Curse

SotiCoto · Apr 24, 2007, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Makes a kind of sense....

... though this is still going to be encouraging more farming... and farmers are still going to be getting rich... and thus they're still able to pay far more for other items they might want... if only to resell them. And with more farmers with more gold, any potential drop in price might be countered.

Alderin · Apr 24, 2007, 08:00 AM // 08:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by MerLock

I think the unattainable items like FoW armor is not even harder to obtain. Before, if you really wanted it, you could always farm the money to buy the mat. Now, it's hard enough to come up with enough money to buy one ecto just by playing through a mission or two. Not sure how far prices will drop so we'll wait and see.

I just did 'Thunderhead Keep' (They nerfed the hell out of this mission to make it a joke now) with a full team and sold all the junk and weapons I had drop for me. After deducting the cost of the one key I purchased and used I made a grand total of 76 gold.

All I can say about the loot update is, "Wow". Normally I buy around 4 keys and sell everything to the merchant after a mission and make a net profit of around 400-500 gold in that mission... I had one armor piece drop for me, it was a white item... so getting material for armor or weapons is going to be a pain now as well.

Kashrlyyk · Apr 24, 2007, 08:02 AM // 08:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

This reduced the fun factor of the game, in that the game seemed to require that players play in a certain way if they wanted to get those items.

Is that the reason why the Vaabi and FOW armor is that expensive? How do you get the items needed via normal playing?

Orinn · Apr 24, 2007, 08:13 AM // 08:13

Less gold entering the economy, while not necessarily deflationary in and of itself, will cause players to ASSUME that there is/will be less gold in the economy overall. Since the flow of items hasn't slowed, and may have even increased overall with hard mode drops, we can guess that supply will continue unabated. Both of these factors together suggest that prices for the highest of goods, except for the truly unique (rollerbeetle minipet, for example, or uninscribed crystalline 15>50) will come down.

Of course, over year i've been playing, prices on most gold and green items have all followed a general downward trend to begin with. I honestly see greens truly replacing collector's items as the "everyman" gear, with nearly every player being able to afford the greens he/she wants.

Anet didn't hurt farmers. They nerfed profit margins. :P

Burma_GW · Apr 24, 2007, 08:28 AM // 08:28

I got kinda lost. Sorry. One minute I am reading that "These crops (gold drops, ectos, and the like) have been left the same, if not slightly increased." Then I am wondering about the Demand Side which isn't clearly defined as was the Supply Side.

My guess is the your Demand Side is the farmer who now has less money with which to inflate prices with but still more then the casual player, and the casual player which ANet, via Gaile Grey, claims will have more liquid funds. The buy/sell community could be included in the Demand Side, but, well, it really doesn't matter.

Then I read "The net result of this is that we're going to have increased supply of items that no one has the money to pay the prices they used to be going for."

So then I am wondering...why would no one have the money to pay current prices for an increased supply of items when the farmer still has more then Casual Joe and Casual Joe has more then he had before?

But, actually, I do not think that is relavent to your conclusion, which I believe has merit. Prices for given items were already decreasing and the basic driving forces for that trend haven't changed. By suggesting that the supply will increase, you have already implied that the prices will drop. That in itself is Supply Side Economic Theory.

Ecto deserves its own comments. The addition variables to consider are the flow of Ecto through the Forge Master and and Rare Material Traders, and, of course, the human psyche. To wit, the price of Ecto recently jumped by over 50% in less then 12 hours with hardly a ripple, if any, in the "Supply Side."

So, in the end, I believe that you are correct in that item prices will drop after the market worries sort themselves out. But that was already happening. Certain items will show nothing in the way of altered trends. What does the update have to do with Zodiac Weapons or mini-pets for example?

On the other hand, Hard Mode is likely to be the ringer clouding the Crystal Ball For Predicting Economic Change. Hard Mode might deserve the alternate title, Premier Farmland with More Bountiful Crops. In just a few hours of semi-serious searching, I found 3 areas to solo which included Bosses, and I am not a Pro Solo Uber Farming Wizard. The cash drops are predictably meager. However, the item drops have increased my cash-per-hour rate of income over pre-update farming by a factor of 3, and I haven't even dropped and Elite Tome yet.

And that experience has made me wonder about the idea that farmers are going to have less money. There is a possiblilty that the update will just stimulate more people to farm, whether it be solo or in teams. I strongly believe that Hard Mode will simply result in an increase in items and funds into the game without effecting one iota the distribution profile of the same. In other words, the quality of life for GW Players will remain the same. Income is worthless to evaluate without correlating expenses.

Of course...that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

noocoo · Apr 24, 2007, 08:45 AM // 08:45

In a short, The value of money will get up; the value of items from traders will get down.

Right?

Also, I think that supply and demand are not the problem. For example, ectos, people will not want to invest in ectos because they want to keep their money that get more and more value, and people will not go farm ectos because less and less people want to go buy them.

In other words, supply and demand both will decrease, and the break-even point will also get decrease, so it means that the price of the item in trader will go down.

gaiaplay · Apr 24, 2007, 08:51 AM // 08:51

The harder is it to get money in game makes it more favorable for botters and plat sellers. They have millions in stock. Even though the new changes makes it more difficult for them, they can capitalize on what they have and continue botting just the same.

frojack · Apr 24, 2007, 09:02 AM // 09:02

All in all this is a good thing. The market has been stagant for quite a while. A lot of people bemoaned the arrival if inscribe-able goods (saying this would cause a crash by 'cheapening' non inscribe-able goods in the market. If anything it reinvigorated the middle-end of sales by widening the portfolio of goods.
Nightfall also let me find and create 2 perfect Obsidian Earth staves ^_^. One of which I will probably sell in game for far less than they used to be worth (below 100k). The economic slide is a double edge sword but it's still worth it in my oppinion

.

If only economics in actual countries was as easy to balance...

Dr Strangelove · Apr 24, 2007, 09:12 AM // 09:12

I don't feel like going through and quoting everything, so yeah.

Gaiaplay - I don't know if I'm being naive, but I don't think that ebayers form a significant number of players. If everyone decides to be a douche and goes and buys gold, that certainly throws a kink in things, but I really hope no one is spending that much money on it.

noocoo - Ectos are a bit tricky, as they're an alternate currency. It's really hard to say what will happen to them, but if I had to guess, I'd say they will become more valuable, reflecting the increasing value of money.

Other trader items, like runes, will almost certainly go down. Supply is increasing, demand is constant, prices go down.

Burma GW- Supply is increasing, so someone really has to use all that supply, so quality of life will probably go up. Solo farmers will still get a big piece of the pie, thanks to their ability to provide more items. However, their liquid assets will be closer to the general populace than before, so things will be a bit more even.

Item prices were dropping before because new items were being produced at the same rate - by solo farmers, but there aren't that many new players showing up who need new gear. Supply is constant, but demand is decreasing, prices go down.

Zodiacs have been pretty worthless for a while, thanks to inscriptions. In fact, pretty much any item from Prophecies or Faction is worthless thanks to inscriptions. If non-nightfall weapons aren't rock bottom already, they'll be even worse soon.

Minipets are certainly a wild card as I have no idea how the supply of them (birthdays) is changing, or how many people want the things. It's likely that they will go down though, just because of deflation.

Soticoto - Farmers can play swap meet all they want, they can't produce more gold. They'll have to sell to the general population for deflated prices, or they can sit on all their shinies.

Merlock - Solo farming for golds, greens, and other sellable stuff is alive and well. Nothing is stopping you from solo farming just for fun either.

Frojack - The real world, sadly, does not have money sinks, and has the phenomenon of compound interest. Thus, rich people get even richer.

SotiCoto · Apr 24, 2007, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burma_GW

Certain items will show nothing in the way of altered trends. What does the update have to do with Zodiac Weapons or mini-pets for example?

Trade faction for a pass to Urgoz' Warren or The Deep?
Now easier than ever to get to?
No change in Zodiac Weapons?

I reckon their price will drop... as will that of the Urgoz and Kanaxai Greens.

Numa Pompilius · Apr 24, 2007, 09:31 AM // 09:31

I've not been keeping up on events in Guildwars for a while - where can I get info on what loot-scaling is? I checked guildwiki and the update notes, there wasn't any exact info in either.

Does it simply mean that you always get 1/8th of the drops, even if you solo or have only four people in the team?

Gore · Apr 24, 2007, 09:31 AM // 09:31

1 - Learn to trade correclty
2 - FoW should be unique, like 1 outa 20 000 players should have it
3 - Lots who have FoW are farmers / power traders like me who can make 50 Ectos outa weeks ends trade
4 - Dont pm how to since you wont be able to as you dont know how yet.
5 - Learn and envy, i dont apreciate my FoW anymore as $$ is way too easy to get
6 - You have no reason to want Fow if you cant manage to work it out anyways
7 - There is no points fore anymore points as its realy clear you dont have any clues $$ has never been easier except maybee when 55 was undergroud.
8 - Last point here...i wasent there at the trader reset + 55 thing ever , period. I only power trade

Ensign · Apr 24, 2007, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile

"All players were seeing high prices for the most desirable items; they noted a push to unattainable of items they wanted to get.

The only players able to attain the coolest items fell into a certain player type, the farmer.

This reduced the fun factor of the game, in that the game seemed to require that players play in a certain way if they wanted to get those items.

The ideas mentioned in this quote show a failure to understand basic economic principles.

First off there's this misunderstanding of what 'high price' means...it really has little to do with raw gold or ecto numbers, and everything to do with price in comparison to individual income. Personally I find that prices are rather *low* for many of the most desirable items, considering just how much time has to be put into acquiring them and/or just how scarce those items really are. To a player with virtually no income, however, those prices seem ridiculous, and they are - given their income.

What's being overlooked here are two major ideas - one, just how scarce the most desirable items are in the first place; and two, how little desirable loot normal gameplay in Guild Wars produces.

Farmers aren't just producing piles and piles of vendor trash. Granted, they do, because, well, there's no auction house to facilitate trades, there's no deep crafting system, so just about everything the game does drop has no resale value. But farmers are also the ones, statistically, who are finding those really expensive weapons that everyone wants. It doesn't happen very often - those items are bloody rare, after all - but when they do drop it's usually to someone with a highly inflated drop rate, not someone plodding along trying to do quests with a full group.

When farmers do find valuable weapons, they either want to keep them, or exchange them for other similarly valuable items. Those other items are similarly owned by farmers most of the time. Exchanges are made using price ranges that are sensical for the amount of floating currency in an economy, and with respect to how valuable those rarities actually are. Put another way, people with rare weapons want to exchange them for other rare weapons or fissure armor or the like. They don't want to exchange them for piles of vendor trash. The prices are going to reflect that desire, pushing up past what people can reasonable acquire off of trash heaps and into quantities that reflect actual value.

Granted there were some shortcuts that allowed one to acquire piles of vendor trash, ala insect or vermin farming. These weren't exactly time efficient ways to make a profit, but they were an available shortcut for someone with a lot of time to kill.

But, back to the point, there's too much focus being put on gold values. It's as though you're asking the question, 'why can't a casual player buy the best items with piles of vendor trash?', to which the answer is obvious. The real question is, 'why can't a casual player find anything with real value?' - because if you could acquire items with trade value playing the game, the whole conversation about prices becomes meaningless.

The answer to that question has little to do with farming or raw prices, or anything else alluded to in that quote. Instead it goes something like this:

"The Guild Wars economic reward model is a gigantic, flaming trainwreck."

You say that players can't afford the coolest items through completing quests and missions? Well, DUH. How many cool items are *acquired* through completing quests and missions? What is the cool, desired, tradable reward for slogging through a mission with seven other players? What do you get for handing in a quest? I'll tell you - nothing. You don't produce any tradable goods that anyone actually wants by completing quests. So why would anyone, anywhere, expect any sort of exchange to take place?

If you want a rare, desired weapon type, you basically have two choices. One, you can run chests. Those kick out a wide variety of weapons and something rare and desired will pop out sooner rather than later. Second, you can massacre a phenomenal number of enemies and hope that the item you want drops. The rarest drops are really bloody rare though, and that's only made up for by really strong drop scaling by both removing loot distribution and speeding up kills immensely. Depending on what you think of the HoH chest, that's it. If you want to find something scarce and desirable, those are the relevant activities in Guild Wars.

Now, if you don't understand why all of the trade in extremely rare items is between people who are going out of their way to produce extremely rare items, through chests and farming, go take a basic economics course now.

So what do I think of this update? Well, it should be obvious by now, but I'll walk through the logic anyway.

Playing through the game normally leaves one unable to trade for desirable items. One notices that in playing through the game normally, one does not acquire desirable items in any quantity. Players with valuable items want to trade them for other valuable items. Hence it's obvious why playing through the game leaves one unable to buy anything valuable - because you don't have anything to trade!

One would (quite rightly) conclude that if you wanted players to have economic power through normal gameplay, you would reward players with desirable items and other economic tools for completing normal gameplay objectives.

The solo farming nerf doesn't change that paradigm at all. Except now, you don't have nearly as many rares entering the economy through brute force farming. But the sources of items of value are still chests, and through the moderating effects of statistics when you mass farm drops. So, solo farming has been nerfed. Do players doing missions suddenly start producing anything of value? No? So why do they suddenly matter? Answer: they don't. They're still economic deadweight.

Farmers and chest runners will redistribute themselves to find new activities that produce valuable items. They'll continue to exchange them amongst themselves for the valuable items they want. Players who don't farm or run chests will continue to look at the prices with disgust. If you still don't understand this and still think that this change helps the little guy trying to finish his quests, please go find a better economics teacher than I and come back when you achieve enlightenment. This isn't even a band-aid. Band-aids actually help, even if they are insufficient. The farming nerf is tossing deck chairs over the side when the ship is tipping over. Ultimately pointless, but you're tired when you're done.

Peace,
-CxE

Hengis · Apr 24, 2007, 09:52 AM // 09:52

I was farming Sunspear Points last night in the Sulfurous Waste and found that I was making a reasonable amount of money and getting some reasonable drops. Nothing very exciting, but I was getting regular gold and purple drops and a few tomes etc. I was certainly making enough to fund the lockpicks I was using and to make a profit on top of that.

This actually lead me to think that as making money now simply revolves round how fast you can kill things in a group of eight, that worm farming with heroes/hench is probably now the fastest (and the most mindless) reliable method of making money in the game.

To me, this has greatly detracted from the skill needed to be successful in the game. Working out and learning to play the various solo builds to farm different areas, and even taking a new character all the way through the game and then capping the skills needed just so you can try out a new build is now a thing of the past.

Just jump in a worm and let the hench/heros do all the killing for you.

Dr Strangelove · Apr 24, 2007, 10:04 AM // 10:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Bunch of well written stuff

I'm not entirely certain that non-farmers as as much of deadweight as they were. Keyless chests, and monetary quest/mission rewards actually give Casual Gamer Joe a reasonable amount of money. They're never going to have as much money as the farming brigade, for obvious reasons, but the gap is *slightly* shrinking. While it remains unlikely that Casual Joe will be able to afford rare skins and other premium items, theres a good chance he'll be able to pick up decent weapon mods and boring skin/high req gold, where before he had to live with what he had.

Secondly, the inscription system has made the vendor trash a lot less likely. Almost all golds and many purples now have some kind of mod worth pulling off. Many of them are usable if you pool all your mods from a bunch of things. Casual Joe can even make a few plat by selling some of those mods.

Each individual change may be a band-aid, but we're starting to get a lot of them going here.

1) Quartermaster junk - mostly worthless, but slightly lowers operating costs
2) Monetary quest rewards - not huge, but a plat every mission, and 500 gold every quest starts to add up really quickly.
3) Keyless chests - non-farmable big ticket items and cash evens the score a bit in my mind. I'm not sure just how much average players hit these up, though
4) ANet kicks farmer income in the balls, bringing them down a *little* closer to everyone else.

If you look at prices today, you'll see that most stuff is actually pretty reasonably priced. Only the really rare stuff, like elemental swords, or the really popular stuff, like fortitude mods, remains valuable. Everything else-mods, inscriptions, ugly golds- is 1-3kish, which is not so bad for even the poorest players.

SotiCoto · Apr 24, 2007, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I've not been keeping up on events in Guildwars for a while - where can I get info on what loot-scaling is? I checked guildwiki and the update notes, there wasn't any exact info in either.

Does it simply mean that you always get 1/8th of the drops, even if you solo or have only four people in the team?

Depends since the 20th whether you're after rare or conventional items.

Conventional items (whites, blues, purples) will drop in the same quantity now if you're going solo as they would if you were in a group of 8.

Dyes, Golds, Greens, Ecto etc drop the same as they did before.

silvershock · Apr 24, 2007, 10:18 AM // 10:18

I doubt this will happen. In real life it would make sense, but it's a game and it's economy isn't as fragile as a real life economy.

Coridan · Apr 24, 2007, 11:16 AM // 11:16

if you want my opinion we need to get rid of some of the ectos in the economy. There is only one thing they are for (correct me if I am wrong) which is FoW armor....Most people with ectos either A already have it or B would never get it .....so now we have all these ectos floating around with nothing to do with them but trade to other people. They should put in some type of game/whatever that uses ectos...make the rewards worthwhile.....maybe something like the HoH chest for PvE players...1 or 2 or 5 or 10 ectos to open the HoF(hall of Farmers) chest. Then others can have a chance to get a ghostly mini...or a reaper blade...or gold crystalline and start to get rid of the over abundance of ectos in the economy.

blackbird71 · Apr 24, 2007, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

I suppose we may have a difference of opinion here, but I would argue that forums such as this one tend to have a much higher concentration of "hardcore" players to casual players. It makes sense, if you think about it: hardcore players have more time invested, and they have a deeper understanding of the game, so they have more of an incentive to discuss the intricacies of the game and meta-game. A casual player is not nearly that dedicated; they might spend five hours a week in the game, and have really no reason (or time) to discuss the game outside of that time.

From my anecdotal experience, my friend who is the most casual player has never looked at GuildWiki or any forums, the next most casual ones occasionally read the wiki, and only the most hardcore of my friends (including myself) have read any GW-related forum with any regularity.

And i would argue that I have seen the opposite, that a number of casual players come to the forums and similar pages so that they can quickly learn from others the better ways to play the game without spending too much time trying to figure out how to do things themselves. This is what originally brought me to forums, and many others I know. We seek to learn from shared wisdom, and we can learn faster by reading from others' experiences here than by constantly butting our heads against the wall trying to find the right tactic to get past a tough mission. Just don't mistake "casual players" for people who won't get involved once they see a discussion that directly involves them.

But as you said, a difference of opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

A couple of points on this:
First of all, if you reread Gaile's post carefully, she never said that FoW armor should be attainable by casual players. She only said that "the coolest items" (she doesn't specifically say all of the coolest items) should be obtainable by more than just farmers. (This would include "hardcore" non-farmers.) I think you've been misinterpreting this in your last couple of posts.

I think we would all agree that FoW armor is in a completely different price bracket than any other item in the game, and is realistically impossible for any casual player to obtain. I'd love to hear Gaile's or one of the dev team's comments on the purpose and "target audience" of FoW armor, but given the situation I don't think that's going to happen at the moment.

Secondly, the game reward system is designed to provide different levels of motivation for vastly different styles of players. Sure, Anet could easily enough make FoW armor accessible to casual players, but then hardcore players would be able to get it in a matter of weeks or even days, and have no more incentive to play the game. So as someone mentioned earlier, there are different tiers of incentives: 1.5k armor and collectable weapons for casual players, 15k and greens/golds for moderate players, and FoW/rare skins for the most hardcore players. Personally, I think this is a great solution, as everyone has something to work for and take pride in, but at the same time, the game remains interesting for all different levels of players, regardless of their time commitment.

Ok, let's take another look at what she said...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

I will explain the reasoning for the change:

All players were seeing high prices for the most desirable items; they noted a push to unattainable of items they wanted to get.
The only players able to attain the coolest items fell into a certain player type, the farmer.
Farming is ok with us, no problem at all, but we did not intend that farming would be "required," or that only farmers would be able to obtain the coolest items.

Here's one way of looking at it, perhaps this will make sense to some: The intention of loot scaling is not to "punish" the expert farmer. The intention is remove the numeric punishment that was previously inflicted upon those who play casually and/or who play in a party.

(boldface added for emphasis)

The "coolest" items. Coolest = most cool. The most, i.e, the top, the best. No, she does not specifically state FoW armor, but if this is not included in her categorization as "coolest," then what is?

Yes this is open to a certain amount of interpretation, but given the sum of her statements, I find it a reasonable conclusion that it is Anet's intention (or that she says it is Anet's intention) that all items available in the game should be within reach of the casual player. I'm not saying they should be easy to get, or not require a certain amount of dedication or effort, but it should be a requirement appropriate to the casual gamer. If that means that the "hardcore" gamer finds it too easy and no longer has incentive to continue playing, then that's fine by me. As far as I understand, this game was designed to appeal to the casual gamer, not the hardcore. At least that's why I bought it, I was tired of games that required countless hours of investment to obtain the game's richest rewards. I have a life and responsibilities in reality and can't make that type of commitment to entertainment. From everything that was pitched to me by Anet, this game was exactly that, one that did not require me to be a "hardcore" gamer to reap its benefits. Let the truly hardcore gamers go grind in a game designed for that, I thought GW was supposed to be something different.

william1975 · Apr 24, 2007, 11:36 AM // 11:36

If they have made it more difficult to ge the rarest items then i would imagine that that would either keep the price where it is now or push it up further. I haven't ever seen a crystaline weapon and don't expect to, I wont ever make millions of gold to affoard one, and i'm not too bothered by it, If I was then I would learn to farm effectively, rather than running about with my mesmer using a 55 build. I'm sitting at about 300k, not a lot but enough to get the armour i want and unlock the skills i need to enjoy the game.

Sure i would like some of these really rare things, but then I would love a Ferrari or a Monet painting, they cost a fortune and i can't affoard them nor will ever likely be able to. But I'm not bitter.

I have more chance of getting these rare items in GW than of getting them.

The nerf seems pointless in the light of this statement. Prices for rare armour hasnt come down you still need some things that are difficult to get. Unless i farm i dont see me getting the vabbi gems necessary for their armours. The devs may have tried to alleviate this problem but its pointless unless they increase the drops of the items they think everyone wants, but doing that would only mean they weren't rare any more, even by reducing the gold in the economy, (and i don't think they have im getting more gold now than before, i was getting about 10k a day now i can make double that at least) and halving the price of some of these million costing items, they would not be affoardable to the average joe player. If a crytaline sword was worth 500k now instead of several million i wouldnt buy it, I just don't see the sense in what they have done.