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( new player ) i don't really get it about excessive cash-shop


omarxz.5837

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the moment for my first time i click O and check outfits and other stuff i said to myself yup with that amount of effort they spend on these amazing sets it must be 100% must be a cash-shop thing

i would understand that if its a blade and soul game or f2p then sure but when you ask people buy game expansions that give you so horrible armor compare to cash-shop stuff then there is big problem when you have 80%-90% most effort team put on items is cash-shop only even when search on wiki tons of them just cash-shop only when i click ( how to get them or item location page ) ,

let alone worst problem is ( exclusivity items recycle each like 10 days or something ) to give player shitty feeling if you don't get that item you will miss out about it , or loot boxes system

only people defend these systems are people who themselves buy these items and spend alot on them , do remember character visual progression system is very important to get it from the game and killing bosses and do pve/pvp is core part of RPG element in mmorpg , peace

PS: also i find this threat talk about armor issue to ingame https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-is-armor-design-so-poor-in-this-game

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@"kharmin.7683" said:So, no constructive criticism? Only complaining?

You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game. Or, you could play the game and convert gold to gems to buy things from the gem store.

I don't understand the point of the thread.

my issue is not understanding why buy expansion while you put most of your visual progression behind cash-shop otherwise just make the game f2p same how blade and soul do the same thing but its 100% free and there is alot of legit and cool costumes from ingame content in blade and soul and not just cashshop , but compare to guild wars 2 armor of game ingame armor i mean is so bad looking and bad effort put into it compare to cash-shop one

"You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game" did i mention p2w or something ?? no so i don't understand??

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Outfits and visual progression in the same post made me shiver.

Blade and Soul does the same and even goes into P2W, so bad comparison.

If you really think newly released ingame armor looks bad, then I really can't help you. I prefer them to the overly flashy skins and outfits in the gemshop.

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@omarxz.5837 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:So, no constructive criticism? Only complaining?

You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game. Or, you could play the game and convert gold to gems to buy things from the gem store.

I don't understand the point of the thread.

my issue is not understanding why buy expansion while you put most of your visual progression behind cash-shop otherwise just make the game f2p same how blade and soul do the same thing but its 100% free and there is alot of legit and cool costumes from ingame content in blade and soul and not just cashshop , but compare to guild wars 2 armor of game ingame armor i mean is so bad looking and bad effort put into it compare to cash-shop one

"You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game" did i mention p2w or something ?? no so i don't understand??

You buy the expansions for the new maps, specializations, story content, achievements and abilities.

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@omarxz.5837 said:but compare to guild wars 2 armor of game ingame armor i mean is so bad looking and bad effort put into it compare to cash-shop one

The thing is, that's a rather subjective opinion. You'll find a lot of people who don't care for gemstore items and think the in-game reward armor is great - you'll also find a lot of people who think the opposite, as you do. I'm one of the former. I think some of the gemstore armor items are pretty neat, and I've bought a scant few things from there, but for the most part I don't really care for it; on the whole, I prefer the armor from in-game rewards and achievements (like the dungeon armor - the Nightmare Court light armor is gorgeous).

From a more pragmatic standpoint, people buying gems is a major part of ArenaNet's income for this game. No gem store, and the game would likely be subscription based or you'd have to pay for every new living world episode.

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I realise it can seem like a lot when you first start, especially since the gem store is hard to ignore, but here's a few things you need to bear in mind.

Firstly the game is 7 years old now, so you're seeing 7 years worth of items on display (or being cycled in and out, which I agree is annoying). It's not like they made the game then stopped everything else to focus on cash shop items.

Secondly and maybe most importantly there are lots of armour and weapon skins available in the game, they're just not as obvious as the gem store ones because most of them only come from specifc places. For example each dungeon has a unique weapon and armour set, there's some which only come from karma merchants, some from PvP and WvW reward tracks, some from specific Living World episodes, and so on. You can see everything which is available in the wardrobe in-game (go to any bank and click the 3rd icon on the left side of the menu) or you can use the Wiki galleries:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_medium_armor (use the menu at the bottom to see other races, genders and armour weights)https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_weapon_sets

Apart from mount skins and mini pets I don't buy much from the gem store, usually because I'm able to find an in-game alternative. I've got 8 outfits, 2 finishers, 3 mail carriers, 9 gliders, and as far as I remember 1 weapon skin (storm bow) and 1 armour skin (chaos gloves), which when you consider I have 11 permanent characters and I've been playing this game for 7 years is not a lot. (Also that was bought with a combination of real-money and converting gold to gems but I really couldn't tell you what I got with real-money because...it's been 7 years and I don't keep track.) I've also got 12 black lion weapons apparently, but if I paid for those it was with gold on the TP because I never buy keys, the rest either came from random unlocks or with tickets I got from chests with free keys.

Finally if you don't like it the answer is simple: vote with your wallet. If they're selling something you don't approve of don't buy it. (Or at least don't buy it with real money, convert gold to gems instead, if you think that's a reasonable compromise.) If enough people do that then they'll stop selling things. For me that's black lion keys (loot boxes), it's not enough to make me quit the game obviously but I have never paid for them and never will because I don't approve of a system where I have to pay without knowing what I'm getting for my money.

They've already stopped making gem store armour sets and reserved those for in-game rewards because players complained, and changed the way they sold mount skins (which originally was either 5-packs or random 'adoption licences' with no way to choose which skin you got - they added the select licences as a result of complaints.

(Although you also need to bear in mind new releases to this game are free if you log in during the first few months after they're released, which probably covers the majority of active players who would otherwise buy DLC, so they've got to make money from something to keep the game running.)

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@omarxz.5837 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:So, no constructive criticism? Only complaining?

You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game. Or, you could play the game and convert gold to gems to buy things from the gem store.

I don't understand the point of the thread.

my issue is not understanding why buy expansion while you put most of your visual progression behind cash-shop otherwise just make the game f2p same how blade and soul do the same thing but its 100% free and there is alot of legit and cool costumes from ingame content in blade and soul and not just cashshop , but compare to guild wars 2 armor of game ingame armor i mean is so bad looking and bad effort put into it compare to cash-shop one

"You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game" did i mention p2w or something ?? no so i don't understand??

For me the reason to buy an expansion is for the content included. The new maps, game mechanics, elite specs and so on - it's stuff to do, not just items to use while playing the same content that was already there. Of course I assume that comes with new items, because it wouldn't really work otherwise, but that's not why I buy it. I do find this games business model, outside of expansions, very weird - the stuff I'd normally be willing to pay for is given away free and then I'm charged for some optional extra cosmetics. But since the stuff I'd normally pay for is free I don't mind spending money on the extras sometimes. Plus it kind of works, I can play the newest content whenever it comes out and only have to pay for it when it's convinient for me (which was especially nice when, due to unrelated circumstances, I couldn't justify spending any money on games for almost a year).

But again, if you don't like it your best option is to vote with your wallet by not paying for anything you're unhappy about. And that goes for the game itself too. If you've recently bought GW2 and now feel like you've wasted your money because items you want are in the gem store and not in-game you can request a refund. (I'm not sure what the cut-off point for that is, but it couldn't hurt to ask Customer Support, as long as you're sure you want to do that.)

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@"omarxz.5837" said:the moment for my first time i click O and check outfits and other stuff i said to myself yup with that amount of effort they spend on these amazing sets it must be 100% must be a cash-shop thing

i would understand that if its a blade and soul game or f2p then sure but when you ask people buy game expansions that give you so horrible armor compare to cash-shop stuff then there is big problem when you have 80%-90% most effort team put on items is cash-shop only even when search on wiki tons of them just cash-shop only when i click ( how to get them or item location page ) ,

let alone worst problem is ( exclusivity items recycle each like 10 days or something ) to give player kitten feeling if you don't get that item you will miss out about it , or loot boxes system

only people defend these systems are people who themselves buy these items and spend alot on them , do remember character visual progression system is very important to get it from the game and killing bosses and do pve/pvp is core part of RPG element in mmorpg , peace

PS: also i find this threat talk about armor issue to ingame https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-is-armor-design-so-poor-in-this-game

I spend a lot of time on my MMO of the moment and would be perfectly willing to pay a subscription for it. That isn't GW2's model, so instead I just buy gems when I really want something. However, I understand that not everyone is willing to do that and, given the exchange rate of gold-to-gems, a lot of these skins are exorbitantly expensive if you aren't supplementing your collection with cash shop skins.

There really are a lot of skins available by playing the game, though. I have been working on the PvP/WvW armor sets as well as using reward tracks in those game modes to unlock all of the dungeon armor/weapon sets. In open world, I'm currently working on unlocking the Elegy and Requiem armor sets and before that I did the Boreal weapon sets from Bjora. I still have a few master achievements with skins to unlock from the story episodes, too.

There really are a ton of skins out there to unlock and, I find, the more skins you have, the better the chances that a skin you weren't all that fond of will be just right when paired with something else you didn't have before! It's part of the fun of Fashion Wars!

So, you're right. My perspective is rosier because I am willing to pay cash, so I can't argue that it doesn't seem like a strategy to withhold nice skins for the cash shop. Of course it is. That's how monetizing works! It's an unfortunate necessity and there's always going to be room to debate the balance between the cash shop and what's available via gameplay. For my part, I 100% agree with the idea of having more skins available by playing the game. Give me more of everything, really! I will pay for it, just give me more!

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Gw2 has no monthly subscription. Comparing it to blade and soul is just wrong. They need an income to make the game run and you can play it for free if you play the game and trade gold for gems. Only thing you have to pay to play the game fully are the expansions. And the amount of gameplay you get for those money is worth it.

To me the skins ingame are as good as the gem store ones. It’s all about individual taste. I got a lot of gem store staff skins but after I got bifrost I never use them anymore.

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There is no sub fee in this game. I also play LOTRO, and besides a VIP fee if you want all areas between expansions (7 expansions btw), the cash shop has a very ptw feel. Boost your legendary? $$. Level boosts, stat boosts, all sorts of gameplay effecting items. And cosmetics.

I suppose if shiny is what makes things good to you, then maybe you 'need' store items. None of my characters have gem store outfits. I've gotten nice outfits from dungeons, festivals, and in game collections. Legendaries are all earned in game as well. I much prefer GW2 business model.

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You could just ignore the gemstore skins for the most part. If it's on the gemstore chances are quite a few people have it, similar to 1st gen legendary weapons which have become semi-meaningless in terms of skins. If you really like the skin then do a gold-to-gem conversion calculation, would you pay that amount if it was sold at a vendor? This thread reminds me of the other thread this past month complaining about the mythic weapons being part of a bundle only. It's an optional skin, not necessary to play the game.

If you're talking exclusivity that's why I had set goals of legendary mistforged armor sets (which are uncommon due to 2000 WvW rank / 100 PvP rank , in comparison to Envoy armor to be honest) and the 2nd gen legendary weapons (Astralaria, Nevermore, HOPE) which can't be purchased right off the trading post. You will find similar such goals in PVE likely if you look hard enough (mostly titles or high AP above 35K for things like radiant backpiece). Speaking of PvE I didn't plan on making the full set of ascended Heroic Dragonsblood weapons (there's no collection for them), but ended up doing so due to Bjora Marshes' easy conversion of Eternal Ice Shards to Branded Mass. Therefore you definitely can make wardrobe/style goals that aren't tied in with the gemstore or even collections.

In GW1 there was no gold to gem conversion and I still bought outfits which totaled more than what I paid for the Collector's Editions, so in GW2 it's quite lenient. You really have to ask yourself if you want it that badly or not, otherwise you will end up spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars or an ungodly time farming ingame.

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@"Dawdler.8521" said:"Anet spends too much time on gemshop because they added a couple of skins last patch!"

Game contains 2000+ skins, many of which are from vanilla.

Just a minor addendum, according to gw2efficiency, the game has a total of 5,942 divided into:

  • 2,095 armor skins at the moment. 399 of those are from the gem store
  • 3,538 weapon skins at the moment. 45 are from the gem store (edit: a notice here, the black lion skins are not counted as gem store weapons. These are only direct gem store purchase skins)
  • 260 back item skins. 55 are from the gems store
  • 49 gathering skins, all of which are from the gem store

Easily checked in the gw2efficiency ACCOUNT/WARDROBE section.

The game also contains 93 outfits, most of which are gem store related, but some (around 15 - 20) are from other sources (anniversary gifts, old town clothes conversions, etc.)

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@"omarxz.5837" said:the moment for my first time i click O and check outfits and other stuff i said to myself yup with that amount of effort they spend on these amazing sets it must be 100% must be a cash-shop thing

i would understand that if its a blade and soul game or f2p then sure but when you ask people buy game expansions that give you so horrible armor compare to cash-shop stuff then there is big problem when you have 80%-90% most effort team put on items is cash-shop only even when search on wiki tons of them just cash-shop only when i click ( how to get them or item location page ) ,

let alone worst problem is ( exclusivity items recycle each like 10 days or something ) to give player kitten feeling if you don't get that item you will miss out about it , or loot boxes system

only people defend these systems are people who themselves buy these items and spend alot on them , do remember character visual progression system is very important to get it from the game and killing bosses and do pve/pvp is core part of RPG element in mmorpg , peace

PS: also i find this threat talk about armor issue to ingame https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-is-armor-design-so-poor-in-this-game

ehhh...... no...... most of us were no-lifers that have run out of contents to do in Guild Wars 2, so we all left Guild Wars 2 to play Fashion Wars 2.....

jk

it's the same reason why someone would pay for $50 haircut vs a $5 haircut, just simply visually looks good that's all

I would disagree, the best fashion setup are actually with in-game earnable armors, and the old gem store armors skins.https://gw2style.comhttps://gw2.mmo-fashion.com/

unlike armor skins that can be swap out with individual pieces, outfits just cover up your entire armor

as someone who's into customising looks of my toons, I utterly detest the outfitsthere's no personality or expression of individuality in them

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@omarxz.5837 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:So, no constructive criticism? Only complaining?

You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game. Or, you could play the game and convert gold to gems to buy things from the gem store.

I don't understand the point of the thread.

my issue is not understanding why buy expansion while you put most of your visual progression behind cash-shop otherwise just make the game f2p same how blade and soul do the same thing but its 100% free and there is alot of legit and cool costumes from ingame content in blade and soul and not just cashshop , but compare to guild wars 2 armor of game ingame armor i mean is so bad looking and bad effort put into it compare to cash-shop one

"You don't have to purchase anything from the gem store to play the game" did i mention p2w or something ?? no so i don't understand??

I think the only reason you don't understand is that you have some preconceived notion about how 'most' of the visual progression is behind the cash stop. It's not.Also, if you don't think you can look good with gear that's available ingame, that's again your lack of experience with the game. I mean, you say you are new? Then you proceed to provide an analysis of the game that only someone new could. What and how you think explains itself right?

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game expansions that give you so horrible armor

Really? They’ve got some very good in game armor to be earned. Some of it is over the top if you wear the complete set but if you mix and match from different sets you can get armor that’s both original and quite good looking. I have to think that anyone who says in game armor is horrible either hasn’t tried mixing and matching to pull a unique look together or they like the flash, shine and glitter the gemstore provides and think in game armor is too dull without it.

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@"omarxz.5837" said:the moment for my first time i click O and check outfits and other stuff i said to myself yup with that amount of effort they spend on these amazing sets it must be 100% must be a cash-shop thing

i would understand that if its a blade and soul game or f2p then sure but when you ask people buy game expansions that give you so horrible armor compare to cash-shop stuff then there is big problem when you have 80%-90% most effort team put on items is cash-shop only even when search on wiki tons of them just cash-shop only when i click ( how to get them or item location page ) ,

let alone worst problem is ( exclusivity items recycle each like 10 days or something ) to give player kitten feeling if you don't get that item you will miss out about it , or loot boxes system

only people defend these systems are people who themselves buy these items and spend alot on them , do remember character visual progression system is very important to get it from the game and killing bosses and do pve/pvp is core part of RPG element in mmorpg , peace

PS: also i find this threat talk about armor issue to ingame https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-is-armor-design-so-poor-in-this-game

This Tirade of tired rhetoric is brought to you by ZeniMax Online Studios.Save your money for our newest expansion to Elder Scrolls Online:The Brigade of Forums.Available now.

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If OP is new, then only $30 was paid for 7+ years worth of content. Since mostly only Outfits are available as 'armor' in the Gem Store, I can't imagine what the issue can be.

Out of around 15 characters, the only ones that use Outfits (for me) are a Key-runner and a Champ-bag opener. And that's only because I don't spend Transmutation Charges on sub-80 armor/weapons (even though I have 100s...lol).

I did buy an Outfit when the game first released; the Mad King one for Halloween. I think that's it, other than Glider Skins and Mount Skins. Unfortunately for ArenaNet, I've only purchased Gems twice, I believe, in these 7+ years (not counting Ultimate Editions for Expansions).

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