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Do you think account bound/timegated materials are healthy for the game?


Cerioth.7062

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I'm choosing other because the answer is both Yes and No!

Timegated materials are absolutely a good thing when new items and recipies are added to the game and Anet wants to prevent players from rushing through content and buying tons of new items to have these items within hours of them being added to the game.

But after a good few months these timegated/bound materials ect just become a serious pain the in rear and only serve to restrict those who didn't put the time in to obtain them asap.

In my opinion the timegates on a lot of things should also be timegated and removed after a set period of time when there is no need for them to still be timegated.Can anyone give me one good reason why it should still take a whole week to obtain Mawdry?.. or why ascended crafting should still have time gates when most players already have multiple characters fully decked out in ascended gear?

Why can we not sell our abundance of Bloodstone Dust and Dragonite Orr?

I see no reason for these timegates and bound status to apply to many items in Gw2 after several months have passed since they were added.But they are definitely useful in the beginning.. that I think we can all agree on.

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You can only buy tons of new items , if such items are for sale, and even if new items and recipies are added to the game , they still have to be acquired by players before they can be sold on the TP.Players acquiring new items will be primarily wanting them for themselves, which means that initially there wont be a lot for sale on the TP, and what there are will be very expensive due to simple supply / demand economics.

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Main reason: This would give a big - and unfair - advantage to players who use those time gated material to make money on TP and have tons of mats allowing them to craft a lot (like me :3 ).Beside, I believe that time is an important factor in the game. I know that nowadays, lot of players would want to have everything immediately, but that's not the idea. The game is dynamic and many things are supposed to progress over time. It would kill an important side of the game - that I personally find a good one - if the time gated stuff would be removed.

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  • 1 month later...

@"Shiyo.3578" said:I have 100% of the items to make bolt right now but I'm gated by 10 days thanks to charged quartz.Charged quartz isn't required for Bolt.

It's only required for crafting Zap, which you could choose to buy, bypassing the gate. Which brings us back to why ANet added a tiny number of time gates to the game: to help prop up the values of certain mats. The impatient are willing to pay the patient to craft these.

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I have a ton of timegated materials sitting in my bank that I have no immediate plans to use, heck I may never.When you play the game off and on and do your dailies often it doesn't take long in the grand scheme of things to accumulate the stuff.

That said I agree that its certainly annoying when I run into a timegate I didn't account for. At that point I'll see if I can bum crafting off guildies. Otherwise I'll use the trading post or do whatever else I can do with relation to whatever I'm crafting and wait out the timegate. Much of the time I'm not finishing the item that day so there's no real reason to throw gold at the trading post.

I actually have 250 Funerary Incenses sitting in my collection that I worked on daily since PoF's release, but I haven't really cared for any of the stuff a Gift of Desert Mastery leads to -- so I mostly just use them to tease people in guild chat who complain about being gated by Funerary Incenses. =p

~ Kovu

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It would if you could make compelling content at the same rate as players go thru the content and get bored with it , but you cant .All MMOs need some mechanism to get players to go thru old content over and over to keep them in the game and this is usually done by providing some rare commodity that can only be obtained by doing the now boring content.

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Account bound in general, I feel, is bad for the game. It promotes solo play and is a hindrance to the community.

Some people like crafting, and enjoy leveling up all professions. In other games, crafters can sell their goods on the market and that is how they make their money. Invest in your crafting skills, and make your investment back from the community. You're helping them gear up or get the mats they need, and making your profit at the same time.

In GW2, pretty much everything is Account Bound, and your crafting is basically only for yourself. Investing tons of gold and materials just to benefit yourself and no one else. You don't make that investment back either, cause you can't sell any of your equipment cause it is all Account Bound/Soul Bound. You can't help out your friends or the community, because of the same reasons.

For instance, I'm not a fan of crafting. Yet tons of stuff in this game requires max level in almost all crafting skills. So I'm stuck never being able to complete tons of collections/achievements or get Ascended gear because it all requires crafting. I play with my family all the time in GW2. My family loves crafting and making stuff all the time. They are maxed on all crafting skills and can make all the fancy stuff.

Yet they can never help me. Because everything is Account Bound/ Soul Bound. They want to help, I have the materials stocked up in my bank and then some, yet I can't give them to them to make me any new gear or weapons. They can't help me out because of those reasons.

As I said, it is a hindrance to the community that practically everything is Account Bound/Soul Bound. We can't help each other out as a community and can only do stuff for ourselves.

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@SpyderArachnid.5619 said:Account bound in general, I feel, is bad for the game. It promotes solo play and is a hindrance to the community.

Some people like crafting, and enjoy leveling up all professions. In other games, crafters can sell their goods on the market and that is how they make their money. Invest in your crafting skills, and make your investment back from the community. You're helping them gear up or get the mats they need, and making your profit at the same time.

In GW2, pretty much everything is Account Bound, and your crafting is basically only for yourself. Investing tons of gold and materials just to benefit yourself and no one else. You don't make that investment back either, cause you can't sell any of your equipment cause it is all Account Bound/Soul Bound. You can't help out your friends or the community, because of the same reasons.

For instance, I'm not a fan of crafting. Yet tons of stuff in this game requires max level in almost all crafting skills. So I'm stuck never being able to complete tons of collections/achievements or get Ascended gear because it all requires crafting. I play with my family all the time in GW2. My family loves crafting and making stuff all the time. They are maxed on all crafting skills and can make all the fancy stuff.

Yet they can never help me. Because everything is Account Bound/ Soul Bound. They want to help, I have the materials stocked up in my bank and then some, yet I can't give them to them to make me any new gear or weapons. They can't help me out because of those reasons.

As I said, it is a hindrance to the community that practically everything is Account Bound/Soul Bound. We can't help each other out as a community and can only do stuff for ourselves.

On the contrary, account bound is essential for a game like GW2. It's a game with a currency exchange, allowing anyone with enough disposable income to buy nearly every item in it, either directly or indirectly through buying mats. BtA and, to an extent, timegating, forces people to play the game instead of just pulling out their cc if they want to have absolutely everything. I would argue we don't have enough BtA in the game, being tradeable is the reason for the ridiculously low rng some drops like infusions have.

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I voted no, but it is a bit more nuanced than that.I think that when new collections come out, timegating is good to stabilize the market - you won't get 1000 players buying all the materials for the new collections because it will take some number of days/weeks to complete the time gated materials, so more likely they will just put in buy orders.However, for older contents, I don't see much point. Players who have been playing for a while have likely acquired large amounts of time gated materials (knowing to make them as they can), so this time gating is really harmful to new players. And it is annoying to veteran players, as every day, I have to go in and do my daily crafting.Also, a lot of the daily materials, while time gated (eg, lump of mithrillium), the desired result (deldrimor steel ingot) is not. So players that just want to buy the best equipment can still do so - buy the materials needed to craft it (as well as all the materials you need to maximize your crafting skill).

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@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@SpyderArachnid.5619 said:Account bound in general, I feel, is bad for the game. It promotes solo play and is a hindrance to the community.

Some people like crafting, and enjoy leveling up all professions. In other games, crafters can sell their goods on the market and that is how they make their money. Invest in your crafting skills, and make your investment back from the community. You're helping them gear up or get the mats they need, and making your profit at the same time.

In GW2, pretty much everything is Account Bound, and your crafting is basically only for yourself. Investing tons of gold and materials just to benefit yourself and no one else. You don't make that investment back either, cause you can't sell any of your equipment cause it is all Account Bound/Soul Bound. You can't help out your friends or the community, because of the same reasons.

For instance, I'm not a fan of crafting. Yet tons of stuff in this game requires max level in almost all crafting skills. So I'm stuck never being able to complete tons of collections/achievements or get Ascended gear because it all requires crafting. I play with my family all the time in GW2. My family loves crafting and making stuff all the time. They are maxed on all crafting skills and can make all the fancy stuff.

Yet they can never help me. Because everything is Account Bound/ Soul Bound. They want to help, I have the materials stocked up in my bank and then some, yet I can't give them to them to make me any new gear or weapons. They can't help me out because of those reasons.

As I said, it is a hindrance to the community that practically everything is Account Bound/Soul Bound. We can't help each other out as a community and can only do stuff for ourselves.

On the contrary, account bound is essential for a game like GW2. It's a game with a currency exchange, allowing anyone with enough disposable income to buy nearly every item in it, either directly or indirectly through buying mats. BtA and, to an extent, timegating, forces people to play the game instead of just pulling out their cc if they want to have absolutely everything. I would argue we don't have enough BtA in the game, being tradeable is the reason for the ridiculously low rng some drops like infusions have.

Except that's negated by the fact that you can literally buy everything with a credit card. Even Ascended.

Following a guide online, it costs around 50g to max a crafting skill. Then just buy all the mats off the Trading Post and you can have a full set of Ascended instantly. All easily done with a credit card. The only thing you are playing, is maxing out your crafting skill via a guide and then crafting the Ascended armor itself.

So the only thing that is holding back people, is just selling their crafted Ascended gear outright. You can already buy all the materials required to make the armor, so what's the difference in letting them just sell the armor itself?

There is plenty of games that have a currency exchange that don't have the restrictions that GW2 has and they are doing just fine. There is always going to be someone who just buys everything with a credit card, you can't stop that, and it doesn't affect you, as you would never notice if they worked for it or bought it as it is all the same gear.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:Very simply put:In a game where nearly everything could be bought with gold, account bound materials force players to actually play content.

Wich imo is a issue as well :}, i kinda feel crafting in this game is really messed up, to much spreaded, some ended being basic stats other stats u have to work alot of time to have them, as if those stats will lead to a broken build, reason some stats are more harder to get and others can be time gated...

its a mess..for several reasons.

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So the only thing that is holding back people, is just selling their crafted Ascended gear outright. You can already buy all the materials required to make the armor, so what's the difference in letting them just sell the armor itself?It artificially adds to the demand for the component materials, thus benefiting everyone in the game, not just the person with the ascended gear.

Time gating crafting has the same sort of effect: the impatient are willing to pay a premium to those patient enough to have done their daily crafting. (with the notable exception that charged quartz and its downstream finished pieces cannot be traded, probably due to the fact that this was the first time gate and ANet was probably experimenting with the idea)

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I dont mind materials being account bound, however timegating is frustrating beyond measure. When you try and craft a full set of ascended armor, each requiring about 30 material component that are limited to one per day, crafting that set of armor takes easily more than a month, ontop of the materials required being either expensive, or long to get. I've put in the work to gather the materials, I have them, but I'm arbitrarily stuck each day and can only progress at a snail pace, for what isn't actually the best tier of Equipment of the game. What gives ?

Fair, Ascended is equal stat Wise to Legendary, but that's about it. Ascended is Not legendary gear, it is also straight up required for a lot of the late content of the game, and acquiring all the materials to craft it does Not make one a better player for that content. It doesn't prove you're a good fighter, nor does it shows you've earned your place to that difficulty level. It's a gateing mechanism. One that is rather frustrating and nonsensical to boot.

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@Naxos.2503 said:limited to one per day, crafting that set of armor takes easily more than a month,You can buy those mats from the TP and then continue to spend the month crafting replacements, which you can then sell.

If you're incautious in pricing, you'll pay at worst a premium of ~30-40% of the total costs of the time-gated mats. If you're thoughtful, you can turn a tiny profit. (Using a compromise plan, people will typically spend 2-3%.)

Which is exactly why the game has time-gating: to artificially add value to the constituent mats.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Naxos.2503 said:limited to one per day, crafting that set of armor takes easily more than a month,You can buy those mats from the TP and then continue to spend the month crafting replacements, which you can then sell.

If you're incautious in pricing, you'll pay
at worst
a premium of ~30-40% of the total costs of the time-gated mats. If you're thoughtful, you can turn a tiny profit. (Using a compromise plan, people will typically spend 2-3%.)

Which is exactly why the game has time-gating: to artificially add value to the constituent mats.

I'm actually not into the buying side too much, I actually go on the field to gather my materials, and only craft what I need, as opposed to sell for profit on the TP. I imagine I'm not in the majority for doing so, but still

Not having ascended armor (or ascended weapons, as of recently) has been a thorn on my side for years, because I was hoping for them to drop from where they're supposed to drop (Fractals, and other WvW/PvP activities) which actually has never happened more than 1 time, on the span of 5 years. Crafting was Something I was reluctant to do, specifically due to the grind for materials, and the timegating. Even now as I crafting my last 2 pieces for my first set of ascended armor, I'm faced with a cruel choice : I have the materials for it, but I'm also in big part responsible for advancing my guild hall's progress through material gathering and material donations. I'm stuck in progress for a while waiting each day for another spool of elonian cord, while the guild hall could essentially use all the materials I have sitting there, which I eventually turn over because it feels like a faster progress, and end up with no materials to continue crafting my ascended set. That has been the recurrent story for me for a while, as I mostly play a Medium armor class on high end content, and the guild upgrades primarily use leather. And then there is the workshop who requires a ton of elonian leather to boot.... Needless to say, that timegating hurts quite a lot. I can understand the desire for increased values of Some items, but that is artificial and forced. Not Pleasant when you're on the other end of the stick, if you see what I mean

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@SpyderArachnid.5619 said:

Except that's negated by the fact that you can literally buy everything with a credit card. Even Ascended.

Following a guide online, it costs around 50g to max a crafting skill. Then just buy all the mats off the Trading Post and you can have a full set of Ascended instantly. All easily done with a credit card. The only thing you are playing, is maxing out your crafting skill via a guide and then crafting the Ascended armor itself.

So the only thing that is holding back people, is just selling their crafted Ascended gear outright. You can already buy all the materials required to make the armor, so what's the difference in letting them just sell the armor itself?

You can buy all the mats using your CC and the exchange but you still have to login and craft daily because of the timegates. The only way to truly bypass them using your CC (or accumulated gold), is buying the crafted components from the TP. But if you go for that option, you are not getting full value for your money since they are more expensive than the mats needed to craft them. It's a smart mechanic that rewards the ones putting time into the game, crafting the items (either to use or to sell for a profit). If you want to skip, you gotta pay the price.

@SpyderArachnid.5619 said:

There is plenty of games that have a currency exchange that don't have the restrictions that GW2 has and they are doing just fine. There is always going to be someone who just buys everything with a credit card, you can't stop that, and it doesn't affect you, as you would never notice if they worked for it or bought it as it is all the same gear.

Instant gratification for sale in a cash store is bad game design to me, no matter how popular it is these days. And it's intentional bad design (the worst kind) driven by profit. Maybe its because I'm old school, playing games since the 90s, but the way I learnt gaming, you pay to play, not pay to pay. I'm glad GW2 hasn't fully gone towards that model yet.

That said, my comment was more about the BtA mechanic as a whole than ascended crafting specifically. I find timegates annoying too but I still recognize their use for the reasons illustrated above.

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The argument that time gating adds value to those materials and is a good thing seems questionable to me. As noted, it is artificially adding value.But if that is really good for the game, shouldn't even more stuff be time gated? 10 oricalcum ingots per day? And so forth? Clearly, that would not be beneficial to the game (I have to spend 15 minutes doing all the time gated crafting materials - screw that, I'm going to move to a different game where I'm not wasting my time)It is unclear to me what benefit it gives to the game to the the current time gated crafting material, other than those players who want to spend the time doing that and selling the materials. But is that really a crowd that needs to be catered to?If it was something like 'it causes more materials to be used up and removed from the game', given the price of materials, I might by that as something worth while (eg, 50 ingots for first lump of mithrilium/day, 60 for second, 70 for third, etc)And there does seem to be a good market for all the materials (raw & refined) that are not time gated.

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Gating something (using time, arbitrary criteria etc) is bad, in my opinion. Bad for the players. Because by manipulating the timing / criteria of gating ANet can also manipulate the players into ..... what is the real interest of a gaming company? Right!! The money. If you are a gaming company you can manipulate your players to pay RL money to get over the gating.

That not the worry about the players or even for the game named GW2 are the first priorities for ANet we already know. They used our trust to work on another games and giving us in exchange the illusion they work on GW2. So, gating being OK for the game or for the players is a FALSE statement. Is good for ANet.

How can be beneficial for the players the fact that a weapon for the Istan collection needs 500 Kralkatite Ore? And how many you can achieve by doing the meta events ONCE per day? If you don't have an eternity at your disposal, then you may be tempted to follow the "wise advice" of a streamer - do hearts with 10 characters. You only have 5 at the start of the game? No problem, you can buy some character slots.

How can be beneficial for the players the fact that a crafting material obtained by loggin rewards (Mystic Coins) can be traded? And another crafting material obtained by logging rewards (Mystic Clovers) cannot be traded? Well, if you want a Legendary weapon and you don't want to wait - yes, to wait - 5 or 6 months you have two ways:

  1. Buy more GW2 accounts (5-6-7...10) in order to have more Mystic Coins per month. OR
  2. Buy the Coins from TP. If you don't have gold, no problem. ANet gives you the possibility to use your RL money.

I don't want to ruin my mood with gating covering months for a product. I don't know how good is for the game if you need almost 6 months for a legendary armor you cannot sell? You cannot flood the market with armors. You cannot make money selling Legendary armors. And yet, you can make one at every 6 months (if you obtain maximum Skirmish rewards/week AND if you craft the first tier of Legendary Armor. If you want the second tier .... according to ANet the game will benefit even more). The same for Raid Legendary. And for the PvP legendary.

I wonder if playing for reaching the "target" for time gated materials then leaving the game for the next day - or next week - is indeed beneficial for the game.

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Well someone I know started playing the game four months ago. He bought gems, converted to gold. Bought Eternity. Bought outfits, bought materials, in one month he had five completely outfitted and leveled characters. He bought the collections for legendary raid armor.

Then bored, he asked us what on earth to do. Following our suggestions he bought someone to help and completed the griffon that week. Then next he had someone drag him through HOT map completion and began crafting Nevermore.

It took him a month of hero trains(which he did on each of those other characters to get them specializations) but he got all masteries. He linked Nevermore a couple weeks ago.

I see him rarely now. Which is a shame since he seriously must have pumped well over a thousand real life dollars into the game. He bought skins, keys, outfits, tools. At one point he sent everyone in the guild one of the new dye kits.

I guess if you have the disposable income there are almost no time gates.

Also if you keep an eye on the market there are times the materials will sell for more than the completed item.

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Account bound materials is fine... It doesn't make much sense, but it's fine... The only problem with those is that when you hit the storage cap, you have to start using other creative ways to store it, or just throw it away.The problem comes from timegated materials. It's just a contrivance to prevent people from advancing too fast and running out of stuff to do. And it's utterly unnecessary since GW2 has more than enough stuff to do these days to merit removing that.At this point it just serves a different, more insidious purpose, it's creating artificial inflation for those materials, by creating a fake scarcity. Which at a time it might have made sense to the devs, back when a single bolt of damask would net you 15 gold, but nowadays, the inevitable happened, and supply outgrew demand, and despite their machinations, it's already pretty cheap, nearly a 5th of it's price 3 years ago.What's more distressing is that EVERY TIME devs did something to create artificial demand, it backfired and ruined the game's economy, especially for newer players, it happened with cloth, it happened with leather, and it'll keep happening if they don't stop making things obviously skewed to change the economy, because, it'll change it, but then it'll have the opposite effect, and cheapen every thing else.

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