Mount skins are too expensive

[Gibson.4036]

2 minutes ago, DarcShriek.5829 said:

How is this silly?  It was in response to the comment that people had to be rich to buy some of the skins.  I simply pointed out that you don't have to be rich to spend $25.00.  And no, it's not meaningless.

It’s lacking in context. You don’t have to be rich to have $25. You do to buy, say, $25 chewing gum.

[DarcShriek.5829]

8 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

It’s lacking in context. You don’t have to be rich to have $25. You do to buy, say, $25 chewing gum.

No, you don't.  $25 has nothing to do with being rich.  Saying you have  to be rich to afford a $25 skin is dishonest hyperbole.

Edited September 27, 2021 by DarcShriek.5829

[Flasterko.4087]

I think its ok for game to earn money in this way. 

 

This game has no sub. I imagine if they give us free skins for mounts they will want to earn money in different way since there is no sub and they probably know that to add sub will cause loosing lot of palyers. Other way then would be to motivate players to buy gems in different way. So, when comes to that, other games have showed us that then game become designed in a bad way just so players could be motivated to use store. Like tedious grind connected to gear and character progression that can be skipped with store items. 

 

And before someone write that we need to grind gold for LS to buy gems for it, its not the same, that is unlocking the content.  Those living stories offer more than some expansions in some other games. 

[kharmin.7683]

9 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

With a family of four on a single working artist’s income, yeah I have $25 dollars. But not to spend to make one mount look different in one game.

 

It's a good thing that GW2 allows you to earn gold while playing the game which you can convert to gems and then purchase from the gemstore without using real cash.

[Hanako.1827]

 

9 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Doesn't make it any less true. 

No but it makes it obvious what the consensus is to them being killed off in the way they did. You can be tired of dragons but I don't consider you particularly fair or good faith in saying the end of IBS was a good thing. That or you just like really bad content and foundational figures of the lore being killed off because they're not the particular ones you like. 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't remember making any comments about whether The Icebrood Saga was good or bad.  Nor any posts stating an opinion about Jormag or Primordus. Perhaps, you could post a quote(s)?

 

Remember what they say about assuming. 

[SkinnyT.5382]

I understand the feeling of the skins being too expensive, but with the ability of changing gold to gems I can also  see why it's the cost it is. I myself can't afford skins all the time, so I save in game gold little by little and then trade whenever they come out (it being mount or otherwise). Every now and then I will spend actual cash for the skins when I feel I had enough Game-play to justify the money. I think a lot of people are actually somewhere in between like me, where some of their gems are from cash and some from gold. So there needs to be an offset somewhere to keep the cost of services profitable.

I do think that there could be a better balance of costs of service, but I don't have sales figures have a more detailed opinion.

[Gibson.4036]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:51 PM, DarcShriek.5829 said:

No, you don't.  $25 has nothing to do with being rich.  Saying you have  to be rich to afford a $25 skin is dishonest hyperbole.

Wow, you completely didn't read what I wrote. I didn't say anything about a skin in the post you responded to. I said you don't have to be rich to afford $25, but you do to afford $25 chewing gum. Where a mount skin fits in that is largely up to personal circumstances.

And while you don't have to be Jeff Bezos to afford $25 for a mount skin, you really are quite wealthy compared to the vast majority of the people on the globe if you can. I can't really afford to spend $25 on mount skins, but I clearly can afford to spend $30 each month on an internet connection and $30 on EoD. That makes me crazy wealthy compared to the vast majority of people on the planet as well.

My point is that you can't just say "Anyone with a job can put together $25" and have it mean anything, really. It has to have context.

If I tell you I use $20 dollar bills as toilet paper, and your jaw drops, saying, "Hey, you have a twenty dollar bill, too" doesn't change that it's an extravagant use of that money that most people can't afford.

I'll repeat, I'm fine with the cost being where it is, even though I'll never be able to justify it in my circumstancs, and I don't play enough to mass the gold necessary to do it that way either. It keeps the game running, and subscription free.

It's just "hey, anyone with a job can get together $25" is an irrelevant argument.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Gehenna.3625]

18 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

Ive never heard of anybody express this point except for you to be honest and again, I don't think this is a sentiment arenanet share, but I guess I should ask do you think they did this because arenanet wants to move beyond dragons for other plot devices? 

Well, it's just my opinion. Nobody needs to share it. I hope that they move beyond this theme, but I haven't a clue on whether or not they will.

18 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

 

We don't actually fight that many dragons in gw2 compared to the variety you'll find in FFXIV and WoW, we just fight very big ones, few and far between that I think are quite well designed. Im sorry you personally don't like them but at the end of the day the game has always decided to revolve around them,  and thematics of its very logo is a dragon.

I never played either of the two games you mentioned so this is my first and only experience with a main story line that's just fighting one dragon after another.

18 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

You're someone who Ive seen actually post quite intelligent responses but you're falling off the mark here to the point where Im confused if you're even speaking in good faith. This is nothing to me but a pointless personal opinion as a response to the original expression of what I believe is arenanets internal issues being showcased, at the very least they could have dedicated an expansion to both Jormag and Primordus instead of a pokemon battle that ends in a 5 second clip of two heads killing each other.

It's indeed my personal opinion and it's based on about the same as your asssumption about Anet's resources. I also know that there have been many complaints about the length of story boss fights and the difficulty thereof. So perhaps they're just listening to those players a little bit more. Perhaps there are less resources temporarily because they've been working on, you know, an expansion or something like that...or this was their plan all along. I mean we kill a dragon in LS4. So why would it need to be an expansion? For me the Primordus vs Jormag fight was great. It was short so I could get it over with and return to all the other stuff I'm doing. Listen, you're talking to a person that didn't care about the story of GW2 from the start and over time I just got bored with all the Dragon slaying. That's all. I get that that's an opinion and for you it might be pointless, but for me it's how it is. So please, don't throw all these things "falling of the mark" and "good faith" in a conversation. I just give my opinions and some of it comes with arguments and some of it is purely my opinion. You can take it at face value and either agree or disagree with them.

18 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

I certainly do not think arenanet thinks the same that they would kill off two dragons teased with15 years of hype in a unanimously agreed upon, terrible way, because they want to diversify their big bad roster I will happily bet my odds against yours in saying that isn't the case. 

That's your opinion and I don't share it. I think that over time things change. Just like the time period where they announced GW2 and the actual release. I was very disappointed at that but that's life. A lot of games build hype and don't deliver in the end. Or do you disagree with that?

18 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

As for a personal opinion of mine? I like the dragons, they look cool and well designed, their projections of power and influence on the world and its denizens are varied enough to me to be interesting and we kill one once every 3 years with plenty of variations of enemies inbetween it seems.

And that's fair enough, I just don't have the same opinion, but I can live with that. I don't even find you less intelligent for your opinion 😉

[DarcShriek.5829]

5 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Wow, you completely didn't read what I wrote. I didn't say anything about a skin in the post you responded to. I said you don't have to be rich to afford $25, but you do to afford $25 chewing gum. Where a mount skin fits in that is largely up to personal circumstances.

And while you don't have to be Jeff Bezos to afford $25 for a mount skin, you really are quite wealthy compated to the vast majority of the people on the globe if you can. I can't really afford to spend $25 on mount skins, but I clearly can afford to spend $30 each month on an internet connection and $30 on EoD. That makes me crazy wealthy compared to the vast majority of people on the planet as well.

My point is that you can't just say "Anyone with a job can put together $25" and have it mean anything, really. It has to have context.

If I tell you I use $20 dollar bills as toilet paper, and your jaw drops, saying, "Hey, you have a twenty dollar bill, too" doesn't change that it's an extravagant use of that money that most people can't afford.

I'll repeat, I'm fine with the cost being where it is, even though I'll never be able to justify it in my circumstancs, and I don't play enough to mass the gold necessary to do it that way either. It keeps the game running, and subscription free.

It's just "hey, anyone with a job can get together $25" is an irrelevant argument.

No it's not.  You've made your choices.  You don't have $25 for a skin, because you don't want to spend $25 on a skin.  That doesn't mean Anet is charging too much for them.  BTW, bringing in the wealth of everyone on the globe into argument is silly.  If they don't play GW2, whatever they earn doesn't matter to Anet.  Anet only needs to be concerned about the value of it's customers.  They don't have to be concerned about people that have no way to play this game.

Edited September 27, 2021 by DarcShriek.5829

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, DarcShriek.5829 said:

No it's not.  You've made your choices.  You don't have $25 for a skin, because you don't want to spend $25 on a skin.  That doesn't mean Anet is charging too much for them.  BTW, bringing in the wealth of everyone on the globe into argument is silly.  If they don't play GW2, whatever they earn doesn't matter to Anet.  Anet only needs to be concerned about the value of it's customers.  They don't have to be concerned about people that have no way to play this game.

Yikes on the reading comprehension.

Nowhere am I saying the mounts are too expensive. I said I can’t afford them on my family’s budget, but that I’m glad that the price they are is keeping the game going subscription free.

But declaring $25 within reach for anyone with a job is meaningless as to whether it’s affordable for a mount skin. Anyone with a job in a developed country should be able to get $500 together, too. Does that make it a reasonable price for a mount skin?

For some that’s going to their mortgage. For others that’s a throwaway portion of their income in a month. It’s all relative. It has to have context.

[Hanako.1827]

Since the rest is opinion based (which I heavily disagree with) ill go directly to the first question

6 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That's your opinion and I don't share it. I think that over time things change. Just like the time period where they announced GW2 and the actual release. I was very disappointed at that but that's life. A lot of games build hype and don't deliver in the end. Or do you disagree with that?

I think being disappointed with things like creatures with lore and vast environment changing powers being killed of in uncreative ways that are contradictory to their motives and being upset the release date of a game are worlds apart that I'm immensely confused as to why you think these two things have an equal level of applicability to be compared with a vague question bow tied at the end that no one disagrees with. One is the soured result of a long narrative outcome and the other is the news of having to wait for a game.

 

Youre avoiding the question as to whether or not you believe arenanet wants to kill the dragons and destroyed the hype built around these creatures for a change of heart in enemies and because they're tired of dragons. The only response was your opinion on its narrative elements that to me seems to amount to "Well I don't really care for dragons, they bore me and I thought the fight was fine because it was short and I could be done with it sooner" Which isn't an answer to the question I kinda posed.

 

But Ill rephrase it again so I can get an honest answer. Do you think Arenanet Killed off two elder dragons in order to get rid of them for alternative narrative points to be explored?

6 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I mean we kill a dragon in LS4.

.Yes, one interlinked with the main PoF story

 

. 

 

[Foxy.5319]

and there is a small difference which is not included in the price calculation. You can also exchange gold for gems and if the price would drop too low, even more players would go over what profit would also drop.

[crewthief.8649]

On 9/19/2021 at 1:27 AM, Shael.4703 said:

LOLs. You missed the point by a huge margin. We are not talking about if you are poor or rich, if you are poor, regardless of where you live, you should not even be playing online games, you need to get a job or start a business.

Think of it this way, your US poor are rich in our country. Just because you are poor in the US does not mean you are also poor in other countries. Your salary rate, living standards, and "exchange rate", is far different from ours. If you can't afford to live in the US because you are "poor" there, then live in countries where your "US poor" are "rich". That's how different it is for you and us, hence, adjusting the price of the gems per region/country will enable more players in these regions/countries to purchase gems, instead of thinking a thousand reasons why they should not spend real-money for ArenaNet.

If your logic is valid, then McDonald's wouldn't adjust their pricing per country. But as they, and many other companies and services has proven, there is a huge gap in purchasing power between you US people than most of the world. It is to ArenaNet's benefit to use BMI or whichever index they want to use.

I’m afraid you’re wasting your breath here. Most Americans have absolutely no idea how fortunate they are. Many have never even been out of the country.

[crewthief.8649]

On 9/20/2021 at 4:10 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Wow.  You just don't get it. 

Never said that Gems should not be adjusted; just that they should be adjusted to income, no matter what country a person lives in.  In every country, including the US, there are poor people...even by your standards!

 

It wasn't my logic, but yours, or whoever I quoted.  Regardless, I'll not argue about it.  There are none so blind as those that will not see.

How on earth would Anet be able to discern if someone is poor or not, in the US? You actually have no idea what 90% of the world lives like, do you?

*EDIT* Not sure what’s confusing, I kept my response as simple as I could for you “forumers.”

Edited September 30, 2021 by crewthief.8649

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

And they can discern if someone can or can not afford Mount Skins in every other country?  No one in 180 countries can afford a Mount Skin?  Pffft. 

[crewthief.8649]

1 minute ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

And they can discern if someone can or can not afford Mount Skins in every other country?  No one in 180 countries can afford a Mount Skin?  Pffft. 

It’s pretty easy to access per capita GDP. It’s pretty easy to access median household income. How is it that you’re suggesting they check whether you’re a poor American? I think you’re out of your depth.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Of course, you are right.  All Americans are rich, and ArenaNet will be sure to offer anyone that's not from America a discount on Gems any day now. A wonderful QoL addition to the game.  (Just hope they don't ban all VPNs in the process.) 💾

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

I keep seeing gold to Gems as a valid excuse for the perpetuation of a rather toxic business model.  As if gems are somehow free (Answer, every  gem you buy with g old is paid for in some regard)or working in-game for hundreds of hours circle grinding gold in the flavor of the month map at maximum efficiency is really worthwhile and entertaining content to do.  It's really not.

Now, I did the maths on this.  I wanted to see, for certain, how much the cost of basically every mount skin is in this game vs the cost of if ANet kept selling mount packs plus an additional mount pack with the three post Path of Fire mounts contained in them themed after whatever set they're selling and what this would cost.

Well, those of you defending mount licenses better be ready to eat their words, but I'll get to that later.  Right now, let's understand some facts. 

There are 10 mount packs.  8 of which follow the normal of 5 of the original Path of Fire mounts.  2 are individual mount sets for Skyscale and Warclaw respectively.  These latter two will not be factored into the overall cost of the total mounts.
Gold to Gem cost taken from GW2 Efficiency where it was at 26 silver and 31 coppers
Gems cost $0.0125 USD each (400 for $5 or 800 for $10, etc.)

Hourly gold rate made up based on old map maths before  (25 gold an hour)
This comes out to 95 gems per hour which is $1.1875 USD  and hour.

There are 11 Mount License Packs.  10 of which have a selection license (The exception being the original release)
1 of these never had a 'buy all' cheapest option (Istani Isles) acording to the wiki.  A 15 licenses for 5100 gems is not listed.

 

Now onto the maths.  (Which can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18REL9qtlS8fdnO8NHzH7QWxjzDUpA5tpke-1sFAXxwM/edit?usp=sharing)
Gems cost 26 silver 31 copper each (2631 copper)

Hourly gold rate is 25 gold per hour (250000 copper)
No sales, (as in, assuming all are bought  at listed price on wiki.)


The average hours for all mounts with a license that has 15 and the ability to buy all of them at once is ~53 hours 40 minutes of farming.  This assumes you go for the cheapest option per mount and buy them all.  A selection license takes 12 hours 40 minutes of farming gold.  This becomes not worth it if you want more than 4 mounts from a license pack as 1 selection license = 3 normal.

The average hours to acquire a mount pack at t he listed rate above is roughly 16 h ours 50 minutes for packs at 1600 gems  and 21 hours 3 minutes for those  at 2000 gems.

The total cost of  the current licenses and packs comes out to 75700 gems, which is 19,916 gold 67 silver which would take you about 796 hours 40 minutes to farm  or $946.25 USD spent to buy it all.

Here's the proposal I'm making, the argument that this wouldn't, and shouldn't be the case. If everything was packaged up, say,  at 400 gems per mount which would make the packs cost 2000 gems each then the additional packs that have the roller beetle, Skyscale and  Warclaw cost 1200 gems, that would mean, if every current set was completed in full and released this way, in total it'd cost 74400 gems, which would cost about 19,574 gold and 64 silver which would take 783 hours to farm or $930 spent on gems.  ANet makes $16.25 less per person who buys all the mounts but would have better consumer relations and more people would love to buy things without any RNG behind them.

As for the morals behind licenses; well imagine going to a store that sells fruit.  Now you're not in dire need of this fruit to survive, but it's a nice treat to have around the house and it beats the sugary garbage that's usually lurking in the cabinets.  You decide you want oranges for whatever reason. Once you get there, however, they only sell it in crates of fruit.  You don't get to peak at what's inside, either.  It may have oranges, or it may be full of apples you don't want.  You could buy oranges directly, but at 3x the cost and if you buy all the crates, you're guaranteed to get apples in one of them.

TL;DR
Maths: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18REL9qtlS8fdnO8NHzH7QWxjzDUpA5tpke-1sFAXxwM
ANet is literally just taking $16.25 more from y'all at the moment you're arguing that it's okay.
 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Sir Alymer.3406

[Gehenna.3625]

On 9/28/2021 at 12:46 AM, Hanako.1827 said:

Since the rest is opinion based (which I heavily disagree with) ill go directly to the first question

I think being disappointed with things like creatures with lore and vast environment changing powers being killed of in uncreative ways that are contradictory to their motives and being upset the release date of a game are worlds apart that I'm immensely confused as to why you think these two things have an equal level of applicability to be compared with a vague question bow tied at the end that no one disagrees with. One is the soured result of a long narrative outcome and the other is the news of having to wait for a game.

 

Youre avoiding the question as to whether or not you believe arenanet wants to kill the dragons and destroyed the hype built around these creatures for a change of heart in enemies and because they're tired of dragons. The only response was your opinion on its narrative elements that to me seems to amount to "Well I don't really care for dragons, they bore me and I thought the fight was fine because it was short and I could be done with it sooner" Which isn't an answer to the question I kinda posed.

 

But Ill rephrase it again so I can get an honest answer. Do you think Arenanet Killed off two elder dragons in order to get rid of them for alternative narrative points to be explored?

.Yes, one interlinked with the main PoF story

 

. 

 

You accuse me of avoiding your question, but it's a question only Anet can answer. So the answer to your questions is: I don't know. 

I would've thought that was abundantly clear, but I wasn't trying to avoid the question as much as I don't have the answer to that question.

First you say that my opinion is pointless to you and now you ask me for my opinion. It's all very confusing.

[Hanako.1827]

4 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

I keep seeing gold to Gems as a valid excuse for the perpetuation of a rather toxic business model.  As if gems are somehow free (Answer, every  gem you buy with g old is paid for in some regard)or working in-game for hundreds of hours circle grinding gold in the flavor of the month map at maximum efficiency is really worthwhile and entertaining content to do.  It's really not.

"You can just turn gold into gems, thats ingame content" makes these topics my litmus test for who's worth listening to.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Hanako.1827

[Hanako.1827]

 

On 9/27/2021 at 12:25 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

I don't remember making any comments about whether The Icebrood Saga was good or bad.  Nor any posts stating an opinion about Jormag or Primordus. Perhaps, you could post a quote(s)?

I thought it was the case given you responded to the whole comment so I assumed you were blanket responding to everything in there instead of the tiny selection of it mentioning people being bored of elder dragons. But I made that post because someone was claiming IBS had a good ending, you didn't specfically. 

[MokahTGS.7850]

On 9/18/2021 at 6:03 AM, kharmin.7683 said:

Wow, that's making a lot of assumptions about Americans.

Yeah no kidding...as if all Americans are just rolling in cash...yes, there are quality of life differences...but that's why we live here.

 

At any rate, as a fat capitalist American pig, who obviously doesn't know the value of a dollar and only lives to shoot guns, drive giant trucks, and raise 2.5 spoiled children...I agree that gem skins are not a good value... 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

11 hours ago, Hanako.1827 said:

"You can just turn gold into gems, thats ingame content" makes these topics my litmus test for who's worth listening to.

Yeah, honestly, it's stupid.  The most gold I've made per hour is roughly 35 gold which is about $ 1.6625 in gems an hour.  Substantially less than a living wage and impossible to farm things in a week unless you play this game 8h a day.

[Dante.1508]

On 9/27/2021 at 7:00 AM, Gehenna.3625 said:

Not to ignore the rest of your post but I think we've reached close enough of a consensus, but this caught my eye:

To me it was not a good sign where all we did is kill one dragon after another. Then we also killed a god in between and it's just way too much for me. For me it means lack of inspiration and how to build up a story.

Our characters are essentially too epic and it's at a stark contrast with the mundane chores we also have to perform in the game. I just got tired of the dragon killing because it's the only thing the story has to offer. So we killed off most dragons and the human gods are gone. What's next? Well, that is actually an interesting question, but first we have to deal with another Dragon in Cantha of course. 

So I find that going through dragons more quickly is a good sign because we can finally get a change to the theme instead of "Oh, guess what? Yep you guessed it...another Dragon". 

I personally would like race specific stories like GW2 started out with before trahearne and the pact (which imo really went no where) more stories for our races and adventures around that..

Off topic apologies but it is imo also important.

  

On 10/1/2021 at 8:35 AM, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Yeah, honestly, it's stupid.  The most gold I've made per hour is roughly 35 gold which is about $ 1.6625 in gems an hour.  Substantially less than a living wage and impossible to farm things in a week unless you play this game 8h a day.

You make way more gold than i ever see.. but then i'm not a fan of group content.

Trying to buy skins with in game gold for me would take years.. also with how the shop changes every time, the thing i'd want is gone before i'd ever get enough gold to gems.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Dante.1508