Discover the Wonders within the Wizard’s Vault in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure

[vandrefalk.6823]

@Rubi Bayer.8493 Please get some of your UI designers to check out this thread on Reddit. I doubt you have time to make such changes before launch of SotO, but the new Wizard Vault objectives dialog we've seen leaves a lot to be wanted.

 

 

[WRay.2391]

3 minutes ago, Lagniappe.4869 said:

Honestly I don't think you want to understand but I'll give you some numbers. Daily account rewards are worth roughly 60g per month. To get a "free" legendary per month (call it 2000g even) then you'd need 34 paid accounts. That means you're logging in 952 times every 28 days. IDK how long that would take to login in 34 times, but it isn't 5 minutes. You may not consider that "playing" but it definitely isn't "free". Especially when those accounts were paid for.

Also don't forget that there's another player on the other side of the legendary exchange. I you bought your "free" legendary then there's another player 2000g richer. Point being gold being created creates wealth far beyond just the players with lots of alts.

I'm not sure about this. I was never buying straight. I like doing majority of work, but lack some coins/T6 all the time, especially for gen 2 legendaries. In this case you need significantly less accounts. Was taking less than 10 mins a day.

[Acheron.1580]

6 minutes ago, WRay.2391 said:

They could do it months or year ago. Announcing when you already got all the profit does not change anything. I'm working in a big software Corp. I know that if we would do this to customers we would have very bad consequences.

If they announced it a year ago, and then implemented it a week after announcement, it would be identical to right now. There's no magical timeframe that would make this something people using the system would just accept.

[Lagniappe.4869]

LOL Anet's login system will let you login about 25 different accounts before it rate limits you for several hours (call it 4 hours). How many accounts and what the time expiry is are under Anet's direct control. If the rate limit is 4 hours, then their explicit design allows for 150 account logins per day. If they thought 50 per day much less 150 per day was an exploit, they could change it in a trivially easy way.

You seem to not want to see what is right in front of your eyes: Anet has multiple levers that they could have pulled at any point in the last 11 years but have not chosen to do so.

Conversely at EOD release every character could loot the JP that gives you the item for Aurene variants. Later Anet changed it to once per day per account. Clearly they thought this was out of bounds and they pulled the lever in their control and changed it.

[WRay.2391]

Just now, Acheron.1580 said:

If they announced it a year ago, and then implemented it a week after announcement, it would be identical to right now. There's no magical timeframe that would make this something people using the system would just accept.

Totally not true. You never make long term investments knowing asset is going to worth nothing soon. Unless you very bad in investments.

[Lagniappe.4869]

5 minutes ago, WRay.2391 said:

I'm not sure about this. I was never buying straight. I like doing majority of work, but lack some coins/T6 all the time, especially for gen 2 legendaries. In this case you need significantly less accounts. Was taking less than 10 mins a day.

The claim was alts give a "free" legendary for "no work". The simple path to that is accumulate a pile of gold and buy it. Yes you could do some of the build process yourself to save gold, but that's totally beside the point in this example.

[Linken.6345]

4 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

If they announced it a year ago, and then implemented it a week after announcement, it would be identical to right now. There's no magical timeframe that would make this something people using the system would just accept.

They did not say it would be implemented 1 week later in their 1 year earlier post.

 Anet could have said this is not intended behaviour and will be changed in a comming update.

Dont need to specify when just that  it will be changed.

Then someone thats looking for a longtime investment will not invest since they dont know how long this will last.

But again that would mean less money for Anet and they want all the money like every other corperation.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Linken.6345

[Acheron.1580]

3 minutes ago, Lagniappe.4869 said:

LOL Anet's login system will let you login about 25 different accounts before it rate limits you for several hours (call it 4 hours). How many accounts and what the time expiry is are under Anet's direct control. If the rate limit is 4 hours, then their explicit design allows for 150 account logins per day. If they thought 50 per day much less 150 per day was an exploit, they could change it in a trivially easy way.

You seem to not want to see what is right in front of your eyes: Anet has multiple levers that they could have pulled at any point in the last 11 years but have not chosen to do so.

Conversely at EOD release every character could loot the JP that gives you the item for Aurene variants. Later Anet changed it to once per day per account. Clearly they thought this was out of bounds and they pulled the lever in their control and changed it.

What, you mean like they kind of are doing right now?

[Linken.6345]

Just now, Acheron.1580 said:

What, you mean like they kind of are doing right now?

That is not what they are doing you will still be able to login as many accounts as before so no they did not pull that leaver that let you only login to for example 1 account a day.

[Lagniappe.4869]

Just now, Acheron.1580 said:

What, you mean like they kind of are doing right now?

Now you're moving the goal posts. We went from this was always an exploit to now it's the possibility of nerfing alt income somehow retroactively makes the last 11 years an exploit?

[Acheron.1580]

Just now, Linken.6345 said:

That is not what they are doing you will still be able to login as many accounts as before so no they did not pull that leaver that let you only login to for example 1 account a day.

But they will be as far as we know significantly less valuable to do so. I think the hangup people have is that they aren't getting all corporate PR about it, because it's easier for them to just sweep it quietly under the rug.

[Acheron.1580]

1 minute ago, Lagniappe.4869 said:

Now you're moving the goal posts. We went from this was always an exploit to now it's the possibility of nerfing alt income somehow retroactively makes the last 11 years an exploit?

System was changed in 2015, not something that was 11 years ago, and I don't think you know what moving the goal posts is lol. I already explained how the system was probably conceived and how it eventually became an exploit. Them nerfing it is a response to the system that doesn't require them to talk about it or acknowledge it at all.

[Acheron.1580]

9 minutes ago, WRay.2391 said:

Totally not true. You never make long term investments knowing asset is going to worth nothing soon. Unless you very bad in investments.

I agree that people wouldn't buy accounts NOW, but regardless of when it was announced there would have been people who have been using it for a long time or people who only bought just before the announcement that wouldn't have been happy. 

[WRay.2391]

9 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

They did not say it would be implemented 1 week later in their 1 year earlier post.

 Anet could have said this is not intended behaviour and will be changed in a comming update.

Dont need to specify when just that  it will be changed.

Then someone thats looking for a longtime investment will not invest since they dont know how long this will last.

But again that would mean less money for Anet and they want all the money like every other corperation.

This is totally my point as well. Anet was aware and was totally fine until it stopped bringing money.

[Acheron.1580]

Just now, WRay.2391 said:

This is totally my point as well. Anet was aware and was totally fine until it stopped bringing money.

It would always bring short term revenue at the cost of long term potential revenue. I don't think totally fine is the way I would describe it.

[Acheron.1580]

1 minute ago, WRay.2391 said:

That is fine, you just stop screwing up you customers immediately after you realize that system you introduced is flawed. Then you apologize and work things out. This is 101 if good customer service.

That would depend on when it became a problem, and when they recognized it as a problem. I'm pretty sure when the system was first introduced it wasn't an issue. The combination of the accounts being cheaper to buy and the rewards in the logins going up at some time made a tipping point for when it became profitable would be the start of the problem. People capitalizing on it would be the start of the bigger problem, and then people announcing it publicly and encouraging other's might have been the start of when it was recognized as a problem by the people who could actually do something about it. But there's no bandaid application to say these people are allowed multiple accounts but you aren't. There's no way for Anet to be able to control that in their ToS.

[WRay.2391]

5 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

That would depend on when it became a problem, and when they recognized it as a problem. I'm pretty sure when the system was first introduced it wasn't an issue. The combination of the accounts being cheaper to buy and the rewards in the logins going up at some time made a tipping point for when it became profitable would be the start of the problem. People capitalizing on it would be the start of the bigger problem, and then people announcing it publicly and encouraging other's might have been the start of when it was recognized as a problem by the people who could actually do something about it. But there's no bandaid application to say these people are allowed multiple accounts but you aren't. There's no way for Anet to be able to control that in their ToS.

Again, announce immediately when it starts considered a problem. It's not a dupe or day0 exploit, it's long term real money investment. It would totally prevent new alt account aquision spike.

Just mentioning in ToS will significantly reduce this use in fear of loosing main account.

Edited August 17, 2023 by WRay.2391
ToS

[Cuks.8241]

If you buy an account youre fully entitled to any feature that comes with, exactly the same as any other such account. 

Its Anets right to change the reward structure as they see fit to improve the game experience and also meet their bussiness goals as they see fit. 

Is it an exploit? Does it matter. See above. My take is here simple. All exploits within boundary of the game (no 3rd party software) are fine. Its Anets job to fix it and not players job to worry about it. But its also anets right to fix consequences of explotation if they see fit. Like delete duped items. 

[Acheron.1580]

How? Would they ask why you are buying your account? Would they say please don't log into our game for these reasons alone? How would you differentiate the accounts? If it was based on log in time people would just log in longer. There were probably a lot of questions and discussions that we weren't privy to. There are so many factors to this one decision that none of it can be taken lightly, and if you haven't noticed gaming companies are really tight lipped on anything they say to prevent complications further down the road.

[Acheron.1580]

12 minutes ago, WRay.2391 said:

Again, announce immediately when it starts considered a problem. It's not a dupe or day0 exploit, it's long term real money investment. It would totally prevent new alt account aquision spike.

Just mentioning in ToS will significantly reduce this use in fear of loosing main account.

How would you monitor it? How could you differentiate the uses of the accounts? Can't rely on credit cards because you can buy the game from amazon, third party retailers (where the real cheap magic happens, at which point Anet doesn't even get your initial money), there was a time when physical copies were a thing. Can't rely on log in time, sometimes people don't have time to play and just log in for their daily stuff, there was a period for a year and a half I finished all of GW1 but still logged in daily for my gw2 home instance, etc. If it's IP, how can you tell it isn't just a family or friends playing together? The point is there is no way to make a ToS agreement that can actually do all of that. There is no possible way to make a system that is automated or human controlled that can tell these things apart.

[Lagniappe.4869]

As the saying goes perfect is the enemy of the good enough. Just because you don't believe a perfect system can be created (can any perfect system be created?) that doesn't change the fact that Anet has multiple options immediately at hand to change what's permitted and possible. The upshot is they've chosen not to use those options.

[WRay.2391]

6 minutes ago, Acheron.1580 said:

How would you monitor it? How could you differentiate the uses of the accounts? Can't rely on credit cards because you can buy the game from amazon, third party retailers (where the real cheap magic happens, at which point Anet doesn't even get your initial money), there was a time when physical copies were a thing. Can't rely on log in time, sometimes people don't have time to play and just log in for their daily stuff, there was a period for a year and a half I finished all of GW1 but still logged in daily for my gw2 home instance, etc. If it's IP, how can you tell it isn't just a family or friends playing together? The point is there is no way to make a ToS agreement that can actually do all of that. There is no possible way to make a system that is automated or human controlled that can tell these things apart.

You don't need to do it. Good faith users will not buy alts after announcement, you reserve the right to ban bad faith users.

To detect you can check if account is used for login only, then send resources to some other account repitedly, but announcing for good faith users is a minimum what should've been done.

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Acheron.1580 said:

Everything else you mentioned beyond the login require you to actually do something in the game more than just pop in. JP chests aren't an issue because they nerfed the jade runestone one to once per account because... wait for it... they considered it an exploit to be able to get it several times over per character. Honestly the rewards from the jumping puzzles are negligible. Crafting once a day? Still costs you resources and time to level your crafting. Buying kitten every week? Costs you resources per week to do it. I completely agree people who multi-box and afk farm will still do it.

Also there is a huge difference between sanctioned and unmentioned when it comes to ToS. Where in the terms of service does it mention login bonuses?

Making gold in the game using the resources in the game isn't an exploit, it's a part of the game. Using a system where you pay to generate infinite gold for doing nothing is an exploit.

Lets use an example of 20 accounts. If 20 accounts is infinite gold then 1 account generates 1/20th of infinite gold, which is the same infinite gold as 1/20th of infinity is still infinity. So, all login rewards are an infinite gold exploit.

Except that using a system as intended is not an exploit. Of course a company can change the system later as their intentions evolve, but that does not make previously sanctioned activities an exploit. And the gold income is not infinite.

[Acheron.1580]

9 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Lets use an example of 20 accounts. If 20 accounts is infinite gold then 1 account generates 1/20th of infinite gold, which is the same infinite gold as 1/20th of infinity is still infinity. So, all login rewards are an infinite gold exploit.

Except that using a system as intended is not an exploit. Of course a company can change the system later as their intentions evolve, but that does not make previously sanctioned activities an exploit. And the gold income is not infinite.

If I said I'll give you a dollar a day starting from tomorrow and into infinity but you just have to come to my house, how is that not infinite dollars? Hell what if it was pennies? The value isn't important, it's the quantity. "But when will I have my million dollars? That means it's not infinite". You'll have it on the millionth day, just because you don't get the lump sum now means infinity has a different meaning. If the resource you are getting comes from thin air and you had to put it nothing to get it, it would be infinite.

Your argument that because I have 1 account that I actively play is the equivalent of 20 accounts that aren't being played but are used solely to generate gold at no effort to the player is a massive false equivalency.

If gold sellers can use the system to make gold to sell for real money at no effort whatsoever to themselves, is that not an exploit? How does it change the definition just because you are using it for personal gain, because it suddenly isn't a violation of ToS? I have yet to see an argument for how this was the intended use Anet had in mind.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Acheron.1580

[WRay.2391]

1 minute ago, Acheron.1580 said:

If I said I'll give you a dollar a day starting from tomorrow and into infinity but you just have to come to my house, how is that not infinite dollars? Hell what if it was pennies? The value isn't important, it's the quantity. "But when will I have my million dollars? That means it's not infinite". You'll have it on the millionth day, just because you don't get the lump sum now means infinity has a different meaning. If the resource you are getting comes from thin air and you had to put it nothing to get it, it would be infinite.

Your argument that because I have 1 account that I actively play is the equivalent of 20 accounts that aren't being played but are used solely to generate gold at no effort to the player is a massive false equivalency.

In all calculations you are missing time, which is valuable asset. At least for some ppl. And initial money investment.

If I gave $100 to you, then I need to spend 10 mins every day coming to you to get $1, then at day 100 I will have $100, but will still lose 1000 mins of my life. At some point it'll become even depending on how much I value my time. I will never get infinity because I will die before this. Plus at some point my 10 mins will become worth more then $1 for me.