Should Lootscaling be removed after the new Rtm policy?

In other words, you're poor. A million is chump change, my weekly income is about that much and even I am pretty poor, but as said, my needs are few.

I haven't assumed anything. I pointed out that the desire to prevent others from getting richer than you through an artificial upper cap to income is a hallmark of communism, and since you don't seem to be able to address the point you resort to name calling? Who's the one losing credibility here?

The probelm with comunism is that it can be easily corrupted. The ones that distribute the wealth can distribut it wrong.

But in this game the wealth is distributed by the servers that calculate the drops. A machine that cannot be corrupted by greed or any other human flaw, a machine that treats everyone the same. In this case, even if it were comunism, that is not, it would be perfectly valid.

But in this case, the extra cash is acquired by the EFFORT of the player. Effor tto save items to sell them latter, effort to fins buyers, effort in wating time selling...

Hitting again and again 'sell' or double clicking is no effort, it's only bad for hand articulations.

And don't you dare to say that using a premade farming build implies any kind of effort, because it does not. I tried some farming builds, specially for elementalist and warrior, and all of them can be used blindfolded.

The notion of wealth accumulation is completely immaterial to casual gaming.

Let's see.

Besides that they're basically worth dirt right now, perfect mods on the PvE side are vanity since you won't be able to see any difference between perfect and almost perfect mods. Almost perfect mods are worth less than dirt, and the removal of LS wouldn't change that. I've beaten all there is on the PvE side (NM and HM) with less than perfect equipment.

Minipets you get for free. Getting more than your fair share is vanity.

Destroyer Cores/Glacial Stones etc. Do you realize that the removal of LS would multiply the supply of these items, thus forcing the prices down?

Runes are worth dirt, rares and greens are worth dirt. With very few exceptions they're the new whites, merchant fodder.

PvP with a PvE character is vanity. The PvP character creation facility is there for a reason.

For all practical intents and purposes, farming with loot scaling is equivalent to printing money, since the fixed market guarantees that money is equivalent to commodities. You can't exhaust the supply of ID kits through excessive creation of in-game currency.

Calling someone a communist isn't making a point, it's flaming. What were you expecting in return?

Um. Are you sure you understood what I wrote, since your reply suggests that you didn't?

Nowhere did I call anybody communist. I pointed out that a particular argument people are using to defent their point is a communist ideal. It is a statement of fact. I rather believe that the people in question are not communist, and it makes their arguments all the more amusing.

Edit: and I didn't claim that communism is eminently bad. Even MithranArkanere has started to accept the likeness, and there are many good arguments in favor of some communist ideals in a virtual economy where the supply of commodities is essentially unlimited. For starters, every game character trivially owns its tools of production instead of working for another character (except perhaps the feodal faction farming slaves ...)

Not unless you live in the sixties. Communism is neither positive nor negative other than the connotations you give it. I haven't followed this thread at all nor am I choosing sides just pointing out this fact.

And again, it's not comunist, since the ones that want to and have time to can get more cash.

Again, and again, and again, LS only removes part of the difference of cash acquired with and without farming.

But you can still play more hours, and trade with other players, and get more cash.

There is no 'daily income' like in Final Fantasy 8.

It's not a fact, and you're calling their points communistic to make them look like bad guys rather than make a logical argument. There are plenty of rational points to make, but instead you say "ha ha, you guys are commies!"

Eh, new week same argument right?

Hi. This is the Internet. Communism obviously has a negative connotation here.

I often wonder why the mods allow these anti-lootscaling threads to just go on an on an on an on. Anet is not going to change it nor allow 7 heroes so why do people constantly harp on the same subject that is irrelevent? Kinda like those Olympic protesters, they aren't going to stop the Olympics from happening why even bother?

In my case, I'm just trying to make them understand, but in most cases I think that it's called "beating a dead horse".

You'll rarely see people admit to understanding. On forums, and especially one like this, people hate to admit they're wrong. This isn't to say that there are people wrong in this thread, nor am I pointing fingers. Just pointing out a big reason why discussions can go on forever.

We're also beating on dead horses because there hasn't been a whole lot going on.

Also, Knightfall, if the mods will let a cat thread go on for a number of pages, I'm sure they have no qualms with letting issues like these get discussed inside and out.

They aren't trying to stop the Olympics, they are trying to raise the profile of a cause, and embarrass the perpetrators of a wrong into changing their ways. A very good analogy you picked there. ANet did something wrong, something that (indicatively) about 70% of their player base disagrees with. Why else do you have a thousand plus post threads springing up over a few days one year later. Tibet protests aren't going away any time soon, and neither are anti-loot nerf threads. Question is, how much unpopularity does ANet want over this issue?

Forums aren't real good indicators of playerbases.

I know that that isn't your point, just merely pointing that out for others advocating that this forum represents the Guild Wars playerbase.

Direct quote from wikipedia (highlighting mine): "According to Marx, Communism's outlook on freedom was based on an agent, obstacle, and goal. The agent is the common/working people; the obstacles are class divisions, economic inequalities, unequal life-chances, and false consciousness; and the goal is the fulfillment of human needs including satisfying work, and fair share of the product."

You're proven wrong.

I specifically didn't call anybody a communist, so this statement is false as well.

'Obviously' is a word tossed around a lot when one is totally unable to make a convincing case

thaaaank you

obviously you all need to stop going back and forth about this, and talk about the issue that Anet could care less about....

So we should talk about their game? OH I'm terrible!

Oh, and nobody post. This thread has just reached 1337 status.

Well, you brought it up.

What are you trying to say? Vanity items don't count when considering the economy? I thought they were the only things that count. Also, define 'worth dirt'.

Almost perfect mods are a waste of time, agreed. I really don't see where you're suddenly going with the vanity vs. utility issue though, when it comes to player market items. How does their utility impact the economy?

Yes... so?

And what a good thing that would be. Farming to make less money! Find 8 times more but merch them for 10 times less. Another fine example of how loot scaling actually sustains an interactive economy. In reality though, ANet probably determined the required numbers one needs of these trophies to get the reward in terms of required effort. If there hadn't been loot scaling, we'd either need more of them or they'd be a more rare drop.

The dirt cheap items are part of the money-printing process. The exceptions are the goods.

So.

What.

People will do what they want to do, and it affects the economy.

Again, I really don't get your main point in this post.

Of course. If you read the paragraph from which you quoted completely, I already granted that farming with loot scaling still involves 'printing money', no need to shoot it back at me with emphasis. Loot scaling just pushes the 'producing goods' vs. 'printing money' quotient to a more healthy value.

Actually, we are just getting to the essential core of the issue, and the reason for why it has taken so many pages and caused a lot of commotion is that people are in denial about their agendas.

This is the issue: what is the perfect Gini coefficient for an online game? It's all politics and opinions, you cannot come up with an answer by rational reasoning. The options are:

• no LS, larger inequality (capitalist ideal)
• LS, smaller inequality (communist ideal)

This straightforward proposition becomes somewhat more complicated through the existence of the fixed price market but the basic choice is there. Both will work equally well, both have their particular good and bad points. If it was decided by popular vote the rational choice of the vast majority of the player base would be to keep Loot Scaling, and this thread has been so savoury just because uninformed people vote against their best interest

Just for the record, I was originally indifferent, then tentatively opposed LS, finally decided to support LS after a careful consideration of all facts.

If the argument of LS haters is that they are able to make only a million a week from farming, then I have to say that they have even fewer legs to stand on than I initially thought.

Plus, if it is chump change, I am sure you won't mind donating a million or two to a good and charitable cause known as Buying Esan Booze For His Drunkard Title.

Vanity items shouldn't count when considering LS, since LS was implemented to benefit casual gamers, and casual gamers have no need whatsoever for vanity items.

I don't hate LS, it doesn't have anything to do with my income. I'm just here to helpfully analyse the situation. In fact I'm supporting LS.

Sorry, I have a strict policy of donating only to alliance members, least I get banned as a RMT representative (but I am often called a pretty generous person by those that know me)

No, no.

LS was added to REPLACE the antifarm code. And more than to benefit casual players is in DETRIMENT of those that solo farmed too much.

That is bots and players with bot behavior.

It's not comunist. Comunist would be to forcefully set the daily income regardless of what a player does.

This is a closed system in its own reality. It's better not to compare it to alien concepts.

From what I've read, it seems to me that the 'casual' player actually stands outside of the economy and would not be impacted either way by LS.

If the truly casual player does not subscribe to vanity items then they have actual no need to interact with the rest of GW society (just the NPCs) in order to evolve a fully max'ed out character and could do so quite comfortably with the gold and drops that they receive in their casual play time.

Therefore, the economy only consists of non-casual players. In which case, it still doesn't matter whether LS is removed or not, because all the non-casuals are still on an equal footing either way.

The "casual player" is an incredibly hard thing to define, especially in this case. One of the arguments for loot-scaling are that it makes all more in reach of the casual player's hands, but an argument against it is that it's highly likely that a casual player would care less about what they're able to get their hands on.

sorry to rain on your totally elitest look at my shineys and admire me mindset (not really i am very happy to do it)

ARENA NET has shown by their player logs that your mindset is a tiny splinter group in relation to the playerbase.

every move they have made has been to make the *SHINEYS* available to the casual player which is their playerbase not you.

if you want the *SHINEYS* work for 6-10 hours a day like i do or you just dont deserve anything nice you undedicated lazy noob is dead

ANET has voted by their actions against that mindset without one single exception.
deal with the fact that casual players will continue to get nicer stuff and more of that nicer stuff while your profits drop like a SUP ABSORB

You're putting the bar lower than most people for an item to be considered vanity.

Also, the question shouldn't be whether anyone needs anything, but whether they want something. 'Needs' are taken care of regardless of loot scaling. 'Wants' are what makes an interesting economy a necessity. And casual players do 'want'.

If your weekly income is about 1 million gold, I'm going to take this space to dismiss your entire position as pure, unadulterated, greed. You make that much and you want more? You make that much and yet your side of the argument claims that there's no good way to make money in this game.

So.... which is it? You can make a million gold per week or you can't make any money?

Why do you insist on defining the player base by your own personal position in the game? It's all relative. Some people in the game feel rich when they have 10k saved up. Others define poor as having "only" 1.25 million in the bank. It's all relative to each player's personal position.

See how self-centered you are? The world doesn't revolve around you, does it?

Why should the "casual player" care about rampant armbrace duping? Therefore the casual player should have nothing to say about it right?

That logic is terrible.

Ok, let's see if I can pull a grand unified summary once and for all.

First, remember that there are opinions and then there are rational choices. If two sheep argue over whether to choose grass or rocks for dinner, there is a rational choice to be made, but if a wolf and a sheep argue over whether to choose grass or lamb for dinner, each of them has a rational opinion but there isn't any rational choice. Now, with Loot Scaling we have a wolf-and-sheep situation where there are both positive and negative effects for those involved depending on different factors. There are no easy answers - even methods to weight the factors to find an 'optimal' solution are hotly contested.

There are three different markets and three respective populations. The low end market consists mostly of the fixed market and it is populated by the most casual portion of the player base. The middle market is mainly populated by the middle class of players, and the high end market is the domain of the exclusive few.

LS controls the absolute influx of currency into the game economy and its distribution to the different subpopulations. LS doesn't affect the low end market since most of the prices are fixed and the influx to the casual population stays the same regardless. LS affects directly the middle market because the respective population would gain most by the removal of LS. LS doesn't directly affect the high end market because it is effectively decoupled from the currency based economy and pure money farming is not a particularly effective means to gain access to the high end market. So, we have two essentially fixed domains, the low and high end markets, and somewhere in between the middle market whose median is close to the low end market with LS and moves closer to the high end market if LS is removed.

Now, which is the rational choice for each subpopulation if everybody is acting with their best interest in mind? Casual players should want to keep LS for an easier transition to the middle market. The middle class of players should want to remove LS for an economic gain in the low end market and an easier transition to the high end market. Finally, the top dogs should either support LS if they are mainly acquirers of wealth, to keep their exclusivity, or not support LS if they are mainly providers, to get a larger demand for their goods.

If we try to find just one choice, the size of the top end is so small and its interests conflicted that it can be ignored. If we go by the number of accounts, the casual population probably wins and LS should stay. If we go by total playtime the middle class migh well win and LS should be removed. In any case the end of the world is nigh.

The current poll just shows that the largest subpopulation doesn't even vote here, so it is not wonder that the results are what they are.

You don't understand communism. At all. Here are key features of it:

1) Classless society. Nobody is proposing that, anywhere.

2) Lack of social mobility. Nobody is proposing that, anywhere.

3) Common ownership of goods. See? You don't know what you're talking about in the least bit...


Tossing around a term like communist is a big deal, because it's extreme relative to how a MMO economy works. If you're actually thinking that the pro-LS folks are thinking in such extreme terms, then you misunderstand us profoundly.

I said that vanity items are not needed. Which part of this simple fact you don't understand (hey it's just the definition of 'vanity' that you're contesting)?

/signed
/signed
/thankyou

If you had a shred of competence to discuss the issue you'd know that it's common ownership of means of production. Since every player owns all the necessary means of production (a character and its equipment), you conclusively fail.

That is not importat.
Call it cheese, comunism or orthodontic.
That doesn't matter.
Only things that matters here is design and system of the game.

Anyways, the means of producion in GW is not the drop. The means are the SKILLS. The drops re the result. Like the fruits of the trees.

And you have to get those.

As I've and others have been saying, the motivation for wanting LS removed is purely insane greed and selfishness.

A million per week is chump change and still you demand more? How is that by any stretch of the imagination, reasonable at all? Any argument that you had is definately not for the good of the playerbase but rather just to line your own pockets.

A million per week and you want that increased? And you honestly dont think that would cause inflation? And you're here crying about how LS is making you poor? Give me an F-in break.

I really don't know what to say that won't sound like flaming you to hell. Not that you don't deserve it because these anti-LS arguments are beyond ridiculous.

But you and others carry on, crying about how you're only making a million a week and how ANET is hindering your playstyle and how others are oppressing you. It's all BS.

[QUOTE]

hi Carl

DONT FORGET THIS

a million a week is CURRENT income not counting the super hoard of wealth already accumulated over the years from all those farming exploits before Anet started closing them.

as i said it is a totally money/greed MINDSET that does not even recognize it is a complete abnormalityfrom the supermajority playerbase who bought a GAME and are playing it for fun not GW:TYCOON

Isn't a million enough to get an obsidian set?

Shouldn't that take 3 months or so?

Again, you mean like DoA farming, UW/FoW runs, Raptor farming, Glacial Stones runs- all the other farm runs of these days?

These ways of hardcore farming make WAY more cash than casual farming could ever make. Farming hasn't been more profitable than now. It's just that only the rich and people with ALOT of time can farm these days.

Ok, maybe A-Net doesn't support farming, but they aren't against it either. If they were against people making alot of money, they'd un-nerf the casual farming and nerf the farm runs of these days like Ursan Run stuff, UW, FoW, Glacial Stones etc.

As for Ursan, Ursan Blessing is only for the MOST hardcore of players. Nobody that plays on a regular time base is able to obtain rank 10 in Ursan without spending months in EotN. And as far as I see in outposts, only high ranks are wanted for the farm runs.

You are wrong here, cause casual farming isn't that profitable. If you want to prevent people from making REAL cash, nerf the current hardcore farmruns.