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Recent Economic Inconsistency


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Did ANet fire all of their game economists in the restructuring? Because while there have always been some... inconsistencies... it seems like lately there have been some much bigger traps that should not be happening. Just in the past couple of weeks I've noticed (and/or been burned by) the following:

  1. I assumed that, like every other Living World home instance node, the Hatched Chili one was only purchaseable at the map vendor. It's 60g this time, more expensive than any other map, along with 5000 volatile magic (not exactly easy to gather, for me anyway). I saved up enough and bought it first thing, like always... only to find out there is a Trading Post version that currently sells for 12g. Why in the world would they create two different ways to get this thing with such VASTLY different costs? This is totally within the design/QA control, they couldn't anticipate this? How does it feel good for a player to find out that you could have gotten the same thing for more than 80% off if you were just lucky enough to know about the other way to acquire it? Frankly the same thing goes for a lot of the map rewards this time - different paths require hugely different resource and time commitments. Very odd to me.

  2. Similarly, some of the festival rewards have wildly different costs between festivals. Take Tyrian Exchange Vouchers - they went from basically free in SAB (Bauble Bubbles pour into your inventory for even just doing the easy dailies), to about 11g in FotFW (based on the tradeoff of using tokens for Heavy Crafting bags instead), to about 30g in Dragon Bash (based on TP price of Jorbreakers), to now 50g in halloween (based on TP price of cobs). Their economists should be able to level these costs better than this - a vendor item should not be so different on a seasonal basis.

  3. A similar thing happened with the Halloween weapons. I spent 10 Black Lion Weapon Tickets to acquire them from the vendor (2 each is roughly equivalent to 100g) only to find out they sell on the TP for 40g. This burns because of how hard it is to get those tickets and how some items can ONLY be purchased with them. At least they are different currencies, unlike the above, but there is a clear exchange path for defining value (statues).

I'm sure there are others but it really feels like the economists are asleep at the wheel. Ideally when there are multiple avenues to acquiring an item we should get a heads up, but I'm not sure how they would do that easily. Look, I'm not against having different ways to get an item, but they should either be made roughly equivalent if they use the same currency, or have clearly differentiated tradeoffs (like doing pvp or wvw for tokens, requiring a collection, etc.) It just doesn't feel good for players to feel ripped off by poor design.

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John Smith I thought was the economy guy; he's the one that used to post on the forums, but I haven't seen a post from him for years.

It's bad design to force players to check an external resource for anything they want to purchase just in case there's an alternate way to acquire it that costs a fraction of the amount. The game is a closed system - the devs have complete control over avoiding those kind of "gotcha" moments where a player's ignorance hurts them. I might even understand it a little more if it's with an item that's been in the game a long time - over time stuff changes and new ways to acquire it get added. But a newly released item with hugely different PvE costs? That breaks the pattern of all other items of its type over the course of years with no notice? No sale. And the festival items, wiki won't help you, that's just shoddy balance.

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@"Kunzaito.8169" said:Did ANet fire all of their game economists in the restructuring? Because while there have always been some... inconsistencies... it seems like lately there have been some much bigger traps that should not be happening. Just in the past couple of weeks I've noticed (and/or been burned by) the following:

  1. I assumed that, like every other Living World home instance node, the Hatched Chili one was only purchaseable at the map vendor. It's 60g this time, more expensive than any other map, along with 5000 volatile magic (not exactly easy to gather, for me anyway). I saved up enough and bought it first thing, like always... only to find out there is a Trading Post version that currently sells for 12g. Why in the world would they create two different ways to get this thing with such VASTLY different costs? This is totally within the design/QA control, they couldn't anticipate this? How does it feel good for a player to find out that you could have gotten the same thing for more than 80% off if you were just lucky enough to know about the other way to acquire it? Frankly the same thing goes for a lot of the map rewards this time - different paths require hugely different resource and time commitments. Very odd to me.

New Living World Season. You are not the only one caught off guard by different methods of acquisition in this case. Suffice to say, the dropable version will likely not remain at 12 gold but is seeing a lot of supply currently.

  1. Similarly, some of the festival rewards have wildly different costs between festivals. Take Tyrian Exchange Vouchers - they went from basically free in SAB (Bauble Bubbles pour into your inventory for even just doing the easy dailies), to about 11g in FotFW (based on the tradeoff of using tokens for Heavy Crafting bags instead), to about 30g in Dragon Bash (based on TP price of Jorbreakers), to now 50g in halloween (based on TP price of cobs). Their economists should be able to level these costs better than this - a vendor item should not be so different on a seasonal basis.

It's hard to clmoare baubble bubbles since the acquisition of them depends on playing SAB and playing it on multiple levels of difficulty.

In case of Tyrian exchange vouchers, we can only assume that the original method of acquisition was deemed to easy and as such their cost was increased.

  1. A similar thing happened with the Halloween weapons. I spent 10 Black Lion Weapon Tickets to acquire them from the vendor (2 each is roughly equivalent to 100g) only to find out they sell on the TP for 40g. This burns because of how hard it is to get those tickets and how some items can ONLY be purchased with them. At least they are different currencies, unlike the above, but there is a clear exchange path for defining value (statues).

Claim tickets are valued on average with around 30g-35g per ticket. New BLC weapons often drop to sub 30 gold per ticket on the trading post. This is not new.

I'm sure there are others but it really feels like the economists are asleep at the wheel. Ideally when there are multiple avenues to acquiring an item we should get a heads up, but I'm not sure how they would do that easily. Look, I'm not against having different ways to get an item, but they should either be made roughly equivalent if they use the same currency, or have clearly differentiated tradeoffs (like doing pvp or wvw for tokens, requiring a collection, etc.) It just doesn't feel good for players to feel ripped off by poor design.

Well I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, will double check from now on with the home instance node.

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1) The new eps rewards were flawed on several fronts, some of which have been addressed, but yes it is still concerning so I'll agree with you here . . .

2) I'm not sure those weekly vendors are supposed to be giving you 'good value'. I think they're mostly just there for players who do the festival a bunch and have so much currency it has no further use to them. Cobs can just be tp'd ofc, but I think that was the original idea . . .

3) If I understand your complaint in this case you were aware that there were alternate means of acquiring the item, you just didn't check? I feel like the burden there does probably fall to you :/

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@Gop.8713 said:2) I'm not sure those weekly vendors are supposed to be giving you 'good value'. I think they're mostly just there for players who do the festival a bunch and have so much currency it has no further use to them. Cobs can just be tp'd ofc, but I think that was the original idea . . .

I'm not asking for better value, just standardized value. As long as the currency has a gold conversion rate (everything except SAB) you can compare them and IMO they should be roughly equal. Make it 50 for all of them if that's what they think the item is worth, it's just bad to have it be worth 10g one month and 50g the next. And while SAB doesn't have a gold value it's SUPER easy to get baubles/bauble bubbles. You get 7 a day just from running through normal World 1, which takes like 15 minutes and little effort, plus more for exchanging the regular baubles you get from dailies, the world, and the chests.

3) If I understand your complaint in this case you were aware that there were alternate means of acquiring the item, you just didn't check? I feel like the burden there does probably fall to you :/

I did not know they dropped from ToT bags, which significantly decreases their value on the TP below what would be expected for standard BL skins that can only be gotten for tickets. I concede this one is less of an issue than the others since BL weapon skins are all tradeable so I could more reasonably have been expected to know to check. But I still think it's misleading to offer something at a vendor that can be gotten for far less by other means with no notice on the item or vendor, which is my basic point.

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@"Kunzaito.8169" said:Did ANet fire all of their game economists in the restructuring? Because while there have always been some... inconsistencies... it seems like lately there have been some much bigger traps that should not be happening. Just in the past couple of weeks I've noticed (and/or been burned by) the following:

~snip~

  1. A similar thing happened with the Halloween weapons. I spent 10 Black Lion Weapon Tickets to acquire them from the vendor (2 each is roughly equivalent to 100g) only to find out they sell on the TP for 40g. This burns because of how hard it is to get those tickets and how some items can ONLY be purchased with them. At least they are different currencies, unlike the above, but there is a clear exchange path for defining value (statues).

I'm sure there are others but it really feels like the economists are asleep at the wheel. Ideally when there are multiple avenues to acquiring an item we should get a heads up, but I'm not sure how they would do that easily. Look, I'm not against having different ways to get an item, but they should either be made roughly equivalent if they use the same currency, or have clearly differentiated tradeoffs (like doing pvp or wvw for tokens, requiring a collection, etc.) It just doesn't feel good for players to feel ripped off by poor design.

Your number 3 item is not new, it was that way before, this isn't the first year it's been like that...so unless you didn't pay attention in prior years or your first year you should've known that one already.

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@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

@Gop.8713 said:2) I'm not sure those weekly vendors are supposed to be giving you 'good value'. I think they're mostly just there for players who do the festival a bunch and have so much currency it has no further use to them. Cobs can just be tp'd ofc, but I think that was the original idea . . .

I'm not asking for better value, just standardized value. As long as the currency has a gold conversion rate (everything except SAB) you can compare them and IMO they should be roughly equal. Make it 50 for all of them if that's what they think the item is worth, it's just bad to have it be worth 10g one month and 50g the next. And while SAB doesn't have a gold value it's SUPER easy to get baubles/bauble bubbles. You get 7 a day just from running through normal World 1, which takes like 15 minutes and little effort, plus more for exchanging the regular baubles you get from dailies, the world, and the chests.

I'm saying if the weekly vendor is there just something to do with unused currency, the gold value doesn't really matter. If you'd rather convert to gold you can. I feel like with the cobs most ppl probably will. But I also imagine there could be ppl who want the weekly vendor things more, so yay them . . ?

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@"Kunzaito.8169" said:John Smith I thought was the economy guy; he's the one that used to post on the forums, but I haven't seen a post from him for years.

It's bad design to force players to check an external resource for anything they want to purchase just in case there's an alternate way to acquire it that costs a fraction of the amount. The game is a closed system - the devs have complete control over avoiding those kind of "gotcha" moments where a player's ignorance hurts them. I might even understand it a little more if it's with an item that's been in the game a long time - over time stuff changes and new ways to acquire it get added. But a newly released item with hugely different PvE costs? That breaks the pattern of all other items of its type over the course of years with no notice? No sale. And the festival items, wiki won't help you, that's just shoddy balance.

If we're following that thread of logic, then its fundamentally bad design to even offer alternative options out of fear of disparity between them, the need to comprehend and compare those options, and the need to advertise the existence of an alternative.

And for the record.... 10g is peanuts in today's gold economy. You're also ignoring the fact that it can also be a response to gold inflation, since they've added a TON of new sources for liquid gold on top of other reward streams. Consider 300g was a big deal, and the price of Precursors (or even some legendaries).... then crept up into over 1000, only to fall back down when crafting became a supply source. When the game was in its first year, it took me days to weeks to get 10g together from the limited sources of valuable drops. Today I can make 10g off of low effort daily rewards.

You're not even close to recognizing whats happened in that time span of Story releases, and much less making a comprehensive argument about things not having a 1:1 comparison.

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@"Blocki.4931" said:I don't see how the price of Vouchers is any measurement of the economy. It's simply the same consistent use for festival related currency.

It's not a bellwether for the economy as a whole or anything. But they are part of the economy insofar as they are acquired for currency that has a direct gold conversion rate, and therefore their intrinsic value can be compared across festivals. And when you do that analysis, it's just a representative example of my point that there are too many things that have very imbalanced value/cost across acquisition methods for no game-related reason. An example of a "good" game-related reason for different costs would be, say, the items available via the fractal recycling item. That item is extremely expensive to acquire, so it makes sense that its benefit is to provide an ongoing deep discount for items you theoretically use a lot if you are going through the trouble of getting it. And they have done smoothing for unique currencies before. Take Winterberries - they're the only LS3 currency that can't be sold for gold, and they're acquired at a much faster rate than the other map currencies. The vendor requires 2x the amount of them for trinket and backpack purchases to make them more comparable to the others.

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Then, perhaps, it would be prudent to wait a few hours before committing to any large purchases. (And to avoid bugs, as we all know.)Just in case.

Indeed, it would. However, it was not the case before the Prologue for map vendors. Their items were exclusive and account-bound. It seems that from now on we will have to wait for several days to figure out which of map vendors' merchandise is exclusive to them.

This is a major inconsistency with previously established game rules. The purpose of this change eludes me. Map vendors' merchandise is a gold sink. Why would any MMO economist decide to diminish or remove it?

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@"ugrakarma.9416" said:reward unbalance at each LSW episode, was a constant problem, in LS4 was the bottom. the problem inst "initial mistakes", but they take too long to fix stuffs,, how long time we had been cried on forums to fix PoF metas rewards?Yep like the Khan Ur helmet box, im kinda miffed about it not cause i want it, but cause the next time they put something like it that i would want, it will be the same dog shit RNG on once per day in one specific place. It kinda seems weird since the Ebon shoulders seem to be working on similar principle but have better drop chance so they are in the manageable department.Also people are coming from DragonFall, which could be considered the best map to getting 2 blues and a green map. Seems that they overvalue the lottery jackpot items while no effort is put in the common and medium rewards. This was noticeable in the special events where the box had multiple jack pot impossible drop items, while the common average drop was pointless, one would think they would take note from then but alas.

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I still think it all comes back to the rush to get a release out to please impatient players. The rewards in the new ep on release were borked in a lot of ways, like they were introduced as an afterthought bc they had to get it done. But when they fixed one of the problems -- poor rewards for non-jackpot rolls -- they didn't just throw some extra rewards in there, they added the key as well which both keeps tp costs low by introducing a fifth key each day but also reduces the amount of time players have to spend on the metas the following day if they prefer to get their keys that way, since they only need to do three metas instead of four. It was really a pretty clever solution, I just wish they had spent that kind of energy on the rewards before the episode released . . .

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@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:[...] the provisioner token vendors asking for things based on what their value was at the time is concerning.Not exactly a new tendency, though. The costs of precursor crafting was set, per weapon, to be roughly what the TP price of each precursor was. Look at the differences in the t2 collection - the material sink part varies greatly between them, completely arbitrarily, and of course it's absolutely out of the question to change when they are no longer in any way reflecting the precursor prices (either in absolute values or relative to each other).

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