Guild Wars 2

I’ve rummaged through the suggestion forums searching harvesting tools and have found that quite a few people have gripes about it. It was after reading many of these comments that I realized one solution hadn’t been suggested, a harvesting tool manager.

Proposed Implementation – Harvesting Tool Manager:
The harvesting tool manager would have tiers of slots (6 tiers with 3 slots in each tier) to hold a single instance of the tools (one of each copper, iron, steel, darksteel, mithril and orichalcum sickle, ax and pick). These tiers would then be bound to something like ctrl+1 , ctrl+2, etc. for ease of switching between them. While a harvesting tool is in the manager it will not appear in the players regular inventory, however any extra stacks of the harvesting tools would remain in the players regular inventory.

The reason I’m even suggesting this, is the change in not being able to sell a tool back to a merchant for a scaled price depending on the remaining charges. This really began to make an impact on player storage space within their inventory as most players don’t like throwing away tools they spent hard earn game money on.

I only ask that this suggestion be taken with deep consideration as I know the goals for this game are fun and this would improve the players fun and increase immersion in the beautiful world that is Tyria.

I like this idea and second it.

I also support this idea. Having to hold tools in inventory is completely absurd, we should be able to also STACK them, rather than have to rebuy them OVER AND OVER again. If we bought an item, we bought it… We spent the money, so why shouldn’t we be able to carry it? I find it absolutely stupid to have to go back to the bank or NPC every time to buy more.

I disagree with this for one simple reason: I guess that unlocking extra bags and bank slots is one of the most important sources of money for Anet.

I would suggest the following instead: Implement a system where we do not need to switch tools to gather different resources. Let the game recognize the kind of resource a player is collecting and automatically use the proper tool. This would force players to have a stack of each tool if they want to harvest different level materials and, at the same time, would make the gathering process less annoying.

I just carry the type for the highest tier my character has access to, personally.

Good idea.

Or at least make the tools account bound. My lv 80 ranger has one bag filled up with harvesting tools (I don’t like to waste a Mithril or Orichalcum Sickle on a mere Onion. 12s to buy a full T6 gathering tool set is a lot of money for me). Most of them would be more useful on my other characters that need the lower tier tools much more often, but each of them had to buy their own sets…

Ascari.2839:

Good idea.

Or at least make the tools account bound. My lv 80 ranger has one bag filled up with harvesting tools (I don’t like to waste a Mithril or Orichalcum Sickle on a mere Onion. 12s to buy a full T6 gathering tool set is a lot of money for me). Most of them would be more useful on my other characters that need the lower tier tools much more often, but each of them had to buy their own sets…

Account bound tools would be good indeed.

Well, I don’t really understand why tools are soulbound at all. It’s a minor inconvenience, but it is annoying that, for instance, I can’t share it with my friend if we both are far away from traders. Oh, well, I realized that it’s probably should force me into buying merchant summons.
GW1 was incredible in the ways it was made for player convenience. In GW2 inconveniences are pretty minor, but they are there.

Zeusmeister.5130:

I also support this idea. Having to hold tools in inventory is completely absurd, we should be able to also STACK them, rather than have to rebuy them OVER AND OVER again. If we bought an item, we bought it… We spent the money, so why shouldn’t we be able to carry it? I find it absolutely stupid to have to go back to the bank or NPC every time to buy more.

I’m not in agreement with the stacking. Everyone seems to want a tool stacking feature. The problem is exactly what has been mentioned, expanding inventory is a key means of funding for the company. However, having to carry 18 stacks of tools in your inventory is a bit overkill; especially with tools being soulbound and unable to sell the unused remainder tools to a merchant to get back some of your hard earned money. I kid you not, it is hard earned. If you look at the number, 18, it is the number of slots in the second largest inventory bag in the game which is extremely expensive to invest in, roughly 2 gold with the cost of materials.

So, even though you can have a total of 8 inventory bags and a maximum of 160 inventory slots (with 20 slot bags), there are a slew of other items that level 80 characters carry with them on a regular basis. These include, but are not limited to: boosters, potions, food, spare armor and accessory sets as well as various weapons/weapon sets.

Lets say on average a fully decked 80 has 3 armor and accessory sets, that’s 12×3 or 36. Now add the weapon sets which can be roughly anywhere between 6 and 12 plus any spare weapons they may occasionally use. On average a level 80 carries 8 different potions and roughly the same number for food. Most level 80 characters also carry 4 levels of salvage kits. So if my math is right, that’s roughly 64 slots of inventory used for spare equipment and power-ups.

This would be enough if we didn’t have to carry the 18 stacks of harvesting tools as well as the junk items from looting and any pick-up mats that don’t go directly into our collections storage which are the rare materials (slivers and their higher levels, as well as some other items like the essences).

Now with inventory filling so quickly and costs of waypointing to a location being upward of 4 silver pieces, many people are finding ways to get back to Lion’s Arch to sell items and use the mystic forge. Mainly the route being used is current location->heart of the mists->Lion’s Arch. What this does is put extra stress on the servers creating even more lag than you would usually experience at the saving of money to the player averaging somewhere between 2-4 silver.

The point I’m trying to get at is that having a gathering tool manager would be a really nice convenience. If you want to carry spare harvesting tools, those should most certainly take up bag space in your regular inventory; that only makes sense.

Just buy the highest tier you are finding or think your going to find and use them. It isn’t that expensive to buy them but what would be nice is equipting a new collecting tool after the previous one broke. Kinda annoying when im trying to farm a rich vein next to a veteran and find out my tool is broken and cannot equip one while in combat.

From a perspective on selling anything you harvest, most (if not all, too many plants for me to bother checking) collectibles are worth more than your pick. While your profit margin does increase if you use a cheaper tool, I don’t think it a major issue unless I’m wandering through an area and don’t want to harvest something because I am literally losing value by harvesting a node.

Iron Pick = 56 copper

• 10 copper each (current insta-sell price for Iron)
• 6 picks for recoup of investment
• 56 copperForPick / 100 usesOnPick = .56 copperPerUse
• 10 copperPerOre – .56 copperPerUse = 9.44 gainOnUse

OR

Orichalcum Pick = 400 copper

• 10 copper each (current insta-sell price for Iron)
• 40 picks recoups investment on Orichalcum
• 400 copperForPick / 100 usesOnPick = 4 copperPerUse
• 10 copperPerOre – 4 copperPerUse = 6 gainOnUse

Its not optimal, but if you want optimal you have to sacrifice inventory space.

Personally I don’t find roughly 3.5 copper per use to be worth my time or A-nets. But hey, it adds up and for anyone who mines to use the materials, the numbers are a little bit different but overall the conclusion would be roughly the same. You still make/save money by mining with Orichalcum tools.

If you are going in a zone for the strict purposes of mining a particular type of node, as you can see, Iron only requires 6 picks to recoup your investment, thats only 2 nodes worth. If you only do 5 nodes thats 15 picks and then chuck it because your going back to Orr, you still gained cash. Whether or not that is more than if you just used your Orichalcum or not is something I’m not gonna bother with because my math is probably already wrong. :p

I don’t understand how is this happening that an axe is broken after one cut in a tree?
They could have made these gathering tools based on durability. Buy an axe to cut the tree down and that axe has 100 durability, You can go and repair the axe or buy a new one. There should be one single axe for chopping all trees, but some trees will “ruin” it faster.