Winter *celebrations*

I am sorry, but for the last 2 hours i have been crunching my teeth if i should place this topic or not.. but here goes.Been playing this game for about 2,5 years now, not really the event kind of guy.. so I thought to check it out, and hey that's nice .. Winter's Presence skin !

So here goes what do we need, bit of this bit of that and then it felt I got a Mike Tyson right hook, a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick and a piledriver from Hulk Hogan that almost knocked me from my chair.What am i talking about, Dear Arena-net / developers, in the spirit of Christmas and all that.. is this really necessary to put a 1000g material price tag on just ONE skin, isn't this truly ridiculous?.Would a gold / material input of 100-200gold be more then reasonable, just a thought.

This is not a give me it right now immediately sort of thing, but honestly.. why ??.This is a once a year event, so miss one achievement and sorry mate, better luck next year.

I understand there is a difference between special (legendary stuff) that understandably cost time and (gold-materials) .. this is just a skin, why make it so impossible?There are people who barely have 100gold and probably had to bust their behinds to get it.

I enjoy playing this game i really do, and just for comparison.. just this month alone bought 300 euro gems (extreme exception, but usually buy 50-80 euro) a month, but think about this.. there a players who do NOT have that luxury.The reason I mention this is because I DO my farming, 12 months I have been running around with a pickaxe and a woodcutter, but for some wants like legendary 's this still is not enough, and you know it.

I see no winter celebration in this Arena-net, I am sorry.. this is a huge slap in the face.. yes for me it's just a skin, i couldn't care less.

But i am sure you guys make a lot more money from 100.000 gw2 players then 100.000 WoW subscribers.

So will say it bluntly , maybe give some back for once, whatever it is.

I have to agree. As I recall it did not used to be so bad. I think I got it the 2nd year, mostly because of needing the drinks. But the sigil and rune were, if I remember correctly, not nearly so expensive. The current requirement is simply excessive and needs serious rework.

One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal. Plus there are many threads on this to discuss further if you disagree

@"Randulf.7614" said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal

On top of that, outside the first year its always been incredibly expensive to obtain, from what i recall.

Either you care:

@Smeerlap.2698 said:and then it felt I got a Mike Tyson right hook, a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick and a piledriver from Hulk Hogan that almost knocked me from my chair.Or you don't:yes for me it's just a skin, i couldn't care less.But not both.

From my point of view, if you really didn't care, then you wouldn't have even considered making a thread about it. I just see it as another way for ArenaNet to monetize the game since you can convert gems into gold. So I figure, either you spend the rest of the year gathering the mats together or you take the short cut and pay them the money. I'm sure some people are sitting on thousands of gold anyway but that's not most people.

At least it unlocks it for all three armor types, but yeah this is how the most special items are treated here. Look at the Legendaries and for example the Koda Enrichment. You either have to farm a lot, farm for a long time, buy the short cut with real money or give up on the idea. It's how it works in GW2.

What is it with this game that people immediately latch onto the most expensive or hard to get items in any given situation and decide that is the sole purpose of the event/expansion/whatever and if they can't get it quickly the game must be broken?

Yes Winters Presence is expensive and hard to get, that's the idea. It's like a Wintersday legendary. But you don't need to do it all in one go. Many people start working on it one year and do the bits only available during the festival, then take their time collecting items during the year and finish it off next time.

If you don't want to do that there are many other Wintersday rewards to go for, or you can just do whichever activities you enjoy and not worry about the rewards. And of course everything else in the game remains available during Wintersday.

@Dante.1763 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal

It was incredibly expensive the first year too, but then it was the drinks which cost the most because they were new and so many people wanted them.

Maybe one year we'll reach a point where all the components are relatively cheap and demand has gone down...but then something else will probably be added as a new long term goal.

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal

Aww even better then, i wasnt aware it was a thing the first year so never bothered. Just glad the drinks are super cheap at the moment cause i can finally get my 100000 drink achievement.

@"Randulf.7614" said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal. Plus there are many threads on this to discuss further if you disagree

In 2,5 years a have never had a drop or loot that blew my mind, did you ? But sure I am generalizing, maybe someone else had all his dreams come true, I got a weapon in my fist month, forgot what it was.. worth 120 gold .. that's IT.It's not what you get, but playing the game is what matters I get that.Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal. Plus there are many threads on this to discuss further if you disagree

In 2,5 years a have never had a drop or loot that blew my mind, did you ? But sure I am generalizing, maybe someone else had all his dreams come true, I got a weapon in my fist month, forgot what it was.. worth 120 gold .. that's IT.It's not what you get, but playing the game is what matters I get that.Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

What do you mean by "for once" There are plenty of easily achieveable and affordable reward in this game and during festivals

Anet did make it how they wanted it. A long term goal

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

In 2,5 years a have never had a drop or loot that blew my mind, did you ? But sure I am generalizing, maybe someone else had all his dreams come true, I got a weapon in my fist month, forgot what it was.. worth 120 gold .. that's IT.

Been here for six, ive gotten more than enough drops that blew my mind.

It's not what you get, but playing the game is what matters I get that.

If you did, this wouldnt be a thread then.

Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

Says Anet, from year one it was available, same with the Nightfury skin, which is also expensive(more expensive than this one). You either buy your way through it and get it instantly or earn it over time like the vast majority of players have.

FYI i dont have it yet either, but imma feel really good when i get it cause i earned it, and if anet made it idiotically cheap/easy(which it is easy) to obtain after i did i would be really pissed, and so too would most people who already have it.

A lamborghini veneno is also expensive at 4.5M dollars. Have you tried complaining to them about how its not easily obtainable for you and you would like them to lower the price to a more reasonable $30K-$40K? I don't want to have to put time or resources into legendaries but that's how the game works.

@Smeerlap.2698 said:Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

That would be me. I play about 2 hours a day when I'm home and miss about 1/2 of Wintersday each year because I'm away.

Even so I could probably have gotten Winters Presence over a few years if I wanted it. (I've made 3 legendary weapons, which took between 7 and 13 months each.) But instead I use Wintersday to work on my mini pet collection, getting the Wintersday minis and then getting karma and/or gold to buy others.

Lots of little goals works better for me than one big one.

Not everything exists to be achievable for everybody. It's built around being something you work towards every single year until you get it

Just the mystic coins and laurels from the login rewards are currently worth ~800g a year. The skin was intended to be expensive, but anyone who really wants it could easily afford it.

@Healix.5819 said:Just the mystic coins and laurels from the login rewards are currently worth ~800g a year. The skin was intended to be expensive, but anyone who really wants it could easily afford it.

Which would be a valid argument if the winter's presence was the only thing you were going for but you need gold for other things as well when you play so you can't really say you can easily afford it. It's like saying you can easily afford a big house as long as you don't buy a car, don't go out for dinner, have no TV or PV and no mobile phone.

That's just not how life works really.

Having said that, GW2 just is a grindy game when it comes to things like this. You can either put in the hours, time or cash. I also don't like these excessive grind things but it's how it is. I can either accept that in some way or I can stand on principle and leave. Asking ArenaNet to change their core concepts for this game is just not a useful approach in my view.

If you know of an MMO with no grind I'm sure a lot of people would love to hear about it.

At least in GW2 the long, difficult collections are for optional cosmetics so you only need to go for the ones you want and can afford to take your time with it. In other games I've played things like this would be how you get the best equipment (Or simply the new tier that replaces what was the best gear) and you have to do it to be able to play new content.

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal. Plus there are many threads on this to discuss further if you disagree

In 2,5 years a have never had a drop or loot that blew my mind, did you ? But sure I am generalizing, maybe someone else had all his dreams come true, I got a weapon in my fist month, forgot what it was.. worth 120 gold .. that's IT.It's not what you get, but playing the game is what matters I get that.Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

Great and wonderful, but as far as I know none of them (festival items) has a 1000g material cost attached to it.. please don't mix it up, talking about Winter's Presence here.

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:One single high cost item does not justify a comment "give some back for once".

It's craftable now anyway and designed be made over multiple years as a long term goal. Plus there are many threads on this to discuss further if you disagree

In 2,5 years a have never had a drop or loot that blew my mind, did you ? But sure I am generalizing, maybe someone else had all his dreams come true, I got a weapon in my fist month, forgot what it was.. worth 120 gold .. that's IT.It's not what you get, but playing the game is what matters I get that.Long term goal ? .. say's who ? .. Arena-net can make it however they want.. just tone down a bit for once is all I am saying.. there's people who can't buy 50 euro gems or play 10 hours a day .

I'm not mixing it up. The thread specifically mentions "toning it down for once". I'm asking for clarification of what "for once" refers to given that Winters Presence is designed this way and the other Wintersday festival items are not. The fact that they aren't costing 1000g just reiterates my point. Anet like to mix the high cost (Winters Presence, Nightfury) with the easy to get. They don't always get it right and I think sometimes Halloween can be way too grindy with the mini costs, but Wintersday they seem to get it right.

Ultimately they are not going to reduce this cost directly. It is meant to be this way and it would be unfair to those who have spent years making it. It is possible that the crafting option will reduce as a knock on affect of any tweaks to the salvaging table off season, but that is about all that will happen and all that should happen. Reducing the cost and time otherwise would be a worse decision than keeping it as it is

This man doesn't know about nightfury

@"Lamont.5973" said:I have to agree. As I recall it did not used to be so bad. I think I got it the 2nd year, mostly because of needing the drinks. But the sigil and rune were, if I remember correctly, not nearly so expensive. The current requirement is simply excessive and needs serious rework.

Your memory deceives you. Drinks were 8-15x more expensive in the first two years compared to now, so the total cost of the skin was substantially more. Current total costs are 890g from GW2 Efficiency. (GW2 BLTC shows 976g, but it's using some old recipes.)

Near as I can calculate, the lowest amount it cost at any given moment was ~700g and the highest was well above 1400g.(If you bought drinks now and sigils & runes when it first came out, you could keep your outlay below 300g, but that wouldn't change the opportunity costs, i.e. the value of the mats on the day you completed it.)

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

Great and wonderful, but as far as I know none of them (festival items) has a 1000g material cost attached to it.. please don't mix it up, talking about Winter's Presence here.

No we're talking about how you feel like you're entitled to cheap endgame goals purposely designed to be expensive long term goals for people willing to put in the time and effort.

@Danikat.8537 said:If you know of an MMO with no grind I'm sure a lot of people would love to hear about it.

At least in GW2 the long, difficult collections are for optional cosmetics so you only need to go for the ones you want and can afford to take your time with it. In other games I've played things like this would be how you get the best equipment (Or simply the new tier that replaces what was the best gear) and you have to do it to be able to play new content.

If you're talking to me then I specifically make a distinction between grind and excessive grind. Comparing it to other games is also irrelevant. It's about this game and whether you enjoy certain aspects of it or not. Why you even bring up the gear treadmill other games have is beyond me. That has nothing to do with it. If your point is that the only alternative to a gear treadmill is excessive grind then we have a disagreement right there.

GW2 just has a tendency to have collections that are relatively straightforward and then suddenly slap a big gold price or high mat value on a part of it. Cleary they know that people will want it so they have another reason to buy gems because most people do not want to grind for 6 months or a year to get something. Besides, by that time new stuff has already come out to grind for. It's what it is. You can either accept that or not but some games just put in excessive grind to encourage real money spending. It's when that becomes a clear objective that I call it excessive or when it's completely disproportionate to other things in the game. I find that GW2 does have those elements present and as such in some cases it's excessive grind. In others it's not.

Besides, I hate it when it's just throwing gold at the mystic toilet. I'd rather have actual in game activities to complete rather than craft 50 of this expensive item or that. I don't mind it taking time and effort but this is also just lazy design and boring to complete. That's where I stand on this.

For me it was simple. I wanted the winter's presence skin to enjoy the winter's day events. I love winter stuff. So I had a choice and I threw real life money at it to make up for the gold I was missing. My choice but much better than grinding myself silly and not being able to enjoy it this winter. I consider it a skin I bought from the gem shop. I buy as few as possible of them but this one was worth the money to me, not the grind. Other things I do grind for but because they are more reasonable. I know this game works that way and since there aren't any real alternatives on the market right now for a fantasy MMO I'll accept having to spend some money on gems.

Doesn't mean I like the set up, but I accept it. That's why I do understand the complaint but don't see it as a useful complaint to make cause it won't change. Each person has to decide for themselves whether or how it works for them or not. I just filed it under Xmas presents for myself.

@"Smeerlap.2698" said:Great and wonderful, but as far as I know none of them (festival items) has a 1000g material cost attached to it.. please don't mix it up, talking about Winter's Presence here.Winter's Presence is a premium skin, not a standard-issue festival cosmetic. It was designed as a long term goal. Halloween's Nightfury skin is another premium option, and is currently valued at 770-860 gold. (It was substantially more when it first came out.) The Ghastly Grinning Shield skin runs over 1000g on the TP and, unlike WP & NF, it can't be crafted; its original sources were strictly random. And both festivals have randomly-dropping infusions which command premium prices (300-1000g these days).

The SAB infusions have no material cost, but they have a huge time sink associated with them and aren't even available to the average player. There are no premium in-game skins associated with Lunar New Year and none with Festival of the Four Winds.

@Danikat.8537 said:What is it with this game that people immediately latch onto the most expensive or hard to get items in any given situation and decide that is the sole purpose of the event/expansion/whatever and if they can't get it quickly the game must be broken?

Because not all of us care for achievements, if I go to a restaurant to eat steak.. I don't want the waiter to bring me pancakes and burrito's fist just because they taste nice and enjoyable... or because it's the cheaper option.And I never said anything was broken, just saying this huge gold sink is not needed for a skin... 200G should be more then enough for JUST a skin.

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:

@Smeerlap.2698 said:

Great and wonderful, but as far as I know none of them (festival items) has a 1000g material cost attached to it.. please don't mix it up, talking about Winter's Presence here.