Guild Wars 2

I barely get any money from your hearts and events, I can’t make money by selling gear because even vendors don’t even give me a silver for most of it, and now instead of getting totems and claws from loot bags, all I get is butter and chocolate. I don’t care about cooks, they can get their mats for karma like it was before. I made a picture showing how I feel about all this butter:

http://i.imgur.com/VglHa.jpg

LOL… great shot!

is that a pimped up cinnamon roll or a charzooka?

Low fat charzooka

I agree, and I even have a cook. How much darn butter does one need?

Time to add a new class – Heart Surgeon

Check the prices for butter again. Anet brought new recipes for the mystic forge that require 500 of some resource (butter, iron ore, soft wood log …). The price for butter exploded up to 15c a piece.

They need to make butter/chocolate an ADDITIONAL drop from bags, not something that replaces the blue trophy items. Sadly, I dont think they will.

LinseyMurdock.4165:

How do you all feel about how much butter you get now?

A completely honest answer? As long as the biomat (fang, blood …etc…) still sought after being much more valuable and butter is a “loot competition”, it will never be good enough.

A more moderate answer would be yes it got better. I think if you’re the type of open every bag as soon as you pick them up, it won’t annoy you too much. But if you the type who save up a bunch of bags and open them all at once, than the butter is still kinda an “in your face” kind of thing. I think about 80%->90% of my bag was butter when it was first introduced, now it’s more like 30%->45% of my bags. I do notice I rarely got butter from Orr’s bag though, , and whenever I get a Powerful Blood out of it I know it put a smile on my face.. But say if you go to the gate to CoF and do the gate event there, you can still more or less swimming in butter.

But like I said, as long as they’re contender of other much sought after mat, most people will see it as an eyesore.

Add in special crafting recipes for Chocolate Bar greatswords and Paula Deen bows that fire butter.

Then everyone wins! >_>

Deep fried mystic butter sword on a stick

I would suggest butter and chocolate on tier 1 and maybe 2 bags only. I get very aggro when I see them in higher tier bags.

@LindseyMurdock

One dev said to use potions/food in dungeons. That’s a good suggestion but has one significant problem. The mats to craft high end food such as Truffle Steak uses peppercorn, not butter/oranges. The mats to craft high end potions makes them extremely expensive.

Take for example an exotic potion which has a material cost that is sometimes actually higher than the possible amount of money I will make in the dungeon it is intended for (assuming I don’t get downed and lose the buff).

I’m very sad whenever I get chocolate or butter in a bag in Frostgorge or Orr. =(

Linsey, for feedback, I noticed that the drops of Butter and Chocolate Bars have reduced. I actually never personally found Chocolate Bars to be a problem, if my memory serves, I have 43 of those in my bank (note, I have no character doing cooking at this point in time, so they are not being used).

That also means I have no real-world idea of how much Butter will actually be needed to both level the cooking craft, or continue making useful foods for high level toons.

I can tell you I got rid of a stack of butter (assembled within 1-2 days of normal play) a few days ago, when the price on the Trading Post went up, and I am now back to somewhere near 200 in my bank.

Whilst I couldn’t tell you the date that I noticed the drop rate change for Butter, I will say it was noticeable, and seems much more reasonable now (from an outside-of-the-craft point of view)

I think the remaining “factor” in all this now would be to check that the previous loot contained in bags (both in terms of diversity and quantity) are back to where they were, and see if it’s possible to add the Butter and Chocolate Bar drops to the mix – please don’t take this as a complaint, but I will have to echo the overall sentiment that I personally have found certain blue crafting materials, and potentially some cloths and leather may be in a slight shortage situation.

Note – this is my own experience only, and I may have been unlucky, or have not attended the required zone-levels to see the drops personally.

Thank you, as always, for the hard work you guys have put into the game – it’s a sheer joy to play, and I hope that “niggles” like this, that are very temporary, don’t cause you guys too much angst

Hello

Yes it did got butter after the change (sorry for the bad pun XD)

But it is not enough. As mentionned it is really absurd to drop low level cooking ingredient like butter from high tier bags.

Instead you should either remove it from those bags, or make the high tier bag drop… high tier cooking material maybe (I mean… that’s just the most logical thing to do. If you add cooking material in bags, make it follow the tiers like the rest of the crafting material from those bags.)

When I collect 5+ bags I will ALWAYS get butter and Chocolate in 2 of those bags.
It is VERY VERY annoying because it is replacing the fine materials I should be getting and making leveling crafting really difficult because of the lack of fine materials.

LinseyMurdock.4165:

… How do you all feel about how much butter you get now?

Sickly butter-sick.
Enough?

The fine materials drop percentage chance gets squashed by butter and chocolate ones and this hinders severely crafting progression making it unsustainable in comparison to experience level progression speed.

Not even talking about rare materials.

As others have suggested I would prefer it if the drops that you got scaled. Butter & chocolate are fine for tiny or small bags (although there’s still that “I could have had a Fine Crafting Material” feeling you get). However to open up high level items, such as Heavy Bags and getting them, or the Smuggler’s Chests in the Antre of Adjournment jumping puzzle and getting butter, chocolate, bananas & oranges feels really bad.

As others have suggested, changing the bags to instead drop other items that would be found in the area would be an improvement, especially if they’re herbs. I know that Coriander Seed is currently between 2 & 3 silver each. Having bags drop those or similar rare foodstuffs would be an improvement.

Also, on a slight tangent, getting poultry meat from Undead Raptors is just wrong.

I accidently stumbled upon a jumping puzzle while exploring Malchors leap.. one of the awesome things about it was every few jumps was a chest of smuggled loot!

Whoever hid there loot in such a dangerous location.. one of the final zones of the game, filled with the most hostile of foes… must have been hiding some AWESOME stuff.

By the time I reached the end of the puzzle I was 18 sticks of butter and 14 bars of chocolate richer.

Why is there so much love for cooking, while kittening over every other crafting profession in the process?

If you want to add butter/chocolate to the drop tables, do it in addition to the rarer crafting materials … it is basically impossible to find any of this crap it feels like. I end up buying like 95% of my teeth/bloods/etc. off the Trade Broker. And you are worried about cooks getting enough butter?

Not to mention you added in Mystic Forge recipes to get rid of butter on the market because it it completely flooded out … it is pretty apparent it went way too far. Cooking mats for one profession should not take precedence over every other one.

The drop rates for Butter may be lower, but it’s still essentially the same problems. People who need Cloth and Leather component pieces still have a worse chance of seeing them from the loot bags, which is a big deal since you can’t just harvest these things. At the same time, it’s a royal pain for crafters to get access to Butter in the long term. Yes, you could always buy it off of the BLTC. However you’ll also be held hostage by the current whims of the BLTC market, which makes me rather jumpy.

New character, leveling from 1 to 11 yesterday night, decided to go with tailoring.
At level 11 I was not able to create 4 bags, there is no cloth… it’s very difficult to level tailoring at this low levels without going to the trading post. It was not like this 2 weeks ago.

Don’t know the implications of butter and chocolate with everything else, but now leather and cloth drop rates look the same of rare materials.
No problems with ore or wood of course.

I get less but its one of those things that feels like it took the spot of another useful crafting item for people that arent buttersmiths (as my guild has started to call them). I dont think that would be the case but getting that feeling even once is kind of a bother.

I would like to see bags of good drop off higher level mob bags, just so it doesnt feel like im getting sticks of butter (and other mats) for 80 levels. Maybe a cooking bag that will have other things in them.

Consider just putting it back to karma. Really. It’s easy to farm karma, but getting butter when I need totems and so on is a real pain. I do have a chef, and I have more butter than I know what to do with.

Need little bit more Chocolate from drops please

Hi Linsey, thanks for taking the time to discuss this with us.

I do understand removing them from coin/karma. That’s fine.

The issue is that they now push out other materials to the point where natural crafting paths are altered.

A few possible suggestions to consider:

1. Look into alternative methods of cloth/leather generation. Butter/chocolate taking these spots can be quite noticeable in lower tiers particularly.

2. Bring the Butter/Chocolate/Oranges to more specific geographical locations. IE. certain spawns or areas dropping significantly higher percentages of the ingredient. It still requires players to adventure to receive them, but takes them out of the common loot pool of most bags.

3. Re-examine the rate at which low-mid tiers generate fine crafting materials. Butter/chocolate generation itself is less of an issue than the impact (or perceived impact) on an already frantic scramble for fine materials.

I would say limit butter/chocolate to cooler temperature zones, or zones with a colder climate. I mean…if I find butter or chocolate in a bag dropped by a charr or fire elemental in the middle of Fireheart Rise, I might be inclined to wonder why it’s not melting all over my beautiful armor .

As per suggestions, I’d say involve them in some type of mini-game or turn-in quest in a major city.

Example: A wealthy man from Divnity’s Reach is really hoping to impress his daughter with a giant cake or party where there’s going to be a “special surprise”; however, he can’t possibly muster up enough butter and chocolate in time to create the masterpiece involved.

“Please, kind hero; I know throughout your travels you come across a wide variety of trinkets, treasures, and sweet loot; however, I ask that you bring back what you can in terms of sweet and savory, that delicious chocolate and butter all creatures of Tyria enjoy. With such a donation by you, I will be able to throw my daughter the party of her dreams, and you will be making a father’s dream come true. She’s all I have left, and I want to show her how much I love her, even if it’s only through how fast I can give the entirety of Divinity’s Reach a stomach ache! Do this for me, and you will be generously rewarded with one of a few trinkets I’ve come across upon my journeys.”

Just a week-long event personal to you, maybe even set up in your personal home instance.

Coin is easy to obtain?

Mainly I think they want more cloth drops. Butter is the scapegoat for cloth.

I’d like to make a pitch for fishing, here. Add fishing into the game. Fishing should basically be a gathering method for salvageable items. Ruined Fishing Net, Old Boot, Tattered Sail Fragment… you get the idea. This should include salvage items that turn into cloth or leather. Actual fish should be an incidental addition – the main purpose is just for creative salvage material. Maybe toss some appropriate sea-based items on the drop table as well, like clams, coral, and so on. Zone-based drop table – this allows you to go collect your jute in the 1-15 zones on a reliable basis but still get high-level cloth in high-level zones.

Yes, you’ll probably need to tinker with other drop rates to keep them in line with what you want the economy to look like. It’d take a lot of the player annoyance away from tailoring and leather working, though.

How about a bag exclusively for food? You can even expand the loot table and add more type of food. But make them drop from enemies that make sense like gnawls, humans trolls etc

The amount of butter I was getting was a bit obscene, but it looks to have lessened so it is not to bad now.

My issue has been just getting the other materials to make goods I want. The butter and chocolate gets in the way more then it helps from my view. At the same time I will honestly say that I miss my skinning knife from WoW. I know, heresy, but it is true.

We all kill allot if different beasties and some of them do not appear to have a purpose but to be fodder (Rams, Deer, Wild Boars) so why not make them a resource like a node. Kill one, skin it, then refine. That would solve, from my perspective, a shortage in leather. Throw in some biomats (Claws, teeth, bones…) and it plugs some holes that exist.

I see it like this though, they created Ore nodes for mining, they have trees for wood, and plants for foods. But the only way to get a steady supply of leather is luck?

I believe the butter and chocolate were not a problem, but a symptom of a larger disparity with in the craft ecosystem its self. Looking at it as a symptom instead of a problem, it is a little more apparent that there are holes in the ecosystem that the butter drops only exacerbated. Thoughts?

Nebilim.5127:

How about a bag exclusively for food? You can even expand the loot table and add more type of food. But make them drop from enemies that make sense like gnawls, humans trolls etc

If you gotta keep them as drops, I like this idea the best. Expecting claws or blood and getting butter is a pretty big disappointment.

Would it be possible for bags to have chances at multi-drops? For instace say Common Crafting Materials, Fine Crafting Materials, Cooking Supplies & Coin. Right now it’s one of the first three and perhaps the last, but what if you had a chance to get butter and a tiny fang, or some cloth, and some chocolate, or some oranges and some scales.

I melted down all my butter and chocolate together and now me and the Anet team are going to go for a swim =D

But really, in a crafting system with sub combines…..why are butter and chocolate even ‘ingredients’ They should be sub combines….or in the case of chocolate an actual finished product like the filgree’d gems(can use on own or further combine).

This is your real problem…

Additionally, I do not see why cooking cannot have recipes that are coin or karma only. When was the last time you seen a real life farmer go hunting for his crop of corn? There are enough farms around …so this just fits. Farms produce and sell produce and various ingredients. If these were spread out and purchase amounts were limited that would offset your ‘so-called’ reasoning behind not allowing a coin based recipe.

Also PS: EVERY Recipe is COIN BASED as long as the TP exists.

TL:DR Butter, your doing it wrong by having it drop period!

I would also like to take this opportunity to call out Linsay on thier so called use of crafting in-game as stated.

IF…IF…IF you have even attempted crafting THE FIRST THING you notice is that your finished product is worth less the what it takes to make. (I have done leather and jewelry and not a single item sells for more).

I hate to be the one to break this too you since you are obviously living in denial, But crafting in GW2 is a terrible design. Personally I believe the biggest offender is crafted items sell for next to nothing to a vendor so all I see on the TP is them listed one copper higher. (NOT to mention that these weirdo dont even realize the 15% take from TP means they make LESS than just vendoring it.)

TIP For Future System Design: Always bet that the end user is stupid….its the smart bet.

In order to set crafting on the right path EVERY SINGLE item needs a higher vendor value … OR every SINGLE ingrediant for EVERY profession should be available via an ingame vendor via coin.

^^ This means EVERY item has a reasonable minimum price OR EVERY ingredient has a maximum value.

The ONE and i think ONLY thing swtor did right was materials, since they were gained via crewskills they had a minimum and maximum price threshold. There was a reason for this and you would do well to answer why all by yourself.

NOW, on the off chance you wish to reply and say crafting is worth while I would ask you respond with exactly what it is you are crafting to base this on, I will then compare any items you claim to craft and be worthwhile with the TP price for the ingredients and the finished product in order to remain in context.

You asked for feedback. The most objectionable feedback is usually the most valuable. You are welcome.

Maurier.6094:

I would also like to take this opportunity to call out Linsay on thier so called use of crafting in-game as stated.

IF…IF…IF you have even attempted crafting THE FIRST THING you notice is that your finished product is worth less the what it takes to make. (I have done leather and jewelry and not a single item sells for more).

I hate to be the one to break this too you since you are obviously living in denial, But crafting in GW2 is a terrible design. Personally I believe the biggest offender is crafted items sell for next to nothing to a vendor so all I see on the TP is them listed one copper higher. (NOT to mention that these weirdo dont even realize the 15% take from TP means they make LESS than just vendoring it.)

TIP For Future System Design: Always bet that the end user is stupid….its the smart bet.

In order to set crafting on the right path EVERY SINGLE item needs a higher vendor value … OR every SINGLE ingrediant for EVERY profession should be available via an ingame vendor via coin.

^^ This means EVERY item has a reasonable minimum price OR EVERY ingredient has a maximum value.

The ONE and i think ONLY thing swtor did right was materials, since they were gained via crewskills they had a minimum and maximum price threshold. There was a reason for this and you would do well to answer why all by yourself.

NOW, on the off chance you wish to reply and say crafting is worth while I would ask you respond with exactly what it is you are crafting to base this on, I will then compare any items you claim to craft and be worthwhile with the TP price for the ingredients and the finished product in order to remain in context.

You asked for feedback. The most objectionable feedback is usually the most valuable. You are welcome.

Clearly you are in denial about the implication’s of a buyer’s market. Cash is king and, well – your feedback is definitely objectionable.

One easy way to add more leather into the game is to have more items that can be salvaged for it. And that salvaging gives more leather from crafted items depending on your kit and your craft skill (it it uses it in someway). Right now there are plenty of trophy items that their only purpose is to sell for pocket change and could be easily adapted to this.

LinseyMurdock.4165:

We did also reduce the amount of butter and chocolate you get from bags. I was a bit nervous about taking them off vendors since they are such a staple, but I’ll be the first to admit that I went a smidge overboard. It’s felt a lot better since the change went Live, at least from my own experience (and I do play the game a lot and do lots of crafting!) How do you all feel about how much butter you get now?

Could you perhaps quantify what the intended effect was? :o)

Linsey — You say you do a lot of crafting. Just curious have you spent the ungodly amount of time to farm items for it or do you have unlimited coin to buy off the trading post.

I’ve crafted in every game I’ve played. I like the discovery system and I like that there are plans for 500 recipes for each craft. However, I feel that if I want to do anything I’m being forced to farm for countless hours (which doesn’t work with your anti farm code) or pay $$$ for in game currency to purchase what I need off the trading post.

Could we just get some butter trees and chocolate vines? /joke

More butter and chocolate pls!

I’m hungry!

Linsey, I think the butter and chocolate drops have gotten pretty close to reasonable. I’m one of the oddballs that liked the change to migrate some cooking items off of the karma vendors. I think butter/chocolate was a better alternative than flour/sugar and I understand why y’all erred on the side of too much. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail as to why I liked the change because I don’t want to have to defend my eccentricities, but rest assured that there is at least one player who’s not cranky about it.

So, what to do about the little misstep with the drop rates though? Here’s one way to get rid of a lot of butter and here’s how the Bellagio in Las Vegas took care of 2100 pounds of chocolate.

Why not just make it so butter drops in ADDITION to whatever item you receive? Similar to how gemstones work in mining?

Perhaps a exchange npc that might take our excess chocolate, butter etc in return for other (SB) mats we might find more useful?

Yeah, an exchange would be awesome. Vanilla beans is shooting up in price because it’s so hard to find. Demand is outstripping supply.

What I don’t understand is why the addition of butter, and chocolate to bags had to affect the drop rate of other materials at all?

Surely the drop rates could have been altered so that the existing materials continued to drop at the same rates as before, with butter and chocolate added?

BigBadB.4860:

What I don’t understand is why the addition of butter, and chocolate to bags had to affect the drop rate of other materials at all?

Surely the drop rates could have been altered so that the existing materials continued to drop at the same rates as before, with butter and chocolate added?

This would be nice. If there was a chance of getting more than one item out of bag (ie 2 scales or a scale and some cloth) then things would be ok.