Exploit and the Economy

I'm glad that I got the Tormented Scythe I've been saving for before this came out...you gotta figure with a significant supply valve turned off, the armbrace market is going to have some pressure upward...how significant is yet to be seen.

Hey! You can help me out then, i need 80 ectos to get my FoW armor, i have been acumulating over 400,000 gold and some shards, i only have a mesmer, assassin and ritualist so im not welcome at high-end areas and i cant really get that much gold in a fast time.
Im not asking for ALL your stuff, but some will really really really make a difference to me!

And seriously, there are people that HOLD stacks of ectos and do nothing with it, you can help people like me to complete my armors, after that i wont need any actual gold so ill be able to focus on vanquishin and pvp titles.
That will make the game much better to me...


And arent tormented weapons ugly as the devil turned upside down? Why bother with them? You cant really add the to the HoM so where is the point of getting it?

There's an economy???

Quoted for Truth

They are one of the most beautiful skins in the game, a pity so difficult to acquire.

@ gregsalot, the reason people are holding ecto, at least people like me, is because ectro prices are shitty atm, and have been shitty for a while. Im just a cheapskate I guess and dont like losing 2k+ for every 100e or more ive ever had.

GW economy lol

It stinks worse then an open sewer. But, that being said a few extra gems isn't going to hurt anyone. Tormented shit was never going to hold any sort of value anyway. Looking at 100k a piece by summer.

NO it was stolen by a bunch of people a long time ago.

Sadly, they've been stealing from the cookie jar waaay longer than any of us realised. Now that we truly begin to understand how unrealistic our chances are at getting the good stuff we turn away.

Twas a good 2 n half years tho

Quote of the year!!

Anyway, I've been in pre-searing since pretty much the beginning and have seen exploiters pop up out of nowhere, dominating the market with exploited yet vastly superior stuff...I survived even though I hated the cheating that went around there, still found enjoyment, particularly when chatting with other people.

I know very well some people cheated their way into wealthiness within a minute that took me 2 years to build up...I guess that's just the way it is. It's this way in every game, be it virtual, be it in real life.

Sometimes cheaters get cought and sometimes not.
I play the game in a way I find fun to play and am thankfull I'm not one of the poor ones, I got most of my gold by running missions and by timely selling mats.
I'm also a casual player which knows that a perfect collector weapon is just as good as a 100k++ ultra-special-mega-omnycool skinned ultra-antinoobly-rare plain-and simple item...half of having gold in this game is how you make it...the other half is how you spend it.

QFT; note that those that have accumulated massive piles of the duped armbraces at this point may not be dupers (fools and their money are soon parted; odds are dupers are better at hacking games then trading - else why accept the risks of duping.)

Still, 1500+ arms for a minipet (see: closed Polar Bear bidding in High End) indicates that the economy is done.

The lessons of the last few years of GW, for those who would be ultra-rich:
1) Risk aversion is not an option
2) Have multiple usable accounts in order to manage ban risks
3) Abuse every available exploit like there's no tomorrow.
4) Trade effectively

Note that, before all the exploits, rule #4 was rule #1. However, the longer the game has been in release, the less effective 'legitimate' mechanisms of gaining wealth are. This results because exploits distort the economy sharply in favor of a limited few, and also because exploits become more prevalent as the game becomes more complex and increasingly comprised of badly tested code. (as compared to the code in the original release, which was extensively playtested)

The players are the one that sets the price of "rare" items that high.... not Anets fault at all, hence the 100k trading cap. Anet can not control the price of braces. If people say an arm is 50e, then it must be 50e...

Then there will be no tomorrow for the exploiter, look at those 117 accounts that were banned for mallyx...

The constraint on trading isn't 100k, it's the *maximum value of stuff that will fit in a trade window*. The value of armbraces is dictated by three things:

1) supply
2) demand for intended use
3) demand for use as currency

You are correct to state that player demand isn't ANet's fault, but the limited supply of the desirable rare minis, everlasting tonics, etc., the stackability of armbraces and the fact that duped arms could not be hunted down and destroyed are all ANet's fault. Blame is shared but the dev team is hardly exempt.

Two key points:

1) Most exploits do not result in bans. LONG list of these.
2) If the merchandise was moved off that account by the time the banstick hit...

Such risks can in principle be managed. One account to cheat with, one account to stash the goods on, one account that is actually used. Maximum risk: $80-$120 or so. Figure that, at bargain basement 'black' market prices, someone could have made that back in hours. So the player that cheats risks $120 or so (two accounts) plus time invested in farming against the potential for the equivalent of thousands of dollars in IRL cash?

People go to jail for accepting those risks. And ANet wonders why people cheat?

People who buy gold get banned, so I really don't think it has an effect on the economy. Not many people would risk buying gold Because if you buy gold and get banned what good does it do?

When people say "economy is broken" to mean prices are getting lower, in a way, it is good. But actually only "vanity" or "elitist" items are being affected by the "brokeness". Items like armor, dyes, keys, skills, insignias, are basically the same prices as before as over two years ago. But even items like dyes, ectos, and runes prices go higher or lower, these are still within the reach of casual and hardcore players.

On green items, well, the gw system, will eventually lead to glut of greens. There is no real concrete way taking "greens" out of the systems - like random breaking of armors and weapons on upgrade - unless you INTENTIONALLY trashed it on the bin. And I have the feeling not many people do that regularly. Glut of minis and perfect items are also inevitable with current gw system.

My take.

What if all weapons and shields had a percentage chance to break after some well defined amount of time and usage?

thought i should correct this..
elite group of ebayers/dupers*

Mallyx got me vabbian armor (ursanway), and the skins mostly stink there. So, I don't really see the fuss about this other then ppl over doing something and seriosly kicking us around.

(Honestly, revert the drops and ban the gold traders.Done.)

so i am game maker/controller/ whatever title you want to give me & i would really like to try and flush out the dupers/cheats with all there riches,
*sits and thinks what would bring them out of the woodwork??*

ahhhhhhh haaaaaa, i know i make a new item[polar bear] & only release a very small number [under10 i believe], then track who buys them & trades them & what for on the data base, save lots time checking everyones account!

makes you think huh lol

I have got to believe that Anet's database is "good enough" for a simple SQL query to be run to produce a list of accounts with a specific type of item with quantities greater than "such and such".

This is simple stuff. Unless of course the database design has serious flaws.

Economy solution for every exploit: Customization for everything.

I mean, if someone exploit and get a tormented weapon, it will be custom, cannot sell. The same with everything, gems, and most of drops. That way exploiting won't destroy economy at all, just make someone look good, the exploiter ONLY.

Then whats the point of buying a armbrace in the first place if people get free torment weapons through exploits?

With the random loot distribution system?
Let's not.

Poster by Gregslot:
And arent tormented weapons ugly as the devil turned upside down? Why bother with them? You cant really add the to the HoM so where is the point of getting it?


I hate this veiw...what would you do if HOM was never made? the point in the weapons is for if you want them. The point in playing the game is for fun

Not really; as noted in my first post, just because someone has 1500 armbraces doesn't mean they cheat. One could argue that they're dealing in counterfeit merchandise, but ANet tacitly legitimized those armbraces by not removing them.

Banning people for being rich turns efforts to protect the integrity of the in-game economy into a witch hunt.

Off the mark, but not totally. Random loot system means that people wish to trade, true. But there exists a way to "customize everything" - tie the availability of item skins, armor skins, minipets, etc. to accomplishments in-game and not tell anyone what they have to do to get the items in question. This keeps people playing (and doing different stuff) and also necessitates community interaction (ie: exchange of information over how you get what).

Suppose you could only get a mini Ghostly by winning 20 straight matches in the Hall of Heroes. Suppose you could only get a mini Rollerbeetle by breaking 480k in rollerbeetle. Such minis would still be super-rare but also non-negotiable - upshot is people enjoy utility from possessing the ultra-rare item, and will therefore play in order to chase after it. They would also be entirely merit-based; you'd never be able to run up to someone displaying a mini Ghostly and call the player an eBaying nublet.

Also, you can manipulate this system in two ways to keep things interesting:
1) have items that are available for breadth of accomplishments (certain tiers in all forms of PvP; for accomplishments in PvP *and* PvE, etc.)
2) obviously, make some things comparatively easy to get and some harder to get. Tie some items to the speed with which someone accomplishes missions, henching all of the missions, etc. The list of possibilities and combinations would be huge, and only limited by the ingenuity of the designers.

Being able to distinguish at a glance who is experienced and who is not would be quite nice; the rank system in HA was originally intended to do this, but of course as time passes the meaning of attaining any given rank decreases. This method would provide both incentive to play (and play BETTER), both of which would result in benefits.

It would also exacerbate elitism to a certain extent, but as that's already a problem I fail to see how this is a severe drawback.

ANet seems to have caught on to this with the Bonus Mission Pack; I hope they carry this method out to its logical conclusion as they design GW2.