The game tries to sell you the idea that you shoulnd't grind, that gear / level doesn't really matter and that the game starts at level 1, not at endgame. But it's not true, you see:
- My damage almost tripled in WvW going from level 79 to 80 with exotics. Gear and level do make a huge difference in WvW. After experiencing it that way, I almost feel useless when entering with my low level alts. In the top tier of servers, most are 80 now. If you enter there as level 25, you'll get demolished.
- You kill faster and easier with gear in the open world, even when downscaled. At level 70, I had average gear and when downscaled, sure enogh, mobs died faster than when I had the zone's level; however, when I got to 80 and geared myself, then went back to that downscaled zone, mobs died almost twice as fast.
- Dungeons become easier. I played the same dungeon both when I had average gear and then at 80 with exotics, there IS a difference.
- SPvP is truly the only aspect of the game where gear / level doesn't make you more powerful, for obvious reasons.
Now I'm actually thankful that there's some kind of carrot on a stick. I certainly enjoy progression, it's why I play RPGs and not FPS (although even FPS nowadays implement some form of progression). But even though there IS a reason to progress, the game tries to deny it implementing ridiculous mechanics. You can't farm a zone for too long, yet if you want to craft your gear by yourself you must do so. You can't grind dungeons for long, yet if you want the gear rewards you must do so. You can't grind DE's for long, yet if you want the karma gear you must do so. The game is bascially telling you: "Hey, you want to progress? Sure, just do this dungeon 80 times. But oh, wait, don't." Right now, if you hit 80 and want a max stat gear set, you must do either:
- Make 40-60 gold and buy it. This is a huge gold grind, coupled with teleportation / repair costs.
- Run a dungeon 80 times. Sure, dungeons are fun the first 4-5 times or so. But when you realize you need at least 8 runs for ONE piece of gear, the whole thing goes from "Hmm, this is fun." to "PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!".
- Do about 720 DEs. Yes, 720*320 ~= 250,000 karma that you need.
BUT WAIT, you want to gear yourself according to Precision/Power/Crit to maximize your specific Thief build? Then no, I don't care how much you like DEs, you have to farm gold or dungeons. Oh, what's that, you want to try a Condition damage build now with that Thief of yours? Sure, just grind for ANOTHER gear set again! The current endgame in GW2 is a bigger grind than raiding two times a week ever was. The concept that "you don't need to grind" is nullified by the fact that you DO become more powerful with gear. Then factor in alts, or...if you're brave...legendaries (which, for example, require 2,000,000 karma besides other things). It's a grim outlook indeed. But, ahhh, here's the catch:
You can take a level 1 character all the way to 80 and get full exotics for the low price of $200.00. That's right, you can skip all the game's leveling content, and get a max stat gear set for real money! What a deal! If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is. I really like GW2's leveling, but it's endgame feels to be in the stone ages more so than a next gen MMO.
have you compared yellows vs exotics? The difference is marginal, yet you can buy yellows for 1/5 the cost of a same type exotic.
Could you please tell me where? Im level 80 still running around with 70-76 gear.
I have only found the karma vendor that sells items for 42k a piece.
Where do I find faster obtainable gear that makes my 80 worthy?
Have you tried the Black Lion Trading Company? It's this world-wide market with millions of items for sale in it.
The way you phrase it, it sounds as if you promote buying gear for RL money. It may end up being that way if you don't have the time or gold and have spare cash, but I think what you're trying to say is that you can gear up yourself with crafted items from the auction house.
The game tries to sell you the idea that you shoulnd't grind, that gear / level doesn't really matter and that the game starts at level 1, not at endgame. But it's not true, you see:
- You kill faster and easier with gear in the open world, even when downscaled. At level 70, I had average gear and when downscaled, sure enogh, mobs died faster than when I had the zone's level; however, when I got to 80 and geared myself, then went back to that downscaled zone, mobs died almost twice as fast.
- Dungeons become easier. I played the same dungeon both when I had average gear and then at 80 with exotics, there IS a difference.
1. exotics make a difference but are not required to complete dungeons
2. downscaling from upper levels makes you more powerful because you still have access to better gear / Traits / Skills
Skills and equipment are retained, so the area is easier because of this, but should still be challenging to play.
wheres the contradiction ?
Just a small note, your equipment isn't the same when you are downscaled but it downscales as well. What's different is that your armor retains the number of stat bonuses, a piece of armor with 3 stat bonuses will retain 3 stat bonuses when downscaled but give lower stats.
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
You can take a level 1 character all the way to 80 and get full exotics for the low price of $200.00. That's right, you can skip all the game's leveling content, and get a max stat gear set for real money! What a deal! If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is. I really like GW2's leveling, but it's endgame feels to be in the stone ages more so than a next gen MMO.
This.
My grudge with GW2 since the announcing of the gear/gem system. It takes away the whole point of putting the time and effort into your character. If they made the best gear sold for real money in WoW the game would instantly lose about 1-2mil subscribers. What I don't understand is why Arena.Net is FORGIVEN ABOUT THIS BLATANT P2W SYSTEM, and any other developer would get trashed to smitherins and burned at the stake.
I saw through this and a lot of other gamers did aswell.
It's ridicilous how people are QQing about TSW having p2p + _purely cosmetical_ cash shop. While it's ok to swipe a credit card to get max level toon + gear in Guild Wars 2. Makes no freaking sense.
The game tries to sell you the idea that you shoulnd't grind, that gear / level doesn't really matter and that the game starts at level 1, not at endgame. But it's not true, you see:
- My damage almost tripled in WvW going from level 79 to 80 with exotics. Gear and level do make a huge difference in WvW. After experiencing it that way, I almost feel useless when entering with my low level alts. In the top tier of servers, most are 80 now. If you enter there as level 25, you'll get demolished.
- You kill faster and easier with gear in the open world, even when downscaled. At level 70, I had average gear and when downscaled, sure enogh, mobs died faster than when I had the zone's level; however, when I got to 80 and geared myself, then went back to that downscaled zone, mobs died almost twice as fast.
- Dungeons become easier. I played the same dungeon both when I had average gear and then at 80 with exotics, there IS a difference.
- SPvP is truly the only aspect of the game where gear / level doesn't make you more powerful, for obvious reasons.
ANET never claimed that gear didn't matter in WvW. They claimed this in sPvP, which is where most hardcore PvPers go and cared about. What ANET did say is that you'll be useful to your group
Now I'm actually thankful that there's some kind of carrot on a stick. I certainly enjoy progression, it's why I play RPGs and not FPS (although even FPS nowadays implement some form of progression). But even though there IS a reason to progress, the game tries to deny it implementing ridiculous mechanics. You can't farm a zone for too long, yet if you want to craft your gear by yourself you must do so. You can't grind dungeons for long, yet if you want the gear rewards you must do so. You can't grind DE's for long, yet if you want the karma gear you must do so. The game is bascially telling you: "Hey, you want to progress? Sure, just do this dungeon 80 times. But oh, wait, don't." Right now, if you hit 80 and want a max stat gear set, you must do either:
- Make 40-60 gold and buy it. This is a huge gold grind, coupled with teleportation / repair costs.
- Run a dungeon 80 times. Sure, dungeons are fun the first 4-5 times or so. But when you realize you need at least 8 runs for ONE piece of gear, the whole thing goes from "Hmm, this is fun." to "PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!".
- Do about 720 DEs. Yes, 720*320 ~= 250,000 karma that you need.
BUT WAIT, you want to gear yourself according to Precision/Power/Crit to maximize your specific Thief build? Then no, I don't care how much you like DEs, you have to farm gold or dungeons. Oh, what's that, you want to try a Condition damage build now with that Thief of yours? Sure, just grind for ANOTHER gear set again! The current endgame in GW2 is a bigger grind than raiding two times a week ever was. The concept that "you don't need to grind" is nullified by the fact that you DO become more powerful with gear. Then factor in alts, or...if you're brave...legendaries (which, for example, require 2,000,000 karma besides other things). It's a grim outlook indeed. But, ahhh, here's the catch:
You can take a level 1 character all the way to 80 and get full exotics for the low price of $200.00. That's right, you can skip all the game's leveling content, and get a max stat gear set for real money! What a deal! If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is. I really like GW2's leveling, but it's endgame feels to be in the stone ages more so than a next gen MMO.
1) Level 80 exotic is max gear
2) The means of getting it are not very different than in standard MMOs
3) The difference is that you only grind once for a set of gear for your class. Not 39075819085 times as in other games
4) The economy is still new. 60-70gold might be a lot now. Wait a couple of months and then see if its still that high
The only thing I do agree with is that tailored gear should be easier to get or gettable every way you want. I don't know how ANET could do this in a balanced way that doesn't require offering a CRAP LOAD OF SETs at each vendor (since the combination for tailored gear are in the 100s). I suppose one way to do it would be to offer gear with X stat at #, but that would only work if and only if all stats follow the same algorithm for number to effect ratio.
You can take a level 1 character all the way to 80 and get full exotics for the low price of $200.00. That's right, you can skip all the game's leveling content, and get a max stat gear set for real money! What a deal! If that's not pay to win, I don't know what is. I really like GW2's leveling, but it's endgame feels to be in the stone ages more so than a next gen MMO.
This.
My grudge with GW2 since the announcing of the gear/gem system. It takes away the whole point of putting the time and effort into your character. If they made the best gear sold for real money in WoW the game would instantly lose about 1-2mil subscribers. What I don't understand is why Arena.Net is FORGIVEN ABOUT THIS BLATANT P2W SYSTEM, and any other developer would get trashed to smitherins and burned at the stake.
I saw through this and a lot of other gamers did aswell.
It's ridicilous how people are QQing about TSW having p2p + _purely cosmetical_ cash shop. While it's ok to swipe a credit card to get max level toon + gear in Guild Wars 2. Makes no freaking sense.
WTF are you going on about?
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
have you compared yellows vs exotics? The difference is marginal, yet you can buy yellows for 1/5 the cost of a same type exotic.
Could you please tell me where? Im level 80 still running around with 70-76 gear.
I have only found the karma vendor that sells items for 42k a piece.
Where do I find faster obtainable gear that makes my 80 worthy?
Have you tried the Black Lion Trading Company? It's this world-wide market with millions of items for sale in it.
The way you phrase it, it sounds as if you promote buying gear for RL money. It may end up being that way if you don't have the time or gold and have spare cash, but I think what you're trying to say is that you can gear up yourself with crafted items from the auction house.
In fact, i do. Crafted exotic gear currently cost 2-4g per piece. That is cheap, if im lucky i make a 10s proffit on selling my crafted gear. So lets say 16-20g for a set of BiS gear. You can get that kind of gold in a matter of hours by just going around doing some gathering and then selling the materials. If anyone want to give ArenaNet $100-150 (current conversoin rate) for gear that can be obtained within a matter of hours by playing and enjoying the game, good deal. ArenaNet gets some hard earned cash, a player gets what he wants, and i'm not affected in any way shape or form.
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.
The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
As for the gem part, again you are deluding yourself. In order for you to buy gems from the AH with gold, somebody else needs to buy them with RL money. If less people spend RL money for gems, then the gem price is going up due to less supply and more demand. Something that is happening right now, btw, the gem supply is smaller and their cost in gold is going up. The bottom line is that any gems in the market are direct profit for Anet. Of course the more people buying gems, the more the people who buy them via gold are benefiting from due to higher demand and thus lower exchange price.
Originally posted by timtrack
...
In fact, i do. Crafted exotic gear currently cost 2-4g per piece. That is cheap, if im lucky i make a 10s proffit on selling my crafted gear. So lets say 16-20g for a set of BiS gear. You can get that kind of gold in a matter of hours by just going around doing some gathering and then selling the materials. If anyone want to give ArenaNet $100-150 (current conversoin rate) for gear that can be obtained within a matter of hours by playing and enjoying the game, good deal. ArenaNet gets some hard earned cash, a player gets what he wants, and i'm not affected in any way shape or form.
Yes, you just needed to word it a bit better because you were giving the wrong impression. You grossly exaggerate the amount of gold you can make per hour however. Most of the time it is more profitable to actually sell the crafting material than to sell crafted items, but it both cut down time from fun activities and you still need tons of time running around to gather stuff. They nerfed the money gains from dungeons and you generally lose money in WvW if you are a meaninful contributor, both changes forcing people to do non fun activities or use the RL gem shop more.
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Not getting involved in the argument but on this specific point. Couldn't someone buy a load of gems, convert to gold, then master all the crafting professions and get to 80 (or there abouts) that way, just by sitting in Lions Arch and grabbing the mats off the TP?
Pointless I know, but possible?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I think the recent changes with diminishing returns on dungeons bugged the dungeons in the sense that you get diminishing returns even if you run the dungeons properly. These things will be fixed in time. What it won't be fixed is what Anet is trying to do with ingame gold.
Lets see two of the popular activities:
WvW: You generally equal or lose money if you are a meaninful contributor. Siege equipment and/or keep upgrades cost gold. Since they are both destroyed and need to be reapplied depending on progress, it's a gold drain, especially for organised guilds that put effort into maintaining presence in an area.
Dungeons: Now with diminishing returns so as to equalise repair costs with rewards. If you are doing badly your gold reward will barely cover the repairs. If you are doing good, the diminishing returns will make sure you are not in a much better position than the group that is doing badly in the same time played.
It seems that this week the amount of RL money spent on the gem store has dropped and Anet is trying to soften the players into the mentality of impoving their gold reserves with a bit of gem purchasing.
Originally posted by bunnyhopper
...
Not getting involved in the argument but on this specific point. Couldn't someone buy a load of gems, convert to gold, then master all the crafting professions and get to 80 (or there abouts) that way, just by sitting in Lions Arch and grabbing the mats off the TP?
Pointless I know, but possible?
You'll be missing karma bought recipes but it's possible. Max one crafting profession, level as much as possible, switch professions, max another and so on. That's how the fastest levelling character did it. You can also add the crafting exp boost gain tokens from the shop in the mix.
Buy then the exotics for your character and you're set at 80 in max gear in a day.
Originally posted by MikeJezZ So theres only diminishing returns in dungeons or?
Diminishing returns were introduced in dungeons with the latest patch. They are not working properly yet and you get diminishing returns even when you shouldn't, but that part will be fixed. I'm not sure if there are diminishing returns in material gathering, as I'm not much of a crafter yet, nor I go out of my way to gather stuff.
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.
The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
You are changing the definition of Pay to Win to suit your argument.
Im not sure if op is trolling, but exotics are really easy to obtain. Just get crafting disciplines that suits your profession (usually armor making one + jeweler), farm a bit orichalcum ores + globs of ecto and then craft your own gear. Price of materials to self craft exotic gear cost no more than 2.5 gold atm so I have got no idea from where did you get 40-60 gold number...
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.
The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
You are changing the definition of Pay to Win to suit your argument.
Lets see.
I one day I can swipe my credit card, buy an extaodrinary amount of gems, convert them to gold. Then I go buy crafting boosts, all the crafting materials I need and max my character to 80. Then I deck myself with all exotic crafted gears that have the best stats in the game. The rest of my day I run around with my superboosted character, rolfstomp the low level zones maxing out weapons and gaining skill points both by relevelling to 80 and doing the skill challenges easy mode.
While you take a week to run around doing zones properly, then extra week or two depending on whether you go for karma gear or just gathering gold to buy the crafted gear.
The above gives me a two week headstart over you doing PvP and the ability to rolfstomp you until you eventually catch up.
If that's not one way to P2Win, I don't know what is.
You can argue that this is something that could be done in other mmropgs as well, via gold farmers or levelling services, but in this case the ability to rush ahead of other players via RL money is legitimised. The funny bit is that other, less "innovative" games actually make you do some PvP to acquire PvP related gear. in GW2 this is not the case, which is both a blessing and a curse.
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.
The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
You are changing the definition of Pay to Win to suit your argument.
Lets see.
I one day I can swipe my credit card, buy an extaodrinary amount of gems, convert them to gold. Then I go buy crafting boosts, all the crafting materials I need and max my character to 80. Then I deck myself with all exotic crafted gears that have the best stats in the game. The rest of my day I run around with my superboosted character, rolfstomp the low level zones maxing out weapons and gaining skill points both by relevelling to 80 and doing the skill challenges easy mode.
While you take a week to run around doing zones properly, then extra week or two depending on whether you go for karma gear or just gathering gold to buy the crafted gear.
The above gives me a two week headstart over you doing PvP and the ability to rolfstomp you until you eventually catch up.
If that's not one way to P2Win, I don't know what is.
You can argue that this is something that could be done in other mmropgs as well, via gold farmers or levelling services, but in this case the ability to rush ahead of other players via RL money is legitimised. The funny bit is that other, less "innovative" games actually make you do some PvP to acquire PvP related gear. in GW2 this is not the case, which is both a blessing and a curse.
No he's right you are twisting P2W into something that fits your argument.
Nothing in your argument truly gives an advantage. You perceiving it as an advantage does not make it true. Also your way makes you a bad player and the other person will roflstomp you all way back to kindergarden afterwards.
Originally posted by papardelios agree with OP 100%. its a 100% korean farming game.
I must say that I agree as well. I admit that I was quite optimistic about GW2 in the beginning and made several remarks I probably shouldn't have made. Now I realize that GW2 in fact IS pay to win and in many respects it resembles D3 (e.g. last patch where ANet nerfed loot and gold from dungeons) which is really, really sad.
This is definitly the last MMO for me. I have no words to describe how much I'm disappointed with the current state of this genre.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
WTF are you going on about? 1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
You are changing the definition of Pay to Win to suit your argument.
Lets see.
Pay to Win referest to the ability to out right buy more power than what is possible by just playing the game. You need to say you can buy convience/time saving. There's a distinct difference and thats my point.
Originally posted by wowfan1996
Originally posted by papardeliosagree with OP 100%. its a 100% korean farming game.
I must say that I agree as well. I admit that I was quite optimistic about GW2 in the beginning and made several remarks I probably shouldn't have made.I realize now that GW2 in fact IS pay to win and in many respects it resembles D3 which is really, really sad. This is definitly the last MMO for me.
How is it pay to win when every you can't outright buy more power than whats achieved by just playing the game? You guys are using the wrong term. Buying convince is what GW2 offers and its VERY INDIRECT. Not only that, the convince factor isn't even that great since all the boost items are getable without ever opening the Cash Shop and Crafted Gear has the best stats.
Comments
black lion, the Trade Post / Real money thing?
That set is ugly. And I aint got enough I think. How much does it costs and does it add stats? I thought it was only a skin.
offcial forum copy paste to MMORPG.com...
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Have you tried the Black Lion Trading Company? It's this world-wide market with millions of items for sale in it.
The way you phrase it, it sounds as if you promote buying gear for RL money. It may end up being that way if you don't have the time or gold and have spare cash, but I think what you're trying to say is that you can gear up yourself with crafted items from the auction house.
Just a small note, your equipment isn't the same when you are downscaled but it downscales as well. What's different is that your armor retains the number of stat bonuses, a piece of armor with 3 stat bonuses will retain 3 stat bonuses when downscaled but give lower stats.
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
This.
My grudge with GW2 since the announcing of the gear/gem system. It takes away the whole point of putting the time and effort into your character. If they made the best gear sold for real money in WoW the game would instantly lose about 1-2mil subscribers. What I don't understand is why Arena.Net is FORGIVEN ABOUT THIS BLATANT P2W SYSTEM, and any other developer would get trashed to smitherins and burned at the stake.
I saw through this and a lot of other gamers did aswell.
It's ridicilous how people are QQing about TSW having p2p + _purely cosmetical_ cash shop. While it's ok to swipe a credit card to get max level toon + gear in Guild Wars 2. Makes no freaking sense.
The only thing I do agree with is that tailored gear should be easier to get or gettable every way you want. I don't know how ANET could do this in a balanced way that doesn't require offering a CRAP LOAD OF SETs at each vendor (since the combination for tailored gear are in the 100s). I suppose one way to do it would be to offer gear with X stat at #, but that would only work if and only if all stats follow the same algorithm for number to effect ratio.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
WTF are you going on about?
1) PAY to Win implies that you buy the items directly from the company and they are better than items you can get by playing the game without paying
2) The gems to gold exchange isn't being ran by ANET. You aren't trading GEMs to ANET to get Gold From ANET. You are trading between playres
3) How can you get a max level 80 toon by buying GEMs?
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
ohh this just in
unless this patched change something
you cant even level up normally without hitting diminished returns
hurray
sorry but thats just broken
you hit the return get little xp
little loot little money
so now playing at 80
or trying to level alts you get maybe an hour of steady gameplay and thats not rushing
then you are diminished
In fact, i do. Crafted exotic gear currently cost 2-4g per piece. That is cheap, if im lucky i make a 10s proffit on selling my crafted gear. So lets say 16-20g for a set of BiS gear. You can get that kind of gold in a matter of hours by just going around doing some gathering and then selling the materials. If anyone want to give ArenaNet $100-150 (current conversoin rate) for gear that can be obtained within a matter of hours by playing and enjoying the game, good deal. ArenaNet gets some hard earned cash, a player gets what he wants, and i'm not affected in any way shape or form.
Actually GW2 is P2W endorced by the developers, although I suppose it doesn't matter in the larger scale of things. It doesn't matter because what is happening legitimately in GW2, was happening with gold farmers in all popular games for years.
The pay to win part constitutes into putting no ingame effort and acquiring the best gear possible as far as stats are concerned. The gear don't even need to be better than the ones found in the game, they just need to give you an advantage, whether that is in terms of time gained (you get them instantly instead of grinding karma for three weeks), convenience or any other ingame advantage.
As for the gem part, again you are deluding yourself. In order for you to buy gems from the AH with gold, somebody else needs to buy them with RL money. If less people spend RL money for gems, then the gem price is going up due to less supply and more demand. Something that is happening right now, btw, the gem supply is smaller and their cost in gold is going up. The bottom line is that any gems in the market are direct profit for Anet. Of course the more people buying gems, the more the people who buy them via gold are benefiting from due to higher demand and thus lower exchange price.
Yes, you just needed to word it a bit better because you were giving the wrong impression. You grossly exaggerate the amount of gold you can make per hour however. Most of the time it is more profitable to actually sell the crafting material than to sell crafted items, but it both cut down time from fun activities and you still need tons of time running around to gather stuff. They nerfed the money gains from dungeons and you generally lose money in WvW if you are a meaninful contributor, both changes forcing people to do non fun activities or use the RL gem shop more.
Is it really that critical?
How to level then?
Not getting involved in the argument but on this specific point. Couldn't someone buy a load of gems, convert to gold, then master all the crafting professions and get to 80 (or there abouts) that way, just by sitting in Lions Arch and grabbing the mats off the TP?
Pointless I know, but possible?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
it kinda depends really if you happen to hit a bunch of events at once it kicks in alot faster
and you know it happens because some events chain to more
you can still level and get xp money
just not nearly the same
you have to wait till it resets to get full bonuses
I think the recent changes with diminishing returns on dungeons bugged the dungeons in the sense that you get diminishing returns even if you run the dungeons properly. These things will be fixed in time. What it won't be fixed is what Anet is trying to do with ingame gold.
Lets see two of the popular activities:
You'll be missing karma bought recipes but it's possible. Max one crafting profession, level as much as possible, switch professions, max another and so on. That's how the fastest levelling character did it. You can also add the crafting exp boost gain tokens from the shop in the mix.
Buy then the exotics for your character and you're set at 80 in max gear in a day.
Diminishing returns were introduced in dungeons with the latest patch. They are not working properly yet and you get diminishing returns even when you shouldn't, but that part will be fixed. I'm not sure if there are diminishing returns in material gathering, as I'm not much of a crafter yet, nor I go out of my way to gather stuff.
You are changing the definition of Pay to Win to suit your argument.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Lets see.
I one day I can swipe my credit card, buy an extaodrinary amount of gems, convert them to gold. Then I go buy crafting boosts, all the crafting materials I need and max my character to 80. Then I deck myself with all exotic crafted gears that have the best stats in the game. The rest of my day I run around with my superboosted character, rolfstomp the low level zones maxing out weapons and gaining skill points both by relevelling to 80 and doing the skill challenges easy mode.
While you take a week to run around doing zones properly, then extra week or two depending on whether you go for karma gear or just gathering gold to buy the crafted gear.
The above gives me a two week headstart over you doing PvP and the ability to rolfstomp you until you eventually catch up.
If that's not one way to P2Win, I don't know what is.
You can argue that this is something that could be done in other mmropgs as well, via gold farmers or levelling services, but in this case the ability to rush ahead of other players via RL money is legitimised. The funny bit is that other, less "innovative" games actually make you do some PvP to acquire PvP related gear. in GW2 this is not the case, which is both a blessing and a curse.
No he's right you are twisting P2W into something that fits your argument.
Nothing in your argument truly gives an advantage. You perceiving it as an advantage does not make it true. Also your way makes you a bad player and the other person will roflstomp you all way back to kindergarden afterwards.
I must say that I agree as well. I admit that I was quite optimistic about GW2 in the beginning and made several remarks I probably shouldn't have made. Now I realize that GW2 in fact IS pay to win and in many respects it resembles D3 (e.g. last patch where ANet nerfed loot and gold from dungeons) which is really, really sad.
This is definitly the last MMO for me. I have no words to describe how much I'm disappointed with the current state of this genre.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher