Too many mundane collectables are too expensive (gold value)

[Drascious.5714]

In my experience most players are far wealthier than they realise as they simply fail to check their material storage value. There are very little sources of pure gold in GW2, mostly coming from dailies, fractals, raids and pvp reward chests. It's well known that simply doing T4 dailies can be around 20 gold worth of trash items to vendor, and even just running a few simple meta events that all award 2 gold each you can snag a good 10 gold or so for some low effort work.

 

But understandably to the average player who might not fully engage with these sources to the maximum it might seem like gold is very hard to come by and it can be if you expect it directly from the game, but other players are eager to spend it on the other major currency of GW2 and that is materials.

 

Materials are actually a much stronger currency than gold in many cases as they can be much more finite in supply compared to the demand and much better represent many of the high value items in the game which are largely accessed via crafting or the mystic forge. Any player who isn't engaging with mystic coin based recipes will find that they are an excellent steady source of money when sold on the TP and even if you are undertaking crafting projects it is rather easy to pinpoint materials you donot require and could be high value. A good example is hardened leather as this is usually needed in large amounts when it is needed but is actually not in a huge amount of recipes aside from exotic armour. It does however fetch a decent price and a player who has been letting materials stock pile might find they have a decent bit of it. The same can be said for lodestones which are often either needed in large quantities for specific weapons and legendaries or not all so again a newer player could choose to sell those off with many worth over 50 silver each. Not to mention silver doubloons that newer players might come across when doing jumping puzzles etc... that go for over 1 gold each.

 

Stuff feels very hard to get in GW2 until you start to understand how all the systems work together to help you get what you need. Materials can accumulate quickly but most gold is also spent on materials so they can be seen as equal commodities as its easy to change one to the other.

 

The beauty of GW2 is that you find your own path to getting what you want and don't worry about what others are doing.

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Psykewne.3025 said:

In my experience most players are far wealthier than they realise as they simply fail to check their material storage value.

 

I can see this, but it is a little complicated. GW2Efficiency tells me I have about 1200 gold in mats sitting in storage. I keep telling myself I'm going to go through and sell some of it so I can buy things I actually want. The problem is, there are enough times that I've sold off some mats only to find my next goal needs four stacks of the thing, I'm shy about dropping a bunch of stuff on the TP. That means a significant time investment with the wiki on one screen and my inventory on the other, trying to sort the useless from the very useful.

Not undoable, but not terribly enjoyable, so I keep putting it off. It's the downside of so many different kinds of mats and a new currency in each zone being the primary wealth in the game.

As to finding your own path, this is true for a lot of things. Some things are hard locked behind very specific activities. I have enough rewards stowed away that I could get a piece of legendary armor for almost no gold, except that it will require another 16 weeks of almost exclusively doing WvW to get the skirmish tickets for it. There's a PvP route and a Raid route, I know, but each of those are also exclusive, so I'd be doing one of those to the exclusion of pretty much anything else in the game for many weeks as well.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Thelgar.7214]

I'm having trouble seeing the cultural armors as being ridiculously expensive. They were basically endgame goals at start and are now paltry to acquire, even if you only play casually. Events crap gold and stuff you can sell for gold now compared to the way things were for the first couple years. If you play WvW, they're even cheaper. 

[Gatzy.1043]

if they were a non-tradeable currency or collection instead, it would feel much better. using gold means consciously knowing you can't use that gold for way more compelling goals.

[Klowdy.3126]

On 10/8/2021 at 12:18 PM, Tatwi.3562 said:

Truly useless flavor items like endless tonics that require 10 items that cost 8.5g each... Cultural armor that costs 20g per piece... 50g for a home instance node of something that has marginal gameplay value... And so many other potentially interesting, but generally pointless and totally optional things I haven't bothered with in the last 9 years, because I'm not interested in "no-lifeing" a game. I'm certainly not going to spend my hard earned real life money on stuff like this. So, it just gets ignored and that's a shame.

 

I don't play the game every day. I don't even want to play the game every day. When I do play, I don't sit there for hours "grinding" or whatever. I just "do stuff" that I feel like doing for as long as I find it entertaining, because games are entertainment, not jobs or lifestyles.

 

The price of many mundane purchasable rewards in this game were clearly balanced around either "whales" who convert money to gold and that top 2%-10% of people who spend many hours grinding gold, rather than around the income of the average person who just plays the game. And what's the point of doing this for these mundane things/collections? It's not like they offer the pizazz and convenience of legendary weapons. In fact, most mundane collectables are just that, mundane, bland, and often only serve the purpose checking a box on a list to gain Achievement Points. Congratulations, you spend gold. Quite the "achievement". 😐

 

Primarily, I spend my real life and in game gold on things that are actually useful, like bank tabs, character slots, infinite tools, etc. I've purchased only five cosmetic items from the gem store in nine years. It took me until this summer to afford the griffon mount and that was after someone randomly gave me 75g for helping others in map chat. I had no problem spending $30 USD on EOD, because EOD will add a huge amount of content to my experience. That's 2400 gems or about 473g. Meanwhile just the tier 3 cultural armor sets cost 595g. Why? They add almost nothing to the game. Totally out of balance.

Grinding, or farming, can be fun. I grind gold. Gold is used for many things, but mostly for converting to gems in my case (and buying some exotic 4 stats on the TP for my alts, since you can do that now, lol). Do you like to PvP? WvW? Meta events? Raids? Strikes? Dungeons? Fractals? World completion? There are many ways to make gold. One of the absolute easiest is just logging on every day for 28 days, and selling your coins, and using the laurels to buy heavy bags, and sell that stuff. I know for me, the DX update allows me to be logged in and get the daily chest in about 60 seconds. 

 

There is a content creator/(newly active) streamer named cellofrag that has many helpful videos for many aspects of the game, and he has the most giveaways of anyone I've ever seen in any game. It wouldn't hurt to check out some of his money-making guides, and maybe some of the people he also recommends. You just need to know what to do to make gold, and cello has a video giving at least one way for every game mode. 

 

Also, halloween bags are bank. Sell them. 

[Voltekka.2375]

Buy the cultural armors in wvw. Much cheaper.

 

Or dont, if you don't like them. Really.

[Tukaram.8256]

I marvel at some of the overpriced junk in the gem store. Luckily not only do I think of it as junk - I think of it as unnecessary junk. So I really do not care how expensive it is, as I have no interest in buying it. If others want it, more power to them.   In the trading post the items cost in gold is set by demand.  I buy a few things for each avatar when they hit 80, then no longer need the trading post (except to sell junk drops).  It's all good. 

 

I have never been the target demographic for gold sinks, and have no interest in most of them. 

 

I did just spend 600 gems for a bank expansion. The gems were part of the 4,000 I got with PoF expansion. I have another 4,000 coming from the EOD expansion, so I splurged ha ha 😎  

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

I marvel at some of the overpriced junk in the gem store. Luckily not only do I think of it as junk - I think of it as unnecessary junk. So I really do not care how expensive it is, as I have no interest in buying it. If others want it, more power to them.   In the trading post the items cost in gold is set by demand.  I buy a few things for each avatar when they hit 80, then no longer need the trading post (except to sell junk drops).  It's all good. 

 

I have never been the target demographic for gold sinks, and have no interest in most of them. 

 

I did just spend 600 gems for a bank expansion. The gems were part of the 4,000 I got with PoF expansion. I have another 4,000 coming from the EOD expansion, so I splurged ha ha 😎  

what do gem store items have to do with gold sinks? I mean I'm trying to make sense out of what you're saying but gold sinks have nothing to do with gem store items.

[Obtena.7952]

On 10/11/2021 at 3:19 AM, Tatwi.3562 said:

The purpose of my post was to point out that I will never buy these items, because their price is extremely out of balance when compared to the price of actually useful items.

Why does anyone need to know that?

Edited October 12, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Tukaram.8256]

2 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

what do gem store items have to do with gold sinks? I mean I'm trying to make sense out of what you're saying but gold sinks have nothing to do with gem store items.

People can buy gems with gold, to buy items. A gold sink. 😎

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

People can buy Gold with Gems, does that balance it out? 

[Linken.6345]

On 10/12/2021 at 9:50 AM, Tukaram.8256 said:

I marvel at some of the overpriced junk in the gem store. Luckily not only do I think of it as junk - I think of it as unnecessary junk. So I really do not care how expensive it is, as I have no interest in buying it. If others want it, more power to them.   In the trading post the items cost in gold is set by demand.  I buy a few things for each avatar when they hit 80, then no longer need the trading post (except to sell junk drops).  It's all good. 

 

I have never been the target demographic for gold sinks, and have no interest in most of them. 

 

I did just spend 600 gems for a bank expansion. The gems were part of the 4,000 I got with PoF expansion. I have another 4,000 coming from the EOD expansion, so I splurged ha ha 😎  

Well you selling junk on trading post is a gold sink so yes you are the target demographic bud.

[Tukaram.8256]

5 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well you selling junk on trading post is a gold sink so yes you are the target demographic bud.

No. Me selling earns me gold. 😎

[Linken.6345]

30 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

No. Me selling earns me gold. 😎

Yes totaly look past the tax of listing 5% and selling 10% that is said gold sink.

[Rasimir.6239]

6 hours ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

No. Me selling earns me gold. 😎

Gold sinks are not about an individual player's owned gold. They are about managing the total amount of gold spread across all players, to combat inflation.

 

Gold is created out of thin air every day, dropping from monsters, events, achievements, instances, and more. If there weren't any balancing mechanics that destroy some of this gold (the gold sinks), there quickly would be so much gold spread across the players that prices for player to player trading would rise exorbitantly. Can you say 1k gold for a lump of mithril ore?

[Gehenna.3625]

On 10/12/2021 at 2:08 PM, Tukaram.8256 said:

People can buy gems with gold, to buy items. A gold sink. 😎

The gold that people spend on gems is not taken out of the economy but rather it changes hands between players. So therefore it does not constitute a gold sink. Because of the way the exchange is set up, you can only exchange gems for gold that players spend on getting gems. And the gems people buy with gold are the gems people spend on gold. That's why there is an exchange rate that changes all the time. And because the gold comes from players and goes to other players, it's not a gold sink. It also means that you don't create gold with gem exchanges which also makes it so it doesn't contribute to inflation. It's actually very clever.

The TP tax for example is a gold sink because it effectively takes gold out of the economy. Whenever you use a waypoint, it costs you a couple of silvers and that's taken out of the economy. When you buy things for gold from vendors this is taken out of the economy. Those are actual gold sinks.

[Zentao.6314]

28 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

The gold that people spend on gems is not taken out of the economy but rather it changes hands between players. So therefore it does not constitute a gold sink. Because of the way the exchange is set up, you can only exchange gems for gold that players spend on getting gems. And the gems people buy with gold are the gems people spend on gold. That's why there is an exchange rate that changes all the time. And because the gold comes from players and goes to other players, it's not a gold sink. It also means that you don't create gold with gem exchanges which also makes it so it doesn't contribute to inflation. It's actually very clever.

The TP tax for example is a gold sink because it effectively takes gold out of the economy. Whenever you use a waypoint, it costs you a couple of silvers and that's taken out of the economy. When you buy things for gold from vendors this is taken out of the economy. Those are actual gold sinks.

It is a gold sink.

If you check the exchange rates and you:
- buy gems for 100 gold
- sell those gems for gold

You get a lot less gold than you previously spent on it.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Zentao.6314

[Danikat.8537]

Whilst it does cause confusion occasionally I think it's good that Anet has managed to create gold sinks which many players don't even notice. The taxes on TP transactions are displayed every time you buy or sell something but it's rare that anyone actually thinks about them. That means players aren't going out of their way to avoid them and the system works.

Other gold sinks everyone will encounter at least sometimes are waypoint fees, buying anything from NPC merchants and the cost per use on unlimited salvage kits.

It is possible to play without ever using waypoints and without buying any type of salvage kit (the temporary ones are a gold sink because they come from NPCs, the infinite ones have a cost per use) and without ever using the Trading Post but not only would it make the game needlessly complicated but as an individual you'd actually get less gold in the time you spend playing than if you engaged with those gold sinks.

There are also some gold and material sinks which are very expensive for individual players, but even then the gold tends to come from the economy as a whole. For example one Halloween I spent 120 candy corn cobs on the Mini Oxidecimus the Shadow Raven, but I didn't farm all 120,000 candy corn myself and didn't even farm the gold needed to buy it (approximately 500g) directly. Instead I farmed Trick-or-Treat bags from the Labyrinth and sold them to other players, then used the gold to buy candy corn. The people I sold the bags to didn't spend their gold on the mini pet but ultimately that's how it was removed from the economy so even with just 1 person choosing to engage with that particular gold sink it still took lots of players gold out the economy. Plus all the gold which disappeared as TP taxes when selling the bags and buying candy corn.

The important thing isn't where (as in whose wallet) gold enters or leaves the economy, but that it enters and leaves at roughly the same rate so we don't get rampant inflation.

[Gehenna.3625]

6 hours ago, Zentao.6314 said:

It is a gold sink.

If you check the exchange rates and you:
- buy gems for 100 gold
- sell those gems for gold

You get a lot less gold than you previously spent on it.

Yeah and who does that? There are people who sell gems for gold and people who sell gold for gems. Not both at the same time. Only idiots would do what you describe. There is a difference in value but that doesn't take away from the fact that the gold is put in a reserve for people to spend gems on and that reserve is still part of the economy. That gold is not deleted from the economy.

[Zentao.6314]

53 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Yeah and who does that? There are people who sell gems for gold and people who sell gold for gems. Not both at the same time. Only idiots would do what you describe. There is a difference in value but that doesn't take away from the fact that the gold is put in a reserve for people to spend gems on and that reserve is still part of the economy. That gold is not deleted from the economy.

I can't explain it more simply, im sorry if you dont understand it. 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Zentao.6314

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Yeah and who does that? There are people who sell gems for gold and people who sell gold for gems. Not both at the same time. Only idiots would do what you describe. There is a difference in value but that doesn't take away from the fact that the gold is put in a reserve for people to spend gems on and that reserve is still part of the economy. That gold is not deleted from the economy.

A portion is deleted from the economy since the person buying gold with gems doesn't get as much gold as the seller paid.

Current exchange prices, you sell 100 gems to get 19g 45s. I buy your 100 gems for 31g 10s. This transaction just deleted 11g 56s from the economy. That's over a third of the gold I put in.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Linken.6345]

5 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

A portion is deleted from the economy since the person buying gold with gems doesn't get as much gold as the seller paid.

Current exchange prices, you sell 100 gems to get 19g 45s. I buy your 100 gems for 31g 10s. This transaction just deleted 11g 56s from the economy. That's over a third of the gold I put in.

The gem exchange is taxed both ways so you cant buy low and sell high as easily.

[Firebeard.1746]

It's fine if you don't want to do some of these things, not everything in the game is made for everyone. People do them though. Those 50g nodes can be more useful than you think. When people were still doing the Dragonslayer weapons, Prismaticite made a killing and I'm sure I more than paid for my node with the proceeds. Also, I have infinite gathering tools with glyphs, so even though that node is useless now, it's free glyph procs. Really any node that costs money can pay for itself if you wait long enough. I make a few gold at least daily off of my HI. 

Some people exploit the things you mention to make money. If the collection is costly, there's money to be had in offering the items. There are players rich enough that they don't care and will pay for it outright. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Gehenna.3625]

On 10/14/2021 at 8:29 PM, Zentao.6314 said:

I can't explain it more simply, im sorry if you dont understand it. 

I was missing part of the information. So I read up on it. And the information that I was missing is that the exchange does charge a 15% exchange fee and therefore you are correct it's a gold sink but not because of the reasons you gave. That's still incorrect.

You see, the fee exists in BOTH directions as I found out. So the difference in gold value compared to gem value is irrelevant for it being  a gold sink. It is a gold sink because there is a transaction fee of 15% also on the gold exchange to gems. And that's the only reason it's a gold sink. So I accept that it's a gold sink but I still reject your explanation.

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Currency_exchange#:~:text=Exchange rates are determined by,of both Gems and Gold.&text=The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each.

Edited October 16, 2021 by Gehenna.3625

[Gehenna.3625]

On 10/14/2021 at 8:37 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

A portion is deleted from the economy since the person buying gold with gems doesn't get as much gold as the seller paid.

Current exchange prices, you sell 100 gems to get 19g 45s. I buy your 100 gems for 31g 10s. This transaction just deleted 11g 56s from the economy. That's over a third of the gold I put in.

I read up on it and the fact that you get fewer gems with gold than gold with gems is because of an inherent value difference and because you get taxed 15% in both directions even...and that last bit is where it becomes a gold sink. I wasn't aware of this 15% tax so I do accept that it's a gold sink now but only because of that transaction fee and not because of the difference in value between gems and gold.

Calculation:

you need 518 gems to get 100 gold. When you do this transaction you pay 15% as a transaction fee with gems. So effectively the cost of 100 gold = 450 gems + 68 gems transaction fee. So here gems are deleted as a currency.

When you want to buy 518 gems with gold then you have to spend 148 gold (rounded off). That means that 518 gems = 129 gold + 19 gold transaction fee. This is where 19 gold is deleted.

Now where people go wrong is that they do this thing of trading back and forth and coming up with 30% but that's 15% gems and 15% gold. So the gold sink is actually just in one direction and the other way is a gem sink.

Edited October 16, 2021 by Gehenna.3625