The infinite many problems with the most recent design changes and philosophies revealed by Anet and Gw2 for EoD.

[Serephen.3420]

Thankfully the cm fractal change only really impacts a population smaller than that of raids. 

Regarding theory crafters leaving? Maybe those who only did fractal cms might. The rest still have other things to keep them entertained. 

Personally I would have just limited or reduced the number of coins in cms than remove them.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[George.9745]

2 minutes ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Thankfully the cm fractal change only really impacts a population smaller than that of raids. 

Yeah. That's why you can fill a raid squad in lfg at any time of the day and clear it smoothly. Ofc. How did I not think about this. I think there's like 3 ppl doing CMs + T4. Me, a friend and a guy with 2 more alt accounts he made for logins. 

[George.9745]

6 minutes ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Regarding theory crafters leaving? Maybe those who only did fractal cms might. The rest still have other things to keep them entertained. 

No, this change sets a pattern. Seeing harder content getting hammered down makes u lose hope for the rest of it. The guys I am talking about made build for snowcrows which is a raid website. Not fractals. So it is affecting a large scale. All you see is CM and whining. It's not just that. They will soon come for raids too probably. "We wanna share the love so we removed ascended drops from raids and only give 1 gold/boss now. But it's fine cuz strikes drop ascended items now, BUT you gotta buy the expack. Gooodluck theory crafters. We are sure u will find a way to craft build for free for our strikes while we give you 0 reasons to play the game"

[Serephen.3420]

1 minute ago, George.9745 said:

Yeah. That's why you can fill a raid squad in lfg at any time of the day and clear it smoothly. Ofc. How did I not think about this. I think there's like 3 ppl doing CMs + T4. Me, a friend and a guy with 2 more alt accounts he made for logins. 

At least when I'm on, but most raiders don't really use lfg anymore they use discord.

I added onto my post while you replied. The point is it's still 1% that play it at most.

That doesn't mean I think they shouldn't get something for their effort however. 

[trixantea.1230]

On 2/12/2022 at 7:43 AM, Shenkopp.6317 said:

Who cares that warriors bring banners, who cares that firebrand has quickness. The problem is that boons are broken and sought after, and no matter what class brings the boons, they are going to be meta. Crono, Engi, Ele, Necro, Firebrand, quickness is still quickness, and it's broken. What makes warrior more of a banner slave than firebrand a quickness slave? Renegade an alac slave? The group needs what it needs as far as i’m concerned 6 people in every team comp are all boon slaves.

I agree with you to a certain degree but let us be realistic and not expect Anet to completely overhaul all boons and support classes.

At the time being, I don't think that the issue lies with the need for specific builds in order to have specific buffs. By EoD release, we will have 3-4 classes being able to give quickness and 3 classes giving alac. The problem here is with boon support builds being unable to buff the whole raid. This is why you see too many "slaves" in the raid trying to compensate for it.

A small fix that can reduce the number for "boon slaves" and "mandatory meta classes" is to make all boon builds being able to buff the whole raid (10 players) instead of buffing 5 players only. This will improve build diversity and reduce the need for having 2 quickness slaves for example.

Another fix that can remove the mandatoriness of a banner slave warrior is to standardise banners with buffs like Assassin's Presence, Spotter, Pinpoint Distribution, Empower Allies,.. and give classes like ranger, revenant, engi,.. the ability to replace warrior's banners.

Edited February 14, 2022 by trixantea.1230

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Thankfully the cm fractal change only really impacts a population smaller than that of raids. 

If it only were that simple.

I don't really know how many people are playing Fractal CMs, and, since i am not one of those people, this change doesn't even affect me directly. Should i not care though, or think i won;t be affected at all? No. Why? Because in that very blog post Anet let slip some really important info - that a majority of MCs entering the game came from those very CMs.

Think about that - Anet has with this single change just nuked MC supply by at least half. If you think this is not going to result in pushing MC prices even higher than they were before, you're naive. And if you think increased MC value is going to benefit majority of the players, you're likely one of the people that are getting rich on trading that commodity.

 

 

[Sigmoid.7082]

11 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If it only were that simple.

I don't really know how many people are playing Fractal CMs, and, since i am not one of those people, this change doesn't even affect me directly. Should i not care though, or think i won;t be affected at all? No. Why? Because in that very blog post Anet let slip some really important info - that a majority of MCs entering the game came from those very CMs.

Think about that - Anet has with this single change just nuked MC supply by at least half. If you think this is not going to result in pushing MC prices even higher than they were before, you're naive. And if you think increased MC value is going to benefit majority of the players, you're likely one of the people that are getting rich on trading that commodity.

 

 

They didn't say a majority of MC coms from CMs, they said:

"Currently, Challenge Mode fractals are one of the largest single sources for Mystic Coins entering our economy". I can't find anything else on the page that you may be referring to. 

 

That said there is a very large difference between something being a majority and something being one of the largest sources of something. Its incorrect to say at least half the coins are coming from that one source because the term largest source is still very nondescript to the actual size. For all we know a significantly smaller percent of coins could be coming from CMs and it still be one of the largest single sources that are out there. 

[Astralporing.1957]

35 minutes ago, Sigmoid.7082 said:

They didn't say a majority of MC coms from CMs, they said:

"Currently, Challenge Mode fractals are one of the largest single sources for Mystic Coins entering our economy". I can't find anything else on the page that you may be referring to. 

 

That said there is a very large difference between something being a majority and something being one of the largest sources of something. Its incorrect to say at least half the coins are coming from that one source because the term largest source is still very nondescript to the actual size. For all we know a significantly smaller percent of coins could be coming from CMs and it still be one of the largest single sources that are out there. 

Fair enough - but that at least means it's at least as good, if not better source as daily login rewards. And daily login rewards are massive. So, my point still stands - nuking that source is definitely going to impact MC prices, and not in a good way.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Why does the main post have a black font.

Completely unreadable

[Sigmoid.7082]

59 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Fair enough - but that at least means it's at least as good, if not better source as daily login rewards. And daily login rewards are massive. So, my point still stands - nuking that source is definitely going to impact MC prices, and not in a good way.

No it doesn't. Again you can't really make that point either since there is no clear indication of the size of either relative to the total income into the market.  Literally all we know is that is "one of the largest single sources of Mystic Coins entering our economy" and that's it.  This is the problem with data without actual numbers, its left for interpretation, of which may or may not be correct since its based on some form of assumption from in the interpreter. 

 

It could be, purely as an example:

1. 65% daily login
2. 25% CM
3. 5% AT
4. 15% Daily Anom

and their statement would still hold true. 

 

Purley from the standpoint of the supply of coins into the market it all depends on how many do the new strikes and earn coins that way relative to the number of people earning coins from CMs now, which remains to be seen. For all we know it could end up with more coins in the system or even the same amount, just the player distribution of those coins is wider.  You can't just strictly assume it will always be less coins. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Sigmoid.7082

[babak.3654]

It seems likely that the majority of players have never even attempted a Fractal CM; the number of mystic coins coming from that route could even be less than for daily anomaly. I'm not a Fractal CM player but I can't find a single good reason to nerf fractal rewards. Surely difficult content (such as Raid CMs, Fractal CMs and yes, Strike CMs) should all be rewarding? Otherwise you're just reducing the variety of rewarding content in the game.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Sigmoid.7082 said:

No it doesn't. Again you can't really make that point either since there is no clear indication of the size of either relative to the total income into the market.  Literally all we know is that is "one of the largest single sources of Mystic Coins entering our economy" and that's it.  This is the problem with data without actual numbers, its left for interpretation, of which may or may not be correct since its based on some form of assumption from in the interpreter. 

 

It could be, purely as an example:

1. 65% daily login
2. 25% CM
3. 5% AT
4. 15% Daily Anom

and their statement would still hold true. 

 

Purley from the standpoint of the supply of coins into the market it all depends on how many do the new strikes and earn coins that way relative to the number of people earning coins from CMs now, which remains to be seen. For all we know it could end up with more coins in the system or even the same amount, just the player distribution of those coins is wider.  You can't just strictly assume it will always be less coins. 

Doh. I thought that would be an extremely convoluted understanding of what Anet said, but it turns out you're actually right, and it's Anet that is (as usual) bad at explaining things.

From Reddit thread on the subject:

Quote

In reality, 93% of mystic coins come from login rewards. The remaining 7% includes sources such as Ley Line Anomaly, WvW Gold/Platinum chests, Fractal daily chests, Mystic Forger daily mission, and Fractal CM's. Of those, Fractal CM's are one of the smaller sources- they're just really not played by a lot of people relative to other sources, because the content is very difficult and exclusive.

Which seems to be an exact opposite of what they said in the blog post...

[ugrakarma.9416]

these days anomaly sometimes fill even 3 maps, but inst all day, is only on peak hours.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

That Reddit post really clears up what will happen with these changes.  Hopefully, it will put some concerns at rest. 

[babak.3654]

It provided quite a bit of information but no rationale as to why it was desirable to remove mystic coin rewards from CMs. That I could see, anyway.

[Obtena.7952]

16 minutes ago, babak.3654 said:

It provided quite a bit of information but no rationale as to why it was desirable to remove mystic coin rewards from CMs. That I could see, anyway.

Well, it's clearly desirable to Anet for at least two things (and probably more)

1. Get more control on the economy

2. Direct people wanting coins to do content they are hoping to bet the farm on for the rest of the game. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 2/12/2022 at 8:27 AM, Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:

Kinda confirms Gen 3 legendaries will need Coins and Clovers, just imagine:

The Divine Tribute

3x Gift of Condensed Magic
3 Gift of Condensed Might
500 Mystic Coins
200 Mystic Clovers

lel

Shut your face right now before Anet hears you.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Forums acting like Anet was magically going to ignore strikes after IBS was all strikes and DRMs. 

Yes, they want you to play new content and no fractals wasn't it or we'd be getting new fractals.  Not like this hasn't happened before, its exactly what fractals did to dungeons.

Also the buying alt accounts complaint never made sense.  If you want gold just buy it directly from the gemstore; if one really wanted to whale, why would they buy 20 accounts to alt when they can drop a couple hundred bucks and hit same result? That's the nature of the model and really has nothing to do with the overall game itself. 

There's always going to be one person that has like a million gold and is glowing in every legendary and infusion modern graphics cards will allow--this is fine because they are an edge case and will exist no matter what.  

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Slightly more/updated information on the Dev post in the Instanced Group Content forum. 

 

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Slightly more/updated information on the Dev post in the Instanced Group Content forum. 

 

I like this part:

It's natural to make assumptions about what is common or normal based on our own habits and capabilities and extrapolate that out to the rest of the player community, but ....

... and that BUT should have been ... people don't know what they think they know. Just because people say or believe something, doesn't make it true. 

My second favourite part is the rather obvious statistic that most MC's are the result of simply logging in ... but of course acknowledging that wouldn't at all support the rhetoric of the complaints by fractal CM runners. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I like this part:

It's natural to make assumptions about what is common or normal based on our own habits and capabilities and extrapolate that out to the rest of the player community, but ....

... and that BUT should have been ... people don't know what they think they know. Just because people say or believe something, doesn't make it true. 

My second favourite part is the rather obvious statistic that most MC's are the result of simply logging in ... but of course acknowledging that wouldn't at all support the rhetoric of the complaints by fractal CM runners. 

Login rewards being the major source would have been blindingly obvious... if only the initial blog post misleading wording didn't suggest something else. I mean, how someone can even say with a straight face that a single-digit percent source is "one of the biggest", when there's another that gives 93%? I mean, even if it even was technically true, how can someone even put those two completely different values in the same group?

That was the primary source of most of the misunderstanding here. Not the players' preconceptions.

[Obtena.7952]

Just now, Astralporing.1957 said:

Login rewards being the major source would have been blindingly obvious... if only the initial blog post misleading wording didn't suggest something else. I mean, how someone can even say with a straight face that a single-digit percent source is "one of the biggest", when there's another that gives 93%? I mean, even if it even was technically true, how can someone even put those two completely different values in the same group?

That was the primary source of most of the misunderstanding here. Not the players' preconceptions.

That's a fair comment ... it's absurd to suggest there are ANY other significant sources of MC's if login rewards are 93% of the take. One of the worst things Anet does is double talk people ... they should start excluding marketing from their customer comms and start treating people with some straight forward honesty. Which leads to the answer of a question that people continually ask:

Why are Anet nerfing MC's on CM Fractals if it's so small? Well, because they do want a greater fraction of MC's to be earned from non-login rewards and they want that to be through content they are promoting as the way forward. I mean ... this is Doric Lake leather farm all over again ... seems like they just don't want people to be 'held hostage' by the TP and they want people to make legendary gear and they want people to do Strikes ... it seems pretty obvious why they did this to me.  

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

She/he did apologize for the blog's wording.  And did post in two places (Reddit/forum) to attempt to alleviate the misunderstanding. 

I guess ArenaNet needs some more? better? copywriters, and/or editors.

[Alquinon.2957]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

She/he did apologize for the blog's wording.  And did post in two places (Reddit/forum) to attempt to alleviate the misunderstanding. 

I guess ArenaNet needs some more? better? copywriters, and/or editors.

 

This post is still laughable though. Their reasoning doesn't make too much sense when you examine it closely. They want to downplay the importance of mystic coins from fractal cm's and saying how they only make up 1-2% of the overall mystic coin supply. But at the same time it is somehow important enough to warrant removing them?

 

And then they sign off with this gem...

Quote

The feeling of working hard for something and finding out it’s going to be easily accessible to others in the future can feel bad, and that feeling is real and valid. But you’ve made a ton of tangible progress in fractal Challenge Modes and other people having access to that in the future doesn’t take away from everything you’ve accomplished.

 

Like really? Pretty much nobody has an issue with strikes getting better rewards, because as things currently stand the reward system for strikes is convoluted and just overall super slow in getting anything worthwhile. Anet needs to get off their high horse and stop trying to make people who are questioning this decision into self centered elitists. Why not have mystic coin sources in both strikes and fractal cms?

 

What this is telling me is that there are other reasons that Anet won't admit to regarding this change, this is mostly just a PR/damage control answer and yet they still manage to screw it up somehow.

 

Reading a bit between the lines here

Quote

We're hoping that once those players try out Strike Missions, they'll find that they love 10-player cooperative content and train up with their friends to try out harder things in the future, including strike Challenge Modes and raids! We want more players to craft and enjoy legendary weapons, and this is part of that.

 

From this part I'm speculating that Anet, for some reason unknown to me, wants to push people towards more 10 man content instead of 5 man content like fractals. This is the vibe I'm getting from reading this part, but of course they can't outright say that and cause more outrage similar to when they killed off dungeons.

[kharmin.7683]

6 minutes ago, Alquinon.2957 said:

 

...I'm speculating that Anet, for some reason unknown to me, wants to push people towards more 10 man content instead of 5 man content like fractals. This is the vibe I'm getting from reading this part, but of course they can't outright say that and cause more outrage similar to when they killed off dungeons.

I think that this is precisely what is going on.