Changes in EoD and Mystic Clovers [Merged]

[Omega.6801]

16 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

...Especially if the g3 legendaries will need 250 Clovers instead of 250 Coins. Something this change suggests will happen.

There's no source on this I guess?

Sure, demand will increase when they make waypointing cost MCs instead of gold. Loginb in in will cost MCs as well I think, so in no way will supply can hold up.

I can argue on bs-premisses as well. 😉

Edited February 12, 2022 by lokh.2695

[Xainou.1502]

I can't be bothered to retype my earlier post that got eaten by the thread merge so short version:

Lazy mystic coins from login rewards are okay, but people running one of the most endgame contents for them isn't? And on top of that you're nerfing the relic sink too? YIKES.

 

The changes to fractal CMs are just an insult.

[Nero.7369]

• Add mystic clovers to raids and strikes as an exchange option👍
• Removing from mystic coins from fractals CMs 👎
  • To quote yourself from the blogpost "We want to spread the love to other types of content, but that means that no single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.", well seems like you had only mystic clovers here in mind. But with the change you only move fractal CMs as mystic coin source to strikes and you still have a monopoly there then
  • this feels like an "we want everyone to do strike missions now" action
  • Suggestion: Add a fixed number (3 maybe?) of challenge mode dailies where you can do either raid,fractals or strike missions in CM for a guaranteed reward of a mystic coin per daily. Of course all those challange modes should take nearly the same amount of time then

Edited February 12, 2022 by NeroBoron.7285

[Raizel.8175]

2 hours ago, Kayberz.5346 said:

This change is going to increase the supply of mystic coins accros the player population and will decrease their price in the long term, the amount of players that actually did CMs daily is so small in the grand scheme 

That actually remains to be seen. If the new SMs will be as challenging as promised, your typical casual OW audience won't do them. Most people already don't do Boneskinner and Whisper and those are still easy. You may have a slight increase in MC supply since there probably are a few more people doing SMs than fractal CMs, but that surplus will get eaten up by the increased Clover prices. You also shouldn't forget that SMs are 10-man-content and filling a 10-man-squad is harder than filling up a 5-man-party.

[mythical.6315]

9 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

The extra gold from CM's largely is Mystic Coins

False. 

[George.9745]

3 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

False. 

Literally 1 boss can give youC worth the whole gold from all 3CMs together. You surely don't play fractals at all.

[keramatzmode.1906]

This will be a long one but trust me, this whole write up is the core issue that has been plaguing GW2 since release and its expansions.
TLDR: Axing your "legacy" content kills player interest in the game long term. 10 man content does not compete with 5 man content. Fix LFG first before you fix rewards.

Anet, just drop the whole corpospeak, spreading "positive vibes" with "Spreading the love to other content" because we all know what you really did since the game launches. 

What you did is basically taking away "love" and put it on your shiny new stuff. It's not a "spread". 
I get it. We get it. You want players to do strikes. And it's totally fine if you want to give more MC faucets that compete with other activities. But you don't have to take away rewards from a game activity just to "push" people away into your shiny new thing. Or maybe, "strikes" you made isn't as fun as you advertised, so you had to put everyone in a stockholm syndrome to keep up with the legendary crafting mats grinding. But I think, hopefully might not be the case. I will present some key point why nerfing CM rewards, is a big mistake.

Competing Activities
Fractals is a 5 man content, and strikes is a 10 man content. The statics are different. The playerbase (that's tryharding it) is different. The level of "risk" you're undertaking is different when pugging. 1 player that needs to be replaced is easier than having to find replacement 6 players for example. Not to mention, you have to pug on peak hours for 10 man content, vs Fractals that's always available. But I can theorize Anet's fear of taking this action in the first place. Palawadan meta, (and most PoF activities/S4 except Dragonfall/Pinata) is pretty dead. Because it is triggered by event timers, and competes with HoT that just gives out better rewards. But here's the thing, it does not have to compete with Fractals or Raids.

 

Mystic Coin Dillema
Mystic Coin has always been the economy indicators for legendary crafting and most "shiny" items. Reasoning behind this has always been the Gen 2 legendaries that is Mystic Tribute. It has been hoarded, flipped and speculated to make easy gains because of how stable the coin is. Yeah sure, people would make Mystic Clovers out of it, but MC itself has since gatekeeping people from making Mystic Tribute. Mystic Tribute is the big issue that Anet should tackle. Yet, they  had to remove an MC faucet for the sake of marketing EoD. 

 

5-man content
Back to 5 man content, Fractals is the last bastion of good, easy to access activity in the game to run a chill instanced content. Ever since you killed Dungeons (which IMO, have better map design) Fractals is the one stop shop to get your golds, get some lads together quickly and just do stuff. Fractals is also the only consistent gold faucet in the game (encryption). By gutting the top tier challenge of fractals that is CM, you basically kill any chance of new players to get into endgame content, and introducing them to instance content roles (Quickness, Alac, DPS, Heal). Which is exactly you don't want to happen, because you want to nurture Strikes players for 10 man content. 5 man content is also the best platform for these new players to meet good players. Players that might need that another guy to play for their raid statics. Because communication in 5 man party is much more relaxed than a 10 man squad, where people just bash the boss and leaves without saying a single word. 

Imagine if a new player asks a veteran. "Hey, do I need to care about CM? Will there be Mystic Coins?". And upon hearing the absymal rewards of hardest 5 man content can offer, they would just pack and leave. Killing the entire  activity, even T4 runs and not even bothering putting AR on their gear. Why should they, it's not like they look forward to do Fractal CM with no Mystic Coins (because they want to make Mystic Tribute, not Mystic Clovers). 

 

Networking and LFG
As I pointed above, Fractals is the best networking activities ever existed next to event meta timers like Auric Basin and Chak Gerent. People would socialize, form groups, and start taking notes of the names of pugs and people around them. See a good player in fractals? Hey, how about we invite them into this little group to run end game content?
That is how you form a static, and that's how I get into knowing good players to consistently run CM. It's not rocket science, it's just how a comfy, 5-man content has always work in an MMO. Killing any incentive to play Fractals CM, will kill any need to socialize or participate in Fractals altogether.
Now let's talk about LFG. LFG tool is antiquated, and so underwhelming and no changes has been made since it's "refresh". They don't instantly open the correct tab based on your area, and the information of the LFG is so limited the players cannot even find the players they are looking for. If you can't even advertise groups looking for Strikes, there is no point of this reallocation of Mystic Coins. THIS is the main issue of GW2 instance content, the LFG is BAD.
The LFG is just very badly designed and anti-user, even new players did not know the existence of it to do AB metas. It should have an option to just display all LFG currently running on all activities (like FFXIV), and by default, show the LFG of activity based on your location.

 

Conclusion
I didn't even touch about alt accounts. I don't really care about Mystic Coins or gold per hour, but how you worded the downright nerf out and making it look like a positive thing (even having the audacity to call it "discount" as if we're all illiterates) made me a bit disappointed in the devs and a gloom outlook towards the game's future. You are basically telling everyone to be okay, while you're the one trying the hardest to sink the ship that you have done again and again. I love the game, you can nerf the mystic coins for like 2 MC or even 1 MC for whole CM runs and I would still can rationalize the decision. But having no MC rewards at all on top of upping the Mystic Coin to 2 for a clover, is just a spit to my favourite past time.

 

Really killed the excitement for End of Dragons for me honestly. But then again, nobody can top disappointment better than Arenanet expansion pre-launch announcements.

Edited February 12, 2022 by keramatzmode.1906

[mythical.6315]

Just now, George.9745 said:

Literally 1 boss can give youC worth the whole gold from all 3CMs together. You surely don't play fractals at all.

You clearly don’t if you believe the mystic coins were a significant portion of the rewards. 

[Ashen.2907]

5 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Except regular fractals aren't affected only CMs. Plenty of people don't do CMs. You're talking essentially 3 fractal cms, not all fractals, so this isn't quite true.  I'll still do T4 Fractals because it's still a lot of gold.

And plenty of people do CMs. Are you sure that there are only 3?

Fractal CMs are, in fact, existing content. They have stated that they are removing rewards from them. 

[George.9745]

25 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

You clearly don’t if you believe the mystic coins were a significant portion of the rewards. 

Ok sorry, I got carried away, that was a bit too far.

[mythical.6315]

7 minutes ago, George.9745 said:

Yup. Thats the conclusion I got from what you said. There's plenty of players that only auto attack and don't put more effort into improving. Nothing wrong with that. Why u feel attacked? Sorry if it hurt you, you just don't seem like the kind of dedicated player who plays CMs and wants to improve and get better times. You don't seem to understand any of our points or why we have an issue with it. So you probably don't understand what we lose. For me, is a big chunk of gold since I run fractals daily and I really love the content. 

It has no bearing on the thread topic nor my posts. 
 

It’s not a significant chunk of gold. The website I linked tracks the drops over numerous runs from many players. Have you actually tracked your drops over time? Are you able to produce a table of those results that wasn’t created on the spot for this thread?

The website shows unbiased facts regarding the observed drop rates over multiple runs along with their gold value. Until you can counter that, there’s really not much further to discuss. If people want to be upset over the small amount of gold loss, then they’re more than welcome to. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by mythical.6315

[George.9745]

27 minutes ago, keramatzmode.1906 said:

Really killed the excitement for End of Dragons for me honestly. But then again, nobody can top disappointment better than Arenanet expansion pre-launch announcements.

This is exactly how I feel. And I got those new just on my birthdays. I saw something about rewards amd got hyped. I thought they gonna bring new rewards or improve wvw rewards. And the more I read, the more hype I lost.

[George.9745]

1 minute ago, mythical.6315 said:

It has no bearing on the thread topic nor my posts. 
 

It’s not a significant chunk of gold. The website I linked tracks the drops over numerous runs from many players. Have you actually tracked your drops over time? Are you able to produce a table of those results that wasn’t created on the spot for this thread?

I get on avarage around 5MC/day. Sometimes 0 sometimes 8 sometimes 12. 5MC is quite a bit of gold. Right now is over 10 gold which is almost 25% of what CMs + T4 + Recs give.

[mythical.6315]

1 minute ago, George.9745 said:

I get on avarage around 5MC/day. Sometimes 0 sometimes 8 sometimes 12. 5MC is quite a bit of gold. Right now is over 10 gold which is almost 25% of what CMs + T4 + Recs give.

As I said, do you have a table showing your drop results across many many days to show an average or are you going off a subjective observation?  

[George.9745]

1 minute ago, mythical.6315 said:

As I said, do you have a table showing your drop results across many many days to show an average or are you going off a subjective observation?  

Well I would if gw2efficiency would keep more history but I gotta pay for that utility. And I am a bit too cheap for that. But look. I will come back on 27 here with history and fractals ran every day and show u the results. 

[Falconwing.8105]

I want to clarify that I don't play fractal CMs daily. I hardly play them at all. In practice, this change will add more mystic coin options for me than I was previously using, up to a potential 88 coins in a month from logins, strikes, and daily ley line anom. For people that don't play fractal CMs this does give them better coin generation. I think it's safe to say that this covers a majority of the player population.

 

For the game's economy as a whole however we should look at this on a group scale. Right now the minimum number of coins you can get from fractal CMs is zero, right? The maximum you can get in a day is 24 from 8 bosses. We went and used the data sets that [fast] set up and came out to an estimated average of 2.4 coins per player per day, for a group total of 14 coins on average per day. That's 98 coins estimated to be earned by a group of 5 fractal CM players in a week. (to give an example, across 166 data sets for Skorvald [fast] reports getting 58 mystic coins, so we based our math on that.)

 

Now let's compare that to Strikes. It's a hard cap of 10 coins per week per player, and there's 10 players in a strike squad, for a weekly total of 100. That means that a full strike group and a full fractal group are producing nearly the same amount of mystic coins per week on average, but fractals are entirely RNG dependent.

 

I know that realistically not all of these players will sell directly onto the TP, but that kind of thing is very hard to math out. If none of these players sell directly to the trading post, nothing changes. If all of these players sell directly to the trading post, then it still stays relatively stable

 

But let's talk about the individual since that's how I started this. Right now in a month I can get 20 mystic coins from daily log ins and 28 mystic coins from daily kills of the ley long anom. I don't do PvP tournaments and I cannot guarantee how often daily mystic forger comes along. I also can't really predict mystic coin drop rates from normal fractal runs, so let's just say I'm getting 48 mystic coins a month now compared to the 88 I'll be able to get starting in 16 days. Right now a fractal CM player can also earn those same 48 mystic coins in a month, plus an additional estimated average of 67.2 mystic coins from 224 CM boss kills each month, for an estimated total monthly coin income of 115.2 coins. So it's a big nerf to individuals, but not much change at all for groups and possibly the economy as a whole. I think this is definitely how Anet is approaching the decision. 

 

Also I have to stress that due to the sudden appearance of brand new legendaries mystic coin prices will skyrocket solely because people will be using coins for making the new legends. The mystic coin market will be in considerable flux for a while.

 

tl;dr: so long as the same number of squads play strike missions each week as parties do fractal CMs each day, it's possible that the change to fractal CM drops won't have any large consequence on the mystic coin prices on the trading post. 

 

someone please tell me if my math is still wrong.

EDIT: I have been informed that I did not consider the doubled cost of mystic coins to buy mystic clovers. That is definitely going to have a large impact on mystic coin supply. I do not think that this specific change should go through.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Falconwing.8105

[Modliszka.5027]

Changes are good or not, but looking at numbers of mc and clovers aquireable weekly from pve content is amazing in comparison to wvw and pvp. For 10 clovers you need to complete 5 reward tracks (alternatively spend 400 potions). Rework needed?

Edited February 12, 2022 by Modliszka.5027

[Linken.6345]

13 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

 

If that's all that players got across an entire week then it's hardly going to impact players doing CMs and that's assuming the number isn't an exaggeration in the first place. 

Apparently Anet dont agree with you since they said this

Currently, Challenge Mode fractals are one of the largest single sources for Mystic Coins entering our economy, as each boss in Challenge Mode 98, 99, and 100 has a small chance to award either 1, 2, or 3 Mystic Coins.

if it is the largest single source as they say and its rng

 it means quite afew people play fractal cms right?

[George.9745]

4 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

Apparently Anet dont agree with you since they said this

Currently, Challenge Mode fractals are one of the largest single sources for Mystic Coins entering our economy, as each boss in Challenge Mode 98, 99, and 100 has a small chance to award either 1, 2, or 3 Mystic Coins.

if it is the largest single source as they say and its rng

 it means quite afew people play fractal cms right?

@mythical.6315 look, this is a good counter argument to what you said. 

[Mungo Zen.9364]

Sometime after Alliances, WvW will get a rework of the reward system according to Anet.  Since we now know there will be a Summer Profession update/overhaul, and we probably will have more Beta for WvW Alliances, I would consider Fall or Winter before the Alliances release, if not later.  We could legitimately be talking a year from now before Anet gets WvW rewards looked at.

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Mungo Zen.9364]

From the perspective of a non-Raid/Strike/T4 Fractal player, the conversion to Clovers seems like the bigger nerf.

Yes, I am sure it sucks to have a source of income removed from Fractals, but for a lot of players who never step foot into T4 let alone T4 CM, they are left facing the Conversion Nerf.  My login reward MC just got half as good.  In order to maximize converting MC to Clovers, I now need to consider playing in 3 different types of content, not just one.

I have no desire to Raid nor Strikes, I do not have the time or energy to invest into that side of the game.  At least T1 fractals allowed me a way to get the Fractal Relics I needed to buy some Clovers.  And sure, I can still do that, just a lot less efficiently. 

Who does this nerf really serve Anet?  The end result is an increase in Legendary gear cost and time investment.  As someone who never set foot in a Raid or Strike, this change does not inspire me to start engaging in that content.

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

3 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

That actually remains to be seen. If the new SMs will be as challenging as promised, your typical casual OW audience won't do them. Most people already don't do Boneskinner and Whisper and those are still easy. You may have a slight increase in MC supply since there probably are a few more people doing SMs than fractal CMs, but that surplus will get eaten up by the increased Clover prices. You also shouldn't forget that SMs are 10-man-content and filling a 10-man-squad is harder than filling up a 5-man-party.

Yep, can't wait for every Strike group to ask for LI and DwD title, and the casuals losing their shiet that the content is being gatekeeped and stuff like that lol.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Sorry for my approach this morning, did not want to insult anyone. Thought I was fast enough removing it, but it was not the case :S. My sincerest apologies towards George.9745 and the raid-community. I do not have the best opinion about your kind, but there are better ways to continue the eternal conflict. 
-
As this is a merged mega-topic now, addressing the recently published EoD Changes (link), I will take a look at those and add my personal thoughts:

1.) Strikes

Spoiler

Quote

You'll be introduced to each encounter and their core mechanics as you play through the story chapters ...

This is a tutorial for Strike Missions. Highly appreciate it. I hope the encounters in the story are still easy enough to understand the mechanics on the go and will not require deep studying of a video-guide.

Quote

Each encounter has a series of "pass or fail" mechanical checks ... ensuring that groups can't bypass key mechanics

Rather controversial. We have people who want to play as intended and people who enjoy doing the encounters not the intended way. I expect the second group to deeply analyze your work and search for bugs and exploits with the highest pressure. In the past, when impactful exploits have been discovered, it took you months if not years to fix them. If you really want to insist on this new strategy, you may have to react a little faster. On the bright side, the exploits are quickly spread among the community, with detailed video-guides: when to do what to cause a certain effect, which you can use as a guide on how to fix the bug. I'm looking forward to this change, but I do expect some extreme exploits to be discovered.

Quote

For those looking for even greater glory, Challenge Modes for each Strike Mission will be coming shortly after launch, with increased rewards ...

👍

 

2.) Rewards
 

Spoiler

 

High End Fractal Rewards

Quote

We want to spread the love to other types of content, but that means no single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

We have been asking for this for a very long time. There exist different topics and different approaches from the community. It surely is not the change is was looking for, but it is a start and a step into the right direction. However removing the option for MC without compensation, sounds a bit too harsh for my taste. Could you probably replace the MC with a trash-item, like Shiny Baubles? That way they would still have a random chance for a bonus gain, but rather raw gold. 

IBS Strikes: Blue Prophet Shards

Quote

o All Icebrood Saga strikes will only award Blue Prophet Shards.
o All Icebrood Saga strike rewards that used to cost Green and Red Prophet Shards now cot Blue Prophet Shards.
o All your Red and Green Prophet Shards will be automatically exchanged for Blue Prophet Shards ...

Another major request of the past years: reduce the currency mess. First time you rework an existing currency system, simplify it and recycle it for new content. Thanks for listening to us. This change is highly appreciated! 👍

EoD Strikes: Green Prophet Shards

Quote

... strikes will all award Green Prophet Shards, which can be spent at a new vendor found in a hub area in Cantha.

👍

Quote

o 10 Times per Week: Trade 10 Green Prophet Shards and 1 Spirit Shard for 1 Mystic Coin
o 5 Times per Week: Trade 30 Green Prophet Shards, 2 Mystic Coins, 2 Globs of Ectoplasm and 2 Spirit Shards for 1 Mystic Clover.

Alternative options to obtain Mystic Coins and Mystic Clovers from playing new content. Sounds good to me. Those Strike Missions appear to be easier than the T4 CM Fractals. So there will be a much wider access for these rewards. In the end, this may even result in the total number of Mystic Coins on the market to drastically increase. 

Raids and Mystic Clovers

Quote

o 10 Times per Week: Trade 30 Magnetite Shards, 2 Mystic Coins, 2 Globs of Ectoplasm and 2 Spirit Shards for 1 Mystic Clover.

More uses for the currency is always nice. 👍

 

3.) Equipment, Profession and Skill Updates

Spoiler

 

Where We're Coming From and where We're Going

Quote

We want to ensure that every player feels like they're able to play the profession they like or identify with the most and bring valuable contributions to the group. This means roles should be determined by your build and gear rather than your profession.

Back to the roots. I hope this will not come with the costs of nerfing existing support-builds to oblivion. As long as it is just not another wool-producing, milk-giving, egg-laying, super-profession that does everything at once. I do not expect to re-play my early GW2 experiences, it may be a mix of the old times and the current situation. But it looks like things are going to improve and hopefully certain professions are no longer locked out from certain content-types. 

Forming a Squad: Skill Target Caps in PvE

Quote

o Most 10-target skills and traits in PvE will have a maximum target cap of 5 in the expansion ...

'Most' - Really not looking forward to this. I absolutely like the idea of having 5-target caps for everyone. But using 'most' implies you have exceptions. If it will be only for Rangers (spirits) and Warrior (banners) and maybe the in-combat-buffs (e. g. Pinpoint Distribution), this could be acceptable. But if we are talking about real boons here, it will definitely cause a great imbalance. I'm not too pessimistic about this, but I would like to see the whole thing first.

From Who Can to Who Can't

Quote

Warrior players have been telling us for years that they'd like to be something other than a banner warrior in groups! ... going to rework banners and spirits to fit to our shared boon system ... Both professions will have access to new boon support roles using revamped banners, spirits and related traits

One of Warrior's biggest flaws is the Discipline traitline. If you want the support options to be utilized, you may have to take a look at that tratiline as well. The past has proven one thing: If Warriors have to decide between Discipline and something else, they will always go for Discipline. The rest sounds promising. 

New Equipment Attribute Combinations

Quote

o Ritualist's equipment provides a large increase to condition damage and vitality, and a small increase to concentration and expertise.
o Dragon's equipment provides a large increase to power and ferocity, and a small increase to precision and vitality.

My brain is already processing some possible builds with this. Really like the vitality and concentration approach on Ritualist's stats. 👍

 

Looking forward to these changes. Some will definitely cause a few problems, but I think they mostly improve things for us.

[ugrakarma.9416]

1 hour ago, Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:

Yep, can't wait for every Strike group to ask for LI and DwD title, and the casuals losing their shiet that the content is being gatekeeped and stuff like that lol.

yes is another thing i fear with that "challenges modes" introduced to strikes its elitization, in one hand a bunch of long-time experienced "speed runners" and another normal modes where anyone have interest because inst rewarding.

[Mlody.4180]

The biggest single source for Mystic Coins is the daily login reward, not fractals, wvw, pvp or new strike. Some have from a few to several hundred accounts, which gives them 20 months to do nothing on each account. These people should be called RICH, not people who spend their time learning and perfecting how to tackle the cm-fractals.
 

There should always be a better reward for doing difficult things, and the mc was a good incentive for cm-fractal novices. More than once, I helped and taught people, even if they said it was too difficult for them. Nevertheless, the desire to create a legend was stronger. Now they are so good that they show me new tactics themselves and teach other players. However, the unstable chance of dropping MCs is exactly what defines cm-fractals, that nothing is certain like a boss mechanic, and whether the fight will be a success or a failure. And since people say that only a few % of players do cm-fractals, the amount of mc from there cannot affect the economy. Therefore, I believe that removing mc is fractal castration. Now I don't even have any illusions that a new cm fractal will come out.
 

I was hoping they would encourage me and my friends to buy EoD, but they let us down.
 

They could throw mc out of their daily login rewards. This would give them plenty of opportunities to place them in most of the game world, such as the wvw, raids, strikes, fractals, dungeons, and anywhere they want. That way, they would reward those who do what they like and now don't get it. It would also motivate people to participate in the wider game world and destroy the monopoly on mc. But arenenet's selling accounts to people who only use them for daily logging in must pay off.