Simple Questions Thread

[sachiel]

4 dungeons will net you a gold. More for ac I believe. If I don't have DR going I can net about 5 yellows every few hours in cursed shore. At 15 silver each or more if I get lucky with ectos.

I clear 1.5-2 gp after 3 paths of AC explore mode at level 80 that takes me about 2 hours.  The end reward is 26s and 60 dungeon tokens, but that doesn't factor in mob money drops and vendoring all the greens/blues from each run, and I'd guess I have about 15 things to vendor per run and many whites to salvage.  

Zetor: craft your exotic set(s) already and join the 3 gold 4 lyfe club.  The cost jump from rare -> exotic 80 gear is steep (but worth it).

[Ingmar]

These gold/hour rates you guys get are depressingly low in the context of how much stuff costs on the TP.

[sachiel]

These gold/hour rates you guys get are depressingly low in the context of how much stuff costs on the TP.

I guess, but also factor the tokens?  Both Selma and I are wearing and using AC farmed armor (full set PVT) and weapons (her: axe, sword, shield, longbow / me: dagger, dagger).  The gold I made I used to craft the jewelry between us and buy runes/sigils for the weapons.  I feel like we're comfortable and don't feel like it was an excruciating grind for what I see as "finished" gear.  I don't feel the need to change/upgrade anything on either of our characters.  My next step would be to craft power/prec/crit jewelry for situational swapping for each character or just fuck around on gearing alts.  Yeah, I guess getting a second job to pay-to-win would be more sensible, but I enjoyed the "grind."

{EDIT} Let's say you could buy PVT armor on the TP, and it costs 2.1 gp which is what berserker lvl 80 exotic is at right now.  After those 3 AC runs, you can afford a pair of gloves, so tack that onto the converted gp total.

[Threash]

The gold is basically the only thing keeping me from even going for a legendary atm, it just takes too long to get anywhere.

[Ingmar]

These gold/hour rates you guys get are depressingly low in the context of how much stuff costs on the TP.

I guess, but also factor the tokens?  Both Selma and I are wearing and using AC farmed armor (full set PTV) and weapons (her: axe, sword, shield, longbow / me: dagger, dagger).  The gold I made I used to craft the jewelry between us and buy runes/sigils for the weapons.  I feel like we're comfortable and don't feel like it was an excruciating grind for what I see as "finished" gear.  I don't feel the need to change/upgrade anything on either of our characters.  My next step would be to craft power/prec/crit jewelry for situational swapping for each character or just fuck around on gearing alts.  Yeah, I guess getting a second job to pay-to-win would be more sensible, but I enjoyed the "grind."

You've put how many dozens of hours into dungeon runs, though?

When you compare the cost of capping your gear for WvW to say the cost of capping your important stats for DAOC RVR at 50, which is how I tend to think about it, they're not remotely comparable, the grind here is far worse. A couple nights in Darkness Falls and sell your seals to a hinger and you could get your 99% SC suit and go. (The leveling part is much better though obviously.)

[sachiel]

Many runs, lol.

DAOC was a non-factor though with your epic armor being pretty well handed to you when you dinged 50 if you did the pre-reqs while leveling.  And yes, the level grind in daoc is incomparable, and something I factored into when dungeoning in GW2.  Hitting 80 was cake, so if I have to grind a bit to finish my armor, I had no problems with it.  Time spent in game is probably pretty equivalent at that point.

[Sky]

I am quite sure you know this, but you can send all your crafting mats to the bank with just a single click. I've never filled my inventory (I have 10 slot bags and didn't buy any extra slots) and I carry around pretty much a full set of various weapons in the last bag. I've never "filled" my inventory.

I do know that. I finally ditched my extra set of weapons and I have a couple ten and a 12 slot box. Just looting through a DE chain will come close filling my entire inventory. Then I have to stop during the DE and break down the cloth/leather stuff, and right now I'm even breaking down the metals because steel is pita tier. And even that's after giving up on leveling anyone but my armor guy and my cook (but that's more a bank thing). Anyway. It fills up quick, and it's total nonsense once I run our of salvage kits (I carry three).

[Threash]

These gold/hour rates you guys get are depressingly low in the context of how much stuff costs on the TP.

I guess, but also factor the tokens?  Both Selma and I are wearing and using AC farmed armor (full set PTV) and weapons (her: axe, sword, shield, longbow / me: dagger, dagger).  The gold I made I used to craft the jewelry between us and buy runes/sigils for the weapons.  I feel like we're comfortable and don't feel like it was an excruciating grind for what I see as "finished" gear.  I don't feel the need to change/upgrade anything on either of our characters.  My next step would be to craft power/prec/crit jewelry for situational swapping for each character or just fuck around on gearing alts.  Yeah, I guess getting a second job to pay-to-win would be more sensible, but I enjoyed the "grind."

You've put how many dozens of hours into dungeon runs, though?

When you compare the cost of capping your gear for WvW to say the cost of capping your important stats for DAOC RVR at 50, which is how I tend to think about it, they're not remotely comparable, the grind here is far worse. A couple nights in Darkness Falls and sell your seals to a hinger and you could get your 99% SC suit and go. (The leveling part is much better though obviously.)

The grind for one set of gear is not really all that bad.  Full exotics should not cost you over 20 gold or so, maybe more than a couple nights of farming but not very much so.

[Ingmar]

Last I checked I was at ~15 gold just for the rune set I want.

[Threash]

Ouch, mine were like a gold each.

[Tmon]

My secret to raising money while skipping dungeons  is to not craft.  I tried cook for a while but it got old and the damn sub components were killing my bank.  So now I gather everything I see and on Friday evening I sell everything on the TP that I can, if it isn't going for at least triple the vendor price I sit on it till it is or I vendor it when I get a full stack.  I'm not rich, but I always have cash on hand for the stuff I want and I've bought a couple thousand gems with the excess.

[rk47]

These gold/hour rates you guys get are depressingly low in the context of how much stuff costs on the TP.

You dismiss the chests? Blues, Greens, Yellows.
I usually sell off the blues, then combine the 4 green for a chance to yellow at Mystic Forge.

Eh, last night I got home and was planning to level my Engineer, only to get sidetracked by 5 Citadel of Flame runs, and Circle of Eternity.
When I'm done with all that, it's past midnight.

Shit.  I'm never going to get my alts going at this rate. But the daily tokens earned by your primary can still be used for your alts too. So yeah, it's worth it imo.

[rk47]

My secret to raising money while skipping dungeons  is to not craft.  I tried cook for a while but it got old and the damn sub components were killing my bank.  So now I gather everything I see and on Friday evening I sell everything on the TP that I can, if it isn't going for at least triple the vendor price I sit on it till it is or I vendor it when I get a full stack.  I'm not rich, but I always have cash on hand for the stuff I want and I've bought a couple thousand gems with the excess.

The food buffs are good. And the amount of gold spent to level it to 350ish is pretty low when I followed a guide(I recall I spent around less than 5g to do that by using what I have and going TP for lacking stuff) but yes, other crafting seems excessive in comparison.

And I'm not planning for Legendary. It's a stupid moneysink.

[Tmon]

I buy food off the tp, most folks are selling it at or below cost of materials.

[Venkman]

I blew a lot of gold early on in crafting. But I ditched that for awhile because the drops were good enough for my playstyle (largely PvE solo/story unless I'm near a DE or happen to hear about a dragon). I haven't spent a dime in real world money, though I'm tempted just to help keep them funded.

Once I only crafted until I ran out of rares, money started picking up again. But I kinda don't care. I never feel like I'm competing with anyone, in the typical gear arms race, being able to re-color has gone a long way to helping me not care about what my armor looks like. And while I did move to JQ to link up with folks and in the hope of someday WvW'ing, I just haven't finished the dozen other things I want to do first 

Stalling crafting also did help with inventory issues. I am comfortable. Got enough 18 slotters going I never run, I can very quickly salvage stuff, and while I gather all the wood and ore I find, I AH about half of it, and don't plants.

But then, like with so many other MMOs, I play like an addict but really only think like a casual. 

[sachiel]

I blew a lot of gold early on in crafting. But I ditched that for awhile because the drops were good enough for my playstyle (largely PvE solo/story unless I'm near a DE or happen to hear about a dragon). I haven't spent a dime in real world money, though I'm tempted just to help keep them funded.

Once I only crafted until I ran out of rares, money started picking up again. But I kinda don't care. I never feel like I'm competing with anyone, in the typical gear arms race, being able to re-color has gone a long way to helping me not care about what my armor looks like. And while I did move to JQ to link up with folks and in the hope of someday WvW'ing, I just haven't finished the dozen other things I want to do first 

Stalling crafting also did help with inventory issues. I am comfortable. Got enough 18 slotters going I never run, I can very quickly salvage stuff, and while I gather all the wood and ore I find, I AH about half of it, and don't plants.

But then, like with so many other MMOs, I play like an addict but really only think like a casual. 

I'm going to blow some money for the gem store halloween shit.  I'm loving this.

[Tmon]

I bought a five key pack and opened up 5 of my stockpiled black lion chests and lucked into a greatsaw skin.  I'm going to TP it tonight, it should fund a few more gem store purchases.

[murdoc]

I bought a five key pack and opened up 5 of my stockpiled black lion chests and lucked into a greatsaw skin.  I'm going to TP it tonight, it should fund a few more gem store purchases.

I'd hang onto that bad boy until at least the end of the event when they're no longer available.

[tazelbain]

Fuck, The Crossing is at least 10g in wine and who knows what else.

[Lantyssa]

Also don't buy gems with gold right now.  The exchange rate keeps getting worse and worse.

[Ingmar]

As it should!

[Threash]

Also don't buy gems with gold right now.  The exchange rate keeps getting worse and worse.

You are assuming the rate will get better, i don't see how.  Gems have been dirt cheap until now.

[Ingmar]

The cost of just the buyable-on-the-TP bits of a legendary weapon were hovering around $1000 USD with the prior exchange rate. There's just no way that was going to be sustained.

[tazelbain]

Given the massive difference between A.net price and the gold sellers price plus the complete opac natural of the a.net system, I have no confidence in the fairness of the gem price. I have no intention of using it. I want to but I can't trust it.  If it was like PLEX, I would be buying gold.

[Threash]

I doubt gem prices are ever coming down, if you have any interest in them at all you should be buying as much as possible before they go any higher.

[Phred]

That sounds like pretty much exactly what I do, minus the dungeon runs. I haven't finished the personal story yet quite, and I have ~4 zones to my 100% but they're all level 25 and lower.

Is there anywhere that keeps track of the zones you have 100% on or do you need to keep notes? I'm kind of disappointed the world map doesn't allow a better focus in on zones to get that info.

[Lantyssa]

Gem prices will go down after the holiday events.  They may not reach 250 gems : 1 gp, but they will go down.

[Ingmar]

They're still going to trend upward. It will approach sanity when it hits 1g:100 someday.

[Venkman]

Wasn't worth its own thread:

Timer on the 3 Dragons

[rk47]

They're still going to trend upward. It will approach sanity when it hits 1g:100 someday.

xmas time will get worse.. guildies are buying gold every week to WvW and equip 'shinies'
i'm not sure if this is arena.net's intent... but really, no one is going to buy legit gold at this rate.

[Phred]

They're still going to trend upward. It will approach sanity when it hits 1g:100 someday.

xmas time will get worse.. guildies are buying gold every week to WvW and equip 'shinies'
i'm not sure if this is arena.net's intent... but really, no one is going to buy legit gold at this rate.

Gem prices are down to approx 1/2 what they were at peak last week.

[Ingmar]

They're still going to trend upward. It will approach sanity when it hits 1g:100 someday.

xmas time will get worse.. guildies are buying gold every week to WvW and equip 'shinies'
i'm not sure if this is arena.net's intent... but really, no one is going to buy legit gold at this rate.

Gem prices are down to approx 1/2 what they were at peak last week.

As of last night they were at like 60s with a past week peak of 79 or so, unless I am very much mistaken. They dropped that far overnight?

[March]

Question: What should I expect from these developers in terms of new weapons or weapon mechanics fixes/changes?  I don't know how to explain it, but I'm getting frustrated by weapon kits that sort of work, but sort of don't.  If I can expect regular weapon ability sweeps, I could live with that, or if I can expect an influx of new weapons to cover the ones that don't work so well, I could live with that too.  What was the MO for GW1?

With only 5 buttons to push per set, it bugs me that one ability is a dog or doesn't mesh with the class or role or flow of play -- much more so than a traditional MMO where I have more abilities than I can manage.

[Ingmar]

GW1 didn't really use the same system so I don't think we can draw any conclusions from that. They might add new weapons in an expansion or something I guess.

[Tannhauser]

Well, with two weapon sets, you can swap during combat and use up to 15 skills.  That said, there are Thief skills I hardly use; skill #5 of the dual daggers set for one.