Guild Wars 2

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Players routinely get extravalue out of items by playing the TP market. By your definition they would be exploiters when in reality they’re not.

That’s what I tried to say in my post. Thanks for shorten it.

Navi.7142:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Players routinely get extravalue out of items by playing the TP market. By your definition they would be exploiters when in reality they’re not.

That’s what I tried to say in my post. Thanks for shorten it.

Except, these players are in fact removing gold from the economy due to the TP fees.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

John Smith.4610:

From my blog post:
“The Guild Wars 2 economy (and virtually every other economy in the same vein) is not designed to have any loop that involves creating value for no cost.”

“Exploits are mostly generated by a mistake on our end and are really hard on players. When an exploit is discovered, players are tempted to participate by the draw of becoming wealthy and out of fear of being left behind the massively wealthy players who do participate. We take a harsh stance on exploiters because this decision should be easy: find an exploit, report the exploit and move on. It isn’t worth the risk to the player or the game.”

That is a rather overreach of using the term “exploit”.

Exploiting is used more to describe finding a bug or glitch in a game and using it to one’s advantage in some fashion. Like people finding their way into or around “physical” walls in WvW to kill lords from a place their entirely safe from other players.

This recipe was no bug. It was a brain fart. There was no extracurricular activities that players used to do this process. There’s a difference.

The outcome sucks for people who did not do this. I didn’t.

Players routinely get extravalue out of items by playing the TP market. By your definition they would be exploiters when in reality they’re not.

In all honesty, although I would likewise like a more black/white working definition to work with, an exploit is “What Arena Net deems to be an exploit”. I do disagree with your suggestion that taking advantage of any developer oversights would be immune from being labeled an exploit, although it is indeed frustrating to have no idea of what was intended and what was not intended. I for one thought this was an intentional move – and a rather clever one at that, thereby rewarding astute players who were willing to grind out the ectos during the market shift.

Navi.7142:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Players routinely get extravalue out of items by playing the TP market. By your definition they would be exploiters when in reality they’re not.

That’s what I tried to say in my post. Thanks for shorten it.

There is a subtle difference here, in that creating value is different than amassing gold. Creating value is when you are able to create something of inherent value with a zero (or near-zero) combination of inputs. Amassing gold is simply the concentration of that value (or wealth). That said, I believe this process was simply a market shift, since it required non-trivial (and seasonally restricted) inputs and resulted in a commodity that is assigned value by other players, which is inherently neither good nor bad. All market shifts, either in game or in the real world economy, have the side effect of redistributing wealth depending on how people act during the adjustment phase of the shift. Again, in abstract terms, this is likewise neither good nor bad – though there are of course winners and losers.

Astraea.6075:

Navi.7142:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Players routinely get extravalue out of items by playing the TP market. By your definition they would be exploiters when in reality they’re not.

That’s what I tried to say in my post. Thanks for shorten it.

Except, these players are in fact removing gold from the economy due to the TP fees.

Which has nothing to do with players, but rather what the developers put into place.

I can’t see how it is an exploit. Buying an item for cheap, crafting it, and then salvaging it to hopefully get an item that yields a higher value is not an exploit. If it is, then how about this for size, crafting an item for say 50s total, but the cheapest sale price is 18s. It is in the other direction, yes, but that is the same principal.

Besides, since when is gambling an exploit. I usually lose out when I’m salvaging for ectoplasm. ALWAYS lose out.

There is a feeling in the game, whether it is deserved or not, that you can’t get anywhere just by playing the content. You can salvage rares until you’re blue in the face, you’ll never even catch up with the price inflation of precursors or gems. Then every once in a while something like this happens where the rich get richer. It’s not just the exploit, it’s all the money made on mithril and the ecto market. For whatever reason, it feels unfair. And that makes everyone upset because really even if everyone who did this is banned, it wouldn’t change the fundamental situation.

I see quite a bit of debate over semantics of what the player base feels is or is not an exploit. I think what matters here isn’t what “we” think is an exploit, it’s what ArenaNet thinks is an exploit.

The addition of this recipe, and subsequent way of receiving Ectoplasms from it, was obviously NOT the intention of ArenaNet. Do you know how I know this? I know this because they disabled the recipe as soon as they could. ArenaNet thereby seems to have determined that creating these items, then salvaging them with BL Kits to receive Ectoplasms is an exploit…..or at least the mass creation and salvaging of said items is an exploit.

I don’t know for a fact that wasn’t ArenaNet’s intention when they activated this recipe, but it seems by their actions it wasn’t. My guess is that they wanted to reward the player base with a way to make a neat, holiday themed trinket for people to use. Who knows though?

This is a game. I really wish people would realize that. If you think this game is fun, you should do your part to keep it fun….and that means not exploiting. If you don’t think it’s fun, then please, for those that do, go find another game to play.

Thank you. That is all.

The first thing I thought when I saw that wintersday jewlery was 1/3 the price it should be was "this is going to be interesting….’ I wonder how that same thought was not had at Anet when they decided to go with this cheap recipe.

This is essentially Anet messing up and rebalancing markets. The wealth was not created from nowhere, it took lots of mithril and snowflakes to make the ectos. You could see the value of this being passed back to any player who sold a snowflake, or anyone who sold mithril. If they didn’t pull the recipe the markets would settle again, only with ectos being worth about 10-15 silver, mithril being worth 1-2 silver, and snowflakes being worth 30-40 silver.

Anyone who made these and salvaged them noticed this new exchange of good and took advantage of how easy it was to convert cheaper goods to more expensive ones. If this happened enough there would no longer be any profit in it. That is why I find it hard to call this an exploit. In essence the money that was made was from mithril sellers letting the product go to cheap, and ecto buyers paying way to much in the new market prices.

Clearly Anet didn’t want this rebalance happening so they took out the way to exchange goods. This also completely crashed the wintersday goods market (it’s best to just vendor wool items now )

Anyone saying oh these few people got most of the money you are right, they noticed that the markets were not balanced and exchanged mithril and snowflakes for ectos. I do offer that if you sold any ugly wool, large presents, or unique and pristine snowflakes in the last three day you directly profited from this without knowing it making 2-10x the gold you would now that the jewelry is disabled, so don’t feel so screwed. I am personally sad that they took the only steam out of the wintersday market. Now its just stagnant and uninteresting.

I would also add the question of why on earth it took three days to shut this down?!? Anyone with a bit of common sense would question why 1 snowflake is trading at 30x the rate of others. Anyone who looked into it saw the opportunity to make untold thousands of gold, why they let this go on for a full 72 hours is beyond me when they were patching the game daily, and the ecto market was showing signs of being inflated during the first 24 hours after the new recipies were introduced.

John Smith.4610:

From my blog post:
“The Guild Wars 2 economy (and virtually every other economy in the same vein) is not designed to have any loop that involves creating value for no cost.”

With much respect sir, but this post leaves me somewhat confused, and considerably concerned.

Unless I am misreading, by this definition, if I obtain items in game from the Trading Post, and combine them together using my crafting skill, and relist that finished item on the Trading Post, it’s an exploit? Further, if the finished item is then salvaged, and the proceeds of the salvage are listed instead, this too is an exploit?

Please bear in mind when considering the above that prices of items are determined by the market, not by any single player or (presubably) ArenaNet?

I do understand, and respect the need to remove exploits from the game – please don’t misunderstand. I think there have been exploits that are pretty clear to any player (Karma weapons at 21 karma, instead of 21,000), and some might not be so clear (Items required to produce item X via crafting are cheaper than the finished product).

In the case of the Karma weapons, I think a player can clearly see there is an issue/problem, and would have knowledge they were taking advantage of a situation that was unintended.

In the case of crafting for profit, at the very worst, this is a failure of the marketplace to properly price goods (either ingredients are too cheap, or finished product is too expensive). In this situation, a player surely would not be expected to know that they are using an “exploit” to make a bit of coin from their crafting profession?

If crafting things by buying from the TP is considered an exploit, please tell me why the ability to buy materials usable in crafting, is available on the Trading Post?

Also, if this is considered an exploit, I think we (the players), in light of the above/post by John Smith will need a much better definition of what ArenaNet would consider an exploit – examples should be included so there is no confusion on this issue, as I, for one, would not consider crafting something and salvaging it to be an exploit.

lDeadeyesl.9156 has exactly got it.

This would have rebalanced the price of a lot of items whose prices revolve around ecto prices. Arenanet wants ectos to remain a higher priced good, and this was going to create a change in the ENTIRE game economy if this rebalance would have happened.

Think about it, all those exotics requiring 5 ectos to make, all those ascended would suddenly cost HALF of what they cost now. this would directly affect the entire game economy.

It was definitely for the best.

@PowerCat.5738

Definitly for the best for them, since every single farm or good way to make money in the game, is removed and no new one is put into, which makes me wonder, prices are going for 500g-700g sometimes for items, it’s alright I need an effort to achieve something, but it’s a grind in the end. A legendary is an example of effort, but the “PRE-Legemdary” in this case, is not, just a bargain of price and luck.

I find it rather amusing that you can easily pinpoint those posting here and in other threads that took advantage of this. If I were ya’ll I wouldn’t worry bout it. If they have shown us anything it is that ya’ll don’t have anything to worry about.

I head there was a new recipe for a rare that gave a good ecto ratio. So I tried this out using 100 Pristine snowflakes and master salvage kits till all the flakes broke, buying mithril as needed. I came out almost dead even not making any real gold. Maybe that was because the snowflakes were around 26 silver a pop at the time or I had bad salvage luck. Either way since I didn’t profit from it at all it seems I stopped and sold off the rest of the mats i had. This thing seems totally overblown and the only way anyone could have made money is if they had bought the flakes at dirt cheap.

Why did you buy 100 snowflakes? O.o
It worked with just one as long as you used the black lion kit.
Or some more with the master salvage kit.. but 100?

Grave is dead on, the Flakes market started to balance out and while it was still profitable it was not anywhere near what people are making it out to be. The real key came from 3 chances to play on market confusion.

1 Buy a large wintersday box for around 2.5 silver, on average it would drop 3.5 silver worth of snowflakes. The mystic forge upgrade rates are also about 3x what they are normally with snowflakes for some reason. So 50 t4’s could become up to 35 t5’s that step could instantly net you 5-6g in saving on snowflakes.

The people who made out like bandits were the ones playing the market and confusion at every level.

Just buying snowflakes at 27-28 silver and salvaging was not that big of a deal. Getting paid 1 silver to open large boxes was nice while it lasted though. I mean there were warning signs that the market was not right if you bothered to take the time and look. I don’t have much sympathy for people who are mad they keep missing the opportunities. If you look around in the market they almost always have glaring signs that something is broken. In this case ecto’s losing about 20% of their value after wintersday started.

Also I am amused by all the people who used Black Lion Kits. Unless you don’t value them at all each salvage is about 25 silver is extra cost to save an item 20% of the time. Since the item is only worth about 60 silver it’s such a waste of money.

More snowflakes reduces the RNG affect on the ectos I crafted, since they had a 20% chance of breaking. For example, if I had just done five snowflakes, I could have broken half of them and gotten 2 ectos total, which would have been totally invalid data due to a short bad rng string. Black Lion kits are like 6 gold a piece , and the price of ectos when I looked were to the point where I would have had to have over 2 ectos per rare average to make that gold back on 25 salvages. That wasn’t going to happen.

It makes me wonder how many people lost money trying this out after the pristine snowflakes had blown up because anet turned the recipes off. I imagine a few people got stuck with quite a few now relatively worthless snowflakes.

Still, the real people who made the most off of this was 1. Thos who did it extremely early. and 2. Those who didn’t do it all and just bought tons of mithril/snowflakes at low and resold at high.

“It’s not fair to ban exploits because you made the game so badly that it’s so hard to make money that we HAVE to exploit in order to make money!”

It’s annoying that those kinds of responses don’t surprise me.

Given the old price of mithril, using a Black Lion’s Kit, and a jewel that you constantly get back? Ya, some people probably made a boat load of money off of this at a minimal price. It should have been pretty obvious from the get go what they were doing was breaking the system.

If you can invest a few silver and get back 30 or 40 consistently… Ya, thats not playing the market, that’s abusing the game.

Why do people act like black lion kits are free? They cost a crap ton. I WISH they were cheaper. Believe me no matter what snowflakes were at, what mithril was at, it was a way better investment to use master kits when whoever figured this out started. In fact the lower the cost snowflakes and mithril were at, the better it was to use a master kit over black lion, because before snowflakes cost 26 silver, replacing a lost snowflake gem wouls have been a trivial amount of silver.

The equation for those who are curious about the returns on investment.

Cost
Snowflake + Ecto = 50 Silver (80% Retention Rate) ~ 10 Silver loss
Mithril = 6.4 Silver

16.4 Silver for a lv 75 Rare Ecto Drop Chance.

With T5 Mats trading at 80 copper right now
T5 = 12 Silver
Silk = .5 Silver
Silk Spools = 5 Silver

17.5 Silver per Salvage

These are the rates the markets were at when they shut the loophole. Yes you could use a black lion kit for a 100% retention rate, but each salvage would cost you 25 silver if you bought the black lion kit making it all worthless. Hopefully some of you guys out there understand the math and realize this was not nearly as lucrative as people thought.

The people who made the big margins were those who knew how to get the flakes really cheap, being a smart trader is not an exploit. These were the market margins.

You are honestly calling for a ban on people for making rares one silver cheaper than you can make them at this second. I hope you take a second and realize how quickly you guys overreact.

I myself am really sad they shut the recipe down, mostly because it instantly destroyed any real wintersday trading. Wool is trading close to merchant levels, and presents have all become worthless. At the same time the community is cheering yea close the 1 silver cheaper salvage loophole!

Yeah, that way it sounds really expensive and not worth using with gems or ingame bought black lion kits.
I didn’t thought about that, because I just used up mine which dropped for me from a black lion chest long time ago. I had to decide whether I use it on my regular yellow items (which I do get rarely since the 15th November patch) or on that method. I didn’t create amounts of it.. so I’ve consumed 9 uses of my black lion kit. That gave me a few ectos in return which I didn’t sell. Instead I save them for myself.

Yeah.. but like you described it, I will never understand how it should count as an exploit, when it is connected to these high costs to make/ salvage.

Basically if you tried salvaging these for profit late like I did, your profit (or loss) was tied entirely to salvage rng depending on how often your gems broke and how many ectos you got. Trying to do this with BL kits in bulk would have been a horrible idea.

It also didnt help the the snowflake in question was incorrectly labeled a masterwork jewel when it was in fact rare due to using an ecto to make.

I’m not sure how any of these recipes could have been reliably cycled w/o the BL kit as I tried them as I stated above, unless there is some info I’m missing / I did the wrong piece (I did mithril earing). The nature of the master salvage kit alone takes reliability out of the equation. Care to elaborate John?

lDeadeyesl.9156:

The equation for those who are curious about the returns on investment.

Cost
Snowflake + Ecto = 50 Silver (80% Retention Rate) ~ 10 Silver loss
Mithril = 6.4 Silver

16.4 Silver for a lv 75 Rare Ecto Drop Chance.

With T5 Mats trading at 80 copper right now
T5 = 12 Silver
Silk = .5 Silver
Silk Spools = 5 Silver

17.5 Silver per Salvage

These are the rates the markets were at when they shut the loophole. Yes you could use a black lion kit for a 100% retention rate, but each salvage would cost you 25 silver if you bought the black lion kit making it all worthless. Hopefully some of you guys out there understand the math and realize this was not nearly as lucrative as people thought.

The people who made the big margins were those who knew how to get the flakes really cheap, being a smart trader is not an exploit. These were the market margins.

You are honestly calling for a ban on people for making rares one silver cheaper than you can make them at this second. I hope you take a second and realize how quickly you guys overreact.

I myself am really sad they shut the recipe down, mostly because it instantly destroyed any real wintersday trading. Wool is trading close to merchant levels, and presents have all become worthless. At the same time the community is cheering yea close the 1 silver cheaper salvage loophole!

You know better than to use the maximum prices in an example. Use the averages. Also to note that the ecto and snowflake have a chance of returning into the next item so their value decreases with every return, along with minimal mithril.
As for black lion salvage kits…I’m pretty sure ppl that did this did not go and convert gold into gems for the kits. Most likely scenario is that they had some saved from daylies and prior blc. TL;DR the estimation of the cost of making these you gave here is inflated

Also, using current prices of mithril AFTER they’ve been driven up by people making a ton of gold off of this is a pretty bad comparison.

Mithril used to go for about 20 copper before people started to pull this.

Also, a wonderful quote from a friend:

“Just because it’s not a really BIG exploit doesn’t mean it’s not an exploit.”

John Smith.4610:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

The equation for those who are curious about the returns on investment.

Cost
Snowflake + Ecto = 50 Silver (80% Retention Rate) ~ 10 Silver loss
Mithril = 6.4 Silver

16.4 Silver for a lv 75 Rare Ecto Drop Chance.

With T5 Mats trading at 80 copper right now
T5 = 12 Silver
Silk = .5 Silver
Silk Spools = 5 Silver

17.5 Silver per Salvage

These are the rates the markets were at when they shut the loophole. Yes you could use a black lion kit for a 100% retention rate, but each salvage would cost you 25 silver if you bought the black lion kit making it all worthless. Hopefully some of you guys out there understand the math and realize this was not nearly as lucrative as people thought.

The people who made the big margins were those who knew how to get the flakes really cheap, being a smart trader is not an exploit. These were the market margins.

You are honestly calling for a ban on people for making rares one silver cheaper than you can make them at this second. I hope you take a second and realize how quickly you guys overreact.

You are mistaken. There were several recipes that produced significantly more output than the input required and could be easily and reliably cycled without using Black Lion kits.
You are correct playing the market is not exploiting, but finding a loop that reliably produces more and more items in a cycle is an exploit. Check out the name of this thread.

It may just because I use my Black Lion Kits for Salvaging Exotic Runes while trading which nets me well over the 10 silver they are saving you here to make ectos, but squandering your Black Lion Salvage kits on something like doesn’t seem like and exploit at all. Remember they cost 7 gold each right now, or the player would have to pay ~$2.00 for 25 salvages.

While it’s true using a black lion kit would give you the ability to salvage rares for 10 less silver in loss, you have to take into account the 25silver it costs to use up a charge on it.

Using a black lion kit to protect a 10silver loss (which is why the recipe was banned) is one of the worst uses I can think of for this gem store item. It would make your total salvage costs over 30 silver!

Essence Snow.3194:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

The equation for those who are curious about the returns on investment.

Cost
Snowflake + Ecto = 50 Silver (80% Retention Rate) ~ 10 Silver loss
Mithril = 6.4 Silver

16.4 Silver for a lv 75 Rare Ecto Drop Chance.

With T5 Mats trading at 80 copper right now
T5 = 12 Silver
Silk = .5 Silver
Silk Spools = 5 Silver

17.5 Silver per Salvage

These are the rates the markets were at when they shut the loophole. Yes you could use a black lion kit for a 100% retention rate, but each salvage would cost you 25 silver if you bought the black lion kit making it all worthless. Hopefully some of you guys out there understand the math and realize this was not nearly as lucrative as people thought.

The people who made the big margins were those who knew how to get the flakes really cheap, being a smart trader is not an exploit. These were the market margins.

You are honestly calling for a ban on people for making rares one silver cheaper than you can make them at this second. I hope you take a second and realize how quickly you guys overreact.

I myself am really sad they shut the recipe down, mostly because it instantly destroyed any real wintersday trading. Wool is trading close to merchant levels, and presents have all become worthless. At the same time the community is cheering yea close the 1 silver cheaper salvage loophole!

You know better than to use the maximum prices in an example. Use the averages. Also to note that the ecto and snowflake have a chance of returning into the next item so their value decreases with every return, along with minimal mithril.
As for black lion salvage kits…I’m pretty sure ppl that did this did not go and convert gold into gems for the kits. Most likely scenario is that they had some saved from daylies and prior blc. TL;DR the estimation of the cost of making these you gave here is inflated

I clearly stated these were the prices when they shut the loophole down. It may have been a lot better earlier, I am saying at the time they made the choice to close it, there was a one silver difference. I am also using 25 silver for an ecto, and 25 for the snowflake, which is a bit low to be honest.

I’m sorry, but black lion kits off of dailies? That’s a joke or I have the worst luck ever with black lion kits off of my dailys. Now I get repair canisters often enough, but not the kits, lord not the kits. But I will humor you.

Assume people who did this with BL kits and got 2 ectos off of every salvage (that might be generous). They got one extra ecto for every charge of the kit then + 4 mithril ingots which went up to around 7 silver. Now obviously they got some mithril back but nowhere near 4 ingots. They basically turned their BL kits into 20ish silver per charge. But now they don’t have those kits in the fute so they are still going to have to pay the piper.

The whole ‘exploit’ basically was turning mithril/orichalcum and snowflakes in ectoplasm for a good rate until ectoplasms got too cheap and the other required mats too expensive to make it profitable anymore.

I lold. That thing was at the break even point when they shut it down, could as well have not done that, but hey, ecto has to be at 35 silver for people to buy gold with gems I guess

Black Lion on a daily is a 2-3% chance drop if the wiki results people submitted are to be believed. Using a full black lion kit to make ectos this way would save about 2.5 gold in expected loss.

John we know, that’s what we were saying the past couple posts, using black lions kits on this was not a problem. What we are curious about is how using master kits on the known recipes (mithril earing seemed the most cost effective) provided anyone a guaranteed profit/loop when the evidence seems quite clear that the market itself had shut the problem off with the cost of the snowflakes themselves.

John Smith.4610:

without using Black Lion kits.

I actually had no idea there were exploits besides the BL kit. Perhaps the loot tables were to generous on the item or something, guess I didn’t find the real exploit that it was patched for. Anyhow you know a lot more about it than any of us do, I just hope that the recipe comes back in some form that is not totally useless and is at least competitive with other rare crafting for ectos so that the wintersday market picks up again. It is personally my favorite thing about the holidays, and I’m a bit depressed that nobody wants to buy any of the holiday items anymore.

Stop saying it’s a loop…if it was a loop, ectos would have crashed to vendor value. Instead, they were leveling off at around 25s some time before the recipies were disabled. The title is misleading.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

John Smith.4610:

without using Black Lion kits.

I actually had no idea there were exploits besides the BL kit.

Master salvage kit loses you the upgrade on every fifth salvage.
The BL kit costs about 20 silver per salvage, a 100% price per salvage.

To be as effective as the master salvage kit, the upgrade would have had to cost 5 times the price of a salvage with the BL kit. Since it was considerably less, the master kit was to prefer over the BL one to begin with.

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

John Smith.4610:

without using Black Lion kits.

I actually had no idea there were exploits besides the BL kit.

Master salvage kit loses you the upgrade on every fifth salvage.
The BL kit costs about 20 silver per salvage, a 100% price per salvage.

To be as effective as the master salvage kit, the upgrade would have had to cost 5 times the price of a salvage with the BL kit. Since it was considerably less, the master kit was to prefer over the BL one to begin with.

I understand that, and made that point myself. I also understand the developer’s issue with it. Let’s say 80% of players don’t know how to properly use a BL kit to make a profit, instead they will just make ecto’s with it. A weak ecto means all rares and exotics fall in price, and the game economy would get cheaper at a very fast rate if everyone decided to turn their black lion kits into more ecto supply. If using BL kits to make more ecto’s was not intended it’s a valid reason to close the loophole, even if it’s a bad way to use the Kit. It sounds like it is something else that nobody has yet figured out on this forum that caused the recipe to be shut down, so at this point all this discussion is meaningless.

John Smith.4610:

From my blog post:
“The Guild Wars 2 economy (and virtually every other economy in the same vein) is not designed to have any loop that involves creating value for no cost.”

“Exploits are mostly generated by a mistake on our end and are really hard on players. When an exploit is discovered, players are tempted to participate by the draw of becoming wealthy and out of fear of being left behind the massively wealthy players who do participate. We take a harsh stance on exploiters because this decision should be easy: find an exploit, report the exploit and move on. It isn’t worth the risk to the player or the game.”

Then why don’t you deal with exploiters in WvW…..please

zazu.2836:

Then why don’t you deal with exploiters in WvW…..please

It’s probably a lot more work, and at the end of the day the gem store and economy is a bit more pressing since it is what determines how much money the game can make.

the brilliant thing here is that no one gets punished! :O

penatbater.4710:

the brilliant thing here is that no one gets punished! :O

I’m not sure “brilliant” is the term I would have used.

Edge.4180:

penatbater.4710:

the brilliant thing here is that no one gets punished! :O

I’m not sure “brilliant” is the term I would have used.

it was sarcasm. :|

Fixed master retention rate (sry off the top of my head thought it was 50%)

2 Silver for a snowflake (http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/38134)
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (80% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
80% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 80% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 20% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6*.2+4.4*.8)

8.42 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)
(.42*-8.42)=(-3.5417.4)

Average profit statistically calculated (not including getting more than one ecto per salvage, still just one ecto or zero) 13.86 silver

That means (at least) +13.86 silver every time you salvage the earring. ALL materials and salvages included and accounted for.

Now the exotic
1 snowflake @ 2silver (http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/38135)
12 ore (http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19701) @ 3 silver per = 36 silver
30 Silver for one ecto
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (24 silver @3s per ore) per attempt 80% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (68.6 silver) the other 20% of the time.
(19+13.72)= 32.72 silver per salvage

100% chance for 30 silver (ecto)
68% chance for at least 2 ecto (60 silver)
SO 32.72 – 30silver, 2.72 silver

2.72 silver per salvage (guaranteed)

32% (at most) of the time u pay 2.72 silver per salvage
68% (at least) of the time u make 13.7 silver per salvage

so a weighted avg (mean) per salvage, (.68*13.7+.32*-2.72)= 9.316-0.87= 8.4 silver per salvage

Aura.1645:

2 Silver for a snowflake
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (50% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
50% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 50% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 50% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6+4.4)/2

21.5 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)

You can really tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is just making up numbers. If you go back and read my post I outline the numbers very clearly for you. If you bothered to make any and not just speculate randomly you would notice that snowflakes were trading from 25-30 silver making the ecto the cheaper part of the loss.

However you way underestimated the retention rate, which is 80% if you use the master salvage kit. In reality the avg salvage ran close to 16 silver.

Let me blow your mind real quick you can still make rares for under 20 silver, just buy T5 mats which are dirt cheap at the moment, and craft just about anything in the game.

Then I guess Anet should ban everyone who is crafting rares because according to your math there is a 33% return on any rares you craft and salvage right now, making more money from salvaging things you craft is an exploit after all.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

2 Silver for a snowflake
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (50% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
50% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 50% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 50% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6+4.4)/2

21.5 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)

You can really tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is just making up numbers. If you go back and read my post I outline the numbers very clearly for you. If you bothered to make any and not just speculate randomly you would notice that snowflakes were trading from 25-30 silver making the ecto the cheaper part of the loss.

However you way underestimated the retention rate, which is 80% if you use the master salvage kit. In reality the avg salvage ran close to 16 silver.

Let me blow your mind real quick you can still make rares for under 20 silver, just buy T5 mats which are dirt cheap at the moment, and craft just about anything in the game.

Then I guess Anet should ban everyone who is crafting rares because according to your math there is a 33% return on any rares you craft and salvage right now, making more money from salvaging things you craft is an exploit after all.

Ill just leave this here for you to educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Aura.1645:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

2 Silver for a snowflake
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (50% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
50% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 50% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 50% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6+4.4)/2

21.5 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)

You can really tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is just making up numbers. If you go back and read my post I outline the numbers very clearly for you. If you bothered to make any and not just speculate randomly you would notice that snowflakes were trading from 25-30 silver making the ecto the cheaper part of the loss.

However you way underestimated the retention rate, which is 80% if you use the master salvage kit. In reality the avg salvage ran close to 16 silver.

Let me blow your mind real quick you can still make rares for under 20 silver, just buy T5 mats which are dirt cheap at the moment, and craft just about anything in the game.

Then I guess Anet should ban everyone who is crafting rares because according to your math there is a 33% return on any rares you craft and salvage right now, making more money from salvaging things you craft is an exploit after all.

Ill just leave this here for you to educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Your numbers are wrong, as well as your basic logic about crafting. If I somehow missed the point you were making, it was a very poorly made point.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

2 Silver for a snowflake
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (50% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
50% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 50% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 50% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6+4.4)/2

21.5 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)

You can really tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is just making up numbers. If you go back and read my post I outline the numbers very clearly for you. If you bothered to make any and not just speculate randomly you would notice that snowflakes were trading from 25-30 silver making the ecto the cheaper part of the loss.

However you way underestimated the retention rate, which is 80% if you use the master salvage kit. In reality the avg salvage ran close to 16 silver.

Let me blow your mind real quick you can still make rares for under 20 silver, just buy T5 mats which are dirt cheap at the moment, and craft just about anything in the game.

Then I guess Anet should ban everyone who is crafting rares because according to your math there is a 33% return on any rares you craft and salvage right now, making more money from salvaging things you craft is an exploit after all.

Ill just leave this here for you to educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Your numbers are wrong, as well as your basic logic about crafting. If I somehow missed the point you were making, it was a very poorly made point.

Fixed retention rate, I know how all crafting works (and my logic is fine, as I have proven)

Aura.1645:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Aura.1645:

2 Silver for a snowflake
30 Silver for one ecto

2 ore -> 1 ingot
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Filigree
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Setting
2 ingots (4ore) -> 1 Hook
6.6s for 12 ore

total mats needed to start:
12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake
38.6 silver

NOW, make one snowflake earing. Grats, you have exo, or rare snowflake earring.

Salvage with Mystic salvage kit or Master (50% upgrade, 25% rare material drop)
Get anywhere from (0-3 ectos per salvage)
50% of the time u retain the snowflake, and you remove 1 filigree, 1 ecto, and 1 snowflake.
58% of the time you get at least 1 ecto [1-(.75*.75*.75)]
with 6.25% of the time getting 3 ectos [.25*.25*.25]

For every salvage attempt to gain 0-3 ectos (with a rare) it cost
.6 silver per attempt with master salvage
8 ore (4.4 silver @55c per ore) per attempt 50% of the time, 12 ore, 1 ecto, 1 snowflake (38.6 silver) the other 50% of the time.
(avg value of each attempt when you do it an infinite amount of time: (38.6+4.4)/2

21.5 silver cost each salvage with 58% of the time getting you at least one ecto (30 silver)

You can really tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is just making up numbers. If you go back and read my post I outline the numbers very clearly for you. If you bothered to make any and not just speculate randomly you would notice that snowflakes were trading from 25-30 silver making the ecto the cheaper part of the loss.

However you way underestimated the retention rate, which is 80% if you use the master salvage kit. In reality the avg salvage ran close to 16 silver.

Let me blow your mind real quick you can still make rares for under 20 silver, just buy T5 mats which are dirt cheap at the moment, and craft just about anything in the game.

Then I guess Anet should ban everyone who is crafting rares because according to your math there is a 33% return on any rares you craft and salvage right now, making more money from salvaging things you craft is an exploit after all.

Ill just leave this here for you to educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Your numbers are wrong, as well as your basic logic about crafting. If I somehow missed the point you were making, it was a very poorly made point.

Fixed retention rate, I know how all crafting works (and my logic is fine, as I have proven)

You are valuing snowflakes at 2 silver that’s absurd. They are worth two silver because you can’t do anything useful with them anymore. If they were indeed useful for crafting as before their value would be back around 25-30 silver which is where it has been all Wintersday, so that’s the next error you made.

Even beyond that mistake your logic is all wrong. If you are claiming this is an exploit, but me making rare light armor for the exact same price is not an exploit I have no idea how you can have that position.

I can make rare armor for 16.5 silver right now and salvage it for ectos worth 30 silver by using conventional T5 materials. If I am able to do that, how can you possibly say the return rate on snowflake jewelry is way to good when it’s the same?

The truth is nobody ‘missed out’ on free ectos, the T5 materials are not reflecting the ecto price market at all. So go make whatever rares you want right now and make a fortune salvaging ecto’s. I just find it silly that one way has to be removed because it’s to lucrative, while there are 9 other ways to get the exact same ‘exploit’ return.

Grave.4523:

I’m sorry, but black lion kits off of dailies? That’s a joke or I have the worst luck ever with black lion kits off of my dailys. Now I get repair canisters often enough, but not the kits, lord not the kits. But I will humor you.

Notice I also mention blc…black lion chests, which is where most come from if not bought directly. I probably should have put blc 1st in my working but oh well. I am rather confident that the folks using this also used lionguard lyns to make plenty of keys…thus giving them access to a decent amount of blsk…black lion salvage kits. Tbh that’s really here nor there considering using plain master kits worked out just fine.

I can make rare armor for 16.5 silver right now and salvage it for ectos worth 30 silver by using conventional T5 materials. If I am able to do that, how can you possibly say the return rate on snowflake jewelry is way to good when it’s the same?

The truth is nobody ‘missed out’ on free ectos, the T5 materials are not reflecting the ecto price market at all. So go make whatever rares you want right now and make a fortune salvaging ecto’s. I just find it silly that one way has to be removed because it’s to lucrative, while there are 9 other ways to get the exact same ‘exploit’ return.

The thing with this deal was that players had either 100% chance or an 80% chance to get the snowflake back. Salvaging rare crafted armors will not give the mats back to remake another in the same manner. So one could spread out the cost of the inputs of losses over a longer range. You know this and so does everyone else.