Guild Wars 2

Recently I was very excited when I saw that you could purchase increased stack size for collectibles. I immediately started saving my money to buy the gems to buy said improvement. I was disappointed that the exchange rate for gems was much worse than I remembered it, but I gritted my teeth and started saving up my gold.

At that time I incorrectly assumed that it meant increased stack sizes regardless of where the items were. I envisioned every stack in my bank, whether it was in the collectibles area or the main area, having 1000 items in each stack as well as each stack on my various characters and in my guild bank. I would be able to start using storage characters as player characters. Organizing my bank would be so easy with all the extra space I imagined having.

I then discovered that the stack size increase was for the collectibles tab of the bank only and no where else.

I still thought to myself, “Well, it’s not as good as I thought, but I will still eventually get it when I save up enough gold.”

Then I started doing the math. I started thinking about which collectibles I horde and which ones I do not. How many stacks of stuff do I keep that would normally go into the collectibles tab, but won’t fit because of the 250 per stack limit?

Let’s say I have 20 different types of stacks of 250 each that I keep on storage characters because they won’t fit in the collectibles tab. I may have 100 of these stacks, but for some items there will be multiple stacks and I am theorizing that I only have 20 actual types of stackable collectibles which I horde.

The collection expander costs 800 gems, which currently costs about 60 gold. If I buy this, I am really only buying the equivalent of 20 extra storage slots. For example, if I horde orichalcum ingots, I may have 10 stacks of them. However, buying one expander means that only one of the extra stacks gets to go into the collectibles tab.

For 600 gems, I get an extra bank tab, which means 30 extra slots. This currently costs about 45 gold.

For 52,500 influence, at a cost of 105 gold, I can get 250 bank slots by creating my own guild.

Unless you have already bought all the bank tabs and all the guild storage OR you are hording not just many stacks of collectibles but many different types of collectibles, it just isn’t worth the expense. The money could be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

Furthermore, and I am just assuming that this is the case as I have not actually tested it, suppose you get all three expanders and can now store 1000 per stack in the collectibles tab. Now imagine that you fill up that tab and need to empty it to start over. You will have to split that stack of 1000 up into 4 stacks of 250 which will take up 4 slots elsewhere because you can’t simply move it to another slot like you can if you had never bought the expanders.

I thought that too when the item first came out. I converted gold to gems and bought it. Soon after I realized that it was only for the bank and sent support a ticket to see if I could possibly my gems/gold back. They pretty much told me that they couldn’t do anything about it.

The fact that tab had always been called collections and I would say most of us didn’t notice or care, thing it’a all just part of the bank made it so easy to misunderstand what the expanders were for and how they would work. This language barrier is always a problem between developers and users in software. So something that was obvious to them what it’s purpose was turned out to be not so obvious to numerous players. It goes back to the first Reddit rumors about this months ago and the speculation that it would affect all places that had a 250 unit limit.

I blame the lack of documentation/in your face tutorials that clearly tells you what things are so we all have the same basic working knowledge of what things are called. Even if the description for the expander used the phrase “collections tab” then it would have been much clearer that only those slots are affected.

Its a horrible deal for the vast majority of players. Overpriced.

Pretty much what Malediktus said.

It’s way to expensive for me, and I’m usually buying gems with real money too. No way in hell I’m gonna fork over real cash for 2400 gems, only to buff myself to 1k stacks in bank. That’s ridiculous.

If anything, they need to at least give discounts to people who do spend real money.

There is a TP downside with expanding collections. Without a small limit players will hoard and not sell excess mats and a constant stream of supply is what makes the TP work.

I don’t think that will be a problem, Behellagh. My guess is that far, far fewer players bought the Collection Expander than those who bought extra bank/bag slots. We saw a MASSIVE jump in gold – gem prices when that went on sale, but the price didn’t move up at all when the Collection Expander was released. (In fact, it’s even gone down since then!) I expect that most players don’t deem it useful enough to be worth the gems, and of course, casual players aren’t likely to buy it in the first place, which is where the bulk of the supply comes from.

Storage upgrades aren’t about economic efficiency, they are about convenience. I want to play the game; I don’t want to spend a significant amount of time managing my inventory — this upgrade was a major advantage in this regard.

I was able to free up 3 tabs of bank storage, move stuff from personal guild vault, from storage toons, and I still have plenty of room for all the exotics I crafted on the way to leveling my crafting.

Spending 800 gems on any account-wide upgrade is never going to as economically efficient as buying a new character slot. But it’s been amazingly efficient at reducing the time I spend managing inventory.

Re: gold→gem ratios.
Keep in mind that the expander went on sale at the same time the mini Mr Sparkles was being offered as a bonus for those who spent US$50 on gems in the month of December — I think that had a bigger impact on the ratio than nearly any other offer since head start. (I know people who view the deal as "buy Mr Sparkles for US$50 and get 4,000 gems for free.)

the idea of a collections tab expansion is silly to me. here is why:

most materials in said collections tab are trade-able, and as a result you could store them in a private guild bank, which is A LOT (please do the math, you wont believe me if i post it here) cheaper per stack you can save. all you need to do is buy a guild for 1 silver, and then buy the drinks for the city for a week (or other versions) in one of the major cities. those will get you influence you need to get your private guild bank up in levels of architecture and eventually guildbank space.

250 private guild bank slots all for yourself

keep in mind that you can not store non tradeables in there. but i find my regular bank is more then big enough to keep those.

It’s not a worthy investment IMO.

What are the chances that you will end up with over 250 of a certain mat? I’m sure that if you are hardcore player, you will eventually end up with +250 silk scrap, mithril ore and logs and such, but is it really worth the 800 gems to hold items without huge value?

You are better off depositing that extra stack in your bank, gbank, or bank alt.

I have found it utterly delightful to press Deposit All Collectibles and actually have them go away from my bags. I’m a pack rat. Doing a dungeon with only 35 open bag slots or so gets painful. Now, oooohhhh the happy feeling that I can salvage and clear space for more loot!

It’s been a major QoL for me.

Cyto.9401:

-snip-
250 private guild bank slots all for yourself

While in general I agree with you, people following your advice should keep in mind that if they have any chance of switching servers, the collections expander might be a better option, since guild upgrades don’t transfer with you.

It’s a convenience-item (ish), much like the unlimited tools/salvage-kit. I have the 250 slot guild upgrade also, but it’s much more convenient storing 3 extra stacks in your collections instead.

I rarely have full stacks of anything worth selling. This item is overpriced and would be a waste of money/gold for me.

Vick.6805:

Cyto.9401:

-snip-
250 private guild bank slots all for yourself

While in general I agree with you, people following your advice should keep in mind that if they have any chance of switching servers, the collections expander might be a better option, since guild upgrades don’t transfer with you.

you could loot and switch server and make a new guild with 250 slots multiple times for the money it costs to get all stack expansions for the collections tab. but its true, only people faithful to there server can rely on this :p

Yeah I thought it was 1000 stack sizes period – not just in collections. I posted about it and everyone flamed me and implied that I was an idiot. Truth is, lots of people were under the same impression as me.

In any case, I now have 1000 item collections. It’s better than 250, but in hindsight I would have rather spent all the gems in another way.

Each collections expander gives you an additional stack for 344 different material types, not including minis.

Assume gold-gems at 9g/100 gems (higher than I’ve ever seen it). 3 expansions @ 800 gems each = 2400 gems or 216g for 1032 additional stacks of items stored, not including miniatures.

Influence for a personal guild costs 20g/10,000 influence. For just the storage upgrades and their prerequisites, you’re spending 52,500 influence, or 105g for 250 slots.

105g/250 slots at 0.42g/slot
or
216g/1032 slots at 0.20g/slot

Seems cost-effective to me, but then I intend to do both eventually anyway.

and expander works on pvp locker too

I don’t see the point. If I’m investing I’ll want more than a thousand. If I’m not, I don’t even need the 250. When I can’t deposit more that just means I should go and sell a stack of whatever.

Vick.6805:

Each collections expander gives you an additional stack for 344 different material types, not including minis.

Assume gold-gems at 9g/100 gems (higher than I’ve ever seen it). 3 expansions @ 800 gems each = 2400 gems or 216g for 1032 additional stacks of items stored, not including miniatures.

Influence for a personal guild costs 20g/10,000 influence. For just the storage upgrades and their prerequisites, you’re spending 52,500 influence, or 105g for 250 slots.

105g/250 slots at 0.42g/slot
or
216g/1032 slots at 0.20g/slot

Seems cost-effective to me, but then I intend to do both eventually anyway.

only works if you use 4 stacks of every material, you cant eg fill up your collections tab with only slabs of red meat. the guild stash seems a lot more usefull. it might be more for you then for me of course but i buy nearly 6 stacks of butter every day, and a lot more other stuff that would not fit otherwise (like 20 stacks of saffron thread)

Vol.7601:

It’s not a worthy investment IMO.

What are the chances that you will end up with over 250 of a certain mat? I’m sure that if you are hardcore player, you will eventually end up with +250 silk scrap, mithril ore and logs and such, but is it really worth the 800 gems to hold items without huge value?

You are better off depositing that extra stack in your bank, gbank, or bank alt.

I already always kept 2 stacks of each item. Every time an item went full, I’d take off the top 50 and stash those away in my guild bank. Until I had an extra stack there. So, I bought 1 upgrade so I can stash that extra stack in my bank. Everything extra will be sold (not counting wood, ore or cloth, those will still be stored in banks).

Do I need the 500 in my bank? No, my gbank setup worked too. But it is very convenient to have it. Will I get another expander? No, because 500 should be enough.

Its great. It means I don’t have to sort my mats out as frequently as I do. Unfortunately my account was hacked. I lost everything. But Anet restored everything. Except they gave me the gems back instead of the upgrade and I already maxed purchasing the upgrade so I can’t buy them again lol. Hopefully they will have a workaround soon so I can buy it

If this was expanding every storage slot instead of just the collectables tab, then it would be worthwhile.

Instead of buying this I am building a second gbank tab …

I honestly think they should have been more clear about this in the BLTC. “Increase the stack size of all collections” is misleading. I honestly thought it would increase the size of all stacks.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Storage upgrades aren’t about economic efficiency, they are about convenience. I want to play the game; I don’t want to spend a significant amount of time managing my inventory — this upgrade was a major advantage in this regard.

+1 this ……………