested. Bought couple of trinkets and some mats
there. So far I´ve been able to get everything I want for a reasonable price so I didn´t have a slightest idea we´ve got
problems with the economy.

But of course I realize it´s a thing that affects the whole community so I´m interested in hearing about this.

[Ritualist]

lmaonade, on 20 January 2013 - 05:27 AM, said:

Does the economy, as itself, suck? No, it moves on the correct principles of a market, is it bad for the (a) game? Yes, probably so.

This is the part I don't get.
The reason why we have the real life economy we have is because there's no way to bypass certain rules. When creating a game though, you make up all the rules. You are not limited by the same rules as you are in real life - so why are designers choosing to be limited by them?
I think this is the big issue of the GW2 economy - it seems like the economist they hired is lacking the imagination to create something other than a copy of a real life economy. GW2's economy works as a real life product (meaning it provides initiative to move real life cash from players to the producers of the game), but as a gaming experience it's not interesting.

But I am guessing that also answers my question above - GW2 is a real life product so its primary function still is to generate real life profits. A game's primary function isn't to be fun, it's to create cash for the guy that made it.

[Trei]

Baldur The Bold, on 20 January 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

I....? ...
The problem with GW2 is that the community doesnt dictate the prices. Rich people who play the TP do. ....

With essential support from stupidlazy people, without which the rich people would just be burning gold with a torch called "The Listing Fee".

Can't patch "stupid".

[Syncline]

AION's was worse.

[Soki]

GW2's economy sucks for an MMO.
It's good from a gray stock broker's eyes - which is how everybody who enjoys it plays the game.

[Eon Lilu]

I kind of agree with the article on most parts, also making legendary's available on trading post was a stupid decision but of course will probably make them more money.

GW2 is the worst economy in an MMO iv played so far. It is also way too high on taxes and open to very rich players just buying out entire markets. New players and poor players struggle to make any money and pay for high prices while the already rich get richer. Seems like the real world *ed up economy.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 20 January 2013 - 01:28 PM.

[Alex Dimitri]

Gilles VI, on 19 January 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

What?

What do you mean what, you said it "adjusting gold sinks and increasing drops" that`s basicly only thing that can so-so fix GW2 economy and inflation !

[Gilles VI]

Alex Dimitri, on 20 January 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

What do you mean what, you said it "adjusting gold sinks and increasing drops" that`s basicly only thing that can so-so fix GW2 economy and inflation !

Ah forgive, I'm in middle of exam week..
I stuff so much things in my head right now it's hard to keep track..

[Wickity]

I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that any serious fan of the game will be more likely to defend any and all of its features rather then admitting to something as obvious as the truth of gw's economy structure. The fact of the matter remains that "end game", or the "end game" that players bestowed upon themselves has become playing the trading post and any other content that can bring high influence on the already mentioned. I do not deem myself an expert, but I have played enough mmo's to realise that the grin in this specific game is completly and utterly unrewarding. So what to do in a game where any personal esthetic achievements are tied to large summs of gold? Well, do whatever needed to aquire that ammount. THis is where the sad part kicks in because it has been proven that the only viable direction of earning gold is either spamming the same old(rather boring and uneventful)dungeons, or playing the trading post which is mostly influenced by players who have turned large profits in the early stages of the game wether by exploiting/gambling or investing a lot of irl money.

Every mmo player needs something to push them forward and distinguish them from another one. Wether it's the strength of gear, the looks of it, or other relevant achievements. It's what drives the mmo community in general, because competition, even between friends and per se raiders/dungeon groups, is the main(not only)motivating factor.

So what do you do when you realise that you've done countless and countless dungeon runs without any large step forward in your finances, and the dungeons themselves are becoming a drag. What do you do when you up front knew that playing the trading post is your least favourite aspect of the game, and you would rather be rewarded for your personal efforts rather then depend on others? What do you do when after playing 500 hours the way "you wanted to", you see a player who played 200 hours, but is bragging around with his legendary that he earned through his credit card.

You get tired...and you have every right to do so. Both me and my girlfriend stopped playing Gw2 due to this perticular reason, we, who have always been more then patient when it comes to earning anything.

Nobody likes to hear it, fans will up frot deny it, but the fact remains. Gw2's "endgame" is the Black Lion Trading Company. Period.


P.S. In every other aspect, a beautiful game, but as it stand now, i doubt that will be enough.

Edited by Wickity, 20 January 2013 - 05:42 PM.

[MrIllusion]

For all those saying GW2 has the worst economy in all the games they've played, I'm guessing they can't have played too many MMOs.

It's not difficult to max out your gear with the current market. Or to max out crafting.

This would be a problem in most MMOs.

[Eon Lilu]

Wickity, on 20 January 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

So what do you do when you realise that you've done countless and countless dungeon runs without any large step forward in your finances, and the dungeons themselves are becoming a drag. What do you do when you up front knew that playing the trading post is your least favourite aspect of the game, and you would rather be rewarded for your personal efforts rather then depend on others? What do you do when after playing 500 hours the way "you wanted to", you see a player who played 200 hours, but is bragging around with his legendary that he earned through his credit card.

You get tired...and you have every right to do so. Both me and my girlfriend stopped playing Gw2 due to this perticular reason, we, who have always been more then patient when it comes to earning anything.

Nobody likes to hear it, fans will up frot deny it, but the fact remains. Gw2's "endgame" is the Black Lion Trading Company. Period.


P.S. In every other aspect, a beautiful game, but as it stand now, i doubt that will be enough.

This is exactly how me and alot of friends in my guild and in game feel about GW2 and is why we are thinking about leaving, they kinda ruined their own game by going too heavy on the money grabbing and it's become trading post wars 2 and diminishing returns hell where putting time into the game means absolutely nothing making it a pointless mmo to play, similar to pay2win but not pay2win just walking a very fine line in between, it's more like pay2skip ahead of everyone else, which is just as bad tbh. It's starting to remind me as a super easy facebook ultra casual game with hardly any challenge at all.

Trading Post Wars 2. They had a great game and the way they are handling it and implementing it is just terrible and piss poor management. Its a real shame. They are trying to fix it by falling back on more token grinding systems but tokens is just a terrible reward system.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 20 January 2013 - 06:45 PM.

[Silent The Legend]

Shiren, on 19 January 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Reading through the comments on the article I noticed most of the people who seemed to like the GW2 economy liked it because they enjoy spread sheets, note pads and a market simulator in their MMO. Many of the people who disliked it seemed to dislike being forced to participate on all of the former likes. The economy, whether it's a success or not, doesn't appear to be fun for many people, and in a game target towards MMORPG players, shouldn't the focus be on fun instead of hijacking everyone else's game (and loot) to create a mini game for market lovers?

I don't think it's the worst MMO economy ever, but I certainly don't enjoy it in the slightest and it's current design, implementation and execution is one of the biggest flaws the game has. Being forced to compete with spread sheets and incredibly high profits from power traders (who get more rewards from playing less because they play a part of the game given so much power, despite it's fun being very niche) to access so many of the items in this game (instead of accessing them from merchants, awards, achievements and drops). Competing with RNG, inflation, power traders and having no journeys that place my items in the world (unlike gear in WoW which is typcially earned from specific achievements and events in the world, so much of GW2 items are bought for gold or made from pathetically low RNG drop rate materials that you have to buy them) results in a lower quality MMO experience for me. The game would be a lot better if so much of the itemisation had nothing to do with the economy at all and instead was realistically and reasonably achievable from actually playing the game.

This a million times.

When I play a game I dont want it to be like real life. Holy crap, I do archery and fencing because I like medieval weapons and because I play RPGs, ok... but, seriously, I must play economy simulator 1.0 while in another game? It becomes so tedious and annoying, especially considering that I dont farm at all and Ive been considerably poor in every MMO Ive played since I dont farm at all. And then people come on Guru's threads and say:"Dont sell now, dont buy now, dont feed the manipulator, bla bla bla". When(Basically never now but whatever...) Im in-game I just open the TP, say:"* it!" and buy the first thing I manage to find.

[Vexies]

I seriously dont understand what anyone who has played any other mmo has to bitch about at all about GW2 economy or its TP. Its been one of the easiest and most lucrative I have come across in any MMO and I dont play the market at all. Everything you want to buy is there and most of it is extremely affordable. Making money is easy. I see all these posts about how its so hard and scratch my head assuming they either A. dont want to put forth any effort what so ever to make money or B. sit in WVWVW all day and expect to make tons of it. (which by the way you still can if you farm the nodes / mats and what not.)

There are those who have extreme amounts of money yes. Show me a MMO where that is not the case. I assure you I am not one of them, play 3 hours a night about 4-5 days a week, dont go out of my way to "play the market" at all and have made enough to buy full Tier 3 and build back up to a comfortable amount in short order. Simply runnig dungeons and gathering mats as you run about nets you MORE than enough to bounce all over the map, repair and generally get whatever you want so long as your willing to do it.

What ever you put up for a reasonalbe price sells. Always and usually quite quickly. What ever you want to buy is there for a price for you to be had. Whats not to like?

Edited by Vexies, 20 January 2013 - 07:40 PM.

[ZudetGambeous]

I've seen it written in this thread multiple times that crafting is useless and a money sink. You guys must be playing a different game then me... I make 10-15g a day by buying things off the TP, crafting and then selling the final product. There are currently over 500 items that you can craft for a profit.

[Featherman]

Vexies, on 20 January 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

I seriously dont understand what anyone who has played any other mmo has to bitch about at all about GW2 economy or its TP. Its been one of the easiest and most lucrative I have come across in any MMO and I dont play the market at all. Everything you want to buy is there and most of it is extremely affordable. Making money is easy. I see all these posts about how its so hard and scratch my head assuming they either A. dont want to put forth any effort what so ever to make money or B. sit in WVWVW all day and expect to make tons of it. (which by the way you still can if you farm the nodes / mats and what not.)

Sensationalism is addictive and spreads like the flu. It's no wonder why forums are often looked down upon. It's  a shame really, because there are some really constructive posts from time to time.

[MrIllusion]

Exactly what makes buying from TP so complex that people can't wrap their head around it.

Seriously? You don't even need to speculate or work out anything. The UI tells you exactly how much the items cost. People find this hard?

People complaining that GW2's economy is "bad" have no clue what a "bad economy" means.

It's bad when there is no buying and selling taking place.

[Butcher]

The TP is designed to prevent players from making any kind of profit without first grinding for the item they wish to sell on the TP. No one will ever turn out more than 1 silver from fine and most masterwork items. This should be obvious to everybody. I mean just look at the way ANet designed the thing. It's terrible.

If you want something in this game, you might as well farm for it. However, if you don't have the time, then buy gems, trade them for gold, and buy what you want from some nerd who has WAY too much time on his hands. Don't have enough money for gems? Don't want to buy them? Well that's where ANet screwed you.

The only way you'll ever turn a big profit in the TP now is if you super grind for some legendaries, then sell them. Or invest RL money in the TP.

You know what's really sad about this game? When I hit 80 I had completed over 50% of the world, had done at least 200 hearts, and only had 10g in my wallet. I had HOPED to have enough by 80 to buy the cheap ass level 80 cultural set, but no, I could barely even afford 2 pieces of it. This game is unforgiving when it comes making any kind of profit.

ANet might as well just admit they're extorting us. You're pretty much subject to grinding or buying gems...because Mafia O'Brien said so.

Edited by Butcher, 21 January 2013 - 12:00 AM.

[Shroomhead Fred]

Wickity, on 20 January 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Snip

Great post, you described my thoughts on the matter nicely.

It sucks that the only way to make any real gold is by playing the TP.  What about the players that have no interested at playing stoke broker in a game and just want to play/have fun and farm gold that way?  Well they're stuck in the slow lane and when I say slow lane I mean obtaining gold at a snails pace.  All I'm interested in at this point is WvW, can i make gold there?  Not really, unless I get super lucky with a drop.  My only source of revenue is dungeons and even doing those I only find fractals worth my time.  Even then you're not guaranteed a good result, you roll the dice that hopefully you'll get decent loot this run.

With the added factor of DR, I can see why people are fed up with this aspect of the game.