I hope GW2 has a better weapons economy.

I mean, sure things like materials follow a pretty well made supply and demand curve, but it's basically non-existent for things like weapons and mini-pets. No weapons change to become better or more desirable, and as such, you've got what we've got today; tons of weapons that are worth practically nothing and weapons that are worth a chunk of change but will go nowhere but down in prices. There's no merchant benefit for selling the weapons to NPCs, and as such the weapons have nowhere to really go but other players, as I don't see most people trashing their Eternal Blades. However, you still get the weapons as drops, no matter how rare, which creates a larger supply and in turn lower prices. The only thing that's keeping certain weapon prices high is the addition of new weapons, and not only is that not a way to solve the problem but it worsens it because now people don't want the old skins. I won't be surprised if I visit Guild Wars in 2010 and see Eternal Blades or Emerald Blades for 20k a piece, because their value has nowhere to go but down. Serious fix is needed for GW2, one better than just adding new skins.

/agree....the markets is either very expensive and dropping ( or raising in case of RARE mini pets) or it is already "trash". The economy should be alot more stalbe i gw2 hopefully

Besides that, we need a clearer way of figuring out prices on everything online. Either in game or out of game. Sure, the forums and auctions sections here do help but if you get that random item that's not listed here or in LA/Kamadan/KC, you've got to take a guess at it's worth.

What do you need the money for?

The only way to stabalize it that I can think of offhand is having a real sink for items. As it is now, once an item is created (via a drop), it never disappears, unless someone trashes or merchs it, which doesn't happen to the high-end stuff except by accident. The number of high-end items only goes up, therefore the price only goes down.

Take EVE Online for example, the economy there is fairly stable, because you can lose your items. You could buy an item for 300M and get it shot off you the very next day, gone forever. Thus quantity of expensive items is kept stable, as is the price.

Also, there will never be a good player economy unless there's a good marketplace/auction house of some sort.

/Agree

This economy is a farce. An Auction house would solve A LOT of problems. Even having the merchants offer realistic prices when selling to them would help somewhat.

I'd Quite Like to see a completely overhauled Weapon System in GW2: Where different weapons produce a wide variety of effects. Atm Even people who collect of one type of weapon....Well Ive made a Complete set of Slaying Bows. How often do I go and bother to get them? Not Often. Off the top of my Head I'd like to see a system like RO: Then items stay healthy even on High Drop Rate servers

I just hope there aren't has many gold sinks in it and to think this was a competive game.

Really?!

Nonetheless, let's just hope everything is better. All mistakes should be corrected.

Woah, I thought I was the only furred one that plays this game :P

Anyway, /agreed :P

/agree. It's absolutely ridiculous that I gotta pay 100k+xx ecto for an OB edge when merch says its 340 gold. :P. It just doesn't make any sense

I've already seen them for less than that r13's it's about getting where people can't give them away fast enough because now unless they are perfect r9's or less they are just worthless because of how easy they are to obtain with UB or using the Zashiens chest.

Oh man thats why I play EVE. When I get fed up with guild wars thats where I go. Where you can get a months worth of farming destroyed in an instant.

I was thinking about this sink thing. Guild wars kind of has one. Through weapon customization. However most people wont customize simply because then there item is worth squat. People want to feel rich and a bunch of rare stuff they cant sell doesn't really do that for people IMO. I say this because I don't customize or dedicate for that reason. Well actually a ton of stuff would be customized if HoM would accept it, but thats a different basket of apples.

Theres the old weapons break alternative to, but I am kind of hesitant to advocate that approach.

RO/L2 is terrible with their gear. The casual player gets punished while the strong only get stronger. You have the elitists who have weapons that are maxed upgraded, and then you have the MAJORITY of the server who has maybe gear that has been a LITTLE upgraded. It's a system like that that ENCOURAGES farming/botting. And not the good kind either.

I botted on RO (retail) for a while because I finally got fed up with being poor and never having time to actually make money for my char. In doing so, I got all of my gear to +8, got a buttload of decent cards, and was able to give money to friends so they could do the same. It turned a casual gamer into a botter. Trust me, when you have gear that hasn't been properly carded and upgraded vs someone who has, it's like night and day as far as power.

And while the chasm between max and normal isn't extreme (except in the case of armor where upgrade bonuses stack and become ridiculous at max level for all pieces), it's still a rift that will always separate the elitist pvp'ers from the average ones. A gap that no casual player could ever close due to the amount of time needed to do it (time = mats/in game currency = maxed gear).

What I'm most afraid of though, is GW2 being nothing like GW1 except in terms of storyline and history/characters. I like GW1 because it is how it is.

It's not the uber grind fest.

It's not making me spend hours picking berries and flowers or mining just so I can get some armor.

I like not worrying that I'll have to fight some guy who has a +10 Sundering Bow of OMGWTFBBQ while I'm dinking away with my +3 Wand of Cheezits.

/agreed
I hope a.net takes a lesson from Eve Online and hires a trained economist to help develop a balanced economic system.

/agree,
I also think this should be moved to the idea forum.

whats wrong with access to just about any weapon skin u want in the game?

its not like the game's economy is truly hurting u.

I hope GW2 has a better everything!

The weapons "economy" was always pretty tricky, though. It's not like in WoW where certain items will always be in demand, regardless of what's added. This is because those items in WoW are always needed. In Guild Wars, what do you need besides max armor and weapons and decent runes? Literally nothing. Everything is personal want and desire, and that's why Guild Wars' economy has always been iffy.

Of course, that may also be the same reason why they don't do much about it.

I like GW's weapon system, except for one problem: they drop way to f**king much. For instance, when I go to DoA, the floor will be littered with hundreds of white, blue and purple weapons that no one wants or needs. If all weapons dropped substantially less, then a semi-nice weapon (purple) would be an okay sell (10-20k), a particularly nice weapon (gold) would be a better sale (20-50k) and a perfect weapon would be a great sale (50k to 100k+). The abundance of weapons and upgrades in GW made the weapon economy a stagnating one.
This needs to stay. That was the whole point behind customized armor and about character progression after lvl 20 in GW in general. You do not want for GW2 to be without it.

You'd be surprised. The icon isn't supposed to make it that obvious though.

Anyways...The only point I can see against this is that once GW2 come out the prices will go back up because there are less players to get the items as drops, but even that doesn't hold much water because it wouldn't make sense to have an economy based off the fact that less people play your old game for your new one.

/agree

There should be a price median for weapons. Not how it is currently, either high and going lower or practically worthless.

make them collectibles

Your faced with two things people.
1. Role Players
2. Power Players

Who are you ppl trying to favor?

There has to be balance somewhere here.

The only way you are going to be able to compare weapons and minis with materials is if you give them a "lifespan" be it in time or useage.
Demand and supply for materials happens because they are used up for armour/consumables. There is no way a weapon trader would do anything but reflect the dropping prices as the merchants prices are set from purchases and sales (with a profit margin). As has been said before, more rare weapons being discovered with a shrinking player base = lower prices. This doesnt manifest itself at the start of a popular game as there is a constant influx of new players as the player base increases.

I dont personally like the chance of a weapon being destroyed by chance as I could imagine plenty of players getting pissed at the game fairly rapidly.

If you want to for instance, give a weapon a 6 month lifespan and after the 6 months is up it breaks - I could live with that - but that of course brings up other issues such as scammers selling weapons to the inexperienced with only maybe a week left on them so the lifetime left would need to be recorded ( but would this make it too cumbersome to program? I dont know).

Finally as far as the expensive weapons are concerned - there is no REQUIREMENT for anyone to have these weapons, it is just a WANT - they arent any better than ones currently available after all. The idea of new weapons is to maintain interest and farming. If they were just available from a merchant, then suddenly they arent special and the demand isnt there that was when it was "rare".

How about wear and tear on weapons that needs to be repaired. if you make the repair cost relative to the REAL VALUE of a weapon, it will cause a large gold sink for those with rare skins.

The weapons and armor DECAY from usage, no matter how rare the item is. After XXXXX number blows to your armor, it becomes useless. Same goes with the weapons. Now THAT system, can keep the prices of rare skinned weapons stable.

Also, when youre in towns and your weapons are stowed, a thief/rogue can steal it out of your pack. Thieves have the ability to randomly steal something from you when youre not careful. (of course, town guards can whack the thief or you can whack him yourself, get your item back and loot his pack freely)

Weapons and armors either get destroyed or get stronger when a weaponsmith upgrades it. The higher the rank of the weaponsmith, the higher the probability that the upgrade will be successful.

Auction houses will not stabilize the current GW economy or GW2 if the weapons do not disappear from the system. Inventory of rare weapons will only increase over a period of time (due to farming, Z chests, or drops) and decrease its value (ie Elemental swords, Sephis axes, Serpent axes, etc.).

For those of you who thinks that having a stable economy will severely tilt the balance towards the uber gamer, you gotta remember that GWs weapons have a set value of damages. Meaning, a Crystalline sword gold max R9 15^50 20/20/30 will deal the same dmg as a collector katana 15^50 20/20/30. The casual gamers can still stand toe to toe with an uber gamer because of these features. (collectors, uniform dmgs, etc.)

P.S. Auction houses in UO are mostly done by the players or player run auction houses. I tried to do a player run auction on GW last year (I've run auction houses in Ultima Online and SWG) using my guildhall (Merchant Guild (GOLD)) and it was fairly successful.

This would be a great idea if the game had an auction house. This could be a mechanism that would let the "game" know what the going rate for weapons are, and base the repair cost on that value. This would also allow merchants to buy weapons for a more reasonable price, or at least quote a price that reflects the in-game value of that weapon. It would also stabalize the prices for expensive weapons down because they would be less desirable with the repair cost being so high.

The value of weapons would still be stratafied based on desiribility, rarity, etc. but to a lesser degree.

I'm not even going to voice my opinion on minis

I disagree completely. The game would have to have an economy before it can be improved.

Agreed I should be the only one to corner the uber rare gold skin market to make crazy loads of cash from others for years to come.

ok here goes my 2 cents

ok first off the auction house is to only make ppl's lives a lil easier in looking for something they need. Take WoW's auction house for example u can easily find wat ur looking for really fast and start bidding or buy it right then and there.

second there is an economy in GW. no1 really wants to say there is because its pretty close to non existant. There are a lot of economies in GW but the most popular are Weapons, Minis, and holiday stuff.

third some ideas for gold sinks is great but the "+" upgrading should be left out because the whining will double of wat we have already.

fourth i think anet needs to come up for a general pricing for all weapons. for example a sword that has a 15^50 that is gold go for about 20k generally or at the merch. Yes the rest of the price could be from the mods or the skins but thats up to anet and the players

current gw economy:
-constant influx of wealth just by playing
-no necessary outflow of wealth after you have paid for the basic stuff (normal max armor, crafter weapons)
-only gold sinks are for vanity (titles, rare weapons, prestige armors)
..absolutely fine for a casual player audience

no wonder everybody gets rich over time and everything loses value, because everybody has everything needed

for a real economy you would need:
-only limited wealth by normal play
-item inequality - making more powerful weapons rare and thus more desirable
-item decay (need money for repair, can break completely -> need to buy a new one)
-required consumables (potions)
-other outflow of money (taxes)
...resulting in a game that would require to work for your gaming life

in other words: a game i wouldn't play

[QUOTE=Ralgha]

Take EVE Online for example, the economy there is fairly stable, because you can lose your items. You could buy an item for 300M and get it shot off you the very next day, gone forever. Thus quantity of expensive items is kept stable, as is the price.
QUOTE]

If you spent a week trying to farm an item, or bought it for 100k, then it broke and you couldnt fix it, or if an npc or monster stole it and you couldnt get it back. Or it just vanished, people would lose their minds. Its a horrible way to keep prices high.

If you want a stable price range for an item, Then make the merchants buy it for a certain price. and never change that price. Lets say 20k for a tormented weapon (sample only) now players can pay 25k from other players to get the item without the work needed to get it to drop, and players can sell it and make a profit. Or they can simply sell it to merchants.

The way gw handles item prices, and the buying prices from merchants is bad.

I personally like the Diablo 2 LOD items, how they are random, drops are random, stats are random. This means if I find a great sword that everyone wants, It will be worth X amount. Depending on the stats, it will go for more or less. So if GW2 took from this idea and made it their own, We could get 10 different varations of a Tormented sword, the base price at the merchant wouldnt change, so the lowest it could be sold for would be X. But if you find a "perfect" version with the highest stats possible, then the price would go up.

The D2 LOD economy is crap, and I'm not using it as an exsample, only the items.

So set a price at the merchant first, and dont change it no matter how many items get sold. Do not let the merchant SELL the items, but they can buy them for X price. Now we have the base price set and it will never change, Now depending on what the stats are, Players will spend more than X to buy them from other players.

In order to have a better economy the game has to have a set base price for each item that will never change. Then we need a drop scale system that works and is fair. GW's current drop scale is bogus and the drop ratio for a party of players is not fair either. So we need to have monsters READ how many players are in a group and drop each player an item, each item can be different or the same, the stats would be random, so some players might get perfects, some players might get the worst stats, but they can still sell to merchants for a good price instead of the unreasonable prices found in GW1.

GW items also need to be worth the price. I find it odd that items are not priced based on their effectiveness, rather they are based on the look. So In GW2, make item effectiveness (stats) count more than the appearance of the skins.

Elite armor has the same stats as cheapo max armor, yet they cost a ton more because they are considered better looking, yet items which are very important have no reasonable base price. Its like a bunch of friends got drunk, and created a game. then realized they messed up and decided to make another game sober. Yet they don't want to use any ideas from other games that have worked so well nor do they want to listen to the people who play the game MORE THAN THE DEVS DO.

Ncsoft/Anet needs to stop with the buisness motto of "we are making the game we want, and if you dont like it tough shiz!" and start making the game the fans want. The only problem with this is that most of the fans dont know what they want, or they think they want one thing then come to realize they were wrong.

Set a base price at the merchant , that the npc always buys the item for, then add variations to the items and add a drop scale system that is not totally random. And make the items better, 6-28 max dmg axe with lame conditions is not very good. I want items that show they are worth the money, or time spent to get them.

And stop with all the money sinks, it should not be so tedious to get our items and skills, If anet plans to do things as they did in gw1 i think they should remove money all together. Which is another discussion for another thread for another time.

That's exactly how it works in EVE, and nobody minds at all. I think it's great. The economy is nearly 100% player run, only a vanishingly small number of things are seeded/bought by NPCs (blueprints to build from and skill books mostly). Trading in the market is a whole game unto itself.

Thow in fixed prices at NPC merchants and suddenly it's not a player run economy anymore. Add no sink for the items and eventually everything will drop to the NPC price, BOOOOOOOOORING.

I'd really like to see no drop no trade elite unique gear as this really puts a damper on gold farmers as the majority of gold is bought to purchase these types of items. I never really liked the thing where this group goes out and gets the stuff and these lazy players just buy gold online and get to buy it. Of course there can still be collectors gear everyone can get that is max stat, but, worthless when it comes to the gold required to buy it from another player. Like try to sell some of the old collectable gear from Prophecies lol

And thats why Eve online is not nearly as big as other games, Some people probably hadnt even heard of it. If GW wants to become the same 3rd rate type of game, then it should by all means follow in those horrible footsteps.

Why do people want so much a game-in-the-game? IT sometimes feel as if they want to feel e-rich as a compensation of not being able to in RL. I can understand the joy of making a power-trade, but not of transforming an MMO into a virtual stock exchange.

You never played Sim City series Fril?

Awesome point.....I know lots of people that simply dont play the game.Instead they do nothing at all besides, trading,buying and selling in spamadan

GW2 weapon system and economy connected to it should be imho:

1. Independant from PvP balance limitations to allow certain imbalances and much larger variety of weapons/mods

2. Uncapped - Nothing like a Max weapon at all! So you can always hope for finding something actually better, even if just a tiny bit better.
It doesn't mean GW2 should be a gear grind based game, nonono, nothing like that. How about the most awesome rare phat l00t be just ~5-8% better than reasonably obtainable streamlined uniques?

3. Rarity should exist - Rarity is the key for having a healthy working economy. No building weapons with exact wanted stats from just common components - - weapon moddability should be there for adjusting weapons to work with your build or playstyle preferences, not as a way to turn ANY random junk drop into a Perrrrrfect, GW1 style.

4. Randomization - high degree of randomization of drops is needed for creating variety, not having anything become too common, not having every weapon being an exact copy of every other one (not counting the changeable mods). But randomization must be done wisely, should be enhanced, so you don't end with 99% useless bad items. Probabilities should be adjusted so bad combinations, mismatching mods, are less likely to appear, same with the mods themselves, the very niche ones should be much more rare than ones most wanted, but the higher values on them should be rare.

A great example, and one we already have in GW1 are:

*Staffs in Pre-Searing*

Yes, you heard it right.
They have as much as 5 inherent variable values +2 changeable mods.
%HSR, +Ene, Dmg, inherent magic modifier and Req.

Typical average purple staffs dropping from a level 10 charr boss will be like 12%/+7/9-13 or 13%/+6/8-12 and may have a HCT mod. The first 3 values can get higher but the chances for that are smaller and smaller, the highest they can get is 15%HSR, +8E, 10-16dmg but there haven't been any 1 staff known to drop with all 3 that high.
So it's practically a system with No Max - nobody will probably ever get a perfect one and there will be always a little something that can be better. It's also a system with randomization and true rarity, there's no way to make an average one perfect and there's really hard to find an exact copy of an above average one.

And this is a system economically far better than having easy and common perfectness - with no perfection realistically possible, all weapons can be just good, very good, or even better, there's no risk of breakdown, the market can't get filled completely, as there always can be a little different or better weapon there will always be demand for that.
There will always be valuable and very valuable weapons in that economy, even if some kind of extreme overfarm increased the supply 10 times it won't crash that economy! It would only move the quality bar up, because there's still a lot of room for that! Even if players suddenly would be able to farm 100x more efficiently this kind of economy would resist that!
... now compare that to the post world where every gold drop is inherently perfect, where even a little bit of overfarm cause perf golds to be worthless straight merchant food...

__
And 1 more thing: There should be player based crafting with certain dependancies so you can't do everything yourself, at least not in the best possible way. And a centralized trading solution...

Amen on that and my number one gripe about the entire game. It is now waayyy too easy to just buy a weaponsmith item and make it into a perfect anything. Please eliminate weaponsmiths except for standard unmoddable items and customizing. Make collectables more popular as resouces are useless if nobody needs them to get a weapon. And no easy roads to max gear anywhere in the game, no rides from newbieland to High Hold Pass to buy max gear at level 1 or 2. Put level restrictions on weapons and armor and other items. This wills stop the running and bypassing of content.