Originally posted by Popori 

Explain to me when you plan to be alone for all this?  That isn't how WvW works.  You won't be able to take a point solo so no one will try to attack you solo.  You will fight groups, groups will counter your solo defense easily.  If we're talking theoreticals, you could be sitting at a ballista at your newly aquired supply point and I could hit you with a trebuchet from three times your range.

No one will attack a keep or supply point you overly defend.  They will either camp you inside your hidey hole while they take over the rest of the map, or ignore you completely.  Yes you can do it, no it doesn't serve a purpose.  People were not playing the game to win.  If you and six others decided to camp a keep I wanted to take, I would rally my guys, buy a catapult or trebuchet, and take down the wall away from your defenses.  There is no defensive siege that can match the max range of offensive siege.  Once the walls are compromised your game of 6v50 is over.

Again, you're claiming inbalance based off what is possible, not what is logical.  Everything you claim to be able to do because you can afford it can be affordably trumped without gem store gold.  You have no catchall from buying gold.  It guarantees you no victory.  If 50 people are dumb enough to let you hold them off, thats not an advantage of money, thats an advantage of wit.

You keep missing the point and go back to P2W.

I never stated P2W. I stated that buying gems at launch gives me a substantial advantage in WvWvW. This advantage gives me the potential to have a big impact on WvWvW. Way more than someone who doesn't.

I upgraded our supply by myself. I didn't need a group to do this. I upgraded walls got and got extra workers. Most people in WvWvW will not be able to afford this for awhile. They might be able to pay for one upgrade and not be able to pay for another for hours. I can keep upgrading any objective we have on the map. This alone is huge advantage.

It isn't a solo game, however we can measure the impact each player has and their potential impact. With Gems mine will be higher than someone without gems at launch.

It seems like this is an arguement against gold influence on WvW rather than the game being P2W.

Firstly, WvW is intended to be imbalanced

Secondly, all gold is generated ingame...so it all already exists.

Third, supply is required to make things...supply can not be bought with real money.

Next, the money earned at later levels should make it easier to make things in WvW

Lastly, within 2 weeks, servers are re-matched up based on their strength.

My question is this: would you be ok with a player who farmed 1000g to win in WvW? If so, then how are you going to tell the difference between a farmer and someone who paid after the game has been out for a month or so?

So, you loaded up your castles defense and still failed to take a keep and the game is now "pay to win"? Also, people can make 100's of gold just playing the auction house, you don't even have to buy gems. People that "can't" will buy gems to make the money they want. People that "can" will make in-game money and buy the gems. I don't see where the issue is. You can call it "buy to win" but it still comes down to OTHER PLAYERS buying gems from OTHER PLAYERS. If that doesn't happen, then the game isn't "buy to win".

The only issue I see is that dying in WvW probably shouldn't give you such a large repair bill, if one at all. Personally, I think having money sinks due to losing is a bad idea to begin with.

You were obviously very low level if that is all the money you made. I always made money in WvW. Sure, someone could get a bunch of gems and get money for them. However, doing this will also increase the supply of gems on the market. Thus lowering the amount they will sell for. If no one is buying the gems, then no one is making in game money.

Also, I believe the market is across ALL servers, not just one. So supply and demand is going to play a huge role with that many people playing in the economy.

Basically, you state the game is "buy to win", yet you have zero proof of how that person actually bought those things in game. They could have definitely made it all through in-game means, and playing the auction house. I know people that made over 100g just playing the AH during the past few events. It is all just wild assumptions with zero fact to back it up. Nice try though, I personally didn't see any of these issues. The largest determining factor in WvW seems to be population and positioning and strategy.

And as others have said, WvWvW was never meant to be balanced. It can't be due to populations. It is there for that epic PvP feeling.

Originally posted by terrant

Here's the problem Atlan. There's nothing you can do buy buying tons and tons of gold that I can't do earning it naturally. The costs of any of the items that require gold simply are not that high.

Upgrades cost more than blueprint in general. I also assume you intend to make that money through PvE. Which means I'm still having an impact in WvWvW while you are farming the money to be able to do so.

MAYBE for the first 1-2 phases of WvW, it would make a difference. I'll bow to you there. But once a decent number of players can make a couple gold an hour (hell, even 20 silver an hour or so) or more just logging in and goofing around, then the advantage of the goldbuyer becomes nil.

I've stated several times that the advantage would be at launch. This is obvious from taking part in the BWE. How long it takes for this advantage  to go away is hard to say. However even 20 silver an hour. It would take you 2 hours to be able to afford some of the bottom upgrades.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Popori 

Explain to me when you plan to be alone for all this?  That isn't how WvW works.  You won't be able to take a point solo so no one will try to attack you solo.  You will fight groups, groups will counter your solo defense easily.  If we're talking theoreticals, you could be sitting at a ballista at your newly aquired supply point and I could hit you with a trebuchet from three times your range.

No one will attack a keep or supply point you overly defend.  They will either camp you inside your hidey hole while they take over the rest of the map, or ignore you completely.  Yes you can do it, no it doesn't serve a purpose.  People were not playing the game to win.  If you and six others decided to camp a keep I wanted to take, I would rally my guys, buy a catapult or trebuchet, and take down the wall away from your defenses.  There is no defensive siege that can match the max range of offensive siege.  Once the walls are compromised your game of 6v50 is over.

Again, you're claiming inbalance based off what is possible, not what is logical.  Everything you claim to be able to do because you can afford it can be affordably trumped without gem store gold.  You have no catchall from buying gold.  It guarantees you no victory.  If 50 people are dumb enough to let you hold them off, thats not an advantage of money, thats an advantage of wit.

You keep missing the point and go back to P2W.

I never stated P2W. I stated that buying gems at launch gives me a substantial advantage in WvWvW. This advantage gives me the potential to have a big impact on WvWvW. Way more than someone who doesn't.

I upgraded our supply by myself. I didn't need a group to do this. I upgraded walls got and got extra workers. Most people in WvWvW will not be able to afford this for awhile. They might be able to pay for one upgrade and not be able to pay for another for hours. I can keep upgrading any objective we have on the map. This alone is huge advantage.

It isn't a solo game, however we can measure the impact each player has and their potential impact. With Gems mine will be higher than someone without gems at launch.

No, you're missing the point.  It takes supply and gold to upgrade a keep.  You can fund it yourself, sure, but if your team can't keep supply going to it, you won't be able to get far.  I'm not going back to P2W because that's not what I'm trying to discuss.  I'm discussing that gold doesn't give any advantage that isn't able to be overcome.  Having extra money does not guarantee that you will do better.  Upgrading a keep's walls takes about 150supply, thats most of a keep's internal stock, so unless you can hold the supply camps around it to restock, thats all you get.  That's assuming you don't build any defensive siege weapons, which will cost more, and that no one takes supply from the keep, which subtracts from the total.

There are NO one man shows in WvW unless you're hiding in the ass end of nowhere for hours being useless to your team......to help your team.

Edit:  And holding a single keep doesn't amount to many points in the grand scheme.  There are plenty of other points that you won't be at that the enemies can capture to surpass your point total and win.  Holding a certain objective forever doesn't mean you're winning.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Popori 

Explain to me when you plan to be alone for all this?  That isn't how WvW works.  You won't be able to take a point solo so no one will try to attack you solo.  You will fight groups, groups will counter your solo defense easily.  If we're talking theoreticals, you could be sitting at a ballista at your newly aquired supply point and I could hit you with a trebuchet from three times your range.

No one will attack a keep or supply point you overly defend.  They will either camp you inside your hidey hole while they take over the rest of the map, or ignore you completely.  Yes you can do it, no it doesn't serve a purpose.  People were not playing the game to win.  If you and six others decided to camp a keep I wanted to take, I would rally my guys, buy a catapult or trebuchet, and take down the wall away from your defenses.  There is no defensive siege that can match the max range of offensive siege.  Once the walls are compromised your game of 6v50 is over.

Again, you're claiming inbalance based off what is possible, not what is logical.  Everything you claim to be able to do because you can afford it can be affordably trumped without gem store gold.  You have no catchall from buying gold.  It guarantees you no victory.  If 50 people are dumb enough to let you hold them off, thats not an advantage of money, thats an advantage of wit.

You keep missing the point and go back to P2W.

I never stated P2W. I stated that buying gems at launch gives me a substantial advantage in WvWvW. This advantage gives me the potential to have a big impact on WvWvW. Way more than someone who doesn't.

I upgraded our supply by myself. I didn't need a group to do this. I upgraded walls got and got extra workers. Most people in WvWvW will not be able to afford this for awhile. They might be able to pay for one upgrade and not be able to pay for another for hours. I can keep upgrading any objective we have on the map. This alone is huge advantage.

It isn't a solo game, however we can measure the impact each player has and their potential impact. With Gems mine will be higher than someone without gems at launch.

So you can afford more upgrades than your average player, but at the same time, there is more than likely going to be others on opposing sides who also have purchased. In essence, those players will be given a similar "advantage" and things should equal out among all sides. Additionally, the wall upgrades, while giving an advantage to the defenders also doesn't completely guarantee that you will succeed in your defense. Which effectively doesn't make your "advantage" a pay to win scenario.

There's a large number of variables within our equation here too. We're not exactly sure what the game is going to be like when it's open to the masses. The beta weekends had a fair number of people in them, but we can be almost assured that there will be more people once the game goes live. There could be so few people purchasing gems, that any advantage is mostly negated by numbers. At the same time, there could be enough buying gems that it does make it impossible for the opposition to win if they don't have a similar amount of folks purchasing gems.

The bottom line is that we're going to have to trust that ANet has stated that they don't want their cash shop to provide advantages. They have a good track record of having a cash shop that isn't pay to win in GW1. We have to hope that if their store is providing clear advantages that they will choose integrity, and make changes. I think we all know that if the cash shop is clearly pay to win, there will be severe backlash among the community. MMO fans are loyal to a point, but we've been burned way too many times now, and our patience is wearing thin (look at the various forums on this site alone for proof of that).

As much as I hate to say it, it is somewhat of a wait and see issue, because the full effects won't be known until after launch.

do you earn more gold from WvW at level 80 than at level1?

I keep seeing people saying this isnt an issue you will have more money at 80, but is this money from PVE?

if so the OP is sort of right, you will have to either grind PVE or stump up cash to be competative in WvW.

Originally posted by ShakyMo

do you earn more gold from WvW at level 80 than at level1?

I keep seeing people saying this isnt an issue you will have more money at 80, but is this money from PVE?

if so the OP is sort of right, you will have to either grind PVE or stump up cash to be competative in WvW.

You get more money in PvE but you get a decent amount of money as well as Marks of Honor in PvP, both of which can be used for buying all sorts of resources like siege equipment.  You get 1-3 Marks of Honor from killing a player and it takes 2-5 marks to buy siege equipment.

Originally posted by ShakyMo

do you earn more gold from WvW at level 80 than at level1?

I keep seeing people saying this isnt an issue you will have more money at 80, but is this money from PVE?

if so the OP is sort of right, you will have to either grind PVE or stump up cash to be competative in WvW.

So you will either have to farm gold in-game or use gems to trade for gold from someone else who farmed gold in-game.

Seems the only way of making gold is to get it in-game...

Again, imo, the OP is making an arguement against the use of gold in WvW, not the use of gems to purchase gold.

In addition, and most importantly, WvW was never supposed to be balanced.

Originally posted by Popori

 

No, you're missing the point.  It takes supply and gold to upgrade a keep.  You can fund it yourself, sure, but if your team can't keep supply going to it, you won't be able to get far.  I'm not going back to P2W because that's not what I'm trying to discuss.  I'm discussing that gold doesn't give any advantage that isn't able to be overcome.  Having extra money does not guarantee that you will do better.  Upgrading a keep's walls takes about 150supply, thats most of a keep's internal stock, so unless you can hold the supply camps around it to restock, thats all you get.  That's assuming you don't build any defensive siege weapons, which will cost more, and that no one takes supply from the keep, which subtracts from the total.

There are NO one man shows in WvW unless you're hiding in the ass end of nowhere for hours being useless to your team......to help your team.

 

Edit:  And holding a single keep doesn't amount to many points in the grand scheme.  There are plenty of other points that you won't be at that the enemies can capture to surpass your point total and win.  Holding a certain objective forever doesn't mean you're winning.

I can upgrade a supply camp so that it produces more supply. I can hire extra guards to defend the supply camp. I can do this without supply because the supply is in the camp. 

It isn't a one man show in WvWvW, however every man in the zone contributes. Especially since there are caps. I can do more than someone who doesn't buy gems at launch. While I can't win by myself, I can contribute more than someone who doesn't buy gems. It gives me an advantage over someone who doesn't and increases my potential value to my server.

I get what you're saying but these guards and upgrades don't produce enough difference to make them game changing.  The difference between a dolyak and a dolyak with the four upgraded guards going against a single 5man group is a ten second fight or a twenty second fight.  The dolyak has to reach a destination to be of any use and sitting at a point won't make that happen.

And as I said earlier, the timeframe in which this could be most detrimental to the game is the same time when server balances will already be out of whack.  Its likely that you will be able to win or lose solely on who you're matched against and the population differences.  By time WvW matures and the matches become something worth winning, everyone will be able to contribute in a more meaningful and even way.

It is true that you will have the -ability- to have more toys, but using them to any effect will not be a result of monetary advantage, this isn't to say you're claiming P2W, but to say that gold alone will not be a deciding factor in the grand scheme of a SCORE victory in WvW.

So I read through the first couple pages and didn't see someone mention the obvious:

The exchange rate of gems to gold was not very high during the beta, I didn't track it as much this time, but during the previous betas, the BEST I saw it hit was 13 silver for 100 gems.

Someone who DID pay attention, please let me know what it hit during bwe3.

Unless it hit an extremely higher amount, it's VERY IMPROBABLE that the guy in OP's situation bought commander and tons of blueprints by spending money on gems... It would take HUNDREDS of dollars to convert that many gems into that much gold, and the process of doing so would LOWER the amount of gold gained from transferring gems.

So, what'd the guy do? Probably what the leader of Team Legacy did last beta: put up buy orders for TONS of items for just a couple copper under their vendor sell value, then sell said items to vendors at a profit.

People were literally dumb enough to undercut themselves that badly, just to sell to the trading post.

This process allowed him to mass a crap ton of gold. Then his guild, which it notorious for being competitive and well-organized created a supply chain to build up 120 golems.

So, this is likely not a p2w situation, it's more of what happens when people that are in a league of their own get matched up against non-organized, non-competitive people.

in BWE3 it fluctuated between 52 and 78silver per 100, which is why people are tending to think its going to be an issue.

Somebody paid real money and bought stuff and HAD an advantage. Call it what you like but there is the plain truth of what the OP said.

at 78 silver per 100 gems...

it would take 160 dollars at the 400 gem package just to get 100 gold for the commander title. - I totally can't find info on the pricing for the higher end bundles, but I'm guessing even the best deal would put the price of 100 gold over 100 dollars at these rates.

And even then, while buying that many gems at once, the transaction rate is gonna tank.

I still find it highly unlikely that this situation was caused by real money, unless someone is crazy.

And even then, focusing on that many siege weapons in one spot is a losing strategy against an effectively organized opponent.

Originally posted by travamars

Somebody paid real money and bought stuff and HAD an advantage. Call it what you like but there is the plain truth of what the OP said.

Even if you think this is true, people did it WITHOUT real money, in an honestly crazier way. (120 siege golems at once)

The problem here isn't money -> gems -> gold.

The problem is early server matchmaking will not be fun for those who aren't as mobilized/dedicated as their opponents.

Thankfully the matches early on in release will only be 24 hour periods.

Originally posted by travamars

Somebody paid real money and bought stuff and HAD an advantage. Call it what you like but there is the plain truth of what the OP said.

If you can use real money to buy any form of gameplay advantage it's pay to win, in wich case almost every mmo out there is pay to win...it's the new greed model, might as well get used to it.

 Pump out sub-par uninspired mmo's and milk the masses for as much as they can.

The other thing that I don't think has been made very clear as well is that in order to get the supply used to build all the siege weapons, you'd need a large group of people running back and forth to shell out the supply to build all the things. And in order to have that much supply in keeps and other buildings to build so many things at once, you'd have to be winning all ready anyways.

I think a real problem here is that people playing wvwvw on their own or in small groups, come across these much more organized groups, and decide to take them head on, rather than move onto another area they have a chance at taking, or onto dolyaks they can kill, and returning to retake the area after the overwhelming enemy presence has moved on.

I am not gonna lie.  There was tons and tons of in game money getting spent in WvW this BWE and it was mostly gotten from gem purchases.

HOWEVER

This was due to the fact that the gems would get refinded and it was all throwaway spending.  Anyone who does this at release will simply run out of money and then fail miserably in their next two cycle.

You absolutely must be able to work within the system to win.  And in the end supply really is the true limiting factor.  Deny a side supply and even if they have 50 Bajillion gold they won't be able to make that many siege golems if any.  Escorting your dolyaks is more important than having tons of gold.  If you side has no gold at all sure, you are kind of screwed.  But you really don't need tons of gold.  Also siege golems are only good for particular specialized uses.  They are not that hard to take down.  They are slow, can't be buffed and ranged attacks will take them down.

So in summation were people throwing around ludicrous amount of money?  Yes.  Did it have an effect?  Yes.  Is it a sustainable way of doing things?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Is it the most important factor?  No supply is much more important.

If you spend 90g worht of gold in gems every two weeks.  You are spending tons of money.  If you need to buy gems to do this you are wasting tons of money as there are better ways to get blueprints.

Finally past a certain point it simply doesn't matter.  Go ahead and buy 100 golem blueprints.  Let me know how that works out for you when two months later you still have 80 BPs in your inventory and tons and tons of sunk costs you never capitalized on.

Look here is a tip always always assume a competent server will be able to bring a fairly significnat amount of siege blueprints.  You really think that gold spent on a golem is somehow more formidable than a well used ballista or the mortar upgrade on a tower?  Cuz you are wrong if you think so.  And getting those is far more supply dependent and easily obatinable by anyone through normal in game means.

You think laying down 20 siege engines is somehow an insta win?  Fine great let me know when you are able to do it and od it quickly.

There is a monetary burden associated with WvW.  And if you are constantly building siege over and over rather than saying reusing siege you will feel that burden.  You can concievably power through this burden with the gem store.

In the end once WvW cycles are fairly established the running costs of WvW seem to be fairly sustainable without using gems.  And having money past those running really won't do you much good. 

In the end its supply that is the real logistical keystone.

Originally posted by Daggerjaydo

The other thing that I don't think has been made very clear as well is that in order to get the supply used to build all the siege weapons, you'd need a large group of people running back and forth to shell out the supply to build all the things. And in order to have that much supply in keeps and other buildings to build so many things at once, you'd have to be winning all ready anyways.

 

I think a real problem here is that people playing wvwvw on their own or in small groups, come across these much more organized groups, and decide to take them head on, rather than move onto another area they have a chance at taking, or onto dolyaks they can kill, and returning to retake the area after the overwhelming enemy presence has moved on.

People simply do not understand the system or the use of siege fully yet.  For example in some cases people will keep taking supply from a keep or tower and this will actively sabotage the upgrading of that keep.  Also you generally want to stockpile supply in your keep for emergencies and should use depots for more aggressive things.

The dude who whipped out tons of gold to build some golems.  I bet he emptied a keeps supply to do so.  This is a bad move unless you are about to have a server reset or are desparate for some reason.

Similar;ly with siege engines the placement and timing of placements is often haphazard.  It is often a huge waste of both supply and money to cover the walls of some keep in siege, at least initially.  Some keeps are too big to do this since most groups will pick one side or one approach.  Building seige as in a sort of "just in case they attack here" mentality is jsut a waste when you an build an arrow cart pretty darn fast and place it where you need it.

This BWE was fraught with HUGE amounts of waste.  Over a two week extended period we are likely to start seeing radically different approaches epsecially in servers that are closely matched.  It is entirely possible that once guilds and alliances get good at starving each other of supply that it may become important to guard certain key siege emplacements such as a nice location you put a trebuchet or something rather then abandoning them.