Guild Wars 2

lDeadeyesl.9156:

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.

I think the problem is you do not understand statistics. Please understand the math I have down, and you will understand why it is an exploit.

Aura.1645:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

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.

I think the problem is you do not understand statistics. Please understand the math I have down, and you will understand why it is an exploit.

You are starting to annoy me, your numbers are wrong. If you are to blind to see that snowflakes cost 16 silver/salvage when they shut the recipe down, and that anyone can still make rares for 16 silver and salvage them (same price to salvage ratio) then you are beyond help. You really seem to be struggling with the numbers. I suggest you take a look back at my post where I detail the real costs of salvaging since you know I actually made them instead of just speculated on how it would work ‘if’ I did.

I don’t mind annoying you.
My numbers are correct.
I am not blind. (My mother had me tested)
Straw man all over the place…
I think you are the one struggling with numbers if you are getting annoyed.
Look @ your post?, But you have been wrong about every point so far.
The REAL costs? Ah, what we re-sellers made you exploiters pay to use the exploit? I see.
I’m sorry, I bought about 150k of them @ 2silver per, then resold to exploiters, I fail to see how I did not buy them at 2silver each like the rest of the people that initially discovered the exploit.

You win the troll of the thread award I give up. Hopefully other people will take a look at both posts, in the meantime I think I’ll go make 100’s of gold on the still broken ecto’s market. Take Care.

I think anet should account restore the exploiters back in time! That’s a good fix, the punishment is removal of their time, and they can still do the Christmas stuff starting now.

Stop trolling, it’s becoming too obvious. But your trolling sparks an interesting question. Who are the exploiters here? Do they track who bought snowflakes at 2 silver and created the items. Cut it off at 10 silver? 20 silver? Depends if the person made gold off of it? Ban everyone who made a single snowflake? Temp suspensions for anyone who made over X snowflakes? What about people who took notice and bought up all the snowflakes? Bought up the mithril?

What about the threads in the crafting section asking why jewelcrafter rares require ectos at all to make? JC is the only prof where you can’t make rares for an ecto conversion. To the average person the new recipes looked like a reprieve from the overly expensive current rare 80 necks/rings/earrings.

What I’m getting at is there isn’t a very clear line on who did wrong, who intended to do wrong etc. Like I said I came late to the so called party before I even saw this thread and found the recipe not worth pursuing or capable of generating much gold. Hell if you read the first couple posts in this thread others found the exact same thing. Are they exploiters? Ban those who made no money off of this? I’m not sure and it’s not my job to judge, but I hope whatever call A-net makes is the best decision.

I don’t think so, or else we’ll see someone putting up “PLS UNBAN ME ANET IM SORRY”. This really sets a bad tone for how they handle “exploits”. (even that can be argued, as this is merely a gross oversight on their part).

Grave.4523:

Stop trolling, it’s becoming too obvious. But your trolling sparks an interesting question. Who are the exploiters here? Do they track who bought snowflakes at 2 silver and created the items. Cut it off at 10 silver? 20 silver? Depends if the person made gold off of it? Ban everyone who made a single snowflake? Temp suspensions for anyone who made over X snowflakes? What about people who took notice and bought up all the snowflakes? Bought up the mithril?

What about the threads in the crafting section asking why jewelcrafter rares require ectos at all to make? JC is the only prof where you can’t make rares for an ecto conversion. To the average person the new recipes looked like a reprieve from the overly expensive current rare 80 necks/rings/earrings.

What I’m getting at is there isn’t a very clear line on who did wrong, who intended to do wrong etc. Like I said I came late to the so called party before I even saw this thread and found the recipe not worth pursuing or capable of generating much gold. Hell if you read the first couple posts in this thread others found the exact same thing. Are they exploiters? Ban those who made no money off of this? I’m not sure and it’s not my job to judge, but I hope whatever call A-net makes is the best decision.

People who made 100+ gold should be suspended/account restored. Why that number? Because 99 gold is just as good, but 100 sounds nicer.

penatbater.4710:

I don’t think so, or else we’ll see someone putting up “PLS UNBAN ME ANET IM SORRY”. This really sets a bad tone for how they handle “exploits”. (even that can be argued, as this is merely a gross oversight on their part).

Gross oversight – Exploitable mechanic

I’ve made ~50 gold in the last two hours doing the same thing that this recipe had to be ‘suspended’ for. The markets are out of balance, it has nothing to do with this as a glitch or hack recipe. If it was suspended because you could make money salvaging they would have to suspend half the recipes at the moment. If you want to make money stop crying exploiters and mulling over their justified punishment and start using your noggin.

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

John Smith.4610:

From my blog post:
" It isn’t worth the risk to the player or the game."

you talking about the risk if they do it over 50 times ?

there is no risk, they exploit for personal gain and know your not going to do crap about it as long as they don’t go buckwild with it.

you have a record of how often they did it, you have already proved that, so you know exactly how much they have gained.

SO TAKE AWAY THE GAIN THEY GOT BY EXPLOITING

Aura.1645:

Anet better ban these people for doing this…

They won’t.

You got to realise that extremely rich players are the players that are responsible for high prices: they got so much money, they don’t care about paying high prices.

And high prices means that more people buy gems with dollars, to convert gems into gold so that they can afford the high-proced items.

Bottom line: Anet makes more money when there are some extreem-rich players.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

No, it is due to me being honest.

It’s okay. There are always cheaters in the game. You are one. You are now rich by using what Anet called an exploit. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy your 50 gold.

Anet posts about a cheat, you do it, you make 50 gold. That is cheating. It really is THAT simple.

Now, I understand that you have some last shred of decency left and that you won’t feel good about yourself when you call yourself a cheater. So, you call it something else. You call yourself an opportunist, even though you use something that Anet calls a cheat. That’s okay, self-delusion is important, it just means that you still have some sort of conscience left.

There is still hope for you!

@Tallis.5607

There can be no marketing balance unless Arenanet follows the rules of the World Trade Center and actually puts a price limit on how much an item can be sold for, the quantity amount, and quantity control of how much an item can be bought.

The Black Lion Auction House is a joke and a poorly designed trading post.

Tallis.5607:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

No, it is due to me being honest.

It’s okay. There are always cheaters in the game. You are one. You are now rich by using what Anet called an exploit. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy your 50 gold.

Anet posts about a cheat, you do it, you make 50 gold. That is cheating. It really is THAT simple.

Now, I understand that you have some last shred of decency left and that you won’t feel good about yourself when you call yourself a cheater. So, you call it something else. You call yourself an opportunist, even though you use something that Anet calls a cheat. That’s okay, self-delusion is important, it just means that you still have some sort of conscience left.

There is still hope for you!

You are throwing a tantrum like a little baby. I am making tailored gear with T5 materials. I am selling the ectos out of it. The recipes are valid. The gold I am making is not an exploit. Learn how to make money if you want it so badly and stop crying so much.

I guess I fit the profile of the exploiter. I was wondering about the drop in cost of ectos, and I heard a vague remark that recipes were doing it. I checked out the recipes and thought Orichalcum earrings were the way to go, since I mistakenly believed that exotics gave more ectoplasm for salvage. After like one whole mystic salvage kit, I finally accepted that ectoplasm is the same from exos and rares, and by that time I had about 10 gold left and pristine snowflakes were 20s (this was Sunday night). I did use it to salvage rare mithril earrings.

I didn’t think of it as an exploit at the time I started, because I did it wrong and thought it was ArenaNet’s way of recovering orichalcum profitability, which of course was dispelled when I finally realized that rare salvage was where the action was. However, this did not stop me from speculating on continuing the action with mithril with my remaining money.

After reading the official response, I became very saddened and ashamed that my greater sense of justice did not kick in. I am confident that if I had thought of (or if someone told me) about the rare jewel salvage earlier, I would have fully taken advantage of it. Clearly I am not blameless and I hold myself accountable for my decisions. I did not cycle ectos through the market to generate gold, but I did effectively buy as many as I could afford at a discount from the trading post prices.

That being said, any measure of action taken or not taken against those who salvaged rare pristine snowflake earrings in bulk I will accept. The developers of this game dictate its code of conduct, and if they expect their playerbase to hold to a standard of intuitive justice, that is their prerogative and a noble goal. I will of course be saddened if progress is taken away and if my account is banned, as like everyone else I do legitimately play and like this game, but I will understand if such an action is for the greater good. My account is a small price to pay to keep this MMO from falling into the inevitable trap all MMOs succumb to in the meta-market, social engineering, and min-maxing. I don’t want that to happen to this game, even if I’m not around to see it flourish.

Should I be allowed to continue playing, I will take a more active role in asking for an official response where I even suspect a slip-up has occurred instead of making assumptions that coincidentally end up in my favor. That’s not my call, though. Good luck with whatever you do to dampen the impact of this event on the economy.

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.

@kaffaljidhma.1496

If this is what you are talking about it sounds like making mithril jewels was fair game, and some undisclosed behavior was actually the cause of shutting the recipe down. No worries man. I don’t think you did anything wrong.

I don’t think there is any “undisclosed behavior”; making and salvaging the items WAS the “exploit”. I think Aura mentioned the solution to avoiding this problem in the future though. Simply buy whatever items will be used by some new efficient recipe, and sell them when they peak. The potential for profit is huge, and the risk of being punished is absolutely zero, since Anet does not consider “playing the TP” an exploit.

Kanthor.2094:

I don’t think there is any “undisclosed behavior”; making and salvaging the items WAS the “exploit”. I think Aura mentioned the solution to avoiding this problem in the future though. Simply buy whatever items will be used by some new efficient recipe, and sell them when they peak. The potential for profit is huge, and the risk of being punished is absolutely zero, since Anet does not consider “playing the TP” an exploit.

Well if they really shut the trade down because of Mithril Ecto salvaging they did it at a time when market had finally balanced. In effecting letting the market determine a fair price per salvage. That was when they decided it was no longer acceptable. As someone who was paying 16 silver per salvage on snowflake mithril earrings hours before they decided it had to be shut down I find it kind of strange. I mean right now I can buy 15 potent bloods and make a 16.5 silver rare and salvage it. How on earth is this not an exploit if snowflakes are. Making money from salvaging has been part of the game forever. I can make tons of money making rare gear and salvaging it. Is this an exploit? I always thought of it as people undervaluing their materials they were selling me.

I feel like I just keep beating the same drum, but if people really feel like this is an exploit that had to be removed and are calling for player bans I have no idea how they don’t notice the same profit margins are still open on traditional crafts at this moment. Sure the players who bought the flakes for 2 silver made a fortune, but when the market balanced all the prices finally why was that the time to shut it all down?

Also this is going to make it extremely hard to ban anyone over this. I was playing what I thought was a new emerging fair market. Yes I made and salvaged over 200 earrings, I however made a pretty standard salvaging margin. There was not even a second where I considered this an exploit. I was maybe making 10-15% more than I normally do salvaging.

Tallis.5607:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

No, it is due to me being honest.

It’s okay. There are always cheaters in the game. You are one. You are now rich by using what Anet called an exploit. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy your 50 gold.

Anet posts about a cheat, you do it, you make 50 gold. That is cheating. It really is THAT simple.

Now, I understand that you have some last shred of decency left and that you won’t feel good about yourself when you call yourself a cheater. So, you call it something else. You call yourself an opportunist, even though you use something that Anet calls a cheat. That’s okay, self-delusion is important, it just means that you still have some sort of conscience left.

There is still hope for you!

The problem, tallis, is that no one really gets punished. The last time anyone got punished was during the karma fiasco, and I doubt they all got perma-banned. A number of cheats has happened and nothing happens, godskulls, broken events, and now this. With this, it seems the message anet is showing is that it’s ok to cheat/exploit because you won’t really get into trouble, unless the cheat is so widespread. They should really do character roll-backs for people like this, make it painful so future people will no longer be bothered by it.

If ever I’m mistaken here, I’d like a dev or some official announcement about the punishments of these exploiters.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I mean right now I can buy 15 potent bloods and make a 16.5 silver rare and salvage it. How on earth is this not an exploit if snowflakes are.
I feel like I just keep beating the same drum, but if people really feel like this is an exploit that had to be removed and are calling for player bans I have no idea how they don’t notice the same profit margins are still open on traditional crafts at this moment. Sure the players who bought the flakes for 2 silver made a fortune, but when the market balanced all the prices finally why was that the time to shut it all down?
Also this is going to make it extremely hard to ban anyone over this. I was playing what I thought was a new emerging fair market. Yes I made and salvaged over 200 earrings, I however made a pretty standard salvaging margin. There was not even a second where I considered this an exploit. I was maybe making 10-15% more than I normally do salvaging.

The costs of that armor is the t5 bloods(roughly 12s ish). When you salvage it…how many of those bloods do you get in return? The equivalent in the snowflake recipe was the snowflake which was returned the majority of the time. It would be like getting your 15 t5 bloods back on salvage. It’s apples and oranges.

It is not apples and oranges if you talk in gold.
Buy/Create the rares cheap enough, and statistically you will make a profit per salvage.
The profit per salvage was higher for the new wintersday recipe obviously.

Anet wants the ecto price not at 20 silver where it would have ended up, but rather in the 30s area. Only reason why that thing had to be ‘fixed’.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

Tallis.5607:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

No, it is due to me being honest.

It’s okay. There are always cheaters in the game. You are one. You are now rich by using what Anet called an exploit. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy your 50 gold.

Anet posts about a cheat, you do it, you make 50 gold. That is cheating. It really is THAT simple.

Now, I understand that you have some last shred of decency left and that you won’t feel good about yourself when you call yourself a cheater. So, you call it something else. You call yourself an opportunist, even though you use something that Anet calls a cheat. That’s okay, self-delusion is important, it just means that you still have some sort of conscience left.

There is still hope for you!

You are throwing a tantrum like a little baby. I am making tailored gear with T5 materials. I am selling the ectos out of it. The recipes are valid. The gold I am making is not an exploit. Learn how to make money if you want it so badly and stop crying so much.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I’ve made ~50 gold in the last two hours doing the same thing that this recipe had to be ‘suspended’ for. The markets are out of balance, it has nothing to do with this as a glitch or hack recipe. If it was suspended because you could make money salvaging they would have to suspend half the recipes at the moment. If you want to make money stop crying exploiters and mulling over their justified punishment and start using your noggin.

If you wonder why others have 1000’s of gold and you have nothing it is most likely due to your own inability to see opportunity.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

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.

@kaffaljidhma.1496

If this is what you are talking about it sounds like making mithril jewels was fair game, and some undisclosed behavior was actually the cause of shutting the recipe down. No worries man. I don’t think you did anything wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man ALL OVER THE PLACE, learn to construct an argument please.

You also seem to seriously lack any sort of understanding in probability.

If i am a leather worker and do T5 crafting, 15 large scales + Small pickins in thick leather (Yes you constantly assume no one here knows of this SUPER SECRET kitten), There is way less profit. For there to be the same profit, the leather armor would have to return 15 T5 materials 80% of the time (like the earrings)… GET IT?

To be fair, did he ever mention leatherworking?

Hey aura, stop replacing his argument with one of your own and refuting it. He isnt saying that the recipes are the same, hes just saying similar things can be done and in a player controlled market that arenanet supposedly has no control over the same thing could in theory still happen.

Look at it in terms of ecto, If the original recipe cost 1 ecto (The crafted snowflake) and returned anywhere from 0 to 4 ecto (snowflake plus 3), and the 15 T5 recipe cost .5 ecto (15s for the mats) and could in theory return anywhere from 0 to 3 ecto.

the problem is mats are not fixed or that cheap usually and if its a good deal then other players will discover it and drive the prices up to a point of 0 profit.

In the case of the snowflake recipe there was still a slim chance for total loss. I had a friend invest 10gold and get 5 in return.

now i will grant you that the potential for return in this case is great, but it isnt guaranteed.

Foulsoul.9365:

Hey aura, stop replacing his argument with one of your own and refuting it. He isnt saying that the recipes are the same, hes just saying similar things can be done and in a player controlled market that arenanet supposedly has no control over the same thing could in theory still happen.

Look at it in terms of ecto, If the original recipe cost 1 ecto (The crafted snowflake) and returned anywhere from 0 to 4 ecto (snowflake plus 3), and the 15 T5 recipe cost .5 ecto (15s for the mats) and could in theory return anywhere from 0 to 3 ecto.

the problem is mats are not fixed or that cheap usually and if its a good deal then other players will discover it and drive the prices up to a point of 0 profit.

In the case of the snowflake recipe there was still a slim chance for total loss. I had a friend invest 10gold and get 5 in return.

now i will grant you that the potential for return in this case is great, but it isnt guaranteed.

Well, thats not really true either. Given a large enough samplesize and the return is guaranteed. Wich also is the whole problem with it.

Except it isn’t, as the price of snowflakes rose and ectos fell the return rate shrank until, as stated in many posts here, the “guaranteed return” did not exist. This is because the pristine snowflakes were a limited supply item, you could not buy them with gold from a vendor.

To those comparing this recipe to other rare using t5 mats, consider this. Those recipes do not require you to put up an ecto at risk. Currently one can buy 12 s worth of t5 and craft rares, salvaging them for a chance at profit. When they took down the snowflake recipes, you had to pay around 60 silver to make the snowflake gem, which is “coincidentally” when it became impossible to make guaranteed money off this recipe. Quickly someone tell me what 20% of 60 silver is! No! It can’t be! You mean to tell me the price of snowflake+ecto to craft the jewel had…..reached an equilibrium based off the 20% chance to lose the jewel! This is madness! No…. this is ECONOMICS!

I have no idea why you keep using the end prices. If the snowflakes were that high when all this started it would’ve been much less of an issue, but they weren’t. Snowflakes were relatively cheap and the only reason they skyrocketed is b/c of of this whole deal. No one is saying that this would have lasted forever. We know better than that. It was a limited time deal based on what you stated….it reaching an equilibrium with itself. Problem though is that it was/isn’t limited to itself. Mithril and ectos play a role in a vast array of items, thus the snowflake “exploit” (if ya will) effected many things in the small amount of time it was available.

Grave.4523:

Except it isn’t, as the price of snowflakes rose and ectos fell the return rate shrank until, as stated in many posts here, the “guaranteed return” did not exist. This is because the pristine snowflakes were a limited supply item, you could not buy them with gold from a vendor.

To those comparing this recipe to other rare using t5 mats, consider this. Those recipes do not require you to put up an ecto at risk. Currently one can buy 12 s worth of t5 and craft rares, salvaging them for a chance at profit. When they took down the snowflake recipes, you had to pay around 60 silver to make the snowflake gem, which is “coincidentally” when it became impossible to make guaranteed money off this recipe. Quickly someone tell me what 20% of 60 silver is! No! It can’t be! You mean to tell me the price of snowflake+ecto to craft the jewel had…..reached an equilibrium based off the 20% chance to lose the jewel! This is madness! No…. this is ECONOMICS!

Grave you are the only person here who seems to fully understand basic markets and how simple profit analysis works. Thank god because if not I would start to wonder if I had gone crazy. Nobody seems to grasp that just because you could recycle it didn’t mean it was more cost effective. I will hold firm to my point that when they made the choice to nix the recipe when you factored in every aspect involved in it including the 50-60 silver you lost when you failed to get it back, the snowflake recipe offered you a return at a very similar rate that you can still get now making lots of other recipes.

Now like I said earlier players could use Black Lion kits and trade them in for risk free ecto salvaging, but John Smith made it pretty clear that the exploit that got it banned was creating wealth from nothing, not the Black Lion kit uses.

I still completely fail to see how this is creating wealth from nothing, at least anymore so than crafting rares and creating more wealth by salvaging than you paid for the materials.

@Essence Snow.3194

I agree 100%, If they said they didn’t like the market changes as a result of the recipe they should have just come out and said that. Instead they are acting like this would have been a limitless gold creating loophole, and that is so far from the truth.

Snow, your arguing that the process was only exploitative when the price of snowflakes was low. This doesn’t seem like a very strong argument, for instance what if hypothetically bots suddenly dumped enough of a t5 mat into the market to tank it to vendor price or 10 c per, before ectos adjust there would be a huge gap where you could craft rares at cheap and sell ectos for a huge profit. What would happen? Well this….exactly this in fact. As more people used that material the price of that material would rise (snowflake in what actually happened) and ectos would drop until they were cheap enough/the t5 mat costs enough to make the process not as lucrative. So would the people buying the t5 mat while it was 10 copper be exploiters?

Basically what caused people to be able to gain alot of money from this was one thing:

The recipe was not well known. If it was widely known you could make a rare from one pristine snowflake and an ecto + the other jewelry stuffs snowflakes would had started off at a high price. This is in part due to the gem being incorrectly green colored when it should be a rare gem. Take wow for instance, where every item before a patch is datamined, or looked at on the PTR (Yo, hint hint, wink wink,) then plastered on several fan sites. This thread would have hit before the patch even went live. Snowflakes would have immediately settled near where they were on day 4.

Its actually three snowflakes and 3 ectos per 1 trinket. That said, the content is “temporarily disabled” which sucks for those of us who’d just like to have the set. :\ Hopefully its fixed soon.

3 pristine snowflakes + 3 ecto globs combined for 3 brilliant snowflakes because the trinkets each require three brilliants to create.

I salvaged 100 rares made from t5 mats costing 14.5s a rare today, out of curiosity. With Ectos being at 28s, I came out about 3g under. Meh, perhaps I was unlucky. Perhaps I need a larger sample.

On the other hand, a guy I know was able to take advantage of the pre-patch giver trinkets, and he made a good 150g or so.

I fail to see how the first could in any way have similar results to the second. The bottom line, imo, determines what is or isn’t an exploit.

100 salvages is a relatively small sample size, but honestly many people don’t figure up all their costs. I’m skeptical any rare can be made for 14.5 silver total atm, even if your using leatherworking, which has some seriously cheap rares, ur talking about 12s for the t5 alone then 5 silver for the silk spools. Ecto average on a 80 rare is around 70% so even if you sell them all at 28 silver you will make on average 16.6 silver per rare after the BL tax. See I already figured that up to be a loss/dead even. Salvage rng is probably to blame for any gains or losses.

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I still completely fail to see how this is creating wealth from nothing, at least anymore so than crafting rares and creating more wealth by salvaging than you paid for the materials.

To the cold, cold hand of the market … there is zero difference between using wheelbarrows of existing mats to make a 2s profit vs using a handful of special mats to make a 20s profit. Both are “stuff goes in … profit comes out.”

ANet though have to consider “risk vs reward”, much like a casino. If a casino put a new slot machine in that was basically guaranteed to give the player money, the casino would flip the kitten out and have that sucker shut down instantly. In their minds there is probably a set “win” percentage, or profit amount that they feel is acceptable.

Because you can throw some t5’s in and come out slightly ahead? That won’t really be on their radar … you’re making a small profit that will be negated instantly if the price of ectos drops a little or the cheapest t5 mats get used up, or more ANets style, a string of bad RNG.

Dominae.3146:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I still completely fail to see how this is creating wealth from nothing, at least anymore so than crafting rares and creating more wealth by salvaging than you paid for the materials.

To the cold, cold hand of the market … there is zero difference between using wheelbarrows of existing mats to make a 2s profit vs using a handful of special mats to make a 20s profit. Both are “stuff goes in … profit comes out.”

ANet though have to consider “risk vs reward”, much like a casino. If a casino put a new slot machine in that was basically guaranteed to give the player money, the casino would flip the kitten out and have that sucker shut down instantly. In their minds there is probably a set “win” percentage, or profit amount that they feel is acceptable.

Because you can throw some t5’s in and come out slightly ahead? That won’t really be on their radar … you’re making a small profit that will be negated instantly if the price of ectos drops a little or the cheapest t5 mats get used up, or more ANets style, a string of bad RNG.

What I fail to see is why they shut it down AFTER the prices of ecto and mithril/orichalcum had adjusted accordingly.
There was no more money to be made.

Is their desired ecto price at 30 silver to get more people into buying gold for gems?

Dominae.3146:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I still completely fail to see how this is creating wealth from nothing, at least anymore so than crafting rares and creating more wealth by salvaging than you paid for the materials.

To the cold, cold hand of the market … there is zero difference between using wheelbarrows of existing mats to make a 2s profit vs using a handful of special mats to make a 20s profit. Both are “stuff goes in … profit comes out.”

ANet though have to consider “risk vs reward”, much like a casino. If a casino put a new slot machine in that was basically guaranteed to give the player money, the casino would flip the kitten out and have that sucker shut down instantly. In their minds there is probably a set “win” percentage, or profit amount that they feel is acceptable.

Because you can throw some t5’s in and come out slightly ahead? That won’t really be on their radar … you’re making a small profit that will be negated instantly if the price of ectos drops a little or the cheapest t5 mats get used up, or more ANets style, a string of bad RNG.

Ding!, why can’t the economy 101 kids in here get this.

Aura.1645:

Dominae.3146:

lDeadeyesl.9156:

I still completely fail to see how this is creating wealth from nothing, at least anymore so than crafting rares and creating more wealth by salvaging than you paid for the materials.

To the cold, cold hand of the market … there is zero difference between using wheelbarrows of existing mats to make a 2s profit vs using a handful of special mats to make a 20s profit. Both are “stuff goes in … profit comes out.”

ANet though have to consider “risk vs reward”, much like a casino. If a casino put a new slot machine in that was basically guaranteed to give the player money, the casino would flip the kitten out and have that sucker shut down instantly. In their minds there is probably a set “win” percentage, or profit amount that they feel is acceptable.

Because you can throw some t5’s in and come out slightly ahead? That won’t really be on their radar … you’re making a small profit that will be negated instantly if the price of ectos drops a little or the cheapest t5 mats get used up, or more ANets style, a string of bad RNG.

Ding!, why can’t the economy 101 kids in here get this.

Because it is poorly worded. And it makes an apples and oranges argument. LDO.

Mod deleting info, Government hiding kitten, official forums went to kitten didnt they,

How is this thread still active?

I was wondering how my income increased so much
Good thing I went hardcore farming in the past few days.

As I was reading your posts guys I was like “ kitten Anet really messed the game up with the loot tables”. It was a beautiful game 2 months ago, what happened? All of you are now doing mats and calculations while playing a casino game instead of being out there in the world and having fun. Good job Anet. Keep it up. If no major changes soon I give this game 2 or so months till it breaks down on itself because of the TP. And I’m not the only one thinking the same.
Currently I don’t waste my time even playing. Everything is nerfed down “to the ground baby”, crazy ppl high as f walking in Orr grinding n sh.
Now I’m just waiting on some fixes with the drop rate. There are more games out there ya know.

Etien.4601:

As I was reading your posts guys I was like kitten Anet really messed the game up with the loot tables". It was a beautiful game 2 months ago, what happened? All of you are now doing mats and calculations while playing a casino game instead of being out there in the world and having fun. Good job Anet. Keep it up. If no major changes soon I give this game 2 or so months till it breaks down on itself because of the TP. And I’m not the only one thinking the same.
Currently I don’t waste my time even playing. Everything is nerfed down “to the ground baby”, crazy ppl high as f walking in Orr grinding n sh.
Now I’m just waiting on some fixes with the drop rate. There are more games out there ya know.

it might come as a surprise to you, but some people actually derive fun out of doing maths and calculation.

TL;DR

Facts:
1. The entire economy is pegged to Ecto
2. A single recipe caused Ecto price to drop 20% in 2 days (16th Dec – 18th Dec)

Cause:
Some players made use of the recyclable recipe using Prinstine Snowflake
Consistently getting 1 = 1 + x per salvage

Other notable stuff:
John Smith suggests that there are other unbalanced recipes, but nobody in the forum seems to know what he is referring to.

lDeadeyesl, BUTTERBLUME, are correct most of the time
Aura is either trolling or bad at logic/numbers. I can’t tell.
Essence Snow got mislead by Aura’s numbers, and made some bad arguments (not his fault).

source:
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/38134 (snowflake)
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721 (ecto)
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19700 (mithril)

Etien.4601:

All of you are now doing mats and calculations while playing a casino game instead of being out there in the world and having fun.

This. Economy in this game sucks. And it’s getting worse and worse. I somehow still enjoy spvp (a bit repetitive and far from perfect but fun after all) but seriously i didn’t expect so much farming in pve. What annoys me the most is a good part of my friends left the game or are playing less and less.

penatbater.4710:

it might come as a surprise to you, but some people actually derive fun out of doing maths and calculation.

So what? I love mathematics but i think a game should first of all be fun. I think you have a distorted view of mathematics.

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.” …

Isn’t the major cost simply time spent. If time spent isn’t considered a cost then any thing you do that results in a reward is creating “value for no cost”. thus falls into an exploit bracket.

On other matters the cost field leveled out, sure those that got in eairly made a profit. Welcome to business thats what its all about. The share market is all about buying low and selling high, manufacturing is buying raw materials low selling finished goods high. Even salvage works on the basis of buying low finished products (usually damaged or unwanted) and selling the raw materials again high. Sounds like normal business practices to me.

Though doesnt shutting down this potential market now reward the ‘exploiters’ again as they can make even more coin selling off any remaining ectos when the price again rises?

Fjandi.2516:

penatbater.4710:

it might come as a surprise to you, but some people actually derive fun out of doing maths and calculation.

So what? I love mathematics but i think a game should first of all be fun. I think you have a distorted view of mathematics.

And I think you have a narrow view of what is considered ‘fun’.

penatbater.4710:

And I think you have a narrow view of what is considered ‘fun’.

It seems lots of ppl have a narrow view of “fun” then. But hey, it’s fine keep playing trade wars 2.

Max.4786:

Essence Snow got mislead by Aura’s numbers, and made some bad arguments (not his fault).

source:
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/38134 (snowflake)
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721 (ecto)
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19700 (mithril)

I actually nvr paid any attention to his/her numbers/arguments. I was however noting that the “other” numbers provided by ppl were always the prices after the profit window closed, seemingly ignoring the window itself. I also noted that it was not like crafting rare armor b/c in that circumstance the main cost (the t5 mats) is a guaranteed lost upon salvage vs the snowflake/ecto was not (my apples and oranges idiom, which some ppl didn’t understand…lol) . Not to mention items being identified as masterwork when they should have be identified as rare, which adds to the red flag that something wasn’t right to begin with. Not sure which one of those are “bad arguments” seeing they r more or less objective observations.

All in all I see some ppl (not calling out anyone individually) arguing to try and justify their participation in the whole ordeal. I’m not sure why they would do so on the official forums as it would seem to have “the Streisand effect”. However in all honesty I highly doubt they have anything to worry about as the past has shown us that these sort of things get glossed over and swept under the rug (if ya will).

when you put something in game not tested by different angles. You get people who do you call them exploiters but there giving you feedback from different point of view so maybe you learn next time no need to ban people who are creative this is why you need test servers xd.

penatbater.4710:

The problem, tallis, is that no one really gets punished.

Indeed. Anet clearly states that it is an exploit, but these players STILL post here and claim it is not an exploit.

I have never seen that such behaviour goes unpunished.