Is gw2 going down the path of heavy microtransactions

[Cyninja.2954]

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Zohane.7208 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:It was always microtransaction heavy ... that's GW2's business model.

Exactly and Istan was a mess. Couldn’t even see what was going on so if nerfing it means a better playing experience then fantastic.

There is zero link between the nerf and the business model though

OH I agree, zones for farming have zero relation to game revenue ... though some people don't understand that.

yea, you totally cant convert the gold to premium currency, and use it on cashshop itemsthe idea is ludicrous

Those are gems come from a pool of gems that have been "sold" for gold already, so no revenue is lost.

lol...do you know how money works? if i buy 20$ of gems, and you have gathered enough gold to convert those 20 $, where does the companyget the last 20$ from? god?

Here's how it works, according to information published by Arenanet themselves (l-o-n-g ago):

1. If I buy 800 gems for €10, this creates 800 gems.
2. If I convert them to gold, I effectively sell them to a pool of gems available for others to buy for gold.
3. If you now buy 800 gems with gold, this removes those gems from the pool and transfers them to you. At the same time your gold is added to the pool ov gold available to buy for gems.
4. If you now spend these gems in the gem store, you get one or more items or services, and the gems cease to exist.So, in effect all that's happened is that I spent real cash once, you get items, and some gold was effectively transferred from you to me (albeit indirectly). So in fact there's no double set of transactions here, and no Money lost.

sooo the gems "cease to exist" , but the value they had , somehow dont? if you cant see the issue with this, go to any economist

The info came from the original gw2 economist FYI

This also happens in real world economies.

Fiat currency is destroyed by the countries' treasuries, but the economy as a whole still retains that destroyed 'value.' This is because new currency is printed to replace the destroyed currency, depending on whether the treasury wants the value to grow or shrink.

Gems and gold act similarly. Gems are destroyed during the gem-gold conversion, and then replaced when players spend real money to buy more. Gold is destroyed through the various gold sinks in game, including gold-gem conversion, and then replaced by liquid gold from drops and reward chests.

That is incorrect. Gems are not destroyed via the gem-gold conversion (unless you are referring to the transaction fee, where it is unclear if the total value of gems gets added into the exchange or not. Or if the amount of gold gained is taxed 15% thus resulting in the full amount of gems entering the exchange but the amount of gold gained is reduced). The only removal of gems from the games economy is when they get spent on gem store items.

I was assuming a transaction fee, yes. Apologies for not making that clear.

Yes, then that would be accurate.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

That is incorrect. Gems are not destroyed via the gem-gold conversion (unless you are referring to the transaction fee, where it is unclear if the total value of gems gets added into the exchange or not. Or if the amount of gold gained is taxed 15% thus resulting in the full amount of gems entering the exchange but the amount of gold gained is reduced). The only removal of gems from the games economy is when they get spent on gem store items.

I was assuming a transaction fee, yes. Apologies for not making that clear.

Yes, then that would be accurate.

tl;dr the fees are currently closer to 18%

There's no exact way to know the fees for gold→gems versus gems→gold. The closest we can get is to look at the API's rates and imagine taking e.g 1000 gold, converting to gems and then those gems back to gold (or vice versa).

When the game launched, the implied fee was 15% each way. In the example above, if you started with 1000 units, you'd end up with 722.5 units at the end (85% 85% 1000).

About six months before John Smith converted from an ANet full time employee to a contract relationship, the fees changed. It's inconsistent now and closer to an implied 18-18.5% each way. At the time, I asked Smith who appeared surprised by the change and told me he'd take a look. If he did, he never got around to reporting his findings.

I speculate that the main reason for the fees is to ensure that there is zero chance that anyone can "flip" gems. In the past, there were times when the gold:gem exchange rate spiked by 30% (from e.g. 100 gold for 400 gems to 130 gold), due to a particular sale. That made it theoretically possible for speculators to buy gems low to sell high and end up with more gold. With 18%+ fees, rates would have to spike 50% to make it worth the risk and that sort of rise within a week just doesn't happen.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

I would say GW2 is more a combination of P2W(Pay2Win) and P4V(Pay4Victories)

Why its P2W:In most cases; To win at something; one must succesfully reach the finish; or goal(s). And a goal can be ANYTHING really and isnt merely limited to the stereotypical "1st place" this is very true for alot of videogames. For instance: "My goal is to collect all 1H sword skins" isnt any diffrent from: "My goal is to get 1st place in PVP ranked".The goal for victory/winning may be diffrent; but players still need to invest with some form of "payment" wether its time, money, and/or health.

Collecting all armor skins, achievments, progressing the main campaign storyline, or simply map completion is also about succesfully reaching the finish/goal.Statements such as "all things in gemstore are just cosmetica/armor/mounts skins, secundary items are optional and not P2W" or "I have played GW2 for long time and havent spend any money since" , "Xpac is not P2W" doesnt really uphold then. Even Posting this comment cost me something(time and money).

Why its P4V:All/most Games have always made players "pay up" in some way ; but MMO's excel at making players "pay up" continuously;Just when players thought they reached/completed all their goals a new one popup; aka the criteria for "winning" changes wich again requires "investment/paying up" Since mmo's create an endless loop of "Winning/victories" you might aswell introduce a diffrent Acronym for such games, like; P4V/Pay4Victories or Pay2Progress(like a gw2 quest progress bar; only it never really seems to reach 100% XD)

o7

[Ultramex.1506]

With all loud shouting for Mirage/Soulbeast/Scourge nerf I wouldn't fault people for saying E-specs are P2W, then again it was all thank to Anet "genius" balancing.

[Shortage.5427]

@MisterDapper.5984 said:So I wanted to give my two cents based on what I know from fellow farmers. Since Istan got nerfed again and it's most likely a waste of time to farm now. Are we going to see the same thing happen to Silverwastes? Since that's one of the few meaningful ways to make gold. It seems like NCsoft/Anet is just going to cater to people with real world money and credit cards. While all the farmers and people who make gen 1 legendaries are just going to leave the game. In turn that'll have a significant impact on the economy. I don't want to see this game die off, but that's the uneasy feeling I'm getting. Please be respectful in the comment section, thank you.

To keep it short, Yes. Anet is doing what NCsoft marketting team has instrcuted them to do to see if it works to monetize the game as much as possible. NCsoft is trying to spike its numbers up before Guild Wars 2 total decline. You can check their stock report and see it for yourself. NCsoft is moving towards the mobile market.

[Rakan Buuyon.8576]

@"MoriMoriMori.5349" said:Not getting somewhere is not pay to win. You simply won't be able to participate in game this way. Getting somewhere and finding yourself at mechanical disadvantage comparing to those who paid - is pay to win. You again seem to try to juggle with words to justify your point.

No, not every game where you have to buy something is like that. Some games may completely exclude competition part, others simply won't let you access certain parts of it where you could find such competition, and some games won't build their paid classes on purpose so much stronger than base classes, simply providing you different experiences while playing them, without significant mechanical advantage.

As GW2 allows you to go into PvP (as owner of the core game, without expacs; not sure about free to play accounts), yet won't give you access to strongest classes played by those who paid, it's pay to win, by definition.

Core classes are actually most viable in WvW.

Here's the thing about core traits, they are more well rounded. Elite specs generally add one mechanic that people can abuse for more damage. This is great for raids, where you can pick the thing that gives you 10% more damage, despite the trade-offs. In WvW, those trade-offs are much more impactful.

Even when we look at PvE. People only look at what SC is doing, and SC only bothers with what works best for speed runs. There's a lot of core builds that really aren't far behind their elite specs. However, in order to do raids (where it actually matters) you need to have the expansions anyways. So it really doesn't matter if core is a little behind elite, because you'll need to have the elite to do the content anyways.

Yes, I wish there was more balance in the PvE side of things, so there was more "best" builds for more veriaty. That being said, outside of raids there are plenty of viable core builds. Much more so when talking about WvW.

[Ashen.2907]

@"Deity of Ragefire.4287" said:I would say GW2 is more a combination of P2W(Pay2Win) and P4V(Pay4Victories)

Why its P2W:In most cases; To win at something; one must succesfully reach the finish; or goal(s). And a goal can be ANYTHING really and isnt merely limited to the stereotypical "1st place" this is very true for alot of videogames. For instance: "My goal is to collect all 1H sword skins" isnt any diffrent from: "My goal is to get 1st place in PVP ranked".The goal for victory/winning may be diffrent; but players still need to invest with some form of "payment" wether its time, money, and/or health.

Collecting all armor skins, achievments, progressing the main campaign storyline, or simply map completion is also about succesfully reaching the finish/goal.Statements such as "all things in gemstore are just cosmetica/armor/mounts skins, secundary items are optional and not P2W" or "I have played GW2 for long time and havent spend any money since" , "Xpac is not P2W" doesnt really uphold then. Even Posting this comment cost me something(time and money).

Why its P4V:All/most Games have always made players "pay up" in some way ; but MMO's excel at making players "pay up" continuously;Just when players thought they reached/completed all their goals a new one popup; aka the criteria for "winning" changes wich again requires "investment/paying up" Since mmo's create an endless loop of "Winning/victories" you might aswell introduce a diffrent Acronym for such games, like; P4V/Pay4Victories or Pay2Progress(like a gw2 quest progress bar; only it never really seems to reach 100% XD)

o7

Pursuing a personal goal (particularly cosmetic) and achieving it is not winning in any sense of Pay to Win. Winning means someone else lost. It is awesome that fashion wars is completely subjective where we can achieve our goals without negatively impacting another's efforts to achieve theirs.

[LucianDK.8615]

Theres absolutely no p2w here.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Zaxares.5419" said:In GW2 that typically also extends to rare skins (aka "Fashion Wars"). Remember the uproar when the Flamekissed Light armor was basically the T3 Human Cultural armor, but with flames on it? At the time, T3 Cultural armor was THE most expensive armor in the game, and the fashion warriors were outraged that "casuals" could just pony up gems and get a fancier version of the "best" armor in the game with no effort at all on their part.Actually, the real cause of protests (and probably the reason why Anet decided to cave in and change the skin) was that you could have had that cultural human skin on nonhuman races. People asked for either for this to be changed, or for all other cultural skins to get their non-racelocked versions. Anet decided to agree to the former, because they weren't willing to do the latter.

But back to the original question:There's no p2w in gw2 (which is one good news), but the game is definitely shifting more and more towards heavy "microtransactions" (which aren't really micro at all), constantly pushing boundaries of what players will consider okay. And players keep giving in more and more to the Anet's marketing team, until thing that would have been considered outrageous at some point become completely normal.

And the game is definitely not better for that.

[Xanadrine.4352]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Zaxares.5419" said:In GW2 that typically also extends to rare skins (aka "Fashion Wars"). Remember the uproar when the Flamekissed Light armor was basically the T3 Human Cultural armor, but with flames on it? At the time, T3 Cultural armor was THE most expensive armor in the game, and the fashion warriors were outraged that "casuals" could just pony up gems and get a fancier version of the "best" armor in the game with no effort at all on their part.Actually, the real cause of protests (and probably the reason why Anet decided to cave in and change the skin) was that you could have had that cultural human skin on nonhuman races. People asked for either for this to be changed, or

for all other cultural skins to get their non-racelocked versions

. Anet decided to agree to the former, because they weren't willing to do the latter.

But back to the original question:There's no p2w in gw2 (which is one good news), but the game is definitely shifting more and more towards heavy "microtransactions" (which aren't really micro at all),

constantly pushing boundaries of what players will consider okay. And players keep giving in more and more to the Anet's marketing team, until thing that would have been considered outrageous at some point become completely normal.

And the game is definitely not better for that.

Yeah i dont like this direction at all. Im waiting till the 30th to make a decision, but lock everything behind a paywall and lootbox tactics dont work on me. I rather just go somewhere else. It has nothing to do with not supporting the game either. I payed 15 a month for 11 years straight to play a game. It has to do with heavy game shop transactions at the expense of ingame goodies and content. That is not a good way to manage a game except for whales who just want to look good, it leaves out the majority of players that want things to reward them ingame and content to play.

I cant believe these decisions are anet decisions, this trend of heavy microtransactions of expensive items looks more like a call from above.

[BorgCollective.4509]

I mean, we can buy gold. It's not P2W but it sure is pay to make your life way effin easier. Not a far walk from there to P2W and they already have the taste of it in their mouths. But I suspect they won't actually go there until they are convinced the game is pretty near dead. Then they will scoop up all the bits of easy cash they can before GW2 takes its last dying breath. And of course, if somebody at corporate hasn't already had that idea and they hear this, they probably will go implement it stat. Hug your goodies tight kiddos. Someday every schmo in the game might have them and laugh at you for the endless hours you put into getting them. #WaysToMakeCommunityRage

[Dreams.3128]

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Pay-to-win refers to the predatory practice of making it impossible to complete or continue a game without spending on microtransactions to remain currentThat hardly required clarifications, as whatever they do to Ishtan farming still is not related to pay to win, as "to win" you need just a set of exotic armor and few tenths of gold to cover everyday expenses. Unless you can explain how it is.

And here:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Pay-to-win refers to the predatory practice of making it impossible to complete..it almost seems like you rig the meaning of the word the way which would help to prove your point. Pay to win doesn't refer only to cases when win is simply impossible without investing real cash, but to all cases when doing so can grant you more

mechanical

advantage in a given individual encounter. And almost any e-spec does give you such advantage being way better than core professions (sometimes times better in terms of dps and sustain).

Wrong. Core thief has been a major improvement from DD and DE. Core guard has shown major success compared to DH and FB (offensively). Core Warrior can still CC most opponents to death just like Spellbreaker. Core ranger is actually PREFERRED now compared to Soulbeast.Hell even CORE necro is putting in work now.

In PvP/WvW elite specs are not a direct upgrade. The only ones that have that are Ele, Mesmer, Engie, Revenant because didn't have have much to offer in their core versions to begin with because of lack of design, lack of a role, or simply lack of a presence.

[LucianDK.8615]

Just what could they do as pay to win? Gw2 has a flat progression system. This is a storm in a glass of water.Gear? Ascended is available in so many easy ways beside crafting.Legendaries? Just cosmetic.

P2w does not exist in any shape. You can buy coniviences and you can make yourself prettier.

[Aeolus.3615]

Well holosmith is bit p2w xD

[LucianDK.8615]

@Aeolus.3615 said:Well holosmith is bit p2w xD

Just because something is overtuned for the time, it wont ever remain so. Just look at the qqing over mirages. Their glory days is behind them.

[Aeolus.3615]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:Well holosmith is bit p2w xD

Just because something is overtuned for the time, it wont ever remain so. Just look at the qqing over mirages. Their glory days is behind them.

If glory days are obtained due lack of real trade offs that ends on a class over performing.. I am all for nerfs, if it is The player carrying the class rather the other way I’ll take my hat off.

That’s why I pay more attention to non meta/gimmick builds and classes.

[Leamas.5803]

Unless "winning" means looking the best and having the best toys, then no. A vast majority of the game store items are cosmetic or convenience, such as permanent harvesting tool, or boosters. Still most of the booster effects can be, more or less., achieved with food. It could be argued that things like the revive orb or instant repair kits give an advantage, but that advantage is arguable and minor. That said, even the boosters, generally don't give you a tactical advantage and food is a better option if that's you're aim.

If you mean gems...then you could buy gems with real money and convert them to gold, then use that gold to finance better gear...but that's always been the case, so it's nothing new.

[LucianDK.8615]

@"Leamas.5803" said:Unless "winning" means looking the best and having the best toys, then no. A vast majority of the game store items are cosmetic or convenience, such as permanent harvesting tool, or boosters. Still most of the booster effects can be, more or less., achieved with food. It could be argued that things like the revive orb or instant repair kits give an advantage, but that advantage is arguable and minor. That said, even the boosters, generally don't give you a tactical advantage and food is a better option if that's you're aim.

If you mean gems...then you could buy gems with real money and convert them to gold, then use that gold to finance better gear...but that's always been the case, so it's nothing new.

Regarding revive orbs, they take a while to trigger. so its not like you can instantly rise back up to suprise a foe whom slew you and having full health.

[Cuks.8241]

Farming gold only inflates the price of gems on the exchange. It does not affect the revenue.

Warclaw is pay 2 win. But it is limited to expansion not gem store. Can't really decide but I think in the long run it will reduce the influx of players to the game mode just because the first experience for new players was made worse.

[Leamas.5803]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@"Leamas.5803" said:Unless "winning" means looking the best and having the best toys, then no. A vast majority of the game store items are cosmetic or convenience, such as permanent harvesting tool, or boosters. Still most of the booster effects can be, more or less., achieved with food. It could be argued that things like the revive orb or instant repair kits give an advantage, but that advantage is arguable and minor. That said, even the boosters, generally don't give you a tactical advantage and food is a better option if that's you're aim.

If you mean gems...then you could buy gems with real money and convert them to gold, then use that gold to finance better gear...but that's always been the case, so it's nothing new.

Regarding revive orbs, they take a while to trigger. so its not like you can instantly rise back up to suprise a foe whom slew you and having full health.

Exactly, like I said...arguable. :P

[LucianDK.8615]

@Cuks.8241 said:Farming gold only inflates the price of gems on the exchange. It does not affect the revenue.

Warclaw is pay 2 win. But it is limited to expansion not gem store. Can't really decide but I think in the long run it will reduce the influx of players to the game mode just because the first experience for new players was made worse.

I see it as an incitament to buy pof to be on even footing with others. Its absolutely not pay2win when everyone have it.

[ugrakarma.9416]

the only thing next to Pay to Win, is if the player is on the "metas", and had no money to buy the expansions that give stats for some metas like minstrels.... anyway for pve theres always a "budget" version(core based) for HoT stats gear meta.

[VDAC.2137]

I’m happy with GW2’s combination of what can be earned in game and what is available for gems — especially considering that it is F2P outside of the expansions!!! To my knowledge, most MMORPG’s require a subscription whether or not there is an upfront and/or additional cost for expansions and any non-sub option for those games comes with severe limitations.

Even GW2’s Gemstore items are generally good deals compared to what I’ve seen elsewhere (not counting RNG stuff like BLC’s and dye packs but those are never a good deal anywhere so you buy them if you enjoy that kind of thing). And GW2 has spoiled me on mounts, lol! There are things I wish GW2 did differently, certainly, but the range of what you get in game and what you can pay extra for isn’t one of them. :)

[Ashen.2907]

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@"Cuks.8241" said:Farming gold only inflates the price of gems on the exchange. It does not affect the revenue.

Warclaw is pay 2 win. But it is limited to expansion not gem store. Can't really decide but I think in the long run it will reduce the influx of players to the game mode just because the first experience for new players was made worse.

I see it as an incitament to buy pof to be on even footing with others. Its absolutely not pay2win when everyone have it.

Isnt an, "incitement to buy," something that affects interactions in a competitive game mode pay to win?

Would a weapon sold in the shop that grants a 100% boost to dps stop being pay to win if everyone bought it in order to not fall behind the competitive power curve?

[LucianDK.8615]

You dont pay anything for the warclaw, its just a feature of path of fire, so your argument is completely invalid.