Guild Wars 2

I hate to be so negative, so let me start off by saying I love the concept art and music in Guild Wars 2. Also, I enjoyed the Halloween event a lot.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way:

The more I do the math on this “donation” thing, the more disgusted I get. Did they think they would dupe us into such a crappy gold/treasure sink?

IT IS CHEAPER TO BUY MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF THE COMMENDATION REWARDS (black lion keys, gathering tools, even exotics and rares and the lionguard skins) BY OTHER MEANS. DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY.

I did some of the math on some other threads. I could copy what I wrote here if anyone wants. Also, if anyone else has done any math on the cost of commendation rewards, I’d love to see it.

Yeah I realized this as soon as I saw what the items were you could get. None of them are unique or special, so what’s the point? I am sorry to say I’m really disappointed by this.

complete waste of money

If your buying things to toss into forge to get commendations then yeah it’s a huge waste. However if you just got back from farming and don’t need to break down or sell blues/greens then you can get some nice items by junking them in the donation boxs. In otherwords the commendations are a good alternative to salvaging/selling junk items.

Skapocalypse.5236:

If your buying things to toss into forge to get commendations then yeah it’s a huge waste. However if you just got back from farming and don’t need to break down or sell blues/greens then you can get some nice items by junking them in the donation boxs. In otherwords the commendations are a good alternative to salvaging/selling junk items.

Actually, after the first wave of people buying up cheap things to test stuff out, it would be best to sell that stuff at the trading post for a profit.

For example, I was super quick to buy 3 stacks of Chocolate Raspberry Cookies for 1c each. 30 of that level 60 food plus packaging meant 1.34s was 2 tokens, which really isn’t the best deal for earning tokens. Also, takes a lot of clicks. Anyways, they are 15c each now. Also, nobody is buying them.

In terms of stripping the low cost items from the auction house, I’d say this event is a success. In terms of providing a value to the average player, it stinks. Everything can be purchased for less elsewhere.

i realized that when i didn’t find anything i could put into the forge. i thought about almost trashing my karma exotics for the effort, but then saw the rewards, and happily decided against it.

as i guesstimated, that’s a lot of tokens for ONE black lion key. Gem conversion might be more worth it.

Skapocalypse.5236:

If your buying things to toss into forge to get commendations then yeah it’s a huge waste. However if you just got back from farming and don’t need to break down or sell blues/greens then you can get some nice items by junking them in the donation boxs. In otherwords the commendations are a good alternative to salvaging/selling junk items.

In the case of selling junk items, it’s still a net loss, though it’s not as big a waste.

So 3 lvl80 greens and 1 wrapper = 12 commendations. Let’s say that’s 5.24 silver (~1.4s per green you’d get from selling it to vendor, 1.04s per wrapper. this is actually a very forgiving scenario, most lvl80 greens I’ve sold seem to be 1.6-1.8 silver).

A Black Lion Key is 285 commendations. 285 / 12 = 23.75
So that’s 23.75 donations, each donation costing 5.24 silver. 23.75 * 5.24 = 124.45

That means, by generating Commendations, it costs:
1g, 24s, 45c for 1 black lion key.

Using the current gem exchange rate, right now it costs:
1g, 11s for 1 black lion key.

So even in the case you described, it’s a waste of money. A relatively small waste of money given the forgiving scenario, but still, a waste of money.

When you take into account the 5 BLK for 450 gem deal and a bunch of other scenarios, it becomes a much bigger waste of money.

I’m not sure if Anet didn’t do the math – or did and thought that we wouldn’t. As if it’s not enough that people use the label “charity” to scam in reallife…

i just need to know if all the monsters in the new dungeon are karkas.
maybe the sigil 10% vs karkas will be nice to farm for.

Skapocalypse.5236:

If your buying things to toss into forge to get commendations then yeah it’s a huge waste. However if you just got back from farming and don’t need to break down or sell blues/greens then you can get some nice items by junking them in the donation boxs. In otherwords the commendations are a good alternative to salvaging/selling junk items.

I don’t believe they are a good alternative, when you consider the gear you get with commendations is nothing special at all. I’d rather just vendor or salvage and have the money/mats. This whole commendations thing is a head-scratcher. I just don’t see the point.

I didn’t find it to be a waste of money. I tried with some level 80 fine items (warhorns I think it was). According to my math, it cost about 3S and I got 8 in return, which is about 37.5 each (let’s say 38).
For Black Lion Key, it is 19S for 20 Gems when I checked. A Key is 125 from Gem Store (if you were to purchase a single key), which would mean 118S. I forget how much the commendation keys are, but I did math earlier and remember it was around 106S worth of commendations. So for a single key, it is a bit cheaper, but a lot more work. IF you were to buy 5 keys, it isn’t as good of a value. Still, some people may not have enough to buy 5 (although if you didn’t, I don’t know why you’d buy 1…).
For the rest, it does cost a bit more than the shop, but the version you get are higher stacks. I get 100 Ori picks from merchant for 4S or 250 for 12.3S worth of Commendations. It does cost 2.3S more than 250 picks would cost from merchant, but it also takes up less invy space. Same thing for the fancy named basic salvage kits.

So I wouldn’t say it is a total waste. I plan to get more for salvage kits later on. May go for a 250 use ori sickle too.

I haven’t compared the salvage kits yet, but has anyone looked at if they’re a better/worse bang for the buck compared to the Mystic Salvage Kits? Isn’t the % chance lower on the commendation salvage kits?

ebrown.8193:

I haven’t compared the salvage kits yet, but has anyone looked at if they’re a better/worse bang for the buck compared to the Mystic Salvage Kits? Isn’t the % chance lower on the commendation salvage kits?

Disembler 3BEK Kit (250 uses, 10% for rare, 20% to recover upgrades)

Also, here is a list of all the commendation recipes i found so far.

http://dulfy.net/2012/11/17/gw2-captains-council-commendations-guide/

I’m going to do it anyways as I have no use for my karma and I’m going to try and do that.

I did not expect to get something for cheaper price. So it is ok. Just another way to get something another.

I don’t think it is waste of money. I like 250x gathering and salvage tools. Someone wants that skin and he will buy it, even if it will cost more gold compared to same stats weapon.

Cheapest you can get Lionguard skins normally is for 9800 karma for tier1 skins, so using tokens can be good if you plan to use those skins and don’t feel like farming in Orr.

Actually, if you like the skins, it’s kinda worth it for the cheapest rarity.

However, the rest of the items are not worth it, i agree.

EDIT: UNLESS you value the extra inventory space…but I manage mine pretty well.

It’s pretty disappointing. What happened to the supposed lack of a grind? Yes, the rewards are mostly cosmetic – though as a collector is it quite frankly getting irritating to see a lot of items gated behind gold, token and gem grinds.

Arena Net should take a leaf out of WoW’s book when it comes to event rewards – perhaps offering them as a reward for a jumping puzzle or something similar that takes skill rather than grinding to achieve.

IceBlink.4317:

Cheapest you can get Lionguard skins normally is for 9800 karma for tier1 skins, so using tokens can be good if you plan to use those skins and don’t feel like farming in Orr.

Do daily achievement for two days → that’s it, there’s no other step in this chain

9800 karma is nothing, if you have transmute stones then you’re set already.

I bought 2 stacks of each gathering material. Stacks of 250 are a great inventory saver, and definately worth the ~30s I paid per stack, compared to needing 3 stacks of normal variations.

Should help my legendary grinding later on

something to keep in mind though, the number of gems you can actually buy for 1g has been plummeting since launch. which means that the cost of black lion keys in the gemstore has skyrocketed, and will continue to do so. while they may be cheaper that way right now, that won’t always be the case.

Kerithlan.1659:

IceBlink.4317:

Cheapest you can get Lionguard skins normally is for 9800 karma for tier1 skins, so using tokens can be good if you plan to use those skins and don’t feel like farming in Orr.

Do daily achievement for two days -> that’s it, there’s no other step in this chain

9800 karma is nothing, if you have transmute stones then you’re set already.

Daily achievement for two days gets you ONE skin. I brought a bunch of green weapons, tossed them into the forge with the donation package, and brought the nine skins I wanted for my lionguard-themed character in less than an hour.

biggs.4702:

Yeah I realized this as soon as I saw what the items were you could get. None of them are unique or special, so what’s the point? I am sorry to say I’m really disappointed by this.

Can you tell me where I can get those sturdy tools, please? Because those are the ones I want!

This is a way of boosting the price of currently merchant value items (think of how much cheap food is on the trading post) and putting a ceiling on gem purchases (assuming keys are the major driving factor of the economy). It actually kind of becomes worth it when you’re getting lots of level 71 greens and blues or you’ve just finished crafting and need your inventory space back.

It’s really just one more layer to the gear grind. If you’re into such things, the Forge makes it a little more interesting. If you’re the kind of person who does the math, I think you’re probably missing the point. The point of the game, from my perspective, is to experience interesting things in interesting ways, not to bean-count.

With that said, I also don’t see the point, but then again, I don’t really care about trying to get this gear or that nor concern myself much with game economics. I’m more interested in seeing the world. The gear grind really just detracts from that.

Totally agree with avoiding these, unless you really have tonnes of stuff to get rid of. I had an almost full guild storage tab of junk consumables from cooking, but even after I’d cooked more to get them into tens, I was only halfway to a 250-use ori pick.

I went to the TP for the rest and now realise I’ve ended up spending almost 1 gold to get that pick. Really wish I waited until I’d woken up properly before logging in this morning.

The sturdy mining picks, etc. are rather handy. 1300 of those tokens for exotic Lionguard weapon, especially if you use two weapons instead of one, seems way out of whack in context with the other items you can buy from with those tokens.

I do find myself skipping over the idea of making those tokens. Might be worth it for someone else maybe. Especially if you have an overabundance of items collected.

I finally had a use for all that butter I had collected :P

I love my three new minis.

Guys I did a test with rares and exotics.

took the cheapest exos i could get 3 times 66 silvers
it gave me 11 crates of commendation in which each box gave me 50 tokens so thats an easy 550 tokens.
3 rares is about 140 tokens rewarded.

Of course you’d get more of your money’s worth bu buying simple harvesting tools if you have a million slots in your bank and inventory
but theses tools are just a way of convenience.

Also this is your chance to get 250 uses from a salvage kit instead of the one requiring mystic forge stones.

I’d say the only reason to buy any of the lionguards weapon with tokens is for the Sigils if your one of thoses people with damage in mind for farming.
Keys are worthless atm and they will always be if they decide to sell wintersday chests requiring no keys.
however you can always try keys if you want to try getting black lion salvage kits or a very rare chance of getting a permanent tonic.
I’m not sure if this was intended to be that way but thats what i got and im sitting on top of 600 tokens so careful.

turning level 70-80 blues that sell for like 60c into 8 Commendations is good for me. I’m just going to pick up keys anyways, because if halloween is any hint….those chests will skins for christmas also.

At worse I get more black lion kits and maybe some rare tonics

I had to laugh when I saw how many commendations some of the stuff took. Instantly gave up on the whole thing and destroyed the one commendation I had.

I wish I had seen this thread sooner. I sunk 2.5 gold to get 550 commendations, saw the items being sold, then immediately regretted it.(

Use the cheapest “trinket” type item, 3 of them gives 7 commendations

Malachite copper stud and tiger’s eye copper stuf, 26 copper each

Comes to about 1.20s per commendation

As a person with absurd amounts of dungeon tokens, I am enjoying my Black Lion keys.

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

i just need to know if all the monsters in the new dungeon are karkas.
maybe the sigil 10% vs karkas will be nice to farm for.

They are not.

This was a brilliant plan by anet to rip the TP of useless junk. Huyndreds of thousands of stacked leftover items selling at base vendor price on TP have completely gone.

“Tiger’s eye copper stud” had an initial stock of 30000 items. All gone. Malachite copper stud had 50 000, down to 30000 now.

PowerCat.5738:

Use the cheapest “trinket” type item, 3 of them gives 7 commendations

Malachite copper stud and tiger’s eye copper stuf, 26 copper each

Comes to about 1.20s per commendation

Hi PowerCat – 1 silver 20 copper per commendation equals to 1 gold, 20 silver per 100 commendation. Multiply that by 5 and you need around 6 gold pero 500 commendations.

Not sure on your server but on Santum of Rall, the cheapest exotic level 70-80 armor is 70++ silver. That translates to around 2 gold 20 silver (rounding up) for 550 commendations.

Of course, if you don’t need that much commendations, your way is fine

ehhh…..I just crafted a bunch of stuff with my surplus mats for the gathering tools, saving inventory space is one of my favourite things ^^.

That’s cause you guys are doing it wrong. Fine quality trinkets can be bought for 26 copper each, and you can buy donation pages from the trading post for 67 copper. So 3 trinkets plus the page is 1.45 silver. If you find the right overflow in LA, the forge will return 7 commendations (instead of the typical 4 it should for these items). At that rate it is only 2.5 gold for an exotic weapons that is 1300 commendations.

I bailed the second I noticed that ‘donations’ were needed for the questline… Just another gold sink to damage normal players, and force The Grind back into a grindless game.

pyronix.4081:

Not sure on your server but on Santum of Rall, the cheapest exotic level 70-80 armor is 70++ silver. That translates to around 2 gold 20 silver (rounding up) for 550 commendations.

Of course, if you don’t need that much commendations, your way is fine

You do realize the trading post is shared between all servers right?

sorry I meant 26 copper per commendation

pyronix.4081:

PowerCat.5738:

Use the cheapest “trinket” type item, 3 of them gives 7 commendations

Malachite copper stud and tiger’s eye copper stuf, 26 copper each

Comes to about 1.20s per commendation

Hi PowerCat – 1 silver 20 copper per commendation equals to 1 gold, 20 silver per 100 commendation. Multiply that by 5 and you need around 6 gold pero 500 commendations.

Not sure on your server but on Santum of Rall, the cheapest exotic level 70-80 armor is 70++ silver. That translates to around 2 gold 20 silver (rounding up) for 550 commendations.

Of course, if you don’t need that much commendations, your way is fine

Folks, a terrifying calamity has struck Lion’s Arch and other communities.

People need help. Now is not the time to ask “what’s in it for me?”

If you don’t like it…don’t do it.

Whats with these kids thinking OH ITS IN THE GAME I HAVE TO DO IT!

GO back to pvp or whatever it is you do.

mulch.2586:

Folks, a terrifying calamity has struck Lion’s Arch and other communities.

People need help. Now is not the time to ask “what’s in it for me?”

It’s not like the LA folk we’re giving this stuff to are any better, though. When I was turning in my consumables, I was getting 1 commendation for 30 – switch to trinkets and I’m getting 10 for 3. Bloody pirates prioritizing jewels over food in a disaster.

Cheapest so far I found. 3 level 80 rare Field guides ~20s/each. ~65s for 300 commendations cheers

Even now, with most conversion rates well-known, you can buy stuff off the TP, donate it, and get keys significantly cheaper than you could’ve if you’d spent that money on gems.

isoulssa.3489:

Cheapest so far I found. 3 level 80 rare Field guides ~20s/each. ~65s for 300 commendations cheers

Hmmm. I’m sure this WAS the cheapest earlier, but it looks like the word got out and the guides are selling for 40s+ now, which is about on par with just using exotics.

Yep. Can also use level 80 rare trinkets ~25s/each e.g. wayfarer’s amulet for 300/~75s. But shiet, those field guides jus shot up in price lol