Suggestion: Please consider a way to convert obsidian shard refinements into other obsidian shard refinements.
Mechanism: Either through a crafting station or via the Mystic Forge, a player could convert Bloodstone Bricks, Dragonite Ingots, and Empyreal Stars into one of their counterparts. It would take considerably more of the item used to create the item produced, require a reagent bought from a vendor, and possibly additional obsidian shards.
Benefits:
1. Play how you want. It’s great that there is a little flexibility in the current system. We have a few options to choose from to get Bloodstone Dust, Dragonite Ore, and Empyreal Fragments. Since one of the original goals of GW2, however, was to reward players for playing what they want to play in game, the current system seems too restrictive. Frequent posts have mentioned that one player ends up with a lot of Dragonite but very little Empyreal, some the opposite, and everyone ends up with too much Bloodstone. This is because people have different areas of the game they enjoy more. The current system requires farming (doing content specifically for extrinsic reward, rather than intrinsic enjoyment) for many players of the game.
2. Drain Excess Bloodstone I had 30 Bloodstone Bricks crafted by the time I had enough Dragonite and Empyreal to craft 3 Ingots and Stars. Giving the ability to convert would sop up the great excess of Bloodstone that is currently just being deleted by players.
3. Currency Sinks Additional Reagent and Obsidian Shards needed to convert one type to another would pull additional gold from the economy and laurels, karma, and fractal relics from players wallets.
Objections
This would make Vision Crystals too easy to craft.
The material requirements should be set at a level where it is considerably more efficient to get the materials from the activities where they drop, rather than transmogrifying. It could take, say, ten Bloodstone Bricks to make one Dragonite Ingot or Empyreal star, and maybe Dragonite Ingots and Empyreal Fragments could be transmogrified at a three to one ratio. Perhaps those ratios are too low, but ArenaNet could review their metrics for how much of each of raw materials is being pumped into the game, and adjust accordingly. In addition to the ratios, there would be the additional gold cost of the reagent, and the laurel or karma cost for additional Obsidian Shards.
The goal is not to make it so that everyone will just go farm champs for all of the mats needed for Obsidian Refinement. It should take significantly more effort to get enough Bloodstone Dust to make a Brick and convert to an Empyreal Star than to simply do jumping puzzles or dungeons.
The goal is to give an avenue to someone who dislikes jumping puzzles and dungeons a way to burn off their huge store of Bloodstone Dust and excess Dragonite Ore to get the third element they need for vision crystals.
Thanks for reading!
