Anets response to the celestial sig problem

This is flawed reasoning at best. Sure they might be bad to begin with and won't significantly 'impact' the ladder, however with practice and constant refinement they will eventually become better.

You can't say this for HoH however because first you have to get there, and for a fledgling guild trying to constantly change tactics mid-stream to accomodate a 2v1 gang up or a guild that PvP's in it's sleep isn't so easy and can become very disheartning.

You have to at least give them a chance to improve their GvG skills before you outright dismiss them.

So you're saying that you want to remove rewards and treasure from the game, and that people should just recieve handouts? Should people just say 'oh, I have a guild, we should have a guild hall' and one should spring into existance - or should they have to actually, you know, spend time and effort to purchase one?

I'm saying that 100k is a wholly trivial amount of money for a guild to come up with for something as (seemingly) important as a guild hall. As far as I'm concerned, most of these guilds just want to use their hall as a status symbol - so why shouldn't they pay for it?


It isn't, I'm simply refuting the argument that somehow the ladder is lacking integrity because of the scarcity of guild halls.


I most certainly do understand mindless fun, and I partake in it at times. What I don't understand is people trying to pass off mindless fun as something difficult of competitive or whatever.


Not even close. I'm simply suggesting that guilds whining about their inability to afford a guild hall is more pathetic than sympathetic. Go and bitch about the price of 15k armor while you're at it.


Go and practice in tombs. They'll eke out a sigil long before they'd be relevant on the ladder.


When you first get to the hall, you're one of the two in the 2v1. It's a noticible advantage.

Losing to those teams holding the hall is how you get better at PvP. Look at their strategies, analyze them, find holes, and exploit them. Several players are already doing this and you can see the results when you play against them - I've seen all sorts of hate directed as us when we're holding the hall now, and it's making everyone better in the process.

The teams you see holding the hall of heroes are the same teams you're going to face in GvG, except they're going to be playing tighter, with their best players and more focused builds. Losing to them isn't supposed to be disheartening, but educational. But that's all in how you look at things.


Sure, I want to give teams every chance to show their PvP skill. Which is how the current system heavily works - before you end up on the *ranked* ladder, you need to improve yourself enough to be successful in the PvP tournament. Seems like a great system to me. The only catch is that access to the ladder goes through a guild hall which everyone wants as a vanity object...

Peace,
-CxE

The fact that Anet is even thinking about "fixing" this cracks me up. Guild Halls should be earned, either from winning in tombs as a team or earning 100k gold as a team. Hopefully they make it so 1 skill point can buy 3 skills, it's only fair.

To me it seems that many PvPers are being quite hypocritical. Spooky said it best, but I'll rehash it. PvPers cannot stand to have to play through the RP part of the game to get all their skills/runes/upgrades. We've heard the argument hundreds of times. But, when RPers complain about the difficulty of PvP Tombs/HoH/getting 100k, all of the sudden we deserve it, and we are considered lazy and not worthwhile if we cannot overcome the challenge. PvPers hold this over our head, almost to the effect of, "We have to do something we don't want to do, so you RPers will have to do something you don't want to do(HoH or collect 100k), it's only fair." Alright, that's fine. I don't want to hear anymore bitching about having to grind to get something you want. Evidently, grind is now ok. You guys should take your own advice then and consider all of the skills/upgrades as rewards which need to be worked for.

You guys can try and justify it any way you want. Sure, many guilds would suck if sigils were easily acquired, and it may not add much to the top of the guild ladder, but it is GUILD WARS, and many guilds would like to have this option available.

I honestly don't even care that much. I have my own guild with about 20 members. I've wanted to get a guild hall for the last couple weeks, but not bad enough to where I'm going to intentionally save up money only for that, especially to pay such a high price. The prices have been jumping so much lately, by the time you save up enough for the sigil the price has doubled. Plus, having several characters, and helping others in the guild quickly taps your funds for armor and runes.

I've been playing since release and I've logged about 200 hours between 2 characters around Droknar's and 2 lower level characters. I've played alot of PvP, mostly in arenas, and done well. I've only done tombs a couple times, in PUG's, which weren't that great. I would like to have a guild hall, but I guess I'm just not motivated enough, or maybe, I just don't deserve it.

Either way, advising us to start grinding to get what we want, is justifying the system most of you hate so much.

Oh my god you'll have to grind for one hour to buy a sigil, ya thats so much like the one hour it takes a PvE char to get through all the missions/locations, gain all the skills, and get some runes. Wait, that last part takes longer then an hour, 199 hours longer, crap forgot.

Show me any one person that can grind for an hour and get 100k and your post would make at least a tiny bit of sense. Otherwise, and even if, you're still advocating the same system that you're so obviously in love with.

"hypocritical?" Could you explain how that word applies? I'm scratching my head here, being a word person and not seeing its application at all to the preceding commentary.

Also, you most likely have a familiarity with the lore of the game. If you do, then you know that "Guild Wars" doesn't really refer to Guild versus Guild battles.

I have xxxk right now in gold and I refuse to buy a sigil. I earned my own way through ascension, through missions, through rune farming and grinding and experimenting with pvp builds. I want to earn the sigil as well. The only problem is that I don't have a guild capable of doing so at this particular moment because our friends are more casual players that work full time.

Personally though I am not very fond of the current format of the HoH. The purpose of the priest and hero are to add to strategy but their AI suck so tremendously that they barely factor into the gameplay at all. The low, monotonous voice of the hero and the long, boring, rez-heal-fest fights generally lead to a PvP experience that I find less pleasant than even the random arena.

I really wish the PvP system would be more energized and more of a free for all like the gladiator arena is, rather than the sort of boring and predictable test of endurance that it is at the moment. The guild ladder and so on is nice, but no one really even cares at the moment. People are judging PvP by the Hall of Heroes, and people are frustrated with it as well. At least I am.

I meant as a guild, if a guild can't get that tiny amount of money in an hour, then you do not deserve a Guild Hall.

LOL - people - I think your fears of the sigil price not being lowered by the newest update are all out of place.
GW economy, like any "WORLD economy" (no matter if virtual or real), works in the same way. If there are more sigils, their prices will drop. It may take a bit of time, but eventually they will. And there are more and more good guilds that will be able to take on the HoH. Remember - not all people were alpha/beta testers - for them GW is a very young game. As time will pass the prices will stabilise naturally. I mean - think of the fur prices before and after the update. Before the scarcity fix furs were sold for like 600gp - now they are sold for around 200gp (I sell them for that much - usually 150gp in larger trades). The very same thing will happen to sigils. I see their price dropping to around 30-40K which is a reasonable price for any bigger guild (Heck! Even the 8-person guild I'm in could afford that easily!).

And things like that:
http://www.rpgtraders.net/guildwars/...m?tradeid=7719
http://www.rpgtraders.net/guildwars/...m?tradeid=6433

will hopefully disappear. ;-)

By the way: PvP is like the most important aspect of GW. Why do you want to keep the ladder so elite? Eventually there should be LOTS of guilds in the ladder - n00b guilds, experienced guilds, good guilds, bad guilds - it's the only chance for GW to have a lasting appeal. I mean - if the same guilds will keep fighting the very same other guilds for months just because no one is willing to sell a sigil for a lower price, then GW will become boring.

Nevertheless: There are still ways to obtain a sigil. I treat the HoH as an ultimate guild-test. Win it, and you deserve your sigil, lose it and you most likely aren't ready for GvG. The 100K are of course not hard to get by - I could buy a sigil at any time if my guildmates made some contributions, but I still find the price not right.

The best solution for the sigil problem would be IMHO making the sigils unbuyable and unsellable but make them a reward for some difficult-as-hell PvE mission as well. Then the PvPs and the PvEs would both have their fun.

- PvE guilds: you want a meeting ? do it in an EA or go to district 71 of Droknar's Forge. If you can't get 100k then you don't deserve one either.
- crappy PvP guilds: if you can't win the HoH then you don't deserve to be able to obtain a Sigil. Keep trying until you have a strategy that works
- good PvP guilds: nothing to say, good job and keep selling them Sigils

That's basically what it sums down to, ANet is once again favoring PvEers.

I, like you Stur am awed by the stunning examples of narrowmindedness and selfcentered opinion that inundates theese threads at times.

You took the words right out of my mouth. I enjoy playing PvE. The settings are beautiful, the combinations fun to experiment with, and (some of) the people enjoyable to talk to. I'll try PvP eventually, but for now I like enjoying the game at a less than breakneck pace.

I don't particularly appreciate the stigma that PvE-ers appear to be getting. We're not all bumbling idiots, incompetent beyond reason and unable to learn the game as quickly or as thoroughly as the almighty PvP gods. This is a game to me; not a lifestyle, and not a career. So let's chill out with the insults, ok?

I am playing strictly PvE to fully experience the story and the world. Before I knew that you needed to PvE to unlock PvP skills, I had decided that I would go through this game, not rushing, just enjoying the sights and storylines and basically breathing the world in and getting the most out of all the work that went into the PvE aspect. I knew that if I jumped into PvP and got hooked that I would have a hard time convincing myself to go back to PvE. To me, PvP is the cherry on top, I am saving it for last, after I have fully enjoyed the rest of the delicious treat that Guild Wars is. When that time comes, I will be assembling a team of close friends and the promising people I have met in PvE and we will begin PvP in earnest.

Ensign: I may have misread, or misunderstood, but it seems to me anyway that you are trying to say that any guild that hasn't had good runs in PvP so far will never amount to much in PvP terms. I find that a laughable notion.

There are 2 aspects of GW - PvE and PvP - both require skill and patience. Why don't we just accept the fact, that they should be treated equally?

Too bad arena.net didn't put that on the box when everyone bought the game, would have saved alot of people time and money...

I'm in a fun guild and we have a guild hall, but this thread is depressing. Who put you in charge to determine who is and who isn't significant enough to "deserve" a guild hall?

I hope they just start selling the things for 20k so everyone can enjoy GvG whether some pompous player feels they are deserving or not.

Any idea when these changes will be implemented? My guild has 60K saved up, should we wait for these changes for the price to go down and focus on improving ourselves or go for more money?

-Boran

I've got 70k saved up myself, not counting any guildy help, and I am going to wait. Even though I feel the fix won't really fix anything, I am happy to wait and see. I've waited this long, I can wait some more. Plenty of things for me to do yet.

As a player who bought a guild hall, 55k was not too much to pay for it, I didnt have anything else to do with the money at the end of the game anyway.

As a player whose interested in the overall game play, I would make these changes:
1) Sigils are customized for the leader of whatever team wins.
2) Sigils are not sold on traders
3) There are rewards for being good in GvG, top guild gets +10%, top 25 get +8%, top 50 get +6%, Top 100 get +4%, Top 200 get +2%, Thats permanent stats for PVP and PVE. Keep the +10% max in place though.

Oh and for all players in all guilds top 50, all locked items should be immediately unlocked, lvl 1, 2, and 3.

Were all these changes implemented, yes I would give back my vanity guild hall, not like the 55k would be a loss anyway, and I never farm $.

Tsunamii Starshine

And PVP does? Co-Operation is the big part of the game... period. There is no 1 vs. 1 PVP in GW at this time. I've done both, do both... and the same skill, patience and co-operation seems to be good for BOTH.

Wise words.

Btw. The attribute boost award would be a major imbalance to the game. The best guilds would get even better? LOL! No one could dethronise them! Rather give them a handicap. :-P

Mmm hmm... yeah... go play in the Fissure or the Underworld for a while. No skill there = swift total party death. Hell down there 7 out of 8 people in your party can be very skilled, and have 1 jackass get everyone killed.

Actually in PvE you more often than not have to make builds similar to PvP and use them in a similar manner. I'm not talking about mid-game-fights, but the rally hard parts like the Fissure and the Underworld.

The creeps may not be smart, but what they lack in intelligence, they make up with pure firepower (like most Ele players - huh - I didn't say that ;-) and insane HPs/attributes.

P.S. And heck, I enjoy PvP more than PvE - it's just not the case, that you don't have to do anything to be good at it.

And good guilds - LOL - you contradict yourself - so you HAVE to be good to play the hard parts of the PvE, don't you? It's also the good guilds that win in PvP - where's the difference? Where's your point?

PvE is not about "accomplishing" something. It's about fun. If your so competitive and do nothing for fun, then let at least others have their fun.

Well why not? I can't see a very compelling reason for guild halls not being automatic on creation of a guild. There are no rewards in any meaningful way, this is a game not real life. There is no objective measure of reward in this there's only entertainment/fun or a lack thereof and most people don't seem to find the current system fun so why not change it?

And this doesn't sound very different from the arguement that PvP chars should have all skills unlocked. Shouldn't people have to "earn" skills and runes?

It might be a trivial amount for leet PvPers or for max size guilds but for a small guild who has to farm for gold, 100k seems like a lot of work for a fairly fundamental part of PvP.

Anyway my problem isn't really the amount although it seems to be a perfect example of price-gouging. It's the fact that entrance to a major part of PvP play is being controlled by a small handful of players and e-bay auctioners. HoH is poor design on the part of Anet, it's too easy for the best players to hold onto it and thereby create a near if not total monoply on Sigils, the fact that sigils are being sold on ebay shows how Anet have caused the very same problem with the in-game economy most MMORPGs suffer from and that Guild Wars was supposed to avoid.

To be fair to Anet it was probably an oversight based on the presumption that guilds would win the HoH get their Guild Hall and move on providing a "test" for guilds entering the ladder but that there would be enough sigils floating around to stock the trader and keep those who only want to PvE happy. Instead before a guild can get into the ladder they're forced to farm for hours or try to beat some of the best teams in the game, hardly a fair challenge for even moderately skilled teams.

I don't think anybody is. What people are objecting to is that their fun is being reduced or limited mostly by a handful of guilds and players who are being allowed to dictate terms to other players, they don't want to spoil anyone elses fun they merely want the power to ruin other's to be taken away from players who seem quite willing to use greed and competitiveness as an excuse to stop people from accessing parts of the game until they meet an arbitrary set of requirements.

As opposed to some people who whine about having to get elites and runes? Why pathetic? What's pathetic about wanting to access advertised parts of a game that are being controlled by a small group of childish PvPers. They are not asking for you to give them Sigils out of sympathy they're asking for the ability to manipulate the supply of sigils to be taken from you.

I don't have a problem with the 15k armours because they are a purely vanity item, guild halls are not. This is not a personal issue for me ,I already have a sigil. I'm looking at this from the point of view of poor design and allowing better players to dictate terms to other players is poor design, it's really no different from high level characters killing new players in MMORPGs for no purpose other than the childish desire to make the new players game that little bit more difficult.

Blackace, out of curiosity, how much PvE have you played?

LathalDraugr: Wonderful post! You read my mind!

Games are about FUN more than about anything else. And besides - if all you 1337-PvPs (OK - I'm a PvP player, too - I just never intended to dedicate my life to being the absolutely best) say that PvP is the REAL thing, then why do you want to make it so hard for other players to share the fun (e.g. by selling sigils for 100K+)? Huh? Want all for yourself, don't you?

The dark side of human nature always prevails and selfishness seems to be the leitmotiv of most of us. What a sad world. Virtual worlds give us the chance to build a new, better society and still we only end up with a bunch of power-craving idiots who think that they are better than anybody else and turn the would-be utopia into an anti-utopia.

P.S. It's even sadder that after ALL that ANet has done to PREVENT players from taking control over the GW world they have still failed. Isn't the HoH, the Sigils, the runes, the Dragon Swords and the like exactly the equivalent of boss-spawn-camping a-holes in other games? It certainly is.

You bring nothing constructive to the conversation; you just like trying to get a rise out of people, and to see how many flames you can start. Unfortunately you’re obviously really good at it or you wouldn’t be here anymore, but I will personally make a note not to bother reading your insults to the rest of us unworthy gamers. I apologize on the behalf of the rest of us for not living up to your uberness.

So, you got right up to where it starts to get good, and then what? Switched to PvP? Just as I cannot make any reasonable comments on PvP, I say if you haven't beaten PvE (without riding anyone's coattails, either) you are talking out of your ass when you say it requires no skill.

Don't you freaking understand that some people think that everybody can shove their "skill" up where the sun doesn't shine?
I'm sick of hearing about "skill" in every game from 14-year-old nerds (I'm not referring to you, Blackace - you can strike the "14-year-old" part ^^). I want to have FUN, not to have "skill" - besides - what do you get for your "skill"? Nothing besides fame in a virtual world.

I have a good job, a loving girlfriend and am studying at University in the meantime - that's what I call "skill" - not fighting monsters, other players or whatsoever in a game. Get a life, freak!

P.S. Ah! Now I see your problem Blackace. I don't think I should continue our puny little arguement as it's pointless to argue with a guy who writes something like this in his forum-profile:

"Occupation:
Ruler of the Universe"

And everything starts to become clear. It's not about GW, it's about your ego, which is way too big. ;-)

Well said my friend, well said.

You didn't get my point: what makes up a loser and a nerd is being good at playing a game and becoming so arrogant as to ruin other people's fun.

Nothing - besides the fact that the meaning of the word "skill" has shifted so much recently, that I'd love to throw it out of the English language. :-P

Wow, sounds like you bought the wrong game, considering the word "skill" is all over their marketing material and every official description of the game. As for what it gets you, well that depends on what progresses. Bear in mind that there has already been one paid tournament in Korea, ($30,000 for the top team) that NCSoft held. I say the prospects for skill look pretty damn good.

As for fun, well that all depends on the individual doesn't it?

Alpha runs do not count. The game has changed far too much since then.

OK - we're going in circles here.

Let's get some things straight:
- I like PvP
- I like PvE
- I think that PvE isn't much easier than PvP, but requires a different approach - it's even harder if you're trying to coordinate a random party and not an organised guild-party
- I like some social aspects of MMORPGs, like guilds, who should be able to meet in some places (like Guild Halls) even if it were only for chatting
- I don't think less of people who are good at games - I admire their questing to get better and better, but at the same time I hate it when this attitude leads to somebody thinking that he is now the "Master of the Universe" or sth. - modesty is what I seek in a person
- I don't like the elitist-thinking of some people - that is that a game should be only for professionals and n00bs are only there to be laughed at - if you want to boast with your uber-skill, then go to Korea and take part in the tournament, but let others have their fun - people still play tennis and yet not everybody is a pr0 - have you ever seen Roger Federer laugh about somebody because he has less skill? THAT'S what makes up a good player - in any game - an a-hole with a great amount of skill is just an a-hole with skill - I would never call him a good player no matter how often he would win.

I know because a buddy of mine is an Alpha, and he has told me about it.

BTW WTF is NDA?

You're not 1337 enough to understand it. It's 1337-speak. ^^

Maybe the National Dart Association?

P.S. Hmmm - I think we were debating the prices of Sigils in this thread, weren't we? Well - to get back to this topic:

Because of all the reasons I've listed here I find that:

- the game should be fun to EVERYBODY, not only skilled players
- the skilled players can have their competitions, tournaments and prizes, but that shouldn't influence the fun other players want to have (and the sigil price and their scarcity IS afflicting the fun of the game)
- the game shouldn't be constructed in a way, which allows skilled players to spoil the fun of the unskilled ones - by that I don't mean beating them in PvP - that's all too natural - I mean sth. like hoarding Sigils and Uber Items to sell them for unreal prices - that's how you can spoil other people's fun indirectly

NDA = Non Disclosure Agreement, a contract that binds you to not talk about items covered by the agreement.

Also, the closed testing continued to release date, its not really accurate to call it an Alpha, but that was the term that Arena.net used. I would say that either you or your buddy are out in left field.

Ahh.. good thing I didn't post his name then huh? LOL

It's quite obvious which are the haves and have nots in these forums.

The sigil economy is beyond broken, it's lame as well. For those of you - "just go and collect 100K, it doesn't take that long" are ignorant and are using stupid arguments to justify their own egotistical attitudes.

The game hasn't even been out a month, and in that time frame the price of a sigil has gone from a coupld of K in gold, to 15K, then to 30, then 35-40, and skyrocketed to 100K - and there isn't any reason to believe that unless AN FIXES this, the price will continue to climb out of reach. All of this due to the greed of a relatively few players that want to maintain their stupid ladder position.

Just what does it matter to a top guild how many "average" guilds there are? If the price of a sigil suddenly plummets to 1k, what possible repercussions would there be that would threaten a top guild's position? How about none? So what if the ladder has a large group of average guilds? How does that impact you, the uber-elite jerks?

It doesn't. So what if you have to spend 2 minutes beating up some poor guild that has the audacity to challenge you? Is your time so precious that you can't be trifled with defending your spot to anyone outside of the top few teams?

It means nothing, except in ego and greed, to have a select few people within the game dictating to the rest of the unwashed masses how THEY get to enjoy themselves.

AN needs to fix this problem, before it gets even worse. Thank God there is a limit of 100K any single person can have on their person at any given time, but I'm sure the jerks at the top will find some way to circumvent this to get even more for a stupid single item. AN trumpets the lack of a monthly subscription fee - little did anyone know that this would be replaced by player driven economics.

Well - if you want to be understood by your readers, then you shouldn't post abbreviations if you don't give a clear context to allow them to be understood. In the internet language you can find thousands of abbreviations so it's only natural to assume that in this very speech act your referring to one of those.

This isn't a good contextual sentence, is it? If think that NDA is so clear, then check this out:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-quer...=NDA&Find=Find

My advice: don't use abbreviations if you don't give the full name first or if you can't give a context, which would hint at the right meaning.

P.S. Mimi Miyagi: Exactly! If people claim that PvP is the best part of the game, then it shouldn't be so difficult to particpate in it. I mean - you don't have to BUY a map in Counter-Strike to play against your opponents, do you? =) There are thousands of lame clans in that game, but the best remain the best without bringing other people down - they aren't hated dictators but true role models for the worse players. If in GW I were to aspire to a guild, which wants to be the best just to sell Sigils for 100K, then I would surly quit it in no time.